ttbe literar)2 ~uibe

A RATIONALIST REVIEW.

[ESTABLISHED f885.]

No. 4. (NEW SER IF-S. )

MONTHLY j TWOPENCE.

1Hew ~ublications.

THE new issue of Tlte Agnostic Allllual will contain, as its leading attraction, a lengthy and profoundly interesting paper by Mr. Joseph McCabe (lately Father Antony, F.S.O.) on "From Rome to Rationalism," being an account of his mental experiences previous to his renunciation of ecclesiastical dogma. Mr. J. Allanson Picton, in "Theology and State Schools," \ViII expose the latest organized hypocrisy ; Mr. Amos Waters will expound" Agnosticism in All egory j" Dr. Bithell will indicate" Hindrances to Rationalist Propaganda·" Mr. Charles Watts will make an important pronounc~ment "To Orthodox Christians j" Mr. F. J. Gould will furni sh a report of "An Early Christian Meeting j" Mr. W. Stewart Ross will contribute a characteristic poem ; Mr. Charles T. Gorham will deal with" Immortality and its Relation to Conduct j" Julian, the brilliant heterodox critic, will chronicle" The Progress of Religious Thought j" and Mr. George Anderson (late M.P. for Glasgow) will contribute a prose poem.

MR. EDWARD CLODD is preparing for publication a book to be entitled pioneers of E volution, from Tltales to HlIx ley. As the titl e implies, the work will deal with th e origin of the evolution idea among the early Greek philosophers, and with its revival in modern times, when the far-reaching and all-round significance of the theory is becoming clearer. The arrest of the intellectual advance by the intrusion of theological dogma, which assumed the sufficie ncy of Scripture and the CEcumenical Councils to explain matters which li e within the domain of science, forms the subject of an intermediate chapter. The book will be issued early in 18

97.

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MR. WALTER SCOTT IS a mg to IS cott I rary, emg the hundredth volume of this series, The Poetry of the Celtic Races alld OIlier Essays, by Ernest Renan. The" other essay~" include "Islamism an~ Science,."." The Deity of the Bourgeois," "Intolerance In Scepticism," "Marcus Aurelius," and " Spinoza."

THE publication of Mr. G. J. Holyoake's new volume on Secularism is deferred till November, in order to arrange for its concurrent publication in England and America.

THE Soutlt Place Magazim is to be reissued in an enlarged form . . The fi~s t nu~ber,. which will be ready immediately, Will contam contnbutIOns by Dr. Moncure D. Con way and Mr. F. J. Gould, and also an article on the late Alfred Novello by Mr. C. D. Collet.

M ESSRS. CASSE LL & Co. will publish in the autumn a work by Mr. Ed\Vard B. Poulton, entitled Charles Danvin and tlte Theory of Natural Selection.

MESSRS. KEGAN PAUL have added to their English and Foreign Philosophical Library an Introductioll to Sociology, written by Arthur Fairbanks.

MR. T. W. ARNOLD, a scholar who has made a special study of the Mohammedan religion, has written a book entitled The Preaching of Islam. Mr. Arnold will probably be found to controvert in a considerable measure the generally-accepted conc lusion that Islam owes its position to the sword rather than to the missionary of peace.

TH E second volume of Professor Bury's edition of Gibbon is issued.

MESSR . LONGMAN announce the early publication of a work hy the Rev. F. W. Formby, entitled Education and Moderll Secularism.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN have issu ed A n Outline of Psychology, by Edward Bradford Titchener.

PROFESSOR M. J A TROW'S work on TIle Religion of A lI ci{!1lt B aby /on is nearly through the pres s. The same scholar has undertaken a volume to form an introduction to the study of religion for" The Contemporary Science Series," edited by Mr. Havelock Ellis.

MR. H ERBE RT SPENCER is busily at work on his new volume, The Princip les of Sociology, which will be ready early in November.

TH E multiplic ity of other works announced we shall duly record as they a re published.

Christian Ethics. Eight lectures preached before the University ot

Oxford in the year 1895, on the Foundation of the la te Rev. John Bampton, r. I. A., Canon of Salisbury. By Thomas B. Strong, M.A. (Longmans.) 380 pp.; 14s. THE Christian Church is altering its point of view. It sees in Jesus less and less of the wonder-worker, more and more of the ethical teacher. And in Christianity it finds not so much a schedule of beliefs as a call to righteousness. The change is a benign one j the tendency altogether hygi enic for (as Bunyan would say) the City of Mansoul. These latest Bampton Lectures furnish a pleasing index to the advance of the ethical temper in the field of theology. Yet, all unconsciously, Mr. Strong powerfully illustrates the inevitable divergence between the original method of Christianity and the method of the modern divine. The early gospel made its appeal direct; and if, for a moment, the preacher fell back on argument and precedent, it was always with his eye fixed on the face of the unbeliever who needed awakening, or the convert who needed strengthening. Here is the method of Jesus :-

No man can . erve two masters ; for eith er he will hate the one and love the other, or el e he will hold to one and despise the oth er. Ye cannot se rve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall cat, or what ye shall drink ; nor yet for your body, what ye shall pu t on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment ? Behold th e birds of the heaven, that they sow not, nor ga th er into barns, and your heavenly }'aUler feeds them. Are not ye of much more value than they ? . This is the method of Paul :-

Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual restore such a one in the sp iri t of meekness; looking to thy. self, lest th ou also be tempted. Bear ye one a nother's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ ..... God is not mocked; for what oever a man sows that ha ll he al 0 rea p. For he that sow unto his own fl esh shall of the fl esh reap corru ption; but he that sows unto th e Spiri t sha ll of the Spirit reap eternal life. And this is the method of the Bampton lecturer:-

Through all time a single issue has been placed before men an issue which the Christian fai th expresses as an alterna tive between Christ and th e world . The challenge and the appeal of the world comes in various fo rms, but it always means ultimat ely th e .same thing. It is an appeal to prefer the lower to the hig.her, the matenal ~o the spiritual, the transi. tory to the eternal. .[n ancient days the chOice was di ffi cult, for there was a haze of unce rta1l1ty over all that lay beyond the verification of the senses. But in the presence of the fact s of the Incarnation, Rcsurrec· tion, and Ascension, thi s un certainty disappears. These facts. because th ey-are facts, an? .not ~erely a.spirations or hopes, give its speci~J colour to the Chnsllan View of life. Without them we fall back 10