to the general reader and as a handy compendium of the most important facts of church history. The point of view from which it is written is evangelical, though the author is by no means oblivious to any of the important critical questions which have arisen. The style is clear and easy to read, the learning manifest is comprehensive of all the most important literature of the subject, and the literary references are sufficient for ordinary purposes. The volume is enriched by five valuable maps, and by a full Table of Contents and an Index. Among the numerous competitors in this field there are none which we can more highly commend than this.

AMERICAN MEDITATIVE LYRICS. BY THEODORE W. HUNT, Ph.D., Litt. D., Professor of English in the College of New Jersey, author of "English Prose and Prose Writers," "Ethical Studies in Old English Authors," etc. Illustrated. Pp. 205. 16mo. New York: E. B. Treat. In this handy volume the reader will find the spiritual element in poetry fully and beautifully illustrated by selections from, and discussions concerning, all the leading American poets. Dr. Hunt is one of the most philosophical and successful expositors of the world's literature that have attempted to meet the wants of the general reading public, and he is as happy and successful in this exposition as he is philosophical. This volume is just what multitudes need as a pocket companion to the most ennobling and elevating poetry that has been produced in America.

THE SACRED LAWS OF THE ARYAS as taught in the Schools of Apastamba, Gautama, Vâsishtha, and Baudhâyana. (Sacred Books of the East.) Translated by GEORG BUEHLER. Part I. Apastamba and Gautama. Second edition, Revised. Part II. Vasishtha and Baudhâyana. Pp. lxii, 314, xlv, 360. New York: The Christian Literature Co. 1898. $2.75.

This volume continues the American edition of this standard and most valuable translation. Though the paper is thinner than in the original edition, the type is the same, and the beautiful print perfectly legible. Students of comparative religion, and all clergymen ought to be such, can now obtain this invaluable work at half the former price.

64

THE GROWING REVELATION. By AMORY H. BRADFORD, author of "Heredity and Christian Problems, Spirit and Life, "The Pilgrim in Old England," etc. Pp. xiv, 254. I 2mo. New York: The

Macmillan Co. $1.50.

This volume is chiefly composed of sermons preached by the author first in his own large church in Orange, N. J., and afterwards to numerous important congregations of England. They are, to a considerable extent, the basis of Dr. Bradford's great popularity there. Thus they have upon them the stamp of the approval of a great body of most intelligent and active Christians. The sermons fully meet the expectations created

by this presumption in their favor. They are full of thought, well arranged, beautifully illustrated with appropriate lessons cogently urged upon the reader. The third sermon forcibly urges that "all men are what they believe concerning God" (p. 47); while the last sermon, on "Christ and the Creeds," insists that "all men have creeds. He who has no creed never thinks. . . . Men are like what they believe, but life is not the product of truth" (pp. 247-249). By this last disclaimer, however, he means merely to impress the fact that the will is free to disregard the most powerful motives. Evidently he would not deny that the presentation of truth to the mind of man is the great motive power upon which the preacher is always dependent; for the book itself is a noble testimony to the supremę value of correct beliefs in promoting virtuous actions among men.

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ANCIENTS; or, Sex in Religion. By ELIZA BURT GAMBLE, author of "The Evolution of Woman.' Pp. vii, 339. 8vo. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1897. $2.25. This volume is devoted to the theory that sex is the foundation of religion, and that the original conception of the Deity was derived from the female element. The author maintains, also, that the sexual emblems, originally made objects of religious worship, were no more an offense against propriety and decency than was the reappearance of the cross, the emblem of life, in later times, among orthodox Christians" (p. 206). The book contains a collection of interesting and curious facts, but we are unable to perceive any close connection between the facts adduced and the conclusions drawn from them.

RELICS OF PRIMEVAL LIFE. Beginning of Life in the Dawn of Geological Time. By Sir J. WILLIAM DAWSON, LL.D., F.R.S., etc., author of "The Earth and Man," Modern Ideas of Evolution," etc. With sixty-five Illustrations. Pp. xiv, 336. 8vo. Chicago, New York, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Co. $1.50.

Dr. Dawson has a most happy facility in conveying geological facts to ordinary readers. In this volume he is at his best, since he is dealing with that portion of geology in which his special investigations in the field have been most abundant and productive. Numerous illustrations add greatly to the value of the volume.

THE BEST OF BROWNING. By Rev. JAMES MUDGE, D.D. With an In-, • troduction by Rev. WILLIAM V. KELLEY, D.D. Pp. 252. New York: Eaton & Mains. 1898. $1.25.

The book contains an excellent biography and a well-chosen bibliography of Browning Literature. The comments are very suggestive, and the selections carefully chosen. We can readily say that the book gives an able and comprehensive view of the life and works of the great poet.

HOMILETIC: Lectures on Preaching. By THEODOR CHRISTLIEB, D.D., formerly Professor of Theology and University Preacher at Bonn. Edited by TH. HARBERCK. Translated by Rev. C. H. IRWIN, M.A., translator of Huther on "The Epistles of St. John" in Meyer's Commentary. Pp. xii, 390. New York: Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons. $2.75.

In the premature death of Dr. Christlieb evangelical truth and the Christian pulpit lost a most brilliant luminary. But, though dead, he yet speaketh. It is a great satisfaction to have this valuable work in English dress. The treatise itself so amply illustrates the homiletical and pastoral methods of the great preacher that it can but be of great value and interest to all who are engaged in the practical work of preaching the gospel. Abundant literary references and a full Table of Contents, and three Indexes place the whole volume easily at the command of the reader.

OUR REDEMPTION: Its Need, Method, and Result. By FREDERICK A. NOBLE, D.D., pastor of Union Park Congregational Church, Chicago. Pp. 282. 12mo. New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Co. $1.25.

With rare cumulative effect Dr. Noble adds to his two previous volumes of sermons of a practical and homiletical character a third volume upon the central doctrinal themes of the gospel. The discourses are effective both from a homiletical and from a doctrinal point of view, and ably illustrate the adaptation of the profoundest truths of Christianity to the accomplishment of the practical aims of the preacher. The greater the truth, the greater its effect in moving the heart to action. This volume is comprised of twelve discourses. The first four of these set forth the fact that redemption is "made necessary by sin and its consequences." The second four show "how redemption is secured," while the last four treat of "redemption in the new spirit and outlook it furnishes." In the sermon on "The Difficulties in the Way of the Free Pardon of Sin" it clearly and impressively illustrates the fact that “the necessity for an atonement lies down deep in the nature of things. The difficulties encountered and the obstacles to be removed or overcome before there can be pardon of guilt are not few or insignificant; they are many and weighty" (p. 136). Rejecting the Unitarian theory that Christ was a martyr, and the Moral Influence theory in which it is denied that the sufferings of Christ were necessary to the removal of obstacles to the pardon of sin existing in the Divine Mind, and the Governmental theory which he says is valuable, but falls short of the whole truth, Dr. Noble maintains that "it is only when we go a step further and ground the doctrine in the holiness of God, that we have a final and a conclusive reason for the sufferings of Christ on the cross. . . . There is an ethical element in the nature of God with which sinning men here on earth, and rational creatures throughout the universe have to reckon" (p. 154).

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

ARTICLE I.

HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY—A CONTRAST.

BY THE REV. JOHN R. JONES.

CHRISTIANITY is engaged to-day in India in the greatest conflict of faiths that the world has ever witnessed; and with a religion truly remarkable, from whatever standpoint it may be studied. The recent study of Hinduism, in its philosophic and practical aspects, by Western savants, has opened the eyes of the Christian world to the greatness and difficulty of the task of bringing the two hundred and fifty million Hindus of the Indian peninsula to an acceptance of the Christian faith. Whether regard be had to the hoary age of this ethnic religion, to its transcendental philosophy, to its resistance to other faiths, or to its absolute power over so large a portion of the human race,in every particular it impresses one as a mighty power whose strength has not yet been adequately appreciated by the West. To one who has spent nearly two decades of the best years of his life as a missionary in this wonderful land of the Orient,-the birthplace and home of the two greatest of all ethnic religions,—a comparison of the religion of the New Testament with that of the Vedas has become almost a second nature. To institute such a comparison is the object of this article. It would be pleasant and

VOL. LV. No. 220. I

profitable, had we time, to study the affinities of these two faiths; for certainly they possess not a few striking resemblances resemblances such as should be, and often are, used by the Christian missionary as means of access to the Hindu mind.

For the present, however, we shall study the dissonances of the two religions; thus emphasizing the contrast between them, and, inferentially, the real difficulty of speedily Christianizing this vast population.

The task which I have set before me is a great one; chiefly because of the manifold, complicated, self-contradictory character of the thing called Hinduism. It is rather a congeries of faiths, embracing nearly all kinds of beliefs and unbeliefs, and representing three thousand years of conflicting philosophies, internecine institutions, diverse forms of worship, contradictory legends, and warring sects. All this vast diversity of religious aspiration and practice, reaching over thirty centuries, and sanctified by numberless tomes of a very sacred literature, is lumped into the amorphous thing called Hinduism. And yet the difficulty is much less than at first seems; for there are a few fundamental and all-pervasive beliefs, doctrines, and institutions which have reached down from the most primitive times, and have united together the otherwise conflicting elements into a real whole, whose identity has not been obscured during the many ages of its existence.

Some of these are among the deepest speculations of a transcendental philosophy; and yet at all times they have entered largely into the mental make-up and religious outfit of the common people of India. In this land the philosophy of religion and the esoteric teachings of faith have been much less complex than in the West. This does not reflect upon the depth of Aryan philosophy, which is perhaps the profoundest the human mind has conceived, and abounds in the most daring flights of speculation. But