where they must be met: and the pantheistic materialism which was the latest outcome of Strauss's thought, and which never was more vigorously or more brilliantly handled than in the last essay of this volume, is to-day the most prominent antagonist of Christianity. Apart, however, from its particular forms, or its representatives, the rationalistic spirit is rampant, and the great value of the book consists after all in its dealing with the essential errors of this spirit.

The style is nervous and vigorous, lucid, sharply cut, and pervaded at times with an impassioned glow. Mingled with the remorseless logic and the nice dissection of fallacies, are passages of the deepest tenderness, and these in turn are offset by a sarcasm as keen as Gibbon's, and a humor at once racy and delicate.

The introductory address, on "Faith and Philosophy," and the two noble inaugurals on "Church History" and "Systematic Theology," exhibit the author's easy mastery and nice adjustment of a vast range of knowledge. The sermon on "Christian Union and Ecclesiastical Reunion" will have a permanent value, not only as a contribution to the history of a great movement, but as an exhibition of calm wisdom, courage, and generous catholicity applied to the solution of a most difficult and delicate ecclesiastical problem. One of the best specimens of Professor Smith's fine qualities as a reviewer is furnished in the article on English Latitudinarians." The book of "Essays and Reviews" made a prodigious stir in its day, which was due more to the ignorance of the public than to the superior wisdom or originality of the authors. It is safe to say that it nowhere received a more thorough treatment, and a more damaging exposure than in this article. The essayists are shown to have been frightening themselves and their readers by resuscitating phantoms already laid; to have gotten just so far into German criticism and philosophy as to learn the difficulties without studying the replies; not far enough to have any knowledge of those positive constructions of the Christian system which are means to reconcile faith and philosophy. The handling of Doctor Rowland Williams is particularly felicitous for its severity, candor, and goodhumored, but cutting, sarcasm.

Space will not allow us to dwell on several other essays which we had marked for special comment. The magnificent review of Strauss's "The Old and the New Faith" is a worthy conclusion of the volume. Would that we might have had from the same pen the discussion of "the other two questions." The book is one which ought to be in the library of every theological student, and of every minister of the gospel. It will teach young theologians how to be "liberal" without being vague; how to unite positive convictions with generous sympathies. It furnishes a noble illustration of Christian scholarship; and, if the reader rises from its perusal feeling that faith has a right to use the weapons of philosophy, he will find mingled with this the feeling that "it is a very reasonable thing to believe."

Joseph Cook's “Biology." *

MOST of the notices called forth by the appearance of Mr. Cook's book have dealt with the manner, while the matter of the volume has almost escaped criticism. The style of these lectures,with the constant recurrence of mixed metaphor, of inaccurate English, of strained conceits, of rhetorical flourishes, of dogmatic self-assertion,-does certainly present many tempting opportunities for sharp criticism, and even for well-merited ridicule. Much may indeed be pardoned to the lecturer who speaks without notes; but when the orator himself revises his oratory, and presents it to the public, as argument, in the form of a bound volume, he forfeits all claim to consideration on that score.

The secret of Mr. Cook's success as a lecturer is somewhat hard to explain, if the explanation be sought in the lectures themselves. Many of the most powerful arguments against materialism are, it is true, presented in this volume; some of them are forcibly and graphically stated; but the work is so marred by affectation and by unfairness of statement, that as a whole it seems calculated to do far more harm than good. It is almost incredible that an intelligent Boston audience, one which, upon Mr. Cook's authority, had "as many brains in it as any audience in America," could have tolerated much that these lectures contain. The ground of his success probably is that Mr. Cook is a special pleader, and is addressing an audience mainly composed of his clients. It cannot be denied that there is abroad throughout the Christian world an uneasy sense that Christianity is in jeopardy, and that it is mainly threatened by the advocates of modern science. When a stout-hearted, self-confident champion arises, and proposes to demolish the enemies of the faith in a dozen Monday lectures, or in a few hundred printed pages, is it any wonder that the timid and the doubting are happy to shelter themselves behind his statements, being not too critical of the weapons he employs ?

A criticism of mere manner, however well-deserved it may be, is beneath the dignity of the subject, if not of the volume itself. The matter of which it treats is one that reaches far below the level of the mere æsthetic and lays hold upon the very "root and ground of things." The doctrine of evolution, when pressed to its extremest conclusion, is the rankest materialism. Upon its hard, unyielding dogmas, if they should ever be established, the hopes of all the ages would suffer shipwreck, and by them God himself would be dethroned and exiled from the universe he has created. On its physical side, evolution, even if it were fully proved, would do no more than show how God works; but on its spiritual side,-where it makes life and intellect and soul the mere results of chemical and molecular action,-it would be death to Christianity, to religion, to morality.

It is just because Mr. Cook is the avowed advo

*Boston Monday Lectures. Biology, with Preludes upon Current Events. By Joseph Cook. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

cate of Christianity that we should be careful to assure ourselves of his fitness, his earnestness and his integrity. It is just because our belief in the Christian religion, in the immortality of the soul, in the existence of a God who touches our lives at every point, is to us the most vital of all truths, that we should test the armor of the champion who has come up to fight the battle of the Lord. As Christians we should desire Christianity to fall, rather than to be upheld by misrepresentation. The very foundation stones of the city of our God must be of imperishable and incorruptible material; its very streets beneath our feet "of pure gold like unto transparent glass."

The real issue must be made with Mr. Cook upon the fundamental qualities of truth and justice. The flippant, off-hand manner in which our champion goes out to meet this modern Goliath would seem to be as far removed from the caution of Saul as it is from the faith of David.

Statements so sweeping require to be sustained by direct proof. Mr. Cook's own words fully justify the selection of the theory concerning bathybius as the point upon which his fairness and accuracy shall be tested. He says (pp. 69-70): “Strauss rested on bathybius the central arch of his argument against the supernatural; " and " Hæckel makes bathybius the stem from which all terrestrial life divides and comes to its present state. It would not be worth much," he goes on to say, "for me here to cut down this or that bough in the great tree; but if with the latest scientific intelligence I may strike at the bottom stem, bathybius, I shall have done something." As Mr. Cook thus acknowledges its fundamental importance, and as this discussion includes the major portion of the biology proper in the present volume, which is really a work upon the immortality of the soul, we should here certainly expect accuracy and fairness.

The first lecture in the volume opens with these words:

"In 1868, Professor Huxley, in an elaborate paper in the 'Microscopical Journal,' announced his belief that the gelatinous matter found in the ooze of the beds of the deep seas, is a sheet of living matter extending around the globe. The stickiness of the deep sea mud, he maintained, is due to innumerable lumps of a transparent, jelly-like substance, each lump consisting of granules, coccoliths and foreign bodies, embedded in a transparent, colorless, and structureless matrix. It was his serious claim that these granule heaps, and the transparent gelatinous matter in which they are imbedded, represent masses of protoplasm.

"To this amazingly strategic and haughtily trumpeted substance, found at the lowest bottoms of the oceans, Huxley gave the scientific name, bathybius, from two Greek words meaning deep and sea, and assumed that it was in the past, and would be in the future, the progenitor of all the life on the planet. 'Bathybius,' was his language, 'is a vast sheet of living matter enveloping the whole earth beneath the seas.'"

To take up the points in the order of succession: 1. In the paper referred to ("Mic. Jour." vol. VIII. N. S. pages 203-12) Huxley gives a minute description of the various constituents of the Atlantic ooze, but says no single word of its being a sheet of living matter extending around the globe. 2.

This substance of which he is speaking may be "amazingly strategic" (who would be so bold as to deny the truth of this incomprehensible statement?) but it is as far from being "haughtily trumpeted " as language can make it. 3. The very derivation of the name is a blunder; bathybius being derived from two Greek words meaning deep and life, not from two meaning deep and sea. 4. The statement that Huxley "assumed that it [bathybius] was in the past, and would be in the future, the progenitor of all the life on the planet" is incorrect. No such statement occurs in the article referred to, and it is in direct contradiction to his views. (See "Enc. Brit." vol. III. 9th ed. Prefatory portion of Art. on Biology.) 5, Finally, the last sentence of the extract from Mr. Cook's lecture, in quotation marks, may be somewhere in Huxley's writings; but it does not occur in the article from which he purports to take it. In the nine consecutive lines just quoted, which constitute the second paragraph of the first lecture, there are four unpardonable inaccuracies. The whole controversy from beginning to end might be brought to the test of severe justice and truth, and fare no better than this opening sentence; but only one other point can be so tested here.

In 1868 Huxley re-examined some specimens of the deep sea ooze, which had been for some time in spirits, under higher microscopic powers than had previously been used. "I conceive these granule heaps, and the transparent gelatinous matter in which they are imbedded, to represent masses of protoplasm," he says, which must, I think, be regarded as a new form of those simple animated beings which have recently been so well described by Hæckel in his Monographie der Moneren.''

"Great microscopists and physiologists," says Mr. Cook, "like Professor Lionel Beale and Dr. Carpenter, rejected Huxley's testimony on this matter of fact" (page 3). And yet Dr. Carpenter, in the last edition of "The Microscope and its Revelations," 1875, not only describes every constituent of the deep-sea ooze as Huxley does, but says, after speaking of the Moners, "To this group it would seem we are to refer these indefinite expansions of protoplasmic substance which there is much reason to regard as generally spread over the deep-sea bed" (§ 366). What are we to make of such general but positive statements, on the part of Mr. Cook, with facts like these directly contradicting them?

The statement immediately following this, on the subject of Huxley's "recantation" in regard to bathybius, is a tissue of misapplied quotations, incorrect statements, and unworthy insinuations, which it would take pages to make clear and refute, as the whole history of the controversy is involved. But any one who will take the trouble to read Huxley's article ("Mic. Jour." volume viii. N. S. pages 203-12), Mr. Murray's article and Mr. Buchanan's report in regard to the deep-sea soundings of the "Challenger " ("Amer. Jour. of Science and Arts," volume xii, 1876, page 267), and Huxley's "Recantation " (ibid. volume x, page 312), in connection with the article on Biology ("Enc.

Brit." volume iii., 9th edition) will need no further evidence to prove how unsafe a guide is our orator. Mr. Cook seems to ignore the fact that the whole evolution theory does not stand or fall with the existence or non-existence of bathybius. The moners still exist, whether bathybius does or not,— they are, without question, mere undifferentiated masses of protoplasm performing the functions of nutrition and propagation, without the aid of a single organ, and they undoubtedly do lie at the very base of organic life. The value of bathybius, as a discovery, consisted in this: that because of its indefinite expansion, it conformed more nearly to the hypothecated urschleim than any of the other moners, but it differed from them not in quality but merely in extension; the evolution theory without bathybius stands precisely where it did with it. The triumphant shout with which Mr. Cook closes his third lecture-"Bathybius has been discovered in 1875, by the ship 'Challenger' to be,-hear O heavens! and give ear O earth! sulphate of lime, and that, when dissolved, it crystallizes as gypsum is not only undignified in the extreme, but is somewhat absurd in view of the fact that bathybius does exist, though the "Challenger " did not find it. (See leader "Pop. Science Monthly," Oct. 1877.) It is somewhat dangerous to stake one's faith upon negative evidence of this kind.

One other point it is absolutely essential to notice before leaving this book. Mr. Cook would seem to believe in the possibility of miracles; for he says (page 29): "A miracle is unusual, natural law is habitual, Divine action. The natural is a prolonged and so unnoticed supernatural." And yet, accepting the Bible as inspired, and miracle as possible, he suggests that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary in a natural way, as drones are produced from the unfertilized eggs of the queen bee: he eliminates from this central fact of the Christian religion the Divine element. And not only is Christ no longer the Son of God, he hardly reaches to the dignity of man. And this is the champion of our religion! Heaven protect us from our friends!

Possibly the best service these lectures have done the world is in bringing to the ears and eyes of thousands Asa Gray's noble and profound words: "Faith in an order, which is the basis of science, cannot reasonably be separated from faith in an ordainer, which is the basis of religion.".

Two Illustrated Books.

THE public owe to Mr. Anthony the opportunity of seeing a new series of designs by Mary Hallock Foote. There are few living artists who could illustrate satisfactorily the most masterly and profound tragedy which the New World has given to literature. It is enough praise to say that some of these designs, notably those on pages 49, 99, 237 and 311, are not out of keeping with the book itself. The flower pieces are exquisitely drawn, and into them Mr.

The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Illustrated. J. R. Osgood & Co.

Anthony seems to have put his best work. Some of the cuts in "The Scarlet Letter" have evidently lost a good deal either in the engraving, or in the printing on stiff paper; perhaps in both. Mrs. Foote's drawing on the block is extremely difficult to reproduce; a satisfactory result can only be obtained by following carefully and sympathetically the most subtile gradations. It is a pity that the public really never see directly the work of one of our ablest artists. There are not many American painters who have equal mastery of the figure and of composition, or "picture making," and her drawings on the wood show other artistic qualities which are as rare as these. One of these days we shall hope to see paintings in water-color and oil, by Mrs. Foote, in our annual exhibitions.

The two most notable "gift books" of the season are the above noticed, and Bryant's "Flood of Years," with illustrations both designed and engraved by W. J. Linton.* We think there will have to be a reform in the art of "gift book" illustration. A picture to accompany a poem must be an extraordinarily good one if in subject it is a mere restatement of the text. A great deal of Mrs. Foote's pictorial faculty has been cramped in this way. Mr. Linton has tried to give an imaginative turn to the illustrations of The Flood of Years," but in some places the mixture of the fanciful and the realistic results unhappily,-as in such pictures as we find on page 19. In the upper one, two young people are walking calmly along the margin of a moon-lit river. In the lower they seem to be "taking a header" in the Long Branch breakers.

We very much doubt whether the "Flood of Years" is the kind of a poem to illustrate after the modern fashion; it might, indeed, have been suggestively "decorated;" but although it calls up in the mind of the reader a number of successive scenes, a certain incongruity in the machinery of the poem itself is brought out all the stronger when we come to see these scenes actually pictured. The force of the poem-and it is certainly one of the best that Bryant has ever written consists not in the imagery which Mr. Linton's pictures press upon our notice, but in its pure and noble diction; its refinement, and tenderness, and imagination ;-the general spirit of the poem rather than its accessories.

Much of the engraving shows that the hand of the master has not lost its cunning; and that Mr. Linton is one of the masters of modern wood-engraving, engravers themselves will be the first to acknowledge.

"The United States as a Nation."f

To explain to foreigners "why we are what we are,"-as Dr. Thompson in one place expresses it,was the primary object of this book. But it is singularly well adapted, also, to teach our own citizens a wiser and deeper appreciation of American insti

*George P. Putnam's Sons. New York.

The United States as a Nation. Lectures on the Centernial of American Independence, given at Berlin, Dresden, Florence, Paris and London. By Joseph P. Thompson, D. D., LL. D. J. R. Osgood & Co.

tutions than that which generally prevails in these days of doubt and seeming contradiction, and unfulfilled experiment. There are six lectures; the first three being devoted to a comprehensive, fresh, and learned review of the origin of the nation and adoption of our form of government, and the latter three treating of "The Nation Tested" (by civil war), "The Nation Judged by its Self-development," and "The Opening Century." Dr. Thompson inculcates, throughout, the distinction between the essential life of the nation (which existed before the Colonies became independent) and the vicissitudes of government; and is careful to separate the elements of politics and society-unfortunately divorced among us, at present,-and to show how the unshakable Christian foundation of our national and social life gives us something by which we can always hold, and which is continually working improvement amid even the most discouraging circumstances. One may not agree with every detail of the reasoning employed or the conclusions reached; but, as a whole, the book is most admirable. It is surprising how slowly the real and inmost meaning of our republic makes its way into the minds of European thinkers, to say nothing of the mere average foreigner; and we have been listening to the ill-informed remarks of outsiders so long, that it is a pleasure to find put into good shape the principles and the facts on which our present rests and our future depends. Much that Dr. Thompson advances, of course, is heard in the daily talk of thoughtful Americans; but here it is well ordered and amplified, and is illustrated by terse statements of a deep philosophy, by copious statistics, and references of a highly suggestive kind to a wide range of reading and observation. At the same time, it is easy reading and suited for popular use. We suppose there is no other single volume at this moment which gives so vivid an idea of our national existence, from the beginnings down to 1876, as this. And to all patriotic minds it will be especially acceptable for its manly, clear-sighted faith in the future of the United States.

"About Old Story-Tellers," by Donald G. Mitchell.* MR. MITCHELL has made a volume, very attractive to the eye and very gratifying to a cultivated taste, in which he undertakes to keep alive for young people an interest not only in the best fictitious literature apprehensible by them, but in the authors of the books which he would have them read, and in the times and circumstances out of which the stories grew. Thus, giving first some account of the origin of printed books, he has chapters upon the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments," Goldsmith and the "Vicar of Wakefield," Swift, Miss Edgeworth, "Paul and Virginia," Madame Cottin's "Elizabeth," the Brothers Grimm and Fairy Tales, Sir Walter Scott, De Foe, and Bunyan. In each case he seeks to

About Old Story-Tellers: of How and When they Lived, and what Stories they Told. By Donald G. Mitchell, Author of "Reveries of a Bachelor," "My Farm of Edgewood," etc., etc. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.

blend the interest which the young reader may have in the story with what he wishes him to have in the story-teller, glancing back and forth from book to author, and from author to book. The plan grew out of talks by his own fireside and the manner of the book is thus largely conversational, so much so sometimes as to lead the critical reader to suspect that Mr. Mitchell was a little nervous lest he should appear dull.

Indeed, the plan, excellently as it must strike all lovers of good literature, might well alarm any writer of books for the young. Mr. Mitchell himself has inadvertently betrayed the doubt which rises when he says in his chapter on "The Arabian Nights'": "But, after all, the question is not answered as to who wrote 'The Arabian Nights'.' I doubt if it ever will be answered truly. Who cares, indeed? I dare say that youngsters in these days of investigation committees are growing up more curious and inquiring than they used to be; but I know well I cared or thought nothing about the authorship in those old school-days when I caught my first reading of 'Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp.' We suspect that the young readers of this day are not very different from those of one or two generations ago as to their interest in authors, and that the desire to know about them is an educated taste of much later development than the liking for the books themselves. None the less will this book stimulate a love for good literature, for it is homage to a few great books and great men, and no child fails to be influenced by such signs of respect. Whatever serves in a hearty, honest way to keep open the springs of great literature for the use of children is work worthy of all praise.

Mr. Mitchell is always interesting and avoids too much didactic talk. Perhaps his own personal interest in the men and books is sometimes made more prominent than is requisite, but cne casily forgives a good lover. We should demur to his offhand ranking of Noah Webster above Samuel Johnson in dictionary-making, and we wish that he had given a hint to the older boys who have read Robinson Crusoe," as to the possible political significance of the work, but the slight criticisms which any one may make for himself of details ought not to weigh beside the positive good which the book may do in stimulating, if not in creating a fondness for the best literature. De Quincey very sagaciously remarks on the "Spectator's" doctrine, that every one wishes to know about the author of a book before he reads it: "No reader cares about an author's person before reading his book; it is after reading it, and supposing the book to reveal something of the writer's moral nature as modifying his intellect; it is for his fun, his fancy, his sadness, possibly his craziness, that any reader cares about seeing the author in person." So we take it that Mr. Mitchell's book will be especially serviceable to those who have already had a taste of the books he tells about, and to their parents and teachers who wish to give their interest a humane direction.

"Wonder World Stories." *

HERE is a new collection of fairy tales which are issued by the same publishers on the heels of the legends of the American Indians as compiled by Cornelius Matthews. The latter gives many of the original tales which Longfellow has used in Hiawatha; the former takes the pick of the fabulous lore of the whole world. The Italian, French, German, Russian, Swedish and Hungarian, yield one specimen or more, and the legends of China, Japan, Judea, Turkey, Ireland and Hindustan, are drawn upon, if not at first hand, then in translation from one of the modern literary languages of Europe. Two women have brought together this little collection, of which it may safely be said that not one is insignificant or wanting in amusing qualities. The introduction is a translation of a very appropriate fable by Florian, the brilliant Franco-Spanish poet, relative of Voltaire and rival of LaFontaine. His fable is about Fable and Truth. The point is seen in these two lines, where Fable says:

"But, tell me also, Dame Truth, why
You show yourself entirely nude.'

The Hebrew furnishes two short stories, one concerning the Emperor Titus, who, for all his boasts, was destroyed by a little insect, and the other being a variant on the story of the Seven Sleepers, called, "The Seventy Years' Sleep of Chonai Hamaagal." From the Chinese comes a characteristic story of

Arnold, should give a good account of himself in a volume published at the time of his appointment. Principal Shairp has already offered to the public an evidence of his force as a poet in a volume called "Kilmahoe, a Highland Pastoral, and Other Poems." The English press spoke well of these efforts at the time of their appearance, some thirteen years ago, but the mark they made could not have been profound, even in the north of England. There is on record a dictum of the "Athenæum" which allows them praise for clearness and sweetness. The same trait may be seen in the present volume; clearness of statement is the chief point of excellence in Mr. Shairp's prose, even if it be necessary to attain it by frequent repetitions, while the style has decided sweetness and grace. At times one perceives a tendency to exaggeration in phrase, a leaning toward the "forceful" that reminds one of occasional passages in Charles Kingsley and the works of Professor Blackie, but the gentler and perhaps more artistic nature of Principal Shairp makes the recurrence of these peculiarities less frequent.

Judged as a whole, and in regard to its ultimate objects, this prettily bound and printed, pleasantly worded little volume is a polemic, and, if not exactly a religious one, then a polemic poetical, in scope as near as may be to a religious work. The combat between materialism and spirituality, between positivism and ideality, is continued without flagging from

of his Wife," and from the Irish, a fine old shillelagh hero-story called, "Lomnachtan, and the Fenians of Eire," where the beautiful young warrior Diarmuid O'Duinne and other Fenians of tremendous prowess do battle with fell enchanters who live on the Peak of Teneriffe. The Japanese Contingent is "Toda the Archer, and the Queen of the World under the Sea," according to the version of Professor W. E. Griffis, the author of "The Mikado's Empire." The Mahabharata is entered for a story from India, and that selected is 66 Narada's Prophecy," translated from the German version of Doctor C. Beyer. It tells of Sawitri, whose monument bore this inscription: "Sawitri, whose fidelity and love conquered even the God of Death." The inexhaustible treasury of Russian folk-lore supplies "The Bride of the Wind," by Akhschavoumoff, a title which this shares with a popular ballad of Germany. Perhaps the most exciting tale in the collection is the "Son of the Fairy" from the Hungarian of Moriz Jokai. It relates to the vanishing of that mighty empire which Attila and his Huns founded in Western Europe.

Prof. Shairp "On Poetic Interpretation of Nature." t

THERE is need that a successor to the chair of poetry at Oxford, held for so many years by Matthew

* Wonder World Stories. From the Chinese, French, German, etc., etc. Collected and Translated by Marie Pabke and Margery Deane. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

tOn Poetic Interpretation of Nature. By J. C. Shairp, LL.D. New York: Hurd & Houghton.

comes to, whether issue is more directly taken in the first chapter on the "Sources of Poetry," in the fourth entitled "Will Science put out Poetry?" or in the fourteenth and last on "Wordsworth as an Interpreter of Nature." The first eight chapters carry on the argument with the greatest energy, while the remaining six have a more historical bearing. The treatment of nature by the Hebrew poets, by Lucretius and Virgil, by Chaucer, Shakspere and Milton, by Allan Ramsay and Thomson, Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper and Burns, brings our professor to the poet for whom he seems to possess the greatest affection-to Words worth.

Why Mr. Shairp should have given so much attention to the arguments for spirituality over against materialism appears from his preface. It seems that a series of lectures gave rise to the work, and that these chapters have been recast from addresses made to an audience already fully supplied with the opposite arguments put forward by lecturers on science. The addresses were to serve as antidotes to the material doctrines of his fellow-lecturers. But aside from this, it is also apparent that Mr. Shairp's natural bent lies in that direction; he has a nature very susceptible to reverence and awe, and does not fail to show his belief that all things begin and end in religion, that God exists, and that the denial of him is folly.

In proving the immortality of the soul, and the existence of things outside and beyond our daily experience, Mr. Shairp takes as much of Kant's reasoning as is necessary to attain his object. Im