demands of man ethical recognition. God, as personal, cannot be ignored without injury to the conscience, any more than any human being can be so ignored. This is true, notwithstanding we can bring to God nothing that he needs. But particularly should any ethical system which makes it the chief end of man to glorify God consider it not only sin but immorality not to seek his glory. Besides, our love or lack of love to God, when God is known, is a sure mark of our real ethical state.

Sozialistische Irrlehren von der Entstehung des Christenthumes und ihre Widerlegung (Socialistic Errors Regarding the Origin of Christianity, and Their Correction). By Hermann Köhler. Leipzig, Heinrichs, 1899. The more radical socialists of America are mere echoes of those in Germany. Because they are less independent in their thinking, there is the less hope of reaching them by carefully prepared arguments. Nevertheless, neither in Germany nor in this country has there been sufficient of that spirit which says, "Come now, and let us reason together." If there were some way of getting at the thinking faculties of those socialists who reject Christianity-if there was a possibility of getting them to look at the facts-there would be hope of winning them back to the religion of Jesus. Köhler has written a somewhat controversial work, though in a kindly spirit, in order to exhibit the errors which German socialists cherish with reference to Christianity, and he has done it well. If the socialists would read it with open minds, they would at least be much shaken in their opposition to our holy religion. But, even though few of them will read his book at all, and still fewer in the spirit of searchers for truth, yet Köhler's labor will not be in vain; for his book will be read by some laymen, and by many preachers who will convey its substance to the laity, and thus the erroneous teachings in question will be prevented from spreading as far as they otherwise might. Patiently the author takes up the writings of antichristian socialists, treating them with all due respect, notwithstanding they are the product of ignorance, superficiality, unwillingness to understand, and moral antithesis to the claims of God. While this class of socialists attempt to trace much of that which is peculiar in Christianity to the philosophy of the early decades of our era, or to the older religious systems, Köhler shows that the whole spirit and genius of Christianity differ materially from that of the early philosophy, Essenism, Buddhism, and any and every other system upon which Christianity is supposed by many to depend. Thus he shows the originality of Christianity, which depends not upon outside sources for its contents, but upon the unique personality of its founder, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. With him we have Christianity; without him we have it I not, no matter what else we have. Another excellent trait of this book is its clear distinction between Christianity and the Church. We have no disposition to speak evil of the Church. It has done

and is doing very much to bless the world; but it is nevertheless a fact that it has often misrepresented, rather than represented, Christianity, because it has so often failed to embody the spirit of Jesus in its dealings with mankind. The unbeliever who will fix his thought upon Jesus will be won to the religion he proclaimed to the world.

RELIGIOUS AND EDUCATIONAL.

A Proposed Ultramontane Theological Faculty for Strasburg. The Ultramontanists of the German centrist party are exceedingly anxious to have such a faculty. The German government is not averse thereto, because of the feeling that on the whole it would contribute to the Germanization of Alsace and Lorraine. But many German Protestants see in the movement no hope of such a result, because the proposed faculty would have to be nominated by the bishop, and he is too much in sympathy with Roman Catholicism to care for the Germanization of the French provinces. On the other hand, while they recognize that they have a right, owing to their superior numbers, the Roman Catholic Alsatians do not generally wish for such a faculty, for the following reasons: 1. Because they fear the freedom in teaching which a university professor would necessarily exercise; 2. Because the faculties of the seminaries where their priests are now trained oppose the plan. The peculiarity of the situation is that the government and the Ultramontanists are on one side, and Rome and the Alsace-Lothringians on the other, the former favoring, the latter opposing, the establishment of a Roman Catholic faculty. Cautious and farseeing is Rome.

The Significance of Creed Signing among the Germans. The general tendency is to assert that the clergy should be compelled to assent to the doctrinal standards, but not in such a sense as that everything they say is binding upon them. For it is claimed that the purpose of the creed is to present the truth of Scripture without mixture, and that if in any particular the creed is found to go beyond or to fall short or to be out of harmony with the Scripture, the clergy must not be hindered from being scriptural. Ordination vows, then, mean that he who takes them pledges himself to accept Jesus Christ as the revelation of the living God; to strive ever to sink deeper into the depths of the Gospel, both in experience and life; and to avoid all that could interfere with the peace of the Church and the spiritual welfare of the individual. We regard this last point as one of special importance. The truth must be sought out, but it need not be spoken out on all occasions. The example of the great Teacher-who did not declare to his disciples all he knew, but left them to learn gradually from the Holy Spirit, who was to be ever present with the Church-should be followed more exactly, both in spirit and in letter, than it generally is by those who think they have discovered new truth.

SUMMARY OF THE REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

THAT fame is evanescent in the department of literature is the burden of Justin McCarthy's article on “Disappearing Authors," in the North American (New York) for March. His subject, he writes, "has to do with the authors against whom there is no visible reaction"-as in certain previous instances he has cited-"who are not disparaged or underrated by any school of critics, or indeed by criticism of any kind, but who were undoubtedly very popular at one time, and whose popularity is now unmistakably fading." While they do not belong to any particular school of literature, have "no set mannerisms or fads," and are altogether original, yet their disappearance seems evident. First in the list the author puts Charles Kingsley, whose novels have lost their interest to most readers. Nor does Anthony Trollope fare better. "For several years before his death Trollope's prices were steadily falling off. Now one seldom hears him talked of; one hardly ever hears a citation from him in a newspaper or a magazine." Charles Reade, "that strenuous, masculine, masterful novelist," also falls into the same list, suggests Mr. McCarthy; and also Charles Lever, whose red-covered monthly installments "used to be looked for with almost as keen an interest as the yellow covers of Thackeray or even the green covers of Dickens." As for Shirley Brooks, he has altogether disappeared. “I wonder how many of my readers could tell me," the author continues, "without consulting a biographical dictionary, who was Mrs. Marsh. Yet Mrs. Marsh was a very popular novelist within my own recollection, and there is a story of hers called The Admiral's Daughter which is curiously bold, original, and successful in its drawing of character, and rises at its close to a tragic power and pathos which might seem to assure, as well as deserve, an abiding fame." Others, too, are passing. "We know that the modern reader, as we find him in ordinary life, never thinks of reading Fielding, or perhaps even Walter Scott; that he has probably never heard of Anastasius; that he has never troubled himself even with an attempt to read Jane Austen's novels, and probably never saw a copy of Mrs. Inchbald's Simple Story." And the same fact holds, says Mr. McCarthy, of writers in other departments of literature, as well as novelists. "Everybody must have observed, or at any rate may have observed, that there are authors of histories, authors of essays, authors of plays, authors of scientific books, who were very popular some time ago, and are now beginning to fade out of the world's notice without giving any indication that they are likely by any reaction of enthusiasm in the public mind to be exalted into the Elysian fields of the classics." And how is a disappearing author, if aware that he has outlived his popularity, to accept the fact? "I

should think," the author answers, "Anthony Trollope would have taken it composedly enough, and that Charles Reade, if he could have been convinced by any power of evidence that such a fate was awaiting him, would have stormed against the destinies and anathematized the upcoming generation which was to permit of his disappearance. There are two consoling reflections for those who are disposed, as I am, to muse in melancholy fashion over the disappearing author. The first is that, in most cases, the author thus doomed may not have the least suspicion that he is disappearing; and the second is that, in the rare cases where he has such a suspicion, he may get it firmly into his mind that he is only disappearing from mortal sight to become a demigod, that he is only vanishing from the classes to become a classic." Happy is the author who in this last assurance consents to disappear!

Or the late James Martineau, "teacher and father," A. W. Jackson writes an appreciative sketch in the New World (Boston) for March. F. C. Porter, of Yale Divinity School, follows with an article on "The Ideals of Seminaries and the Needs of the Churches." The theological seminary, he holds, "should teach principles, not practice. It will become more practical just in proportion as it becomes more truly scientific. It should not permit, in subject-matter or in method, any mere survival of an unhistorical, unspiritual conception of Christianity. But it should not substitute any other ideal whatsoever for the ideal of special, scientific, professional equipment." The third article, by J. W. Chadwick, is entitled "John Donne, Poet and Preacher," and is an appreciative biographical review of the former dean of St. Paul's. "From Paul to John," by J. Warschauer, of Bristol, England, is an attempt, first, to restate Paul's chief contribution to theology, and, secondly, "to indicate a certain transition, or rather transformation, in the domain of theological thought which is now apparently in process of being accom. plished, and whose main characteristic is a thorough reaction against Paulinism." In the next article G. S. Lee discusses "The Sex-Conscious School in Fiction," and affirms that this consciousness, which apparently possesses the imagination of current writers, "is not only a public affront in the moral sense, nor merely a kind of self-mutilation in the artistic sense," but that as to the artists themselves, "it is a poor, pitiful spider's astronomy they are doing their thinking in, spun out of dreams, provincial and unintellectual and unphilosophic to the last degree." The three concluding articles in the present issue of this quarterly are “The Decline of the Stars,” by H. S. Nash, showing that they "have lost forever their power to master the feeling of mankind;" a biographical notice of "William Morris, Craftsman and Socialist," by Francis Tiffany; and "The Date of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians," by Emilie Grace Briggs, in which the writer concludes by showing the advantages which follow from the acceptance of an early date for the apostolic letter.

Of the trust Sidney Sherwood writes in commendation, in the Yale Review (New Haven) for February. His conclusion is in the following words: "The enlargement of the market makes a higher type of organization a necessity. The trust is the American solution of this problem. Its effectiveness is already becoming recognized abroad-recognized not only by observers, but also by imitators. The wider the market, the more economies can be effected by organization, a principle already grasped by Adam Smith. It is upon this historic superiority in the capacity for organization that the future economic supremacy of America must probably rest. Protection is not the cause of trusts; it is at the most only an inci. dental aid to their early formation. Their destruction would prob. ably be the deathblow to our hopes for industrial leadership in the international struggle for future mastery. They are the most effective agencies yet devised for preventing the wastes of competitive production. What is needed is an enlightened public appreciation of the possibilities for good which they offer and the limitation of their possibilities for evil through calm and wise governmental regulation." The argument, however, is not final.

THE table of contents in the Methodist Review of the Church South (Nashville, Tenn.) for March-April has: 1. "The Twentieth Century Movement in Methodism," by Bishop C. B. Galloway, D.D., LL.D.; 2. "The Principal Writings of Dr. A. B. Bruce," by O. E. Brown, D.D.; 3. "St. Paul and Seneca," by Professor Andrew Sledd; 4. "General Nathan Bedford Forrest," by Rev. D. C. Kelley, LL.D.; 5. "The Personal Side of Dr. Baskervill," by J. W. Sewell; 6. "Dwight L. Moody: An Appreciation," by Bishop E. R. Hendrix, D.D., LL.D.; 7. "The Influence of John Ruskin," by Professor Edwin Mims. The editorial departments are, as usual, full and able.

THE April number of Harper's Magazine has, in part: "Municipal Art," by C. H. Coffin, illustrated by L. A. Shafer; "Lord Pauncefote of Preston," by Chalmers Roberts; "A Successful Colonial Experiment,” by Poultney Bigelow, illustrated by R. C. Woodville, and showing the development of Hong-Kong in the last half century so that it rivals New York "as one of the great ports of the world;" "The Problem of Asia. Part II," with Map, by Captain A. T. Mahan; "Playthings of Kings," with Illustrations from Engravings, Photographs, and Prints, by Katharine De Forest; "Some Unsolved Scientific Problems," by Dr. H. S. Williams; "Captain John Adams, Missing. An Incident of the Boer War," by Dr. C. W. Doyle; and "Results of Psychical Research," by Professor J. H. Hyslop. "Being reduced," the latter says, "to a choice between an omniscient telepathy and communication with discarnate spirits, I simply prefer the latter hypothesis as the more rational of the two in our present state of knowledge regarding supernormal phenomena."