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receptivity, their responsiveness, and the fact that they were in large measure self-supporting-a church of laity altogether I fear! Surely they must lack all sense of the Church as a corporate orrganism. They believe only in organization.

BOOK REVIEWS

Moral Values and the Idea of God. The Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of Aberdeen in 1914 and 1915 by W. R. Sorley, Litt.D., LL.D. New York: Putnam, 1919.

We Christians are sure that goodness is at least as real as a mountain, and that the presence of goodness in the world somehow assures us of the existence of God. But can we give a reason for the faith that is in us? Can the philosophically learned priest fit those two propositions readily into his philosophy; and, if he is called upon to discuss such things with learned laymen, is he armed with a clear understanding of the problem? If not, he will find this book of the greatest assistance in his thinking.

Professor Sorley presents a keen and original argument for the being of God, akin to, but quite distinct from the old Moral Argument; in a form that is, to any one used to philosophical reasoning, most delightful reading. The argument starts with a study of the thesis that the order of values has objective reality quite as truly as the order of nature. It leads through a brilliant study of moral values in relation to the order of nature on the one hand, and to the individual subject on the other; and reaches the conclusion that only in the idea of God can we find a ground on which the order of nature and the order of values can possibly be conceived as parts of a single whole.

A quotation from page 466 will serve to indicate the line of thought: "Now of the moral order of the universe we have discovered that it does belong to the order of reality, and further that it cannot be fitted into a pantheistic conception of that order. Its distinction from, and yet intricate relation to, the natural order, and its implication of freedom in the lives which it claims to rule, forbid the easy solution that the All is simply One. But if the moral order is not altogether sundered from the natural order, if the universe is really a universe and not a multiverse, then we must hold that the moral order is the order of that one mind whose purpose nature and man are slowly fulfilling. Here, therefore, we have a key to the theistic interpretation of the world. The moral order expresses the divine nature; and things partake of this nature in so far as they conform to that order or manifest goodness."

Professor Sorley is the father of that most jubilant of soldier poets, Charles Hamilton Sorley, to whose memory this book is dedicated.

C. L.A.

Three Essays in Restatement. Suggestions from the philosophy of Spiritualism. By the Rev. H. Adye Prichard, M.A. With an introduction by the Rev. Charles Lewis Slattery, D.D. The North Westchester Publishing Company, 1920.

The theses of this book are: First, that the Church should provide "An Orthodoxy of Spiritualism"; second, that the facts of the subconscious establish the reasonableness of "The Communion of Souls"; third, that "body" means a vehicle for the expression of the soul; and therefore that the doctrine of "The Resurrection of the Body" is reasonable, and “the bulwark against the horror of absorption, the suggestion of annihilation"; fourth, that "life is an unbroken growth, and the life that is to be, the life of the world to come, is an integral part of the life that is." Of these, the third is best treated. Loose reasoning spoils the first two; and the fourth is vague.

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There are many serious blemishes in these seventy pages. The chief one is the writer's tendency to find in philosophy a hint, a suggestion of a fact, or proof that the fact is not impossible; and then to write as though the fact were established by philosophy. It is a blemish in a book which demands an "Orthodoxy" of Spiritualism, that we are not even told what the Church does teach on the subject. And what can we say of this statement about Spiritualism by a priest: "For power of life, for comfort in sorrow, for light in darkness, for good in evil, there is no avenue (of Christianity) more potent or more vital?" Or this: "Columbus had an intuition of the existence of America?". And a man who was accurate enough to write in that sentence, instead of America, "a route to India" would have been spared us the statement that "The Mystic not carry out the practical matters of the law of God."

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On page 40 there is a splendid sentence, which would-be philosophers should ponder: "Jesus was training settlers in the Kingdom of God, not explorers." The introduction by Dr. Slattery is the best thing in the book.

The Place of the Laity in the Administration and Work of the Church. By the Rt. Rev. J. A. Kempthorne, D.D. New York: Longmans, 1921; pp. 33. 50 cents.

The Lord Bishop of Litchfield in this most interesting and scholarly lecture has set forth the position and the functions of the laity in the Church Catholic. He studies, first, the laity in New Testament times; from which he passes, second, to the Ante-Nicene Period; from this, third, he comes to the times of Constantine and later, and notes a decided

change, the Emperor and his representatives seeming to take the place of the laity as a whole; next, fourth, he treats of the place the laity held under the Roman rule, where the Pope and the clergy assumed all power of direction to the complete exclusion of the laity. Lastly he treats of the position of the laity in the Church of England (1) before, and (2) after the Reformation. All these facts are stated clearly, if concisely and compactly. The lecture closes with a consideration of the place the laity ought to hold in the present day Church of England. As our readers well know, the English Church is rapidly and steadily giving the laity an enlarged share in her work. The tendency seems to be in the direction of putting the English laity in practically the same position that is held by our American laity. This lecture, one of the course of the Liverpool Lectures, is well worth careful reading. F. C. H. W.

Dislocation of the Canon. Address delivered by Viscount Halifax at the annual meeting of the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, June 27, 1916. London: S. S. P. P.; n. d.; pp. 16. Price, 6d.

Lord Halifax discusses the dislocation and mutilation of the canon of the mass in the English Prayer Book, with reference to the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice, general Itiurgical principles, and the possibility of transposing some of the dislocated parts or the substitution (as now permitted by some English bishops) of the mass from the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. The mass in our American Prayer Book is less open to objection than the English, but that it is anything but perfect all the projects for revision admit. This thoughtful paper will be of value and interest to all those who wish to make the mass as perfect as possible, both in beauty and in teaching force.

The Ministry. By Charles Lewis Slattery, D.D. New York: Scribner's, 1921. $1.25.

First, let every priest of the Church read this book. For he will find there a reflection of that vision of his vocation, which, though it is the guide of his life, is so often dimmed that it needs continual renewing. In the luminous presence of that vision it is evident that this book was written; and the author shows a sympathetic understanding of the varying forms it must take in the minds of different men.

Then let every priest get it into the hands of young men and of their parents. For them it was written, as one of "The Vocational Series." It should not be hard to get them to read it, for it is brief, clear, simple and

interesting. And the author's sincerity and earnestness are so evident that it should make an impression upon every reader.

The book is wisely planned, well written and inspiring-admirably meeting a very great need. I would praise it especially for two things. The first is its breadth. It takes account of the great variety of men who can find in the ministry the fullest expression for their talents, the diversity of the work to be done, and the fact that the call may come in many ways and that the preparation may follow many lines. It paints the ministry as a living thing in a living and changing world. Equally praiseworthy is this fact: while it is not meant only for churchmen, and is so written as to appeal to serious young men of any Christian kind, the writer holds the priesthooood clearly before his eyes and does not compromise that vision. Indeed, a priest reading it cannot but wonder how a young man could find all that Dr. Slattery says of the "Ministry" outside the priesthood of the Church.

The Church should show its gratitude to Dr. Slattery for this timely help by availing itself of it, which means that we should distribute this book broadcast in the hands and the homes of young men.

C. L. A. A Century of Endeavor. By Julia C. Emery. New York, Department of Missions of the P. E. Church, 1921. pp. xiii+466.

Miss Emery, who for forty years served as the Secretary of the Woman's Auxiliary, has written the history of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of our Church for the one hundred years of its existence. This work is a history, not of the missionary activity of the Church, but of the administrative work and policies of our Missionary Society. Naturally the development of the Missions, domestic and foreign, is touched upon as the story proceeds; but this is merely incidental to the main subject of the book.

The volume opens with a brief survey of the Colonial history of the Church, including the work here of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The author reviews, also, very briefly, this history of our national Church from 1785 to 1821. This latter year saw the foundation of the Foreign and Domestic Missionary Society, whose title was "almost immediately"

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