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BOOKS: CRITIQUES AND NOTICES.

SELECTIONS.

THE quantitative list of books includes all; the qualitative list the following: The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia; Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament, by O. S. Stearns, D.D.; The Ancient World and Christianity, by E. D. Pressensé, D.D.; The Credentials of Science the Warrant of Faith, by JOSIAH P. Cooke, LL.D., and The Aryan Race, by Charles Morris.

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE.

A Religious Encyclopædia; or, Dictionary of Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology. Based on the Real-Encyklopädie of Herzog, Plitt, and Hauck. Edited by PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D., Professor in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. Associate Editors: Rev. SAMUEL M. JACKSON and Rev. D S. SCHAFF. Vol. I. Revised Edition. 8vo, pp. 847. New York: The Christian Literature Co. Price, cloth, $3. Encyclopedic literature is self-expansive and almost without limitation. That it may be available, circumscription is a necessity, or its resources, however valuable, will be stored away unused and without influence. The opus magnum of Dr. Herzog originally consisted of twenty-two volumes, a monument of industry and of the comprehensive mind of its author. Dr. Schaff, knowing that the American reader will have no use for so exhaustless a work, proposes wisely to reproduce the mammoth Encyclopedia in three volumes, of which the above is the first. The American work, however, is not a translation, and it is something more than a condensation, of the German work, though the two are intimately related. Without the consent of the German author the American edition would be impossible; but Dr. Schaff, seeking adaptation to American needs, has not only eliminated a vast quantity of unnecessary material, but added much original matter, and abbreviated the borrowed articles, so that the volume is almost substantially his own. He might not claim so much for himself, but others recognize the adopted paternity of the Encyclopedia in the distinguished American editor.

As a proof of its special merit, we note the valuable assistance rendered the editor by a host of eminent writers in America, England, and Germany, and that in its revised form it contains the latest information on all subjects discussed without regard to theories or the bias of public opinion or of the writers themselves. It is gratifying also that with commendable liberality controversial issues are presented in no one-sided fashion, but by thinkers of opposite faiths, furnishing the reader antipodal views of great themes and great theologies.

The scholarship of the volume is self-evident, scarcely an article of any length failing to exhibit the researchful spirit of the writer and to satisfy the inquisitive demand of the reader. To this general statement, however, an exception or two may be offered. Whatever the explanation, it

is singular that less than one-half page is devoted to the word "Bible," while more than an entire page is given to "Ministerial Education," and that nearly as much space is granted to the "Donatists" as to the "Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity." Quite often, indeed, obscure reformers, martyrs, leaders, and theologians obtain a larger biographical exposition than the more pronounced moral heroes of the centuries. But. the examiner and user of this volume will not depreciate it because here and there it may not harmonize with his conception of an encyclopedia, or because it contains as many congested as depleted representations of subjects in which he is interested. On the whole, the editor's conception of his work is superior to the average reader's conception, if such reader has any conception at all; and this Encyclopedia, somewhat exclusive in its sphere, and shaped in an American mold, is just such a thesaurus of biblical and ecclesiastical learning as ministers and laymen will appreciate more and more as they will use it.

My Religion. By Count L. N. TOLSTOÏ. Translated from the French by HUNTINGTON SMITH. 12mo, pp. 274. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. Cloth, $1. Nine years ago Count Tolstoï, enlightened by the Sermon on the Mount, accepted Jesus as the only teacher, and the doctrine therein taught as the only religion. In his enthusiasm for the new-found truth he turned interpreter, went astray in judgment, and began at once to offer as a panacea for the world's strifes and woes a theory of life Jesus never propounded, and which, sacredly beautiful because it is the product of a deep-toned sincerity, is impracticable and impossible of realization in the social state. In so far as the Count proposes the cultivation of the virtues and graces of character, in particular the sympathetic and philanthropic tendencies, he is in line with Jesus, who came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; but the object of ministering, the final and absolute result of self-sacrifice, he entirely overlooks, or fails to perceive. The principles of non-resistance, equal social rights, love of enemies, charitable judgment of others, and a refined and gracious humanity in life, Jesus, with limitations or explanations, announced and enforced; but these are the lower strata of divine truth, and are valuable only as they interact with or are proleptic of the highest revelations of infinite wisdom. In this lower realm of study and exegesis the Count is found, using grammars, lexicons, revising and paraphrasing texts, and constructing a religious creed—the thing he seems to abhor in the Church —that only a fanatic will indorse and an insane man attempt to execute. His sociology, apparently grounded in Jesus, is at variance with all legitimate textual criticism, and in effect would be anarchical, overwhelming society, with its cities, governments, churches, arts, and sciences, in complete ruin. To charge Jesus with anarchism is what not even the gloomiest pessimist has ever dared to do; and to suppose this doctrine will prevail is to estimate civilization as absurd, unconscious, and maniacal. Count Tolstof has, first, misunderstood and perverted the ethical and social doctrines of Jesus; second, though not ignoring (p. 125) he 20-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. V.

quite fails to distinguish the spiritual doctrine of regeneration from his ethical conception of life, and therefore does not see that the religion of Jesus is at root in contrariety with his superficial and self-destructive socialism. His charge (p. 221) that the Church confesses the doctrine of Jesus, but denies it in practice, is both false and true: false, in that the Church does not confess that anarchism is the doctrine of Jesus; true, in that it denies it in practice. For this reason the Count both renounces and denounces the Church, particularly the Orthodox Greek Church, or the national Establishment of Russia. My Religion is the outburst of a morbid mind, to be carefully read as the expression of an ideal resistance to social oppression, and as another illustration of the tendency to read into the simplicities of Jesus a philosophy foreign to them and destructive of them.

Eternal Atonement. By Roswell Dwight HITCHCOCK. D.D., LL.D., Late President, and Washburn Professor of Church History in the Union Theological Seminary. 12mo, pp. 306. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Price, cloth, $1 50. This is not a learned theological discussion of the great doctrine of atonement, but a number of sermons on various subjects, the first giv ing title to the book, the whole having been carefully selected from the portfolio of the author for posthumous publication. In the leading sermon he declares that atonement is not, as prevalent opinion maintains, simply an historic fact, but, like election, is an eternal act, and necessarily so, as all divine realities are eternal. This may well be controverted from Arminian grounds, but the author shall confuse, if not refute. himself. He candidly affirms that unconditional election- an unpreachable dogma in these days-requires eternal atonement for its support. Exactly; that is, in order to justify election the atonement is made to run away from its post-historic manifestation in Christ and become a prehistoric, pre-Adamic, pre-mundane doctrine, or the imbecile system of predestination falls to pieces. Again, atonement surely has reference to sin, and to sin not in prospect, but sin actual, or it is a provision in advance for ruin; but an advanced or proleptic atonement could only exist abstractly in the divine mind, which is no more the concrete thing than the plan of a ship in the shipwright's mind is the ship. The conception of the atonement is one thing; its execution is another, and was a time-act. If atonement were eternal, as a fact, it must have been for evil, as a fact; but Dr. Hitchcock strangely avers that "moral evil is not eternal;" hence, atonement preceded evil, instead of evil preceding atonement and rendering it necessary.

Many of these sermons, all too brief for thorough treatment of their subjects, are rich in suggestions, offering truth in available forms, and clearly revealing the thinker, the believer, and the teacher. It is not certain that the author intended them for the press, as he was averse to using printer's ink for himself, and destroyed a few years ago the greater portion of his manuscripts. However, it is instructive to trace his historic sense in such a sermon as "The Witness of History to Christianity;"

his religious training in "Religion, the Doing of God's Will," and "Life Through Death;" his benevolent spirit in "Receiving and Giving;" and his ecclesiastical views in a charge to an evangelist and another to a pastor. Fragments for the greater part, they indicate the bent, the spiritual economy, and the theological absorption of the mind that produced them, and should be read attentively and with discrimination.

The Boyhood of Christ. By LEW WALLACE, Author of Ben Hur and The Fair God. Illustrated. 8vo, pp. 101. New York: Harper & Brothers. Price,

morocco, $350.

In the guise of a story-teller General Wallace disposes of many apocryphal accounts and traditions respecting the boy-life of Christ. These accounts, originating with the early Christian Fathers, were promptly multiplied by their successors, and, through a process of accretion in the hands of the Roman traditionists, were rendered unworthy of recital and impossible of belief. Not a tale-monger, however pious himself or humorous his purpose, could claim that a single story told had any basis in the gospels; but he invented out of circumstances, hints, or the supposed necessities of boyhood in general just what he presumed, regarding Christ as incarnate power and wisdom, might have happened. It is needless to say that the author brushes these aside as superstitions no longer in circulation, or at least as without hospitality in Protestantism. Taking up the New Testament notices of the youthful Christ, and assuming a self-disclosing supernaturalism at a very early period in his life, he reaches the conclusion that Christ in the human sense had no boyhood experiences, trials, and disciplines, and therefore none were given by his biographers. It settles once for all the problem of the boyhood of Christ. In mechanical outfit, paper, binding, type, illustrations, and general appearance the book excels, and is as ornamental as it is useful.

The Ancient World and Christianity. By E. de PRESSENSÉ, D.D., Author of The Early Years of Christianity, A Study of Origins, etc. Translated by ANNIE HARWOOD HOLMDEN. 8vo, pp. 479. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son.

Price, cloth, $1 75.

In this volume Dr. Pressensé brings the Protestant world under obligation to him for a faithful portraiture of the religions of antiquity, as the underlying forces of the ancient civilizations, and as so many directive preparations for the mightier and holier religion in Jesus Christ. It is doubtful if the French defender of the Christian faith has produced a work of greater value, or one that better discloses the amplitude of his researches, than the present volume. Prior to the appearance of the Galilean Teacher many religions had undertaken the pilotage of the Oriental nations into an acquaintance with things unseen and unknown, notably those of the Accadians, Egyptians, Phenicians, Aryans, Hindus, Hellenic pagans, and Roman statesmen; but while the failure in every instance was conspicuous the author has found in many of the venerable systems of the ancient period the germs of truth, and such symptoms of spiritual hope as to justify him in regarding them as antecedents of the

culmination reached nearly nineteen centuries ago. He considers with much patience the Chaldean story of creation, the root ideas of the religion of Egypt after prehistoric times, the religion of Zoroaster, with its absence of sacerdotalism and asceticism, the three phases of the religion of the Vedas, the Messiah of the Indian epics, the development and transformation of primitive Buddhism, the Greek cultus and the stand of the Greek conscience, the naturalistic basis of Roman faith, and its rapid decadence in the time of Augustus, the social and moral condition of the Greco-Roman world at the coming of Christ, and the rising of the Sun of Righteousness over that dark world of ignorance, corruption, and death. From this outline the reader will understand that the book is rather on other and older religions than Christianity, the latter having only incidental treatment, or reference as a resultant or consummation of human history under providential guidance in the day of Emanuel. Its skillful handling of old histories, and its rigid resistance of scientific criticism of Christianity by the discovery of similar truths in the old faiths and their preservation and development under the laws of continuity and evolution, render it a powerful auxiliary in the general defense of the religion of the Bible. Its use is, therefore, recommended.

The Training of the Twelve; or. Passages out of the Gospels Exhibiting the Twelve Disciples of Jesus Under Discipline for the Apostleship. By ALEXANDER BALMAIN BRUCE, D. D., Professor of Apologetics and New Testament Exegesis, Free Church College, Glasgow; Author of The Humiliation of Christ, The Parabolic Teaching of Christ, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels, etc. Fourth Edition, Revised and Improved. 8vo, pp. 552. New York: A. C. Armstrong & Son. Price, cloth, $2 50.

That the "twelve" were specifically disciplined or educated for apostleship is contrary to general opinion; but the reverend author scripturally and unanswerably maintains that, with Jesus as instructor, they were individually taught all the truth, and were trained in all the duties necessary to the fulfillment of their high and sacred office. Unlearned fishermen, as some of them were, they were apt students, and susceptible of supernatural impression. Possessed of natural prejudices, as other men, and narrowed by Galilean custom or hardened by Judaic law and restraint, they were not in the beginning the most promising candidates for leaders of a mighty revolution soon to be inaugurated by the Master; but under his insinuating teaching and fostering truth as it dawned upon them they grew into apostles before the eyes of men. If with temporary reluctance they resisted some of the early suggestions of the Teacher, and were at times bold enough to attempt to instruct him, they at last yielded to every utterance and incorporated his dying messages into their lives. Eagerly they learned the lessons of prayer, humility, religious liberty, toleration, self-sacrifice, and the law of discipleship; and as the Teacher broadened in his didactics, centering all things in the cross as the symbol of life and truth, they were contagiously affected and baptized into the spirit of the Master. Such is the import of this book, and as a mnemonic of Christ's teaching and a criterion of apostleship it is most valuable. Less

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