tion throughout this part is that these theories "either mistake the real nature of morality or assume the existence of moral tendencies in order to make possible the experiences by which conscience is developed." Some points here are admirably put: "The proof that there are altruis tic impulses and the description of their development does not suffice to explain the unconditioned necessity of obeying them." 'Natural selection accounts for differences in conscience, but not for conscience." "Association is simply a process, and through no manipulation of nonmoral, psychic data can a moral result be evolved."

On the other hand, Mr. Knowlton falls into the mistake of Newman Smyth in his similar argument in "The Religious Feeling," in making too much depend on the question of the derivation of conscience. The moral sense might be both simple and underived and have no authority, or it might be neither simple nor underived and still have authority. Its history does not determine its value. As at every step in evolution the essential point is the recognition that something new has appeared. Something of this Mr. Knowlton shows at times that he sees, though he does not always keep the point clear. The practical outcome, however, of his treatment is correct.

In the constructive part, with much that is excellent the author gets entangled in the difficult question of kinds of pleasure, and attempts a peculiar combination of 'ideal and hedonistic theories that is disappointing in one trained in the benevolence theory, and that seems to involve a plain reasoning in a circle. It seems strange too to find the author denying in toto all ideo-motor action. The two positions are closely connected. As a whole the book certainly gives an essentially correct estimate of the evolution theories, criticises them effectively, and defends vigorously the original native authority of the sense of obligation. It is a valuable treatment of its subject.

SAMUEL SEWALL and the World he lived in. By Rev. N. H. CHAMBERLAIN. Pp. 319. 16mo. Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co. 1897. $1.50. Samuel Sewall richly deserves a biography, and any such biography must take account of "the world he lived in," whose most faithful introduction to modern life is found in his diary. In the aggregate of his many relations to his own age, as soldier, citizen, divinity student, jurist, and church official, and in the pictures which he has left us of himself as husband, father, and ofttimes lover, we have material for a pretty just estimate of the life of his time, social, ecclesiastical, and political. Mr. Chamberlain shows himself to have been a diligent student of Sewall's diary, and his book is, as such a book must needs be, made up largely of extracts from that diary, with comments thereon. It is on the whole a satisfactory book, and one that should find its way into many libraries. Some of the chapters are particularly well thought out, as that on the Indians and Negroes, and that on the Puritan Exodus. The chapter on

the Witchcraft delusion, also, is a wise and able contribution to the lit erature of that vexed and difficult question.

The book might be better, however, and ought to have been. It is undigested in places, and unstratified in more. The chapters are not definitely inclusive, nor mutually exclusive. The reader, remembering the author's statement on a subject and wishing to refer to it again, would have difficulty in finding it from the chapter headings, good as are most of them. One chapter is entited "Sewall and Sundries,” which is a good title; but the author's treatment of several of the chapters is such that the words "and sundries" might have been added to the title. For instance, to select almost at random, he quotes from the diary in 1726 a comment on a sermon by Judge Sewall's son, Joseph. Without any ap parent reason either in time or theme, he skips over three and one-half years to tell us that the last entry in the diary concerns the courtship of Addington Davenport and Jane Hirst, and this, for some inscrutable reason, reminds him of the death of George I., in 1727. He has already told us once of the Davenport-Hirst courtship, and has said that it is a significant coincidence that this should be the last subject of entry in the diary, but he does not hint at any other event whose coördination made this a coincidence, nor does he tell the reader what made it significant. In some such places it would be well for the author to take the reader into his confidence. And, for that matter, the quotations as thus repeated do not exactly coincide, which shows, with some other things, that there has been lack of due care in transcription.

Passing on to the next page, an entry in the diary concerning a mistake in the tune at meeting reminds the author that it was customary to walk with departing guests as far as the gate; and on the next page, the fact that Sewall sent his horses to Kittery to pasture prompts him to tell us that courts were often held in houses. These three instances, taken from three consecutive pages (pp. 277–279), illustrate how the author is able to tell us anything that comes to hand apropos of anything whatever or of nothing at all. In places, like this, the book is hardly more than a collection of stromata. Even so it is interesting and instructive, but its value would have been well-nigh doubled, had the author wrought out his material into logical and finished chapters.

There is, moreover, a reasonless dogmatism manifest in places. Sometimes it attaches itself to trivial things. On page 110 he tells us, that "it is said that ten Englishmen took to the Indian life where one Indian became civilized." This is one of those strong, wholesale generalizations that are almost never true. It is well-nigh impossible that this should be true. But the author repeats it on page 202, and this time without any qualifying phrase. He is prone thus to snatch at a generalization, to work over his material with it as an hypothesis, and at length to affirm it dogmatically.

But this dogmatism manifests itself particularly where the question is

that of the relation of Puritanism and the Church of England. Where Sewall speaks, he condemns him out of his own mouth, and where he is silent, he repeatedly reads into his silence the most reprehensible animosity. Because Sewall records somewhat briefly the death of Queen Anne, he infers that the reason is that Queen Anne was a High-churchwoman, and exclaims, "Not a word of eulogy, regret, or meditation over a dead queen, though he can sometimes pity a dog!" And because Sewall attended the funeral of the wife of the tyrant Andros, and did not stay to the filling of the grave, he infers, again from the brevity of his record, that Sewall had a heart of ice whenever Puritanism touched Episcopacy. The author needs to learn how dangerous is a broad inference from silence.

There are some minor mistakes which should have been avoided. For instance, after so able an author as Hawthorne had given wrongly the name of Sewall's wife and Mintmaster Hull's daughter, calling her Betty, both Ellis and the present author should have avoided giving her her mother's name of Judith (pp. 318-319). Her name was Hannah, as the book elsewhere plainly shows.

The author has no terms of contempt strong enough to express his dislike for the literature of the period. "As to the books at hand," he says, "their dullness was hardly overmatched by the dullness of a conversation with a cow" (p. 217). This is cheap wit, and not overexact history. The author could have written a better book, had he studied this literature more carefully. Quoting a letter of Roger Williams accompanying a gift of one of his own works, he explains that the book referred to "turns out to be a controversial tract against Rev. John Cotton. . . . Cotton, it appears, had controverted a former tract of Williams' entitled 'The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Conscience'" (p. 259). Is it possible that this is the extent of the author's knowledge of "The Bloudy Tenet" controversy? It certainly appears on the face of the narrative, and the book does not remove the impression, that this famous discussion is known to the author only in this accidental reference.

There is hopeless inability to understand and properly estimate either Puritanism or its influence. As to the latter, the author gives one of his sweeping generalizations. "In this nation so far, in religion Puritanism has been diminuendo; in politics, crescendo" (p. 85). IIas the author reflected upon the growth of Congregationalism to a body of six hundred thousand communicants, to the rise of many and powerful bodies of other names, but with the same form of government? But even this is a small part of it. The very King's Chapel, of which the book is full, Episcopal as to its ritual, is Congregational in its government. For that matter, probably no church in the city of Boston is more thoroughly self-governing than Trinity, and few are better governed.

So the Puritan character and Puritan institutions are fraught with in

scrutable mysteries for the author. The Puritan Sabbath and the Puritan sermon pass his knowledge. In the summary with which the book closes, he tells us that Sewall was a Puritan, and then goes off again hopelessly wool-gathering, this time looking out of countenance the portraits of Puritans in the Massachusetts Historical Society, to learn what a Puritan is. There is not to the close a full and conscious grasp of the subject in all its bearings, coupled with that discriminating sympathy which alone makes accurate history possible.

He is likewise confessedly at a loss in accounting for the characteristic habits of Puritanism. They suggest to him the text, "Out of whose womb came the ice?" and the answer he gives up. And he might quite as well give up attempts to solve the enigma of the motives of leading Puritans. For instance, by what authority does he affirm concerning Increase Mather's declining to continue the Presidency of Harvard College if compelled to give up his parish, that "The true reason here undoubtedly was that Increase Mather was unwilling to give up the flatteries and other perquisites of a Boston parish, and a residence at the center of affairs for the seclusion of Cambridge”? (p. 185). Let it be admitted that the Mathers were not free from vanity, is it "undoubtedly" true that this was the determining factor in their life choices? Such an impression does not come from a thorough study of their lives.

The reviewer has been led to speak thus briefly of the merits of the book, and to indicate at length its defects, for the reason that the former may be more briefly told. It is not necessary to repeat that, spite of its defects, its illogical method of compilation, its aversion to, resulting in apparent ignorance of, the literature of the period, and its inability to understand much that expressed itself in that complex and not always consistent system known to us as Puritanism, the book is readable, interesting, and of considerable value. WILLIAM E. BARTON.

A HISTORY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY. By LEONARD WOOLSEY BACON. Pp. x, 439. 8vo. New York: The Christian Literature Co. 1897. $1.25.

Though not so stated on its title-page, this is the concluding volume in the "American Church History Series." Occupying this position, the book before us is, in the nature of the case, a bird's-eye view of its predecessors. For facts concerning the various denominations, Dr. Bacon has drawn upon the historian of the communion under consideration. This method of treatment enables us to verify his references. Valuable as this procedure is in securing accuracy, it has, however, in the case of Dr. Bacon's book an added advantage. It has enabled Dr. Bacon to look at facts from the standpoint of the denomination concerning which he chanced at the moment to be writing. This has imparted a spirit of fairness and impartiality to the work. In this spirit of fairness lies, we believe, the most distinguishing merit of Dr. Bacon's history. It is a de

light to read a book in which the odium theologicum is conspicuous by its absence. It would be difficult to determine from his book to which denomination Dr. Bacon belongs.

"It is through its mistakes," he says, "that the church is to learn the right way" (p. 409). These mistakes he does not hesitate to record. He seems to write from the point of view of "the Kingdom," and is ready to rebuke denominational littleness and meanness. We regret that there are so many such cases for him to record.

The least satisfactory chapter is that on the Civil War (Chapter XIX.). Dr. Bacon dwells not only in this chapter, but in others, on the attitude of the churches both Northern and Southern toward the slavery question. He does not, it seems to us, make sufficiently prominent the part played by the church at the North in upholding the cause of the Union. According to those things "which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us," the Northern churches were a positive factor in sustaining President Lincoln in his efforts to maintain the Union.

Dr. Bacon renders himself most liable to attack in that he ventures to assail the reputation of such a popular idol as William Lloyd Garrison. He says, on page 282, "The true story of Mr. William Lloyd Garrison and his little party has yet to be written faithfully and fully. As told by his family and friends and by himself, it is a monstrous falsification of history." Dr. Bacon, it seems to us, should have outlined more fully the reasons for thus seeking to reverse the commonly accepted verdict concerning Mr. Garrison, instead of referring to one of his own and other books-inaccessible to many of his readers.

The limits of space imposed upon Dr. Bacon have prevented his doing himself full justice in the chapter (XXI.) on "The Church in Theology and Literature." His all-too-rapid review of the achievements of American theologians only whets the appetite for more, and makes one wish that he could have expanded this sketch of American theology over several chapters, instead of being compelled to compress it into one. The few pages devoted to the problems of hymnody and liturgics are fine. We have said that Dr. Bacon writes from the point of view of the Kingdom. Nowhere is this so evident as where he touches upon denominational rivalries. He is fair to the men in whose days these schisms occurred; for he judges them according to the light of their own times, and, as far as possible, he makes their standpoint his own. But he has one advantage over these bygone worthies. In surveying the field he has learned not to identify the Kingdom of Christ with any one petty sect, as they, alas, so often did. He can see that time rights wrongs. He says finely, "How great is the debt which the church owes to its heretics is frequently illustrated in the progress of Christianity in America" (p. 378). Have we of to-day entirely learned this lesson?

In tracing the stream of American Christianity from "The Providential Preparations for the Discovery of America" down to recent events,