diately preceding, the "Resurrection-body" is spoken of as material, indeed, but invisible, like the ether in the crystal. To take one more instance: the author lays great stress on the distinction of the spirit from the animal soul; the latter he regards as common to all that lives, the former as a distinct and separate creation. But if the animal life of man may be rightly regarded as developed from other and lower organisms, is it not better to look upon the spirit as developed from the natural or psychic life, and to regard the whole process as the action of the Divine Nature immanent in His works? There are in these sermons, besides their direct teaching, many felicitous and suggestive expressions. The doctrine of Pelagius is described as the assertion "that every man had a fair start." Moral evil is spoken of as the grit in the cogs of the machine; and the teaching of the sermon on Sin, to which special attention may be called, may be summed up in the expression, "Sin is a negative in action;" or, "One tempted to sin says in effect, I want to act as I should do if I were a mere animal.' The answer is, 'But you are not this.' There is throughout a noble, disinterested spirit, and a true value for the higher life of man, such as is indicated, by the expression-" Gold is but the road metal of the celestial city." If Professor Bonney has not solved all the questions he has treated, he will have helped many to a solution. We cannot hear much longer of the antagonism of Religion and Science when so competent a judge can write the words "To my mind, the dif ference between an ordinary event and a miracle is one of degree, not of kind. Knowing no other force in Nature but God, the fall of a stone and the resurrection of Christ appear equally the result of law, or equally the result of miracle." MR R. CRAUFURD'S Sermons are truly, as he wishes them to be regarded, the utterances of a liberal Christianity. In his Preface he cuts himself free from the dogmatic systems of the past, and equally from the merely scientific view of life, but determines to accept the good of each. Science and theology," he says, "the masculine and feminine elements, have between them begotten and brought forth a strange, precocious child, called liberal Christianity, whose odd ways and eccentric habits make its father and mother both inclined to regard it with indignant amaze. ment, and declare that it cannot possibly be theirs." The Sermons are the expression of genuine conviction, and their theology is that of Maurice and Robertson, Erskine and Campbell. If liberal Christianity has at times been cold and negative, no such charge could be made against these Sermons. They express the sense of a great need, and their liberality consists in the consciousness of the greatness and many-sidedness of the Redeeming Power. The author places himself amongst the lowest, at one time almost among the last, "in some remote and cheerless colony of God's world, in some hard and grim reformatory," to "learn the alphabet of holiness;" yet even in such a condition, whether in this world or the next, there is progress and hope. Faith is, indeed, even as commonly understood, the highest state; but the life of habit and reason is not godless or unsaved. The ideal Jacob and Esau have each their place. There are many who cannot follow Christ now; but they serve to help others to follow Him, and they themselves will follow Him afterwards. The rich young man, though he turned away, yet in his sadness gave the earnest of his future entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. Hence, there must be a constant protest against conventionality in religion, and the judgments which unreality and false theology pronounce must be reversed. There are many points in our present religion which are childish and must be outgrown. The world must not be frowned upon, but redeemed. The saving faith must be brought home by processes suitable to men's varying needs. There is a place for the scribes in religious teaching, but a larger one for the prophets : and the superior teaching of the Cross is not meant to crush, but to evoke and transcend, all other excellences. These and similar theses are maintained in these Sermons with much earnestness, with considerable felicity of style, and with great freshness of thought. This "seeking for light" is full of that element which the Germans term Sehnsucht, which we may call aspiration-an element which always carries with it the promise," He that seeketh findeth." N My Son, Give me thy Dr. Vaughan's Sermons. Oxford and Cambridge. writer. His style does not Heart (Macmillan & Co.), we have a new volume of with age; in some passages it is even sharp and rugged, like that of the Puritans. There is no new light shed upon any difficult questions. Dr. Vaughan has little sympathy with inquiry and none with scepticism. "The herd of sceptics," he says (p. 233), "may be led by an intellect-they have no intellect, generally speaking, of their own." He speaks constantly to young men of a struggle; but it is not the struggle to gain new truth, but to hold fast a truth well known and thoroughly explored. Of the necessity in the present day of a recasting of old ideas, of any new views or discoveries of theology, he seems to have no conception. On the other hand, the old truths are made the subject of a deductive teaching which is always impressive and edifying, often original. We may cite as a conspicuous instance of this the first sermon in this volume, on "Scorn as a Breach of the Sixth Commandment," in which the cruel and killing effects of anger, scorn, disdain, in all their phases, are vividly portrayed. There is one passage in this volume which will be treasured as almost unique, in its personal reference, in a teacher who certainly has shown a complete absence of self-consciousness in his ordinary discourses: : "I know it is lonely-few men know it better--to be thus, in deed and in truth, a man of no school and no party. To have none to cheer or to echo my sayings; to have none to say of me, 'He is a good man, a sound man, one of us;' to have to listen to truth everywhere, and to gather it out of all corners; never to be able to say-‘There, I have got it all, I have builded my house, I have hewn out its stone pillars; admire its neat construction, its fair proportions'-it is not the life of ease. Let it drive me nearer to Him whose I am. He can both whisper to me one by one His secrets, and also give me strength as my day." A VOLUME of Sermons by the author of "Recreations of a Country Parson" is always interesting. The volume entitled From a Quiet Place(C. Kegan Paul & Co.) has all his well-known characteristics. There is no great depth, but there is great common sense; and it is a curious sign of the times that sermons so little doctrinal as these should come from a Scotch pulpit. There is (no doubt from the habit of looking at religion in its bearing on the secular life) a ring of universality about them, and a recognition of good work done in all the Churches. We might specially direct attention to the sermon on "The Love of Money the Root of all Good," and that on "Getting On," preached before the University of Glasgow, in which the played by what is commonly called good fortune (so often left out in religious teaching) in worldly success is drawn out. part THE Truth as it is in Jesus, by H. T. Adamson, B.D. (C. Kegan Paul & Co.), is written in a tongue not understanded of the people,-in what the French call a patois de Canaan. Its object seems to be to exalt the power of our Lord by darkening all human prospects. The world as it at present exists lies in a shadow which is growing denser and denser. Something which is called the coming of Christ is to happen and to set all right. To some persons, no doubt, such statements have a meaning, and even bring comfort. To most they will seem a playing with words apart from facts. A POSTHUMOUS work of Charles Kingsley's True Words for Brave Men, (C. Kegan Paul & Co.), is.a collection of papers and sermons designed for Soldiers' and Sailors' Libraries. They range over many years, and have in them a ring of Crimean War, when the religious tendency represented by Kingsley started into notice. The sermons are short and vigorous. The somewhat gushing nature of the author comes out too strongly, perhaps, for the effect which is desired on rough men of action. But they have the frankness, the large sympathy, the love of Nature and of art, and of adventure by sea and land, which characterize his other works. There is at the end a lecture given to the soldiers at Aldershot on the story of Cortez, which harmonizes in a strange way with some of the scenes in the life of David, and produces on the mind some misgiving that force and boldness are upheld at the expense of justice. Perhaps the best sermon is one entitled," It is Good for the Young to Rejoice," where the prospects of life are vividly set forth as they can best be apprehended by young men, and the judgment of God in this life by the consequences of our own acts is enforced. Indeed, one remarkable feature in the work is the falling back upon Old Testament teaching in illustration of the great primary truths of religion. If Kingsley's religious teaching was sometimes deficient in calm judgment, it was always fearless and genuine-a religion for the young and the brave, to whom this volume is a legacy. III.-MODERN HISTORY. (Under the Direction of Professor S. R. GARDINER.) INCE the days of the Cumaan Sibyl there has probably never been a work of S so heedlessly world as ffistory Reign of Queen Anne (W. Blackwood and Sons). Dr. Burton has probably found out by this time that an author cannot with impunity abandon to others the unpleasant duty of correcting the press, and that if, he is from any cause compelled to do so, he should select some one who can at least spell his German and Greek quotations (i. 282, ii. 206), who will not turn the Queich on which London is situated into the Englishsounding Legh (i. 267), who does not imagine that the historian Clarendon's name was Edmund (iii. 210), or that the arrangements of a Roman bath included preparations for a holocaust (iii. 195). The parts of the book which are most attractive are the descriptions of Marlborough's campaigns, and the account of the relations between England and Scotland. It is evident that Dr. Burton has gone carefully over the ground traversed by the great captain, and he has nevertheless the self-restraint not to overload his narrative with military and topographical details. The important feature in each battle or siege is brought out with picturesque distinctness, whilst Marlborough's genius, with its happy combination of flexibility and decision, stands out prominently on the canvas. As might be expected, Dr. Burton's account of the negotiations which preceded the Union with Scotland shows the hand of a master. Yet even here there is a curious error which a little consideration would have enabled him to avoid. One of the moves in the game was an Act of the English Parliament passed in 1704, which, according to Dr. Burton (i. 166), enacted that with the exception of Scots naturalized and permanently resident within the dominions of the Crown of England, or enrolled in the fleet and army, no native of Scotland should be held to be otherwise than an alien in England. Not only is there no word in the Act itself referring to any exception of Scots naturalized in England, but, as Dr. Burton no doubt knows, when he comes to think of the matter again, the introduction of the word would have made the whole threat a ludicrous absurdity. There was no such thing in rerum naturâ as a Scot born in Scotland who was not naturalized by the fact of his birth. The real meaning of this clause is to do away with the Judgment of the Exchequer Chamber in the Post-nati case in the reign of James I., by which this right of naturalization was acknowledged. A mistake like this is suggestive of the true reason why Dr. Burton's book, in spite of the brilliancy of some of its pages, and the enormous labour which it must have cost the author to prepare it, is nevertheless on the whole a failure. Whatever else a history of Queen Anne's reign may be, it must be in the first place a part of the history of England. Dr. Burton is interested about a good many things in England, and his comparison of Scottish and English law (ch. viii.) shows that he can be just on a point in which it must be difficult for a Scotsman to be just. Buit is evident that he does not care enough for English History as a whole to qualify him for the task of writing a portion of it. His account of High Church and Low Church, of Churchmen and Dissenters, is just that which might be given by an able man who had got up the subject without being saturated with the knowledge of it. The remarkable way in which the four last years of the reign are shuffled over in thirty pages is truly marvellous, and the reader has hardly time to wonder why the author has forgotten to tell him anything whatever about the Schism Act. Dr. Burton in fact casts his jewels down at random. No connecting thought runs through the book, nothing to give coherence to its disconnected fragments. Even the easy sequence of chronology is sometimes inexplicably thrown aside. The accession of the Archduke Charles to his brother's hereditary dominions took place on April 17, 1711. As is well known, that succession rendered it no longer expedient to enforce the annexation of the Spanish to the Austrian inheritance. Consequently the Queen, on opening Parliament on December 7, announced that negotiations were opened for peace. In consequence of a hostile vote of the Lords, twelve new peers were created to swamp the Whig majority in the Upper House on December 31. The sequence of chronology is here the natural sequence of cause and effect. Yet, though Dr. Burton informs us of all these facts within the space of seven pages, he tells us of them, for no conceivable reason, in exactly the inverse order to that in which they took place. FEV NEW historical personages have enjoyed or deserved such an ideal success as Victor Emmanuel. Called to the throne when his little Piedmontese kingdom was in the lowest depths-when his father, the Hamlet of Monarchy, as Mazzini called him, could do no moree-he was never wanting to his duty to the day when as King of Italy he was borne to the grave amidst the tears of the nation which he had himself done so much to create. If the time has not yet come when it is possible to tell in full the story of the rise of Italian nationality, such a work as Mr. Godkin's Life of Victor Emmanuel II. (Macmillan & Co.) deserves to be widely read. "I thought," said M. Thiers, after his visit to the King, "I should have to do with a soldier, but I found an accomplished statesman." Mr. Godkin's book is a comment on this phrase. In it we learn to admire the patient prudence of a frank and impetuous nature, the conscientious observance of constitutional restraint by one who seemed called by character as well as by position to the exercise of arbitrary power. There is no more striking contrast than that afforded by the fates of the two allies who fought side by side at Solferino. As usual, each of the two men was the maker of his own fortune. There was no dreaminess in Victor Emmanuel, no stretching forward towards vague and unintelligible designs, no vacillating change of purpose, and, above all, no selfishness. It is impossible to conceive of him as entering upon a war for the purpose of establishing a dynasty. "I and my House would rather go to America," he was wont to say whenever any dishonourable proposal was made to him; just as William III., a sovereign whom in many respects he closely resembled, used to announce his readiness to retire to Holland. Mr. Godkin has wisely contented himself with the part of an expositor of the works of Italian writers to the English reader. His book deserves to be widely read, though it is to be hoped that when it comes to a second edition he will take the opportunity of relieving it from the numerous misprints of Italian proper names with which it is disfigured. H ISTORIANS are undoubtedly inclined to under-estimate the miseries of the Great Civil War. They tell us of battles, and sieges, and constitutional arrangements; but they fail to bring before us the daily misfortunes of private families, and the plunderings and cruelties of either party. Something of the former will be understood when, as will probably be the case before very long, a further instalment of the Verney Papers, those Paston Letters of the seventeenth century, is given to the public. More general devastations form the main subject of the Memorials of the Civil War as it Affected Herefordshire and the Adjacent Counties, written by the late Rev. J. Webb (Longmans), and edited by his son. It is not to be expected that all readers will agree with Mr. Webb in his exposition of the political bearing of the struggle; but it is pleasant to find his simple royalism accompanied by a strong desire to track out good intentions or kindly actions on the side which he believes to have been in the wrong, especially as his largeness of heart is not shared by many writers on the opposite side of the controversy. The impression left upon laying down the book is one of thankfulness that those wars were comparatively so brief in the life of the nation. Deeds of cruelty were not confined to one side or the other. The murder of Pralph, the Vicar of Torrington, by one of Massey's soldiers, was an act of sheer brutality; and the massacre by the Royalists of the garrison of Hopton Castle was as bad as anything that took place at Drogheda. Altogether, the book does more than fulfil our expectations. It brings before us, far better than any general history can hope to do, the strength and weakness of that famous generation. Amongst the documents printed in the Appendix is one which ought to be noticed, because it may, perhaps, lead some readers to a conclusion which it, in reality, fails to justify. A form of Privy Seal demanding a loan (ii. 334) is there printed as issued in the ninth year of Charles I. If this is correct, there can be no further doubt that Charles deliberately broke his engagement to observe the Petition of Rights. There is, however, nothing in the document itself to connect it with the reign of Charles, and there is every reason to believe that it was, in reality, issued by his predecessor. T is impossible to read even a few pages of France since the First Empire, by James Macdonell, edited by his wife (Macmillan & Co.), without discovering that the early death of the writer has removed from amongst us one who was capable of writing history worthily. Fragmentary and unfinished as the book is, it displays not merely deep and thoughtful study, but the far higher quality of imaginative power. Mr. Macdonell did not merely see things as they were by themselves. He saw them also in their relation to other things. Unhappily the sketch of the Republic, which was to have formed the most important part of the book, was never written. The author's belief in the firmness of the new edifice remained unshaken through all the difficulties attending on its formation. His account of the three monarchical parties, and the reasons which he gives for his conviction that they have no future before them, will be read with interest. The two chapters on the political tendencies of the Catholic Church, and the Clerical party, bring before us the real danger of the future. There can be little doubt that this danger would have been thoroughly discussed by the writer if the work had been completed. Much, however, of what he would have said may be gathered from these published pages. Mr. Macdonell refused to account for the growing Ultramontanism of the Papal system by any Jesuit intrigue, or even by the more important loss by the French clergy at the revolution of their connection with the soil. He compares the Roman Papacy of our own time with the Roman Empire in its last development. It grows in centralization, because its difficulties increase on every side. Between the type of society thus built up, and that built up by the spirit of the Revolution, there is implacable hostility:" Ultimately they will not be able to live together unless one or other should greatly change. Either Catholicism must give up its political pretensions, or the Democratic Republicans must abandon their ideals. The machinery of the Government will never work smoothly until one or other of the two belligerent minorities shall have perished, or both have been softened by indifference." Yet, Mr. Macdonell tells us, "A nation must pursue ideals and be animated by uncalculating enthusiasm, or it will soon become the stunted slave of its appetite for comfort and pleasure." If he sees the difficulty, he sees, too, the cause. The Republic has its enthusiasm, but it is not the highest: "The examples of Robespierre and Danton are not quite so inspiring as the lives of St. Francis or St. Bernard. As we reflect on that part, we must also think what might have been if priests and courts had not closed the avenues of rational devotion. It is bitter to remember what loss was inflicted on the political as well as the religious life of France when her Protestant communities were destroyed by warfare, by breach of solemn compacts, by an exodus of disastrous magnitude, by all the ages of persecution which make up the pathetic and awful records of the Huguenots. It is bitter to recall such lost possibilities in the midst of acrid impiety and unscrupulous fanaticism." From these extracts it is evident that, if Mr. Macdonell did not despair of the Republic, it was not for want of the power of appreciating the difficulties before it. It is only with much reserve that doubts can be expressed of the accuracy of portraits which have not received the last touches of the artist. Yet surely there is room, in the midst of the justly merited scorn which Mr. Macdonell pours out upon the authors of the coup d'état, for an acknowledgment that it was at least possible that Louis Napoleon may have believed himself to be acting for the good of his country as well as for his own advantage. No doubt it is difficult to conceive the state of mind to which such ideas were possible; but, for all that, minds like that of Louis Napoleon and Charles I. do exist, to plan many dishonourable actions without being aware that they are doing anything dishonourable at all. NLIKE the France of the nineteenth, or the England of the seventeenth, cen under a singular incapacity for elaborating constitutional reforms, whilst it was at the same time singularly productive of men of ability and public spirit, who were able to make the best of such imperfect constitutional arrangements as it possessed. Of one of these Mr. Geddes has undertaken to recount the life history, in The History of the Administration of John de Witt (C. Kegan Paul & Co.). It would be impossible for any one, not perfectly familiar with the historical treasures preserved in Holland, to say how far he has utilized all the materials which exist. At least, he has unearthed a large number of MS. letters from the archives of the Hague, and has made diligent use of the information to be found in Artzema and Groen van Prinsterer. It will probably be thought that he has erred in the slowness of his progress, and that his occasional imitations of Mr. Carlyle's style are a sign of weakness rather than of strength. The general result of the book is to show us how an able man may make something of the most unsatisfactory constitutional forms. When the House of Orange went astray by advocating a continuance of the war with Spain, which was no longer |