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took place in relation to the Blessed Sacrament. Disputes about the nature of the Presence and its reality, produced the doctrine of transubstantiation (which is regrettable but easily understood, when one remembers the contemporary theory of matter) and the emphasis on the fact of the Presence by explicit and public acts of worship.

Such services today and under the conditions of the American Church may not be desirable, but, whether they are desirable or not, they will take place where men feel strongly the need of protest against heresy and laxity. There are many instances of most startling abuses of the elements of the Blessed Sacrament which come to one from time to time

abuses which are unrebuked and flagrant, while bishops are attempting to prevent men and women from praying in a way which does not appeal to them. I am inclined to believe that if irreverence were discouraged and reverence encouraged there might be a better understanding on the matter of public services.

J. G. H. BARRY.

Unity and Schism: Bishop Paddock Lectures for 1917. By the Rev. T. A. Lacey, M.A. London: A. R. Mowbray & Co.; Milwaukee: Young Churchman Co., 1917.

Those who realize how great are the evils of the present divided state of Christendom, and seek to promote the cause of unity, often fail to perceive the complexity of the problem, and put their faith in some cut and dried scheme, which they think needs only to be sufficiently explained and aggressively pushed to be successful. Disillusionment is certain to follow; and this frequently causes impatient abandonment of interest in the problem, as permanently insoluble. The fact is that the time for determinate schemes has not arrived, and those who push them really set back instead of help on the cause which they have at heart. The restoration of unity must be the work of generations, probably centuries; but this does not mean that we can do nothing now that will promote the work and hasten the glad day of its completion. It means that we are now at the educational stage. I ought to say the stage of mutual education, that is, of friendly interchange of constructive explanations, for the removal of misapprehensions and prejudices, and animosities based upon them. Only thus can the common growth towards a full Catholic mind be promoted; and such growth is the necessary and antecedent condition of success in determining how corporate reunion shall be undertaken. The proposed World Conference on Questions of Faith and Order is designed simply to promote a friendly mutual understanding, and is therefore a method of working for unity which is suited to

the present situation. The Conference will have no power to legislate or adopt resolutions, and therefore can be participated in by anybody, without fear of embarrassing complications.

Father Lacey approaches the problem of unity with full realization of the futility at present of all schematic methods for its solution; and the aim of his lectures is to review the chief schemes of unity now advocated, and to show that each is impracticable and all alike are premature. With this aim in view, he discusses in succession, "The Fundamental Idea" of unity, as of the Body of Christ; "The Episcopal Theory," that the episcopate, jurisdictionally regarded, is a sufficient protective of unity;" The Papal Theory "; " The Sectarian Conception ";" Independency and Denominationalism "; " Intercommunion [i. e., between denominations preserving their mutual independence] and Federation "; and "Brotherhood ".

The lectures are wonderfully searching in their analysis, and in every subject taken up Father Lacey has something positively fresh and illuminating to say. It is impossible in a review of this length to give an intelligible outline of his arguments, they move so rapidly and include so many important points. He is very successful in demolishing popular illusions, and in clearing the ground of rubbish. His own conception of the method of working for unity is set forth in the last lecture, on "Brotherhood ". But in his laudable desire to avoid seeming to have a schematic plan of his own, he is less clear as to the concrete aspects of the Christian brotherhood than might be desired. He does not, however, use the term "Brotherhood" in any vague or abstract sense. He is a Catholic theologian, and has in mind the visible Catholic Church.

The book is one of the most helpful of the past year, and those who read it carefully it is too full of thought to be understood otherwise -will gain much. The volume contains a useful series of Appendices, including certain classical statements and official pronouncements of historical value.

F. J. H.

Father Stanton's Sermon Outlines; from His Own Outlines. Edited by E. F. Russell, M.A. Longmans, Green & Co. 1917. $1.75.

Father Stanton never wrote out his sermons, but after the sermon has been carefully prepared in his mind he would write an outline, with the main points, phrases and catch-words. These outlines had been preserved for a good many years. From them one hundred have been selected and edited for publication by his former colleague, Father Rus

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sell. The subjects cover the first half of the Christian Year, including Advent, Christmastide, Lent and Passiontide, together with the Holydays falling within the period. The outlines are valuable for several purposes. They give an insight into Father Stanton's method of preparation, exhibiting something of his simplicity and effectiveness. They will prove suggestive to others in sermon writing. Or they will furnish material for meditations. The outlines have all the defects and disappointments of notes prepared solely for the preacher himself who can recall from a detached phrase the line of thought he wishes to develop, while to another the words are cryptic or meaningless. Stanton, with the license that great preachers may take, breaks the ordinary homiletic rules, as, for example, when he takes for his subject a single word29 Then from the text, "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness." He is unconventional in these notes, as all who have heard him, know he could be in the pulpit. None but a great preacher could dare to paraphrase St. Paul's well-known series of rhetorical questions thus: "Are you a high churchman? So am I. Are you a broad churchman? So am I. I would put every baptized Christian into the Body of the Church, and every seeker after Truth into the Soul of the Church. Are you a low churchman? So am I. Are they agnostics? So am I, and so is every believer, for no one by reasoning can find out God. Are they socialists? So am I. I believe what Paul said at Athens. God has made of one blood all the nations God is no respecter of persons. Are they Unitarians? So am I. I believe in one God. But I am more, for I believe the Father is God, the Son God, and that the Holy Ghost God. The more is the Lord Jesus."

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Many will find these sermon notes exceedingly helpful in many ways.

A. W. J.

The Living Church Annual and Churchman's Almanac. 1918. The Young Churchman Co. Cloth, 90 cents; paper, 65 cents.

In addition to the usual Directory of the clergy in the Church in the United States and the ecclesiastical calendar with the lectionary, the Annual for 1918 contains a synopsis of the acts of the General Convention of 1916, a list of amendments tentatively adopted by that Convention in its work of the revision of the Prayer Book, the annual cyclopaedia of the Church, and much other useful information. The General Statistics have to be interpreted with regard to effort of the General Convention to secure a uniform year for all statistical reports, the war conditions, and some other abnormal circumstances.

The Philosophy of Christian Being. Walter E. Brandenburg. Sherman, French & Co., Boston. $1.20.

A very crude attempt at philosophizing Christianity characterizes Mr. Brandenburg's volume. Many passages sound orthodox on first glance. One quickly discovers that the writer does not hold the fundamental truths of the Christian revelation to be supernatural facts. The assertion of the virginity of Mary was a blunder in " our creed of a later day" than "the simple, yet comprehensive, confession of the Apostolic Church." The mystery of the Word-made-flesh is similar in the writer's mind to other mysteries in evidence all around us. "Do we not cause our thoughts (immaterial things) to find expression in material forms? What about the inventor? The genius? The author? The great captains of industry?" So the author does not hold our Lord's taking of human nature to have been unique in method. The Resurrection with him is natural, not supernatural. And so on. The writer's position appears to be merely the humanitarian view of our Lord a kind of Nestorianism.

The Conduct of Brief Devotional Meetings. Paul Micou, B.D. Association Press, New York. 50 cents.

There is no objection to holding devotional services conducted in a non-liturgical way. The Book of Common Prayer is not intended to crowd out or supersede informal devotional meetings and extempore prayer. But there is grave objection to watering down the Prayer Book and excusing it and trying to disarm dislike by removing the positive witness. The book before us seems to be open distinctly to criticism on the latter ground. Liturgically its explanations of the Prayer Book are inadequate and inaccurate, e. g., the statement that "the Nicene Creed is mainly an expansion of the Apostles Creed in more definite terms." The principle of Christian worship, around which all true objective worship centres, is the adoration of Jesus Christ as from all eternity God. And why does the compiler omit the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary from the list of Holydays? Does he wish to slur over the Virgin Birth? We cannot commend this attempt at teaching non-churchman about worship.

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