relations between them. As a preliminary statement, part first is valuable, and prepares the reader for the profounder discussion of the philosophical theory of the harmony of science and religion. The positive philosophy, or theory of nescience as ignoring revelation, of which Auguste Comte was the exponent, he rejects; the absolute philosophy, or theory of omniscience as superseding revelation, of which Sir William Hamilton was the chief expositor, he likewise puts aside; but the final philosophy, or the theory of perfectible science as concurring with revelation, is that form of thought upon which in his judgment harmony is predicable and certain of fulfillment, Another volume elaborating the final theory will soon appear, when the student may possess a philosophic solution of a difference that long since should have disappeared, because truth is 'one and fraternal.

The Virtues and their Reasons. A System of Ethics for Society and Schools. By AUSTIN BIERBOWER, Author of The Morals of Christ. 12mo, pp. 294. Chicago: George Sherwood & Co. Cloth, $1 50.

As a text-book on ethics for schools, it is admirably arranged and comprehensive in treatment, fulfilling the purpose of the author. It is specific in the discussion of duties regarding others, including kindness, beneficence, forgiveness, truth, honesty, patriotism, etc.; and it is emphatic in representing the duties regarding self, such as self-development, industry, self-support, self-control, temperance, self-respect, purity, and conscientiousness. Its definitions are philosophically accurate; its distinctions broad and clear; its logic conclusive; and the ethical content wholesome. Avoiding religious teaching per se, it may be perused with profit by Catholic, Jew, and Protestant; but a narrow mind, forgetting its design, may object to the absence of the religious spirit. This, however, is a commendatory feature. To the statement that the idea of right is that which men consider best for them we stoutly object, and the author acknowledges its insufficiency. Morality has a higher ground than utility. Still, if some men can be led into right-doing because of self-interest it will be a gain to the world; but the race needs higher teaching, and must act from loftier ethics.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TOPOGRAPHY.

Patriotic Addresses, in America and England, from 1850 to 1885. on Slavery, The Civil War, and the Development of Civil Liberty in the United States. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Edited, with a Review of Mr. Beecher's Personality and Influence in Public Affairs, by JOHN R. HOWARD, 8vo. pp. 857. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. Price, cloth, $2 75; half morocco, $4 25. Mr. Beecher was the largest American figure of his time. He was more than a religious preacher: he was an actor in the civil drama of his country. He was more than an orator: he was a writer of commanding force, and a thinker of the first magnitude. He was a citizen, an author, a teacher, an editor, a minister of the Gospel, a patriot, and the heroic

representative of American manliness and aspiration. With infirmities glaring enough to be seen, and compromising himself all too often by the exercise of an enlarged erratic tendency, he sometimes lost prestige when he might have retained it, and by a seeming vacillation in his faith alienated followers who otherwise would have adhered to him to the end. But his personality and great political influence, as well as the pre-eminence he occupied in the American pulpit, cannot soon be forgotten; nor should the republic be ungrateful enough to overlook his services in its behalf in the days of its peril and progress. He was the friend of humanity, the lover of the poor, the advocate of the slave, the terror of treason, and the embodiment of imperishable devotion to his country. The addresses here given represent him more as the patriotic speaker than the pulpit orator. In one he denounces slavery with all the wrath of fire; in another he portrays the evil of compromise of principle; here he defines the modes and duties of emancipation; there he emphasizes the conditions of a restored Union; and in all the undercurrent of a transparent loyalty is strong and impetuous. Fortunately, the addresses he delivered in England and Scotland during the American Rebellion, in which his courage is at the front, and which terrified the English throne, are here reproduced, giving the reader a glimpse of the greatness of the man in emergencies such as tested his fidelity to conviction, and his heroism in the presence of foes. While these addresses do not reveal all of Mr. Beecher's resources, they are the open door to his inner life, the true life of honor, patriotism, and morality, and as such must be prized by the American citizen and the uncritical Christian. Mr. Howard's review of Mr. Beecher's personality and political work is impartial and thorough, enabling us to understand the great preacher without asking very many questions, and, as it reveals him in his positive and negative aspects, we can see how human he was, and yet what a tower of humanity he also was as he stood among men. The publication of these addresses will revive the memory of his life, and preserve it over to the generations to come.

Martin Luther: His Life and Work. By PETER BAYNE, LL.D. In two volumes. 8vo. Vol. 1, pp. 518; vol. ii, pp. 583. London, Paris, New York: Cassell & Co. Price, cloth, $2 50 per volume.

At last a standard work on the divinely called German leader of the Protestant epoch in Europe has appeared, containing not only the biography of the reformer, but also an historical and, as it progresses, a philosophical portraiture of the great Reformation, with the causes that invoked it and the permanency of the work accomplished by it. Granting that other men, strong and true, assisted in the separation of more than one European people from the dominion of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, Luther was the genius of the movement, and intensified it by a personal force wanting in his associates and all other helpers. Without him the Reformation had not been; yet with him it was sometimes compromised, if not enfeebled, by a harshness of method and a narrowness of Scripture interpretation, as the ground of his independence, that repelled not a few of

the devoted adherents of the providential emancipation. In an estimate of that mighty revolution that threatened the overthrow of Catholic influence every-where, the infirmities of leadership must be forgotten in the magnificent courage of those at the front and their unchangeable purpose to prosecute the undertaking to completion. Whatever personal disqualifications one may discover in the lives of such men for such work, there is no wavering of faith, no vacillation of purpose, no uncertainty as to the result in their minds, or in those of their followers. The enthusiasm of the Reformation was a quenchless fire that consumed in its spread the opposition of the foe, and it never expired while its leader led or lived. Dr. Bayne, unlike Köstlin, D'Aubigné, Von Ranke, and other biographers, exalts Luther in his supervision of the movement until he stands out as the commanding general of a nation's army, or as a veritable pope of a new and prophetic-born Church. In this scheme of exaltation his coadjutors occupy subsidiary relations, and seem to accomplish less than other historians have attributed to them. As the one rises into conspicuous authority the others sink into commonplace, or assigned, positions. This distribution of influence is occasioned by the endeavor of the author to find the embodiment of the Protestant principle, and in none of his co-laborers is it so intensive and causative as in Luther. He is the Moses of the reform movement, eclipsing those nearest him and most serviceable to him. Besides, these volumes are written with less respect to the Reformation than to the instrument of it, which accounts in part for the conspicuous position of the great leader. By this we do not mean that one will not understand the Reformation from the reading of these volumes-for, without assuming to be historical, it is essentially an analysis, keen and discriminating, of the epoch and the movement-but that the leader will seem greater than the event, because he is more prominently recognized by the author. But, as the history of the Reformation should be rewritten, and Luther's life and character have a new avowal and vindication, we indorse these volumes, commending them to Roman Catholics, whose abuse of their foe was never equaled except by the Jews in their denunciations of Jesus; to unbelievers, who confuse all religions into a mass of absurdities, and to Christians, who may see in the rise of the day-star of the Reformation the bidding of Providence, and who may hear the words of Luther the thunderous echo of a divine messenger, robed in the garments of freedom and dwelling in the mountains of holiness.

My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps, and at the Front, during the War of the Rebellion. With Anecdotes, Pathetic Incidents, and Thrilling Reminiscences, portraying the Lights and Shadows of Hospital Life and the Sanitary Service of the War. By MARY A. LIVERMORE. Superbly Illustrated with Portraits and numerous Full-page Engravings on Steel and Fine Chromo-Lithograph Plates. 8vo, pp. 700. Hartford, Conn.: A. D. Worthington & Co. Price, cloth, $350. The above description, taken from the title-page, accurately sets forth the purpose of this volume, but it should be added that so different is it from

any other record of the war, narrating experiences and phases of military life usually relegated to hospital statistics or omitted altogether, no one's history of the national struggle for existence can be considered complete without this superb addition to his library. Nor does it merely contain new experiences of a nurse; it is practically a new history of the great conflict: not a philosophic analysis of the causes that incited it, nor a technical report of its battles, nor an historian's methodical presentation of its progress; but a pathetic and yet virile revelation of the sufferings, hardships, and sacrifices of the men who ventured all for the country's safety and deliverance. It brings to light also the fact that without woman's co operation, without her philanthropy and patriotism, without the uprising of the home against the rebellion, the victory over it would have been delayed, and perhaps never secured. To the heroic women of the land, as well as to the soldiers in the field and the statesmen at the head of affairs, does the united country owe an imperishable debt of gratitude and love. Mrs. Livermore writes as one speaking with authority. Intimately related to the Sanitary Commission, her husband a journalist, she herself a nurse in camp and on the field, having access to the official documents required to verify her statements, and personally acquainted with President Lincoln and the prominent generals of the war, besides having a thorough knowledge of the hospital service and of the Northern spirit of sympathy with the suffering, she was abundantly qualified to prepare the book now issued by the house herein named. On their own account the publishers have introduced many battle-flag plates into the volume, giving the reader an idea of the flags captured from the Confederates as well as of the flags that floated over and cheered the armies of the North. It is sufficient to say that he who is still interested in the method of his country's salvation from slavery and disunion will linger over these pages with tears and a renewed devotion to the cause of human liberty and progress.

The Chief Periods of European History. Six Lectures Read in the University of Oxford in Trinity Term, 1885. With an Essay on Greek Cities Under Roman Rule. By EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M. A., Honorary D.C.L., and LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern History, Fellow of Oriel College, Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. 8vo, pp. 250. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Price, cloth, $2 50.

While Europe may be observed with an intellectual opera-glass from many stand-points, the distinguished lecturer was fortunate in choosing the Roman power as the center of his inquiry, first considering Europe prior to Roman influence in its affairs, then recognizing the sovereignty of that influence, and afterward tracing its downfall and extinction. The student will be profoundly impressed with the contrast drawn between Roman pre-eminence in Lecture II and the Romeless world in Lecture VI, an illustration of the rise and fall of the greatest national power in history. As a repository of facts the book is superior and trustworthy; in the grouping of facts in their historical relations and in the political and moral lessons the events are made to teach, or at least suggest, the

author displays a high order of literary skill; in the clearness of his purpose and the orderly method of its development he equals Guizot, which is sufficient commendation; and in the recognition of other empires, with the elements of their strength, he is generous, yet withal critical, but ever true to the current of time. More of this kind of literature is coveted by students of historic phenomena.

The Story of Media, Babylon, and Persia. Including a Study of the Zend-Avesta, or Religion of Zoroaster, from the Fall of Nineveh to the Persian War. By ZÉNAIDE A. RAGOZIN, Member of the "American Oriental Society;" of the "Société Ethnologique" of Paris; Associate of the "Victoria Institute," of London, etc. 12mo, pp. 447. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Price, cloth, $1 50. An Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages (375-814), By EPHRAIM EMERTON, Ph.D., Professor of History in Harvard University. 16mo, pp. 268. Boston: Ginn & Co. Price, cloth, $1.

Institutes of Christian History. An Introduction to Historic Reading and Study. By A. CLEVELAND COXE, Bishop of Western New York. 12mo, pp. 328. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. Price, cloth, $150.

In the first of these books we have a compressed but elegantly written history of three great empires, with their wars and religions, that filled the eye of the world for many centuries. The chief events here detailed, commencing with the battle of Megiddo, B. C. 609, and ending with the battle of Marathon, B. C. 490, relate to the rise and development of the religion of Zoroaster and Aryan myths, of a series of migrations and the presence of foreign influence, of the old question of the "balance of power," transferred in modern times from Asia to Europe; of civil and foreign wars, and of the internal growth and decay of the capital cities of these kingdoms. The author is more than a compiler; he assimilates history into current form, and is entertaining and instructive.

Professor Emerton might have expanded his Introduction a hundred pages more without destroying its character or interfering with his plan. As it is, the book is a thinly clad skeleton, with bones protruding where there should be blood and muscle. Still it is acceptable, because it is a sign of the resources behind it.

Bishop Coxe, in the excusable guise of an "Introduction," has written absolute history, embellishing it with rich comments, and so avoiding the partisan spirit as to commend the work to Christian students generally. Preferring Church history in the concrete, and eager to follow writers not of our guild who unravel the intricacies of religious development from the earliest times, we turned to this book with hope, and have not been disappointed.

Dissolving Views in the History of Judaism. By Rabbi SOLOMON SCHINDLER, of the Temple Adath Israel in Boston. 12mo, pp. 340. Boston: Lee & Shepard. New York: Charles T. Dillingham. Price, cloth, $1 50.

The learned rabbi holds that Judaism is an historical illustration of the law of evolution, in that it developed from a germ to its present state, and has assumed a new appearance upon every new stage of development. Disavowing the theory that religion was a concrete somewhat delivered