the vincing testimony to the efficiency, economy, the shrewd sagacity of the ad-ministration of foreign mission work. The year was the greatest year ever known in the Presbyterian Church in foreign missionary offerings and in spiritual results on the mission field. This Board has always had in a special degree the confidence of the Church, and has it more to-day than ever. The Presbyterian Building, worth $2,000,000, and owned by the Boards of Foreign and Home Missions, has been nearly cleared of indebtedness during the year, and all the Boards of the Church reported balances; while the membership of the Church grows steadily. During the year, through the Twentieth Century Fund Committee, church debts were lifted from over 600 congregations, and 300 or 400 more churches will soon be freed. "The Committee on Sabbath Observance" made another of its worthless reports, fulminating in fifteen, resolutions against no end of things. The aspirations of the committee are good enough, but reform by resolution is futile in most matters, and charity, institutionalism, ecclesiasticism, or ritualism, while useful assistants, cannot supplant for so great a work the true methods. annual report. particularly so in the matter of Sunday These committees have not stopped the It has been, on the whole, an efficient Of course The New York Sun is deeply grieved at the Assembly. The apostasy of the Assembly in the matter of Revision leaves The Sun the sole defender of orthodox faith and true religion. How pathetic have been its pain and distress! Seminary Commencement Essays. [Extracts from essays read by members of the graduating class of the General Theological Seminary on Commencement Duy, May 14, 1902.] I. The Duty of the Church to BY PHILIP COOK, B.A. When Augustine went across the sea to labor in Britain, when Boniface braved the perils of heathen Germany, even when St. Paul turned his face toward Rome, none of them went with a greater opportunity of winning an empire to the service of his God, none with a promise of a richer and more abundant harvest, none with the assurance of winning more souls to Christ, than those who go to-day to the cities, country places and provinces of the United States. The great stronghold of our Church is in the large cities. It has often been asserted-with what truth I leave you to judge—that our Church is the aristocratic Church, the Church of the intellectual and the refined, the Church of the rich man and of the city. Certain it is that in the large cities lies its greatest strength. The work in such places has been carried on with energy and devotion. It has not been confined to the cultured, the intelligent and the wealthy, but by bringing to bear on such work the great resources of culture, intelligence and wealth the Gospel and the Church have been taken from the upper to the lower parts of our city, to the humble, the ignorant and the poor. The poor have had the Gospel preached to them. Nearly every strong, rich parish has realized in part at least its true mission and enlarged its boundaries so as to include the tenement districts, hospitals and the prisons. The Church in this city is as strong on the lower East Side as in the uptown district. This is the secret of her strength, the centre of her power. The method by which this has been accomplished may, in part, be questioned. It certainly has taken a vast sum of money, for the method has been one largely of charity. Not altogether, but largely so. It has not been a method by which men have gone among the poor and by the power of their teaching and preaching taught the people of the love of Christ, roused in turn the enthus iasm and love of the people, and taught them to build through their own self-denial churches in which to worship and from which to spread the truth of the Gospel. It has not been the work of the people themselves, but a free gift of the rich to them. It has been the work of the large churches, which have devoted a part of their income to the construction of great mission houses through the practical benefits of which they have reached the people. The result has been that it is easy for the East-sider or the poor man in any city to be a Churchman. It carries with it many perquisites. By his connection with a church he is brought into many pleasant associations-he becomes a club member, and has free access to a library and gymnasium. The same is true of the children. The Sunday-school girls are given free instruction in cooking and sewing, the boys have a library, a gymnasium, and a pleasant place to spend vacations. Such noble work is not for a moment to be despised or criticised. It makes life much more bearable for thousands whose lot in life is not a pleasant one, and it makes it possible to bring home with greater and truer force the reality of deep religious and moral truths. In connection with this work spiritual and religious training has been, and is, enforced. Where it is not done, the real worth of the work is lostits true mission is a failure. It would be interesting to see how many would remain true and loyal sons of the Church were their practical benefits suddenly withdrawn. But if one is impressed by what is done in this and other large cities, one is equally and fearfully impressed with what is left undone throughout the length and breadth of our land; . . . it is to this work that our Church must apply her energies if she is to triumph. If she is to be in any real sense the Catholic Church she must, as in England, be the Church of the unlearned as well as the intellectual, of the laborer as well as the capitalist, of the farmer as well as the statesman, of the country as well as the city. To this broader and more comprehensive task we must bring our strongest and truest methods. Methods founded on a form of These are, first, the simple teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ as Saviour of mankind, and, second, bringing to bear the organization of the Church and the unifying and centralizing force of the Episcopate to make such teaching permanent and abiding. [This simple teaching and preaching, Mr. Cook went on to say, has been the method of all great missionaries, teachers and preachers everywhere. With them all example has gone together with precept. There was effective preaching in this country, and by no means confined to our Church; indeed, he thought it was perhaps more conspicuous in some other religious bodies. There was a quickening and awakening of spiritual life, but for the most part the results were temporary, there was a lack of continuity and of organization, and they lacked the full recognition of the sacraments as conservers of spiritual life. On the other side stood the Roman Catholic Church, perfect in organization, jealous of power, supported with devotion, regarded by others with dislike and fear, so that it had little power to work among any but its own people. Its teaching in losing simplicity had lost force. The imposition of infallibility cramped intellect, checked progress and was contrary to the sense of personal liberty. Then he continued:] Here, then, is the opportunity of our Church, not to reject the labor and assistance of others, but to work with them in the labor of one Master, to make use of what is good and bring men of themselves to leave that which is useless, in other words, to be a unifying force in this trying age of discord. Our people must be won by moral suasion rather than by the imposition of authority. Our Church holds the key to the problem of successful work throughout this country. It remains for our Church and her ministry to come to a full realization of her possibilities. It remains for our Church to use these opportunities with a wise discretion and a broad sympathy. It remains for our Church, in places of great spiritual neglect to systematically evangelize anew and by the simple teaching and preaching of Christ to bring all men into relation with Him. Where this has been done, to help men to a truer sense of devotion by the introduction of her service and liturgy, to make this devotion and faith an abiding principle in their lives by offering them her Sacraments, to make the religion of Christ permanent by the imposition of her ministry, all under the centralizing and superintending force of the Episcopate. Such a work is clearly the duty of Our Church. As the English people learned of political unity from the unity of the Church, so we of this country must learn of Church unity from the example of our Government. Our Church to-day has the most splendid opportunity for accomplishing this task. The work has only just begun. With all the possibilities of our great country before us it is a glorious mission, a splendid ideal. It is a work such as to tax the highest wisdom and statesmanship of our bishops, the earnest effort and devotion of our clergy, the enthusiasm and support of our laity. Let us pray God to send forth faithful laborers into His harvest. When the work is accomplished our Church will have accomplished her mission to our own people. Then and then only may she lay claim to the title "The Church of America." Then may we look for that strengthened sense of brotherhood among our countrymen which springs from the ties of a common religion as well as from those of a com II. Private Judgment and Eccles- everywhere "held fast." Thus it is plain iastical Authority. BY WM. H. MCCLELLAN, B.D. The individual conscience acknowedges two principal sources of guidance. An outward and an inward, a corporate and an individual influence are brought to bear upon it. Each bears the stamp of the authority of God, who, as the Maker of conscience and the ultimate Judge to whom it is responsible, alone possesses the right to impose laws upon it for its guidance. And to the Christian soul these two, the outward and the inward guides, are none other than those powers which came into conflict at the Reformation: ec clesiastical authority without, the private judgment of reason within. We may define ecclesiastical authority as the inherent right of the Catholic Church, as the mystical Body of Christ, indwelt by His Vicar the Paraclete, to propose to the individual conscience the only rule of faith and action certain to be in perfect accord with the will of God. The power of ecclesiastical authority is, then, to show to the Christian conscience the only sure way of life. Let us now consider three limitations to this authority. From the position of ecclesiastical authority as a guide to the conscience naturally springs the first of these limitations; namely, that the authority of the Church is purely persuasive in its sanctions. The Incarnate Word Himself, the source of all authority in Heaven and earth, never forced a human will. Even to him who has freely accepted the authority of the Church as that of Christ, and afterward doubts and rejects that authority, there is no compulsion applied to turn him again into the way of obedience. Christ Himself and His apostles sanction necessary discipline, but they neither commend nor attempt the substitution of any power for that of conscience. If, then, an enlightened reason can ever demand of conscience rejection of the Church's authority, by so much must she regard her action as limited by human reason. In the second place, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church confesses a most important limitation in her relation to Holy Scripture. When her teachings had been passed from generation to generation by word of mouth alone, it pleased her afterward, acting under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, to collect together certain writings of her greatest teachers, and to declare her belief that these writings, though addressed by individual men to the peculiar needs and circumstances of individual communities, were ultimately the inspired work of God the Holy Ghost, and did as a matter of fact enshrine, although in fragmentary form, all that she regarded and taught as essential to perfection. I Again, the Church has always recognized a very important limitation to the teaching of her Creeds and Councils. mean that universal consensus of her members which has always been the essence of ecumenicity. It is a fact of history perfectly familiar to us all, that the ecumenical councils of the Church have a right to be so regarded, not because the Church was fully represented in them (as, indeed, in some of them she was not), nor yet because Christendom was then in visible union; but only because the decrees of those Councils were afterward received by the faithful in all the world as binding that if there be any doctrine of the Anglican Communion which bears not the stamp of this universal consent, and that from antiquity, this doctrine she cannot at any rate impose upon the conscience as essential to salvation. And equally plain is it that the pretension of a certain Metropolitan of the Western Church to speak with absolute infallibility by the simple approval of a synod of his own See, is not, to say the least, in accord with the respect which the Catholic Church has always shown to the faculty of reason in the individual. Her message is not, "You must believe that I can never err" (however true this may be in one sense), but rather, "You are at liberty to prove for yourself, by the collective assent of my members, proceeding from that One Spirit with whom each of them is in communion, that, as a matter of fact, I have never erred!" From the powers and restrictions of ecclesiastical authority let us now turn to those of private judgment. This we may define as that exercise of reason by which the individual, in accordance with the laws of his nature, tests the divine authority of anything which claims the right to guide his conscience. The true power, then, of private judgment, is to protect the conscience from being misled as to the divine authority of its guide. And, with respect to the exact limits of our question, we may say that the power of private judgment is to exercise the solemn office of testing the perfect accord of Church and Scripture with each other. If the above attempt at definition represents a just conception of private judgment, its first and fundamental limitation is immediately patent; namely, that and orderly constitution for the government of the Church, but only an inspired collection of partial records of a constitution already in existence, and of the eternal truths upon which that constitution is founded. From these various observations, what conclusion are we to draw as to the true function of private judgment? We have seen that while it is left free to accept or reject the voice of the Church as the voice of God, it cannot of itself become the voice of God to the conscience. We have seen that while it is free to test the teaching of the Church by her written record, it cannot actually set the two at variance. Where, then, shall we place its sphere of action? The land in which we live and enjoy citizenship possesses a threefold form of government. It is the function of the legislative branch to enact regulations; that of the judicial, to interpret them; that of the executive, to put them in action. Even so is it in the economy of the Christian soul. There is an executive power, which we call conscience, whose function it is to put the laws of God in action. There is a legislative power, the teaching Church of Christ, which puts forth those laws for the use of the members of His Mystical Body. And there is a judicial faculty, the judgment of the reason, whose office it is to test those laws in their relation to the great Constitution of the Divine Will. But just as the members of our national Supreme Court are carefully chosen from the ranks of those who have made legislation and its products the study of years, so in the realm of eternal truth must the faculty of private judgment be exercised only by those to whom the law of Christ in His Church is a living and personal reality. private judgment cannot be itself a guide, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. but only a test of guides. Nay, the very use of the term "judgment" implies comparison of something with something else as a standard. And therefore private judgment may reject the authority of some principle to guide the conscience, but it cannot construct another in its place, far less constitute itself the guide. It is a faculty of judgment, and, by its very nature as such, it cannot become a motive possessing independent authority. N. B. All letters intended for this department must be signed by the writers and the names must be for publication. The Again, from the essential unity of origin and purpose which has been shown to exist between the teaching Church and the written Word, arise a second and a third limitation of private judgment. second is, that private judgment cannot rightly test the Church apart from the Scriptures. The Protestant Reformers overlooked this fact in some respects, though they insisted upon it so strongly in others. Need we any proof of their error? They are reforming their creeds. They are imitating the liturgy and ritual of the Church. They are forming unions for missionary and other work. While the Anglican Church, having held fast her ancient heritage, yet in lawful assemblies cleansed it of all that was "repugnant to Holy Scripture," stands to-day her own witness that she is, equally with the Holy Scriptures, of divine authority and origin. The third limitation of private judgment is the converse of the second; namely, that it cannot test the Scriptures apart from the Church. The results of applying private judgment to the interpretation of the written Word are too well-known to require minute description. The Bible, as has already been said, contains no logical "Martinique and St. Pierre." To the Editor of THE CHURCHMAN: The writer of the article "Martinique and St. Pierre" in your issue of May 24 has fallen into the singular error of attributing to Martinique the scene of "Paul et Virginie." It is true that Bernardin de St. Pierre did make a voyage to Martinique with one of his uncles, but the scene of his still famous masterpiece is laid in an entirely different part of the world, namely, the island of Mauritius, which, at the time when he wrote, was called Ile de France. Strangely enough, within a week, the writer has encountered the same wrong impression in the mind of a friend. Does not some confusion from the similarity of the names "Ile de France" and the place "Fort de France" on the island of Martinique, account for the mistake? Very likely, the description of the scenery in "Paul et Virginie" will apply equally well to either Mauritius or Martinique, but there is no doubt that it was written of Mauritius. Brooklyn, N. Y. HENRY C. MOTT. [Our contributor thanks Mr. Mott and others for calling attention to his error.] 1 に! The World's Preparation for the is only proclaiming what in a sense, Incarnation.* The title which we have chosen for this appreciation of Professor Paine's "Ethnic Trinities" is not that which he would approve, at least not in the sense in which we use it, and it is only right to state this clearly at the outset. We find in his book much of great value and of illuminating interest, but it is in his premises that we discover it, and not in the conclusions that he draws, not perhaps against reason, but yet surely without adequate reason, from them. Inspired by the philosophy of evolution, of which he professes himself an ardent disciple, he sees a dilemma where we see none. Either, if we understand him, the Christian Trinity must be an historical development from religious and philoIsophical environment, having no foundation in revelation, or else it must have TE though not precisely in his sense, Catholic theologians have long taught and must continue to teach, unless they would blind themselves to the obvious facts of history. Truth is eternal and unchanging, but our apprehension of it is neither. It is indeed "an historic fact that cannot be gainsaid that the Christian Trinitarian dogma as set forth in the Nicene Creed was the slow growth of centuries"; but it does not follow therefrom, as Professor Paine seems to assume, that it was not also an apostolic verity and the "truth once delivered to the saints." The ethnic trinities of India, Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome spring alike from two sources, an observation of generation as the original force in the formation of the world, and an instinctive reaching out for some form of mediation that moral beings may be brought into amity and fel been as fully apprehended by the synoptic lowship with God. Professor Paine dis evangelists as by St. Paul, as clearly discerned by St. Paul as by St. John, and by these as by the Fathers of the second and third centuries. It is not enough for him that revelation should be implicitly in these earlier records, it must be explicitly there, or it is no revelation at all. It is, however, a perfectly possible thing to hold with Illingworth that Christian dogmas are historical facts, passionately as professor Paine denounces this view (pp. 195196), and yet to accept the exposition of the ethnic trinities in Professor Paine's work as a contribution of very great value to our knowledge of the evolution of religious consciousness. Indeed, from this point of view we may see in it a deeper meaning than that which he himself discerns there. On the latter part of Professor Paine's work then, on the external and historical relations of the ethnic trinities to the Christian Trinity and the resemblances and differences between them, we shall not dwell. Nor shall we speak of the closing chapters on the present condition, outlook and problems of Christianity, for it is futile to discuss details where the funda mental point of view differs so radically. But the earlier part of his book, the first 188 pages, is well worth the attention alike of those who are attracted to metaphysical speculation and of those whose religious consciousness is exalted by this gradual unfolding of the reaching out of many nations in their childhood and of the great thinkers of the golden age of classical antiquity toward that truth which their disciples were thus prepared to grasp. Professor Paine tries to show us how the catholic faith came to be as an, evolution of the second and third century. In fact he shows us that it was implicit in the religious consciousness of mankind, that the Trinity was the "Unknown God" of St. Paul, whom from India to Italy philosophers and people alike had been seeking, till in the fulness of time they were ready to find Him revealed in the Incarnation. It is, then, as a contribution to the development of religious consciousness that Mr. Paine's book is to be regarded, as testimony that "all the religions of mankind have been the result of a slow and wide development under a law of evolution that is universal in its range." And "The Ethnic Trinities, and Their Relation to the Christian Trinity: A Chapter in the Comparative History of Religions," by Levi Leonard Paine, Waldo Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Bangor Theological Seminary. $1.75. [Houghton, Mifflin & Co.] cerns this alike in the trimurti of the Hindus, whom he accounts "on the whole the most intensely religious and religiously thoughtful people in the world," in Buddhism and Zoroastrianism, in the earlier Greek cultus of the "Iliad" and its transformation in the "Odyssey," and on through the rest till it reaches its ethnic climax in the subtle mysticism of Plotinus. "Every religious faith as a rule rests at last on a mediating principle by which man may climb to God, be it Marduk or Agni, or Athene, or Zoroaster, or Mythra, or Sosiosh, or Krishna, Buddha, or the Word of the Fourth Gos pel, or the Psyche of Plotinus." or Professor Paine sees that it is impossible to explain these coincidences of trinitarian ideas by any theory of borrowing, direct or indirect. But no explanation of them is more rational than that which he avoids and which seeks their origin in the thought of the Hebrew seer that man was made in the image of God. Everywhere Professor Paine's exposition forces this truth home upon us, nowhere more eloquently than in his really beautiful exposition of the Odyssey as a religious epic of the mediatorial office of Athene, who, even while she prayed to the All-Father, "was herself fulfilling the prayer." In the Athene of the Odyssey Professor Paine is right to discern "the supreme vision of Aryan faith." theologian are the chapters which ProOf great interest to the metaphysical fessor Paine devotes to the evolution of a trinitarian philosophy of God out of Plato, fluence of their thought and technical vothrough Philo, to Plotinus, and of the inof the ante-Nicene period, who found, as cabulary upon the Christian theologians he tells us, "a trinitarian theory of the Plotinus indeed was prepared to make his universe and also of deity in the air." whole explanation of the universe, includthree hypostases the root and centre of his ing man and his character, origin and destiny. Even to this day, "the rigid, logical, and intensely metaphysical system of Plotinus is proving itself to be the most vital and indestructible of the world's speculative treasures." In his teaching, the second principle, Mind, is generated from the first principle, the One, and the third principle, the Soul, proceeds equally from Mind. How near this philosophy lay to the Christian revelation is obvious. How far it assisted patristic thought to penetrate the depths of that revelation the Christian scholar will discern in the pages of Professor Paine, and find his interpretation of the relation more rational than that suggested by the author, to whose erudition he will none the less feel indebted for a real contribution to the psychologic history of the great conversion of the nations and the evolution of orthodox Catholicity. The Study of Religion.* The "Contemporary Science Series," edited by Havelock Ellis, now numbers more than forty issues, and of these the volume furnished by Professor Morris Jastrow, Ph.D., of the University of Pennsylvania, is one of the most useful. Its title, "The Study of Religion" (Scribner's, $1.50), may perhaps excite false hopes in the minds of those who fondly imagine that a hand-book may be found on any subject, which will enable the reader to dispense with serious first-hand study, and give him the “gains" without the "pains," for which some students are looking. We have had the pleasure of listening to the author in more than one course of lectures, and know that even the relaxation of the "Summer School" was not deemed by him an excuse for any work which was not serious and thorough. What we have before us in this book is a clearing of the ground for a fair approach to the "Study of Religion." To do this we must first know the attempts, successful or otherwise, to classify and define religion, and to examine its origin. The first part of the book is given to this task, while the second part treats of the factors involved in the study, namely, Ethics, Philosophy, Mythology, Psychology, and even History and Culture. This part of the work seems to us the best, though portions of the first division put the reader under greater obligations to the author, who has given us perhaps the simplest and most serviceable review of the history and character of the Study of Religion. The chapters on "Religion and Ethics," and "Religion and Mythology” are admirable specimens of temperate and well-grounded conclusions set forth in an orderly and well-considered method. Pro fessor Jastrow manifests an independence of judgment, conspicuous in not a few instances, and, we believe, fully justified by its results. This pupil and friend of the great Tiele, to whom the book is dedicated, has ventured to criticise and depart from the time-honored classification of his master, and to give us a new one, all his own. It is, too, refreshing to find a hand that dares dethrone "animism" from its supreme position, and to dismiss "ghost-worship". with the limited amount of attention it deserves. The portions of the book given to a consideration of the definitions of religion yield us a valuable result. From the Deistic writers of the seventeenth century in England and from a host of great names of Germany, we have a fine distillation resulting in the following formula: "Religion is the natural belief in a Power or Powers beyond our control, and upon whom we feel ourselves dependent; which belief and feel ing of dependence prompt to (1) organization, (2) to specific acts, and (3) to the regulation of conduct with a view to establishing favorable relations between ourselves and the Power or Powers in question." A marked contrast indeed to those compact definitions, whose compactness is but the measure of their insufficiency, sometimes indeed of their flippancy. The value of Professor Jastrow's work lies in its frank recognition of all the facts and a patient inclusion of them in "The Study of Religion," by Morris Jastrow, Jun., Ph.D. $1.50. [Scribner's.] his formulas. The book opens with the statement that "method is three-fourths of science." No better justification of his statement could be found than the book before us, for we have veritably a scientific work. Not content with giving us this introduction to our study, the author in Part Third outlines two courses of instruction for colleges and theological schools, and gives directions for the formation of museums as an aid to the study of religion. A bibliography appended is modestly spoken of as being "far from exhaustive," but as it extends over fifteen two-column pages of fine print, it will suffice for all save the most aspiring. The author is Liberal Jew. He studies scientifically the manifestations of religion. Our deductions from that study are not those of the writer of the book, but he is a scholarly guide as to how that study is to be prosecuted. American History. One finds it difficult to resist the feeling that there is, perhaps unconsciously, a good deal of the spirit of opportunism in "The Foundations of American Foreign Policy, with a Working Bibliography," by Albert Bushnell Hart (The Macmillan Co., $1.50); and this feeling is not weakened by the circumstance that the several chapters appeared as contributions to periodicals within the past two years. After the Franco-Prussian War, Germany, finding herself suddenly a world power, a well-known Berlin professor proceeded at once to show that Germany at the same time possessed a world-literature as well as an army, and our own experience is not a little analogous. Suddenly after the war with Spain we made the discovery that we had large interests in the councils of the world, and our professors of history proceed to explain to us how we are also great masters of diplomacy and have a rich diplomatic history. There is, to be sure, a good deal of interesting information in the present book, and the bibliographical material is of positive value; but it seems to us Mr. Hart proves too much. With the same facts before him, another historian of different temper might probably arrive at quite other conclusions. William Garrott Brown gathers, in "The Lower South in American History" (Macmillan, $1.50), three lectures delivered at various colleges on the social and commercial condition of the Gulf States before the Civil War, and on the rise, culmination and catastrophe of their national political ambition. Then follow five shorter essays. The first of these is a sketch of the brilliant career of Yancey, parallel and counterpart in the South of Phillips in New England. Then Mr. Brown enters on the period of the Civil War to consider the material resources of the Confederacy and the ill use made of them. This paper should be read in connection with Professor Schwab's economic study of the Confederate States. The succeeding papers are of lighter weight, and deal with the Ku Klux movement, Lieutenant Hobson and the Southern race problem. Mr. Brown has youthful reminiscence of late reconstruction days, for he was born in Alabama in 1868, and looks back at the old civilization that has passed away not with regret, yet not without pride in a life which was, he says, "the source of more cordiality and kindliness in all the ordinary relations of men and women, of more generous impulses, of a more constant protest against commercialism, of more distinction of manner and charm of personality, than any other way of life practised by Americans before the Civil A century and a half of the Moravian A popular history of the struggle for the possession of Canada and its indefinite western dependencies is contained in Mr. A. G. Bradley's "The Fight with France for North America." (Dutton, $3.) The period covered is that from 1753 to 1760. The sources are first of all Parkman, then Warburton and Kingsford, though, so far as we observe, no acknowledgment is made to the latter. The impelling motive of the work is stated to be the conviction that the fascinating pages of Mr. Parkman are known to but a small circle of English readers; and for those who have not leisure or opportunity to extend their studies in this direction, Mr. Bradley's work will be found clear and concise, and in the main reliable. It is to be taken less as a judicial document than as an enthusiastic and spirited narrative of the English soldier and colonist in a critical period, and in events that resulted in the disappearance of France from North America, and the inception of the movement that led to an independent American republic. The title which Mr. John Kendrick clearly than many pages of writing the Stories of American Life lect is not within the comprehension of an Eastern tenderfoot, and some of the finer points would be lost to the sight of many a college-bred man. There are those who will enjoy the book by reason of its originality and the utter unconventionality of the wild life depicted, but it will hardly linger on the parlor table. It would be a companionable book for a stormy day at the seaside, or for the camp fire. The majority of the twenty-seven chapters that make up Edward Townsend's last book in a modified Bowery dialect, "Chimmie Fadden and Mr. Paul" (Harper, $1.50), appeared in Harper's Weekly, perhaps all of them did. The subject matter is in the main conversations between gentlemen as overheard and reported by a servant. That this can be made an effective literary form, the Yellowplush Papers testify. Here the result is occasionally witty, usually commonplace, and nearly always superfluously vulgar. As a Bowery boy Chimmie was distinctly worth while. Contact with civilization has caused his rapid deterioration. The description of Sara Bernhardt in L'Aiglon, however, has touches of the old verve that recall the best days of this blossom of New York's Bowery. One of the most romantic personalities in the history of Colonial New England is Sir William Phips, who is the source of the action of the greater part of Adele Marie Shaw's "The Coast of Freedom." (Doubleday, Page, $1.50.) The main incidents of his search for Spanish treasure are woven into the tale, though with a change of ships' names and of some of the incidents. A larger part of the volume is an endeavor to conjure up the life of Old Boston toward the close of the seventeenth century, in the course of which we hear much of Mather, Stoughton and others, who are not quite shadows of names in early Colonial annals. A plan of Boston in 1692, on the back of the front cover, with its outline traced on a map of a part of the present city on the back cover, helps to give actuality to the somewhat labored reconstruction. Marie Van Vorst's "Philip Longstreth" (Harpers, $1.50) is almost uncannily suggestive of Miss Converse's "The Burden of Christopher," for here, too, we have a Burden that at the close "grew luminous: it had become the Christ." Here, too, we have a factory and an endeavor to run it on a Christian Socialistic basis. But what we lack is any depth or earnestness in dealing with either the economic or the social problem. A hero who does not know his own mind, or his own heart, would be hardly the sort of man to infatuate either Constance, the New York belle, or Amber, the Maine guide's daughter. That he fails to burden either with his life and embarks for the Philippines at the close, may be regarded as the best possible ending. "Peace invaded him as though hands immortal shrove him" as he ran away. The Birthday Edition of Edward Everett Hale's classic "The Man without a Country" (Outlook Co., $1) offers this story in the most beautiful form that the printer's art has yet given it, and with a preface and introduction of thirty pages in which Dr. Hale explains the origin of the story and the kernel of truth that lay behind it, and urges also the application of its lesson to the period of the Spanish War. Surely there is a triple misprint in the copyright notice, which dates the first three editions of the book in 1853, 1854, and 1855. Unless we are misinformed, the story was written and first published in 1863. (FOR NEW BOOKS OF THE WEEK, SK P. II.) WITH charity towards all.-Abraham Lincoln. THE old flag again waves over us in peace, with new glories which your sons and ours have added to its sacred folds. What an army of silent sentinels we have, and with what loving hands their graves are kept! Every soldier's grave made during our unfortunate Civil War is a tribute to American valor. And while, when those graves were made, we differed widely about the future of the government, those differences were long ago settled by the arbitrament of arms; and the time has now come, in the evolution of sentiment and feeling under the providence of God, when in the spirit of fraternity we should share with you in the care of the graves of the Confederate soldiers.William McKinley. REMEMBER that we form but one country now. Abandon all sectional animosities, and make your sons Americans. R. E. Lee. I FEEL that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and the Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy, but I feel that it is to be so.-U. S. Grant. THE Wounds left by the great Civil War-incomparably the greatest war of modern times-have healed, and its memories are now priceless heritages of honor alike to the North and the South. The devotion, the self-sacrifice, the steadfast resolution and lofty daring, the high devotion to the right as each man saw it, whether Northerner or Southerner, now shine luminous and brilliant before our eyes, while the mists of anger and hatred that once dimmed them have passed away forever.-Theodore Roosevelt. Monument to those who died in the Spanish War, Erected at Arlington by the Society of Colonial Dames and dedicated by President Roosevelt, May 21. |