of rates is no longer to be treated as evidence of spiritual qualifications in the case of men, it should be retained for that purpose in the case of women. One important clause was postponed till the next meeting of the council. It recognizes the weakening of the parochial system consequent on divisions within the Church, and provides that any habitual attendant at public worship in a parish in which he does not live may be registered as a voter in that parish instead of in his own parish. The Bishop of Birmingham said that in towns this plan is necessary if any interest is to be taken in the working of the scheme. This is so obvious that I cannot understand any opposition being offered to the proposal. Taking myself as an instance, I have lived in various London parishes for more than thirty years, and except at a wedding or a funeral I have never been inside my parish church. On the other hand, this clause was only carried in committee by a bare majority and is certain to meet with a great deal of opposition in the

council. The truth is that in this as in other matters, the council are legislating for an imaginary state of things and assuming an equally imaginary amount of agreement among Churchmen. No good result has ever come, or is ever likely to come, of this method of handling burning questions. To see facts as they are, not as we would have them, is the first condition of successful legislation. The proceedings of the Representative Church Council furnish only too many examples of its disregard.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

N. B. All letters intended for this department must be signed by the writers and the names must be for publication.

A New Tractarian Movement. To the Editor of THE CHURCHMAN:

In your issue of Oct. 21, a letter addressed to the Editor, under the above heading, appeared by the undersigned. I ask the privilege of speaking more in detail on this subject.

First, as to the reasons why the Church, and especially at this time so full of spiritual movement and energy, should engage in some extraordinary effort to deliver her message to the world. As I have always understood the position and claims of our Church, she occupies a position of peculiar advantage in America. As the English-speaking branch of the Catholic Church, she possesses all the essentials of apostolic faith, without on the one hand Latin additions or exaggerations, and on the other hand without the losses in faith and practice due to extreme Protestantism and revolutionary zeal.

The American Church-and, by the way, -what an inspiring name, so entirely adequate both to the claims and aims of this English-speaking branch of the Church Catholic-the American Church therefore has a threefold mission. She has a mission to her own members and to all who come within what may be called her ordinary parochial influences. This may be termed the internal mission of the Church. But fraught with her peculiar, and I believe providential, advantages of Catholic faith, apostolic ministry, and a liturgy in the language understanded of the people, this great American Church has a wider mission, to restless, changing, disunited Protestantism on the one hand,

and to mediæval, Latinized, ultra-conservative Rome on the other.

The Church, and by it I mean our own American Church, is a light set on a hill. She has escaped by the good providence of God two kinds of dangers, losses of faith and additions thereto. It is incumbent upon her, therefore, to exercise her threefold mission in its fulness, and with a courage and an apostolic activity in keeping with the divine gifts and authority committed to her charge.

It will be said by some, We have always known these things. But I respectfully submit that these claims of the American Church have, for the most part, been held only in a scholarly or academic way. Certainly they have never been advocated in a spirit of missionary endeavor national in its scope. Let it not be said of us, as has been charged of the Church of Eng

land, that she met every great issue with compromise. This is a time when smug respectability and prudent conservatism will not answer. They are calling a spade, a spade, in the commercial world.

We must do the same in the Church, or once for all acknowledge defeat and confess that we have been mistaken in claiming a peculiar dignity and authority for our beloved American Church.

To fulfil this threefold mission of the Church I believe the time is ripe for a new Tractarian movement, a propaganda which shall be national in its reach, apostolic in its preachings and epistles, and, above all, proceeding in an entire spirit of love, seeking always the prayerful guidance of the Holy Ghost.

I propose, therefore, that such of our clergy as this object appeals to signify their interest through the columns of THE CHURCHMAN, or by writing to me personally. A compact central committee can then be formed, who will designate writers of tracts and pass upon the form and matter of articles submitted. The tracts, without being over long, should yet be of sufficient length to carry weight and force. Articles in popular, striking form, rather than learned treatises, are aimed at. In other words, a plain straightforward presentation of the Church's position is sought, and then the placing of these statements before the people at large.

With regard to publicity, I believe that religious periodicals of every name, as well as our own Church papers, will give these Tracts a place, providing only they are written in a spirit of Christian charity. Further, the Sunday issues of our great secular dailies can be induced to print these articles. They will make good reading, and, at this juncture, timely reading.

In conjunction with the written Tracts, I beg to urge that there is room and need for preaching, extra-parochial preaching, if you please, in every diocese, to set before our brethren the Church's apostolic mission. A thousand openings will be made for us, if we seek them. In every town and city, from time to time, public halls and denominational pulpits can be secured. A hearing will be given us, if we come with a clear, fearless presentation of the truth.

The preachers and missionaries of the Roman Church hold missions for non. Catholics, why not we? Thousands of our denminational brethren may be won to true Catholic unity and belief, by realizing in our preaching and missions, what we claim in our seminaries and seats of learning.

To win the world to Christ, to convert Japan, for instance, these unholy divisions must cease. For the love of God, brethren, let us realize, let us take advantage of our mission as a true branch of the English-speaking Catholic Church.

A Danish Priest on the Real
Presence.

To the Editor of THE CHURCHMAN:

A little over thirty-three years ago an or

thodox Lutheran professor in a Norwegian seminary out West said to me: "The Episcopal Church is a reformed sect and holds

the Calvinistic doctrine of the Lord's Supper." I told him "No, it is a sister Church and believes in the Real Presence of the

body and blood of our Saviour in the Sacrament." Recently, in some recollections written for a Danish religious paper, I recounted this conversation. But now, here comes a writer in THE CHURCHMAN, a

priest, I believe, who does not seem to be

lieve in the Real Presence. I had not thought any priest in the Episcopal Church could so hold, but it seems I was mistaken. I hope there are not many who stand with him. Two years ago an American came to my church on Sunday morning. He could not understand the Danish service, but he wrote to The Sun that he was surprised to see a cross on the altar, and candles, and that I wore vestments and used wafers in the Lord's Supper. "The Lutheran Church," he wrote, "accept the bread and wine as symbols only." Not so; and especially in the Dauish Church. They are not mere symbols. We believe Christ Himself is present. To every communicant we say as we give the bread into his mouth: "This is Jesus' true body"; and with the cup: "This is Jesus' true blood." To the communicants kneeling around the altar: "Jesus Christ, Who was crucified and rose again, hatlı given unto you His sacred body and blood that ye may eat it and drink it, by which He hath made satisfaction for all your sins. May He strengthen and keep you by these means in the true faith unto life everlasting." In the Communion at the sick bed we say: "This is Jesus' true body given unto death and offered in atonement for all thy sins. May it strengthen and keep thee in the true faith unto life everlasting."-"This is Jesus' true blood which was shed on the cross for thy sins. May it strengthen and keep thee in the true faith unto life everlasting." The wafers with symbols are used in our churches. The baptism we believe to be a new birth, a real regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. We believe as we say: "Baptism is not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." Before the baptism we make the sign of the cross and say: "Receive the sign of the holy cross on thy face and on thy breast, in token that thou shalt believe in the crucified Lord Jesus Christ." The covenant of baptism embraces the renunciation of the devil and his works, and the whole Apostles' Creed.

In the confirmation every person confirmed is asked: "Dost thou with all thy heart renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways? Dost thou with all thy heart believe in God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost? Wilt thou remain steadfast in the covenant of thy baptism to the end? Give God thy heart, and give me thy hand as a pledge of thy faith." And then the priest prays with his hand on the head of the person confirmed: "God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Who adopted thee as His child in holy baptism and

made thee heir of life everlasting, keep thee in the grace of thy baptism unto a blessed end, and grant thee constancy of faith for the redemption of thy soul. Amen!"

In the Danish Church the sacraments stand high. Bishop Grundtvig, the great psalmist of the Northern Church, had great influence and the sacraments stand as main props of the Church life, where Christ Himself is to be found in person. Bishop Grundtvig believed that the covenant of baptism, specially the Apostles' Creed, was a word of Christ Himself, given to His apostles in the forty days after His resurrection, so the faith once delivered to the saints was delivered by Christ Himself, as Bishop Tertullian said, and something similar is found of Bishop Irenæus. The Apostles' Creed was

the Catholic faith for him, which all

Christians have to believe.

Understand how it is the body and the blood of Christ we cannot; but can we understand the virgin birth of our Saviour, the God and man in one person, the Trinity and one God, the Atonement? I think not; but we can believe it. I cannot comprehend how anyone can read St. John vi. 48-58, Christ's institution of the Sacrament, and not believe it is Jesus' true body and

blood. There is an old verse we often

sing at the Communion that puts it plainly: "How it can be," it says, "I know not. He did not wish to show us how. Our senses cannot grasp it; it is enough for me to believe His word." So I think that the best way. I hope the Episcopal Church and the Lutheran-the Scandinavian stands yours so near-will come into communion with each other as sister Churches. I pray with our Lord (St. John xvii. 21) in that hope. I sign as pastor, or as we say and claim in Denmark, praest-that is "priest”—of Our Saviour's Danish Evangel-Lutheran Church in Brooklyn.

R. ANDERSEN.

Courses of Study in SundaySchools.

The Joint

To the Editor of THE CHURCHMAN: Two very important meetings are to be held in Philadelphia, Jan. 16 and 17. A committee of the Sunday-school Commission of the General Convention will consider "Courses of Study." Diocesan Committee will take up its proposed sixtieth schedule, "Bible Characters." It seems to be a very propitious time to begin the work of simplifying and systematizing our courses of instruction, and of adopting what all will agree upon should be the proper general topic with which to start. Knowing that there is widespread interest in this whole matter, I send you a copy of a letter addressed to Bishop Greer, who is to preside at one of the meetings. GEO. W. SHINN.

[COPY.]

Newton, Mass., Jan. 1, 1906. Dear Bishop Greer:

While it is gratifying to note the new interest which is springing up through out the Church in the religious education of our young people, there is danger that the very multitude of the plans proposed may defeat some of the ends we have in

view. Advocates of one system may be tempted to speak disparagingly of other systems which some have used successfully, and so much may be said about methods that the impression will be created that success depends more upon the method of instruction than upon the spirit of the teacher.

One great defect in our present plans is

the lack of unity in the subjects taught; for while one school may be studying one series of topics another may be taking up something very different, and besides there is no certainty that any pupil will be trained in any systematic manner, especially if he stay but a short time with us, or removes from one school to another. We ought to provide that all our young people have opportunity to know something of the great facts of our religion, the practical duties of the Christian life and the doctrines and usages of the Church.

It would be a step toward greater harmony and efficiency and thoroughness if the Commission appointed by the General Convention could induce all the lesson committees and all the diocesan com

missions to agree upon some general Courses of Lessons for use in the Sunday

schools and Bible-classes of the Church throughout the land.

Inasmuch as you are the chairman of the committee to consider a plan of Courses of Study for Sunday-schools I venture to suggest that the committee urge all commissions and committees to adopt as the first Course of Lessons "The Life of our Lord," to begin at Advent, 1906, and to continue to Advent, 1907.

It is not proposed that any particular instruction materials, or the text-books of any publisher be commended, but that each school be free to make its own choice.

The only thing to be urged is that for that year all grades of pupils in all our schools study "The Life of our Lord" as it is set forth in the four Gospels.

It may not even be desirable that the committee designate the particular topic to be studied upon any given Sunday, or to indicate the portion of Scripture for that day. Perhaps it would be quite sufficient to propose that, in any way the rector and teachers may think best, every school spend that year in the study of the Life of Our Lord. Some schools would use text books, some the leaflet publications, and others would prepare their own teaching materials.

It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the advantages that would come from this united and earnest study of the Gospels by our young people. Nor is it necessary to suggest what wealth of material is available in text-books, lesson leaflets, instruction quarterlies, etc., and what new ma

terial would be created.

In case this plan of united study is found to be successful, the committee, with the experience gained, would be prepared to suggest what course to take up for the second year, and so on.

Having recommended a course of study, it would be within the province of the committee to make provision for the examination of pupils who have taken a full year's course of lessons, and to grant certificates to those who are able to attain a certain percentage. This examination should not be based upon the use of any particular text-book, but should cover the topics included in the general subject, and should be varied to suit different grades of pupils. No matter what system of instruction was used, the pupil from any school should be prepared for an examination upon the points deemed important by the committee.

I am convinced that in this way we would begin to unify the instruction given to the young people and deepen their interest in the study of Christian Truth. We would certainly be introducing system where now there is but little, and we would be creating an enthusiasm which is not always found in our schools. Yours most respectfully,

GEO. W. SHINN, Rector of Grace church.

Information Wanted.

To the Editor of THE CHURCHMAN:

Last summer you were so kind as to publish an appeal from me for information concerning old St. Stephen's church in Chryste (1805), which resulted in my obtaining valuable facts. May I ask the favor of another appeal, for information concerning the early history of the Church of the Advent (the Rev. A. B. Hart, rector), which in 1873 consolidated with St. Stephen's? The parish records and minutes of this vestry cannot be found. These are valuable documents, and if obtained would be paid for. If any former parishioners of the Church of the Advent would send me information which would

be helpful in writing up its history, I should be exceedingly indebted both to

them and to the columns of THE CHURCHMAN.

To the Editor of THE CHURCHMAN:

In your issue of Dec. 16, a correspondent proposes a society for securing and donating to missions second-hand church furniture, altars, pews, etc.

Don't do it; spare the missions. Surely they have hardships enough to bear without being compelled to accept and use discarded furniture, no matter how ancient and sacred. I have stepped into mission rooms furnished thus, and the absence of harmony in color and design, proportion and fitness in size and style so offend the eye, and consequently the senses, as to detract from the spirit of worship. I have had people of all degrees of education comment on this very point: "The impression made by appearances of the place of worship."

What these missions need is not secondhand articles so much as suggestion and artistic advice in arranging and furnishing, no matter how cheaply. Any carpenter will construct a complete chapel of wood, which will excite the admiration of all, if given the design and color schemes—at cost not far exceeding the freight on a load of cumbersome second-hand articles. Not long ago the Association of Pianomakers met at Atlantic City and held a banquet at which a bonfire was made of several old-fashioned square pianos, thus expressing their view on the "old square." I think a bonfire of old church furniture would be in order, and a society formed for the study and cultivation of ecclesiastical art and church furnishing.

R. H. WEVILL. 534 West One-hundred-and-twenty-fourth street, New York.

LITERATURE.

Comparitive Religion.

It is a curious coincidence, if indeed it be not something more than this, that the same day should bring to us from Eng land two books on the philosophic study of the evolution of religion, a subject long neglected and, as it seemed, discredited there. Louis Henry Jordan, who has been a lec

Architects and Artists.

"The Cathedral Builders in England," by Edward S. Pryor (Dutton, $2), by approaching English ecclesiastical art in a strictly historical way, rearranges the facts, most of which were already known in isolation, in such a way as to add some attractive chapters to the history of English architecture. As the title tells us, this is not a history of the English cathe

drals, but of the men who made them, and

of the spirit that inspired church-build

ing, sometimes exalting, sometimes degrading it, throughout the centuries. In

millan, $1.75.) To treat the work of such an artist briefly is a difficult task; the mass of material is so great-of paintings alone there are over a thousand—and as the author says the varying impressions Rubens produces are so contradictory.that to convey a clear impression that shall be just to the facts is most difficult. The solution of the enigma is found to be that Rubens, though second to none in keenhand and facility of expression, ness of observation, truth of eye, skill of more than artist, and thus has no such artistic message to the world as the "revealers," Donatello, Rembrandt, Michael

was

turer at the University of Chicago, and

writes from Oxford. The introduction is by Principal Fairbairn. He calls his book "Comparative Religion: Its Genesis and Growth." (Imported by Scribner, $3.50.) The second is a much briefer "anthropological study" of "The Evolution of Religion" (Putnam, $1.50), by L. R. Farnell, who also writes from Oxford, where he is a Fellow and tutor of Exeter, and best known for his very important contributions to the study of Greek cults.

Mr. Farnell's object is to persuade us, first by a general view of the subject, and then by a somewhat detailed examination of one or two corners of it, of the interest

and importance of the study alike for the student of psychology and for the historian of dogma and ritual. Mr. Jordan's endeavor is more encyclopedic. He gives us first a history of this new science from its advent; endeavoring to account for its

late birth and to tell the evolution of its methods, the gradual clarifying of its aim, and the successive contributions of its prophets and its pioneers. Then, in the larger section of his book, which he calls, not very happily, "The Historical Development," he takes each country in turn, describes its school or schools of comparative religion and the work of each prominent member of them, with some account of the auxiliary sciences and an exultant record of its "expanding bibliography." In this section the most interesting chapters are those that tell of the tangible achievements and mental emancipations of the science. He claims that by it religion has been made an exact study; that men have come to see more clearly what religion really is: its unity, necessity, universality, indestructibility, while, in President Barrows's striking words: "The splendor of Christianity, like that of the sun, becomes only the more apparent when rushlights and candles are held up before it."

Mr. Farnell's book is made up of four Hibbert lectures, two of which deal with the methods and problems of the comparative study of religion in a general way, a third with the ritual of purification, and the last with the evolution of prayer. In

the main we have to do here with preChristian and primitive conceptions, but incidentally there is abundant and most interesting evidence brought forward, though not stressed, of the preparation both in religious ideas and ritual of the Mediterranean nations for the ready acceptance of Christian worship and teaching. The lectures may be read through in an evening, and to those who are interested in speculations of this character the book will be found surprisingly suggestive and stimulating. "Christianity," he says, "probably contains a richer deposit than any other of the world religions from the various streams of thought and belief that nourished the life of early civilized or semi-civilized man." could assimilate what was best because it was a catholic, the only catholic, faith.

It

of color in architectural decoration, raising the medieval workman to a plane that in Mr. Pryor's opinion no modern architect reaches. This he illustrates by reproduction in colors of miniatures from manuscripts. His study begins with the Conquest and ends with the "revivalists and restorers" of the nineteenth century.

Even those who think Reynolds at his best as an artist when he follows least his own theories, will welcome the new edition of his "Discourses Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy." (Dutton, $2.50.) The editor, Mr. Roger Fry, in his introduction distinguishes very happily between critic and painter,

noticing as characteristic of Reynolds in his professorial career, a sweet reasonableness joined to a certain eighteenth century cautiousness, a poise of mind joined to keenness of perception and quick sensibility. Hence it comes about that his method "will often be found of real value, even when the greater knowledge and greater critical insight which our generation may justly claim invalidate his conclusions."

Mr. W. L. Wyllie, himself an Associate of the Royal Academy, has written for the series of British Artists a valuable and very fully illustrated study of "J. M. W. Turner" (Macmillan, $3), which is by no means superfluous, though as the author in his preface reminds us it is the eighth Life, and in his researches for it in the

National Gallery he found a gentleman engaged upon a ninth. Its distinction among them all is that it is by a modern artist who feels that he should be better able than a critic or literary man "to distinguish and note the influences and beauties, the difficulties and limitations of another artist's work." Mr. Wyllie has, however, contributed a good deal to disengage from legend and disentangle from their confusion the bibliographical facts preserved by Thornbury, so that Turner, "the uncouth old wizard with his rough manners and tender heart," becomes here more real to the reader than he has ever been, while we are made better to appreciate his art in its "matchless splendor."

"B. R. Haydon and His Friends," by the lady who writes under the name George Paston (Dutton, $3), suggests by

its title that he who was accustomed to account and sign himself "historical painter" is better remembered for his autobiography, his journals and the anecdotes of his social relations with literary men than for any of his huge compositions. Haydon was vain to and over the verge of madness. Mrs. Browning was no doubt right in attributing his suicide to disappointed ambition, but anyone who knew familiarly Wordsworth and Keats, Lamb and Hazlitt is sure of a place, though a minor one, in English literary biography; and the vivid pictures of artistic and literary life which his own writings afford are re-drawn for us here with remarkable artistic charm.

For the well-known series of Great Masters of Painting and Sculpture Hope Rea has written of “Peter Paul Rubens." (Mac

tist we must study the man in the multifarious relations of his life, note his attltude toward religion, morals, manners, politics. Outlined from this point of view, his life, as told here, becomes a real help to the appreciation of his pictures. The illustrations are reproduced with exceptional success.

For Fireside Travellers.

Mr. William Dean Howells has been

singularly happy in the title that he has chosen for his volume of impressions dur

ing his last year's stay abroad. "London Films" (Harper, $1.25), he calls them, as though to suggest instantaneous photographic impressions on his mind of London life and ways, its social and civic aspects, its work and play. A considerable space is given to those "American origins" of peculiar interest to our countrymen, of which guide books are apt to be silent. The style is conversationally epigrammatic, with a little tendency to humorous exaggeration. In speaking of English housewarming and our own, for instance, he says: "It is a question whether you would rather be warm and well or cold and well; we choose the first course, they choose the last." An Exeter bedroom grate he found had "the capacity of a quart pot and the heating capabilities of a glow-worm." In characterization of persons he is no less happy. "She looked not only authoritative; people often do that with us; she looked authorized." And again in speaking of the supposed recent outgoings of the English heart to Americans, he says it should be "touched with all delicacy as the precious bloom of a century plant at last coming to flower." These phrases, taken almost at random, may suggest how delightfully well worth while are these "London Films."

"The Homes of Tennyson," painted by Helen Allingham and described by Arthur Paterson (Macmillan, $2), gives twenty pictures in color of buildings and landscapes in and near Farringford and Aldworth, reproduced from originals in the possession of the Tennyson family. The accompanying text is, Mr. Paterson tells us, "written from a personal rather than a biographical standpoint." Friends and relatives of the poet have contributed their reminiscences to it, and though the text counts barely a hundred pages, it supplements and illustrates in many cases the encyclopedic memoir of Tennyson by his son.

Mr. George Wharton James, well known for ethnological and archæological researches that have extended from Utah to Southern California, has written an entertainingly discursive account of the work of the Franciscans on the Pacific coast, "In and Out of the Old Missions of California." (Little, Brown, $3.) First, there is an account of the founding of the missions in general and of the condition of the Indians before, during, and after them. Then the story of each mission is told in

detail with a special chapter on the Asistencias or mission chapels, and finally, some quarter of the whole is given to special studies of mission architecture, decoration, public works, and so on. The book is very fully illustrated from photographs, and will be found fuller than most, or, in some cases, any other that Ideals with this subject in its treatment of the details of the mission architecture and of the mural decorations and ecclesiastical furniture and ornaments of the mis

Stories of American Life.

Romantic Italy.

Mr. F. Marion Crawford is not only a facile novelist, but a diligent student of Italian history and historical romance, as his volumes on Rome and Sicily have amply testified.

This season he has turned to the republic by the Adriatic that, as Wordsworth reminds us, once held the gorgeous East in fee and was the bulwark of the West. "Salve Venetia" (Macmillan, 2 vols.) gives us Mr. Craw ford's gleanings from Venetian history, with 225 really charming illustrations from the skilled pencil or charcoal point of Mr. Joseph Pennell. Though arranged chronologically it is not a history of Venice, but, as its sub-title implies, a selection of episodes. The earlier portions more than once suggest comparison with Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," but the purpose and the perspective are different. Ruskin's aim was to show us sermons in stone; Mr. Crawford's purpose is to entertain and to help the lingering traveller to fresh delights. The first volume closes with the fifteenth century, when the political glories of Venice were already dimmed and she was becoming more and more what Coryat and Byron found her, "the revel of the earth, the masque of Italy." The heroic figures and romantic incidents of this period are comparatively more familiar than are the incidents and anecdotes of the decadence, which Mr. Crawford with selective discrimination has given us in his second volume. Here will be found curious gleanings from Venetian criminal history and diplomacy; an account of her artistic industries and then of the "last things," the last great ladies, last carnivals, last fairs and feasts until we come to "The Last Hour." The story is very gentally told, and, as those who know it at all know, it is well worth such re-telling.

"Florentine Palaces and their Stories," by Janet Ross (Dutton, $2) is a book that should add much to the pleasure of the traveller who has leisure to tarry longer than the conventional fortnight of the grand tour in the beautiful Tuscan capital and the book may prove valuable also to students of Florentine history or art, for the author has gathered with diligence much of curious interest that can with difficulty be found elsewhere, and has given her book so wide a scope that it is almost encyclopedic. Seventy-five palaces and the Castello d'Altafronte are described and as the material is arranged in alphabetical order reference is made easy. The illustrations that accompany the text will help the traveller to identify the buildings but have not great artistic interest.

The situa

A small city in Indiana is the scene of Booth Tarkington's "Conquest of Canaan." The hero, a neglected (Harper, $1.50.) son of good family, leaves the city under a cloud and returns to it a lawyer, sharpened by a year in a New York office, to fight down social prejudice and build up political support by advocacy of the friendless and incidentally defence of the public against the machinations of the city's dominating capitalist. tion is complicated by his love for the capitalist's ward, to whom he compels the guardian to restore her embezzled fortune, securing for himself election as mayor of the city. The most stirring chapters in the book are those that tell of political manipulations and criminal prosecutions. "The Divining Rod" (Little, Brown, $1.50) is a story of Pennsylvania in the first excitement of the discovery of petroleum and the exploitation of the oil fields, an episode in our national life which, so far as we recall, has heretofore attracted the economist and the biographer of Mr. Rockefeller rather than our writers of fiction, though its romantic episodes and grim realities might naturally attract the novelist. Mr. Francis Newton Thorpe has handled the theme here in a way to show how the absorption of small concerns by large ones affected the whole structure of society in that section,

and against this sombre background there is a story of family devotion that forms a pleasing contrast to the drama of souldestroying greed.

"Stork's Nest," by J. Breckenridge Ellis (Moffat, Yard, $1.50) has the Missouri Valley for its scene and counterfeiters for its chief characters, with a barefoot child for its heroine and an innocent youth in service at the counterfeiters' farm for its hero. The story, utterly improbable in plot, is told in a strange dialect that may perhaps be true to nature but mars enjoyment. The close is lurid

melodrama.

"Ben Blair," by Will Lillibridge (McClurg, $1.50), is the story of a plainsman with literary color as crude as that of the Western landscape, and a style that reminds one occasionally of the Dick Deadeye of our boyhood. At times the scene shifts to the effete East, that the hero, with ready revolver, may save the Western girl with an Eastern education from the villain, finding in her love his natural reward. There are suggestions of "The Virginian" in the book, but they are faint and far away.

Recent Biography.

"The Life of Lieutenant-General the
Hon. Sir Andrew Clarke," edited by Col.
onel Vetch (Dutton, $4), is of interest in
America, not so much because of any in-
cidents in General Clarke's life or for his
professional achievements, honorable as
these were, but because it offers a striking
illustration of the kind of career that a
world-wide empire offers to a Briton.
Born into an Irish military family and
educated for the Royal Engineers, he
served, half in a military, half in a civil
capacity, first in Van Dieman's Land;
then in New Zealand; then in Victoria,
where he became not merely a member
of the Provisional Parliament, but of the
administration; then in England; then
on the Gold Coast; then in England again
as Director of Works of the Admiralty;
then as Governor of the Straits Settle-
ments; then as member of the Indian
Council; then as Commandant of the
School of Military Engineering at Chat-
ham and, finally, as Inspector-General of
Fortifications. Such varied spheres of
usefulness does the British Empire
afford to stimulate the ambition and call.
out the best energies of her people. Inci-
dentally, it may be worth while to note
that Sir Andrew in an official proclama-
tion to the Malay chiefs called Queen
Victoria Empress of India eighteen
months before Disraeli proposed the title
to Parliament.

There is a placid self-satisfaction about
"The Autobiography of Samuel Smiles,
LL.D." (Dutton, $4), carried by him to
the close of his seventy-eighth year and
left by him on his death, fifteen years
later, to be edited by his friend, Thomas
Mackay. Best known as the author of the
"Lives of the Engineers," most widely as
a preacher of "Self Help" and "Thrift,"
Dr. Smiles was well advanced in middle
life before his first book appeared. Be-
ginning as a country physician, he had
been by turns editor, lecturer, railroad
secretary and accountant, when his Life
of Stevenson, the inventor of the loco-
motive, opened to him fame and fortune
"as the authorized and pious chronicler
of the men who founded the industrial
greatness of England."
thing smug, almost typically Philistine,
about this autobiography which perhaps
adds a little to the interest of the judi-
cious reader.

There is some

A classified and descriptive list of books received during the week will be found on page 42.