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stood without moving. I could not turn my eyes away from him. What thoughts must be passing through his soul, what feelings through his heart, which, after all, was, as I knew, a good and soft heart?"

Is there not some encouragement to trust that we are approaching, however slowly, the day on which the nations will beat their swords into ploughshares, when we find such a noble plea for peace and universal disarmament as is Lay Down Your Arms, issued to an attentive international public by the daughter of an Austrian field-marshal?

The first volume of Dr. Kent's

STUDENT'S OLD TESTA- text of the Old Testament,* ar

MENT.

ranged according to the documentary hypothesis, gives promise that the completed work in six volumes will be a precious help to the student, and even to the general reader, of the literature of the chosen people. This initial installment gives the narrative of Hebrew history from the creation to the establishment of the monarchy under Saul. We may say, therefore, that, however important the later sections will be, the one before us will prove the most interesting and valuable of the entire series. The body of the book is simply the biblical text arranged in columns according as the passage falls under the Jehovistic, Elohistic, Deuteronamic, or Priestly documents. At the bottom of the page are a few brief notes; an extended introduction explains the documentary theory in simple language; and finally there is an appendix of utmost value, containing translations of those Babylonian texts which are considered to have influenced early Jewish thought and religion. Among these texts are the astounding flood-story of the Gilgamesh epic, the creation account of which Marduk is the hero, and the Adapa myth found in the tablets at Tel-elAmarna.

Speaking first of the general scope and purpose of the work, we would call attention to the great value that it possesses merely as patting some of the main conclusions of higher criticism within the reach of the ordinary reader. We need not necessarily be in sympathy with all, or even with any, of those conclusions to acknowledge the advantage of thus pos

* The Student's Old Testament. Vol. I. Narratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew History. By Charles Foster Kent. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The only

sessing them in accessible and convenient form. other similar presentations of the entire Old Testament text at present within the grasp of the reader who does not know German, are the volumes of the polychrome Bible now issuing. One advantage at least over the polychrome Dr. Kent's series can claim, and that is on the score of cheapness. Our second general remark would be a word of praise to Dr. Kent for having an eye for the religious setting of the Hebrew narratives, for having followed the religiongeschichtliche Methode, so far as his plan permitted, and having put us in touch, both in the appendix already spoken of, and here and there in the footnotes, with those religious conceptions of Babylon and Egypt which are likely to have tinged the thought of Pales tine. We trust that the learned editor will pursue this method in his later volumes, which will deal with Hebrew literature in the Persian and Greek periods.

Coming down to a matter of detail, we regret that Dr. Kent arranged the biblical text in parallel columns. This not only makes difficult reading, but necessitates great gaps and transpositions, which cause a reader to turn frequently to the index of texts in order to find the position of this or that verse which he may wish to look up. And as for gaps in the narrative, we need only mention that the Book of the Covenant is not given in this volume at all; and we are told that we must wait for the fourth volume before we find it. We understand the reason why it is placed thus late; but it would have been wise, we think, to include it with the rest of Exodus in this volume, and then print it again in the volume devoted to laws. The best practical way, we are inclined to think, for publishing the text according to documents, is the German manner of giving the text just as it occurs in the Bible, and using different type for the various sources. Perhaps some very exacting critics will raise the further objection that this volume gives only the great divisions of the documents and hardly recognizes the successive redactions which criticism in some quarters is loudly proclaiming. While we admit some force in this objection, we are not desirous of making much of it. We feel sure that the work as it is, will do a better service to critical scholarship by thus avoiding bewildering technicalities, in which after all there is a great deal of conjecture.

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In conclusion, we would gratefully acknowledge the service that Dr. Kent is here doing for the cause of biblical scholarship, both by the rich learning which he brings to his task, and by the gentle temper with which he accomplishes it. We shall look forward with pleasant expectations to the reading of the future volumes of this series.

CATHERINE DE' MEDICI.
By Sichel.

This is a series of connected studies of personages, chiefly women, conspicuous in the early history of French Protestantism. The gifted

writer, whose reputation as a minor historian-if we may borrow a phrase which she applies to herself-has been established by her Women and Men of the French Revolution, presents, here, the results of much research in out-of-the-way paths, and much plodding through old memoirs, documents and books, which have received but little recognition from the historians who have aimed at a comprehensive narrative of the times. She has made good use of her materials; and her picturesque pages are evidence that the current dictum, history is no longer a science, but an art, is to be received with some reservations. Though her work consists chiefly of a few brilliant portraits, she incidently passes in review almost all the soldiers, statesmen, and religious leaders of the time, as well as the dynamic ideas and tendencies that met in the shock of events. Nor is any tour de force needed to bring under observation all the great features of the early stage of French Protestantism, when we are forming an estimate of Catherine de' Medici and her rival Diana, Grande Sénéchale de Rouen, the Princesse de Condé, and Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. If there is some ground for questioning whether the following view may be received as universally true, its accuracy regarding this period of French history is beyond dispute: "Every movement has its person; its representative; and since men are entangled in actions, and actions disguise motives, it is in the women, the clear mirrors of current feelings and tendencies, that integral types of an age will be found. In Italy the prevailing corruption was so subtly interwoven with poetry, its women were surrounded by so rich a glamor, that real outlines are hard to distinguish; but in France, with its brilliant scepticism, its dry, scintillating

* Catherine De' Medici and the French Reformation. By Edith Sichel. With twelve Illustrations. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

atmosphere of matter-of-factness, types stand out as crisp as French aphorisms. In France, therefore, we shall not be slow to find figures that sum up whole periods; women who are, as it were, epigrams expressive of profound experience." The book contains photogravures from famous portraits.

FRANCISCAN LEGENDS.
By Salter.

The student of history knows the

deep impression made upon thirteenth century Italy by the Poor Man of Assisi, and the student of

art finds in the paintings of the period a most remarkable evidence of the purity of the inspiration which flowed from St. Francis. The volume before us at present is the summing up of travels made in Central Italy, the home of the Franciscan movement, and of studies carried on in the literature of Franciscan art. For one who has visited that land of poetry and picture, or for one who looks forward hopefully to an approaching visit, or even for one who has felt the fascination of the story of St. Francis, this book contains much that is attractive. The writer has given a sketch of the salient points of the saint's life, and a fairly complete account of the various legends and the paintings which represent them; and has added a reproduction of some twenty of the more famous pictures. The volume is further enlarged with an interesting table of the painters who have been more or less identified with Franciscan art, and with a few pages of directions to travelers intending to include in their pilgrimages such places as Gubbio and Montefalco. The illustrations of the volume are well chosen and very well reproduced.

WORDS OF ST. FRANCIS.
By MacDonnell.

In a little book,† which makes no attempt to go into scholarly questions concerning the authenticity of the various works from which selections are taken, Miss MacDonnell tries to reflect something of the spirit and temperament of St. Francis for the benefit of the modern reader. The prevalence of the attraction to the Saint of Assisi felt throughout the world to-day gives reason

* Franciscan Legends in Italian Art. Pictures in Italian Churches and Galleries. By Emma Gurney Salter. With Twenty Illustrations. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.; London: J. M. Dent & Co.

The Words of St. Francis from his Works and the Early Legends. Selected and Translated by Anne MacDonnell. London: J. M. Dent & Co.; New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.

to believe that a welcome will be accorded this new contribution to the body of literature growing up around the personality of St. Francis and gradually assuming such vast proportions. The editor sets aside all doctrinal considerations, that is to say, endeavors to select passages which bear on practical topics and matters of conduct rather than on theology. This will probably help to commend these pages to a wider circle of readers, and on that account to introduce some very lofty and unusual ideals to the notice of persons outside the fold to which St. Francis belonged. When one contrasts the message brought by St. Francis to his age with the faults and weaknesses common in our own day, one is drawn to hope and to pray that the Providence which sent him into the world will again commission some holy soul to revive forgotten devotion to sacred poverty and evangelical simplicity..

THE KING'S ACHIEVE-
MENT.
By Benson.

In this historical romance Father Benson, who in By What Authority? set before us, with fine dramatic force, the third act in the fateful and bloody drama of the

English Reformation, now treats us to the first, the suppression of the monasteries and the proclamation of the Royal supremacy in religious affairs. Those who have read his fine story, with its vivid picture of Elizabethan times and doings, need not be told that, together with the imagination and the constructive art requisite to produce a powerful piece of fiction, Father Benson possesses the minute historical knowledge requisite to give a true and vivid picture of life in Tudor times. There is a slender thread of continuity between the fictitious characters of the present story and its predecessor. Stout old Sir Nicholas is here a young man; and Mistress Margaret, the ancient nun of By What Authority? is here a young postulant, who in her novitiate is turned out of her convent by the king's visitor. This visitor, by the way, is her brother, who turns his back upon the religion of his fathers to seek fame and fortune by assisting his master, Thomas Cromwell, to render to Cæsar the things that are God's. Cromwell, Fisher, Sir Thomas More, and, of course, Henry himself, all pass before us, very live and real, in Father Benson's pages. We get

*The King's Achievement. By Robert Hugh Benson. St. Louis: B. Herder.

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