for more flexibility in ritual; yet the warmth in the discussion showed that there was a considerable element in the church opposed to its conservatism. The Congregationalist difficulty has been discussed in these pages already. It turns on the fact that the board which has charge of sending out missionaries, is practically self-perpetuating, and has thus preserved an orthodoxy from which the councils of the churches have somewhat moved away; and it has a particular antipathy to the doctrine of "probation after death” (known as the “ Andover hypothesis "), which the churches have treated as a harmless and permissible speculation. Few of them have any belief in it, but a large minority resent intensely its proscription by the missionary board, as the enforcement of a stricter theological standard than the churches sanction, and an infringement, so far as missionaries are concerned, of the liberty of private speculation given other Congregational clergymen. The conservatives have the situation in their own hands through the self-perpetuating powers of the board; yet they did in fact yield ground considerably under mere pressure of opinion, to which this denomination is very amenable. The Presbyterians have now submitted to the discussion of the presbyteries, their lowest governing councils, the revision of those passages in their articles that put the Calvinistic doctrines of election and foreordination most uncompromisingly. It shows the peculiar stability and conservatism of this church that they have retained thus long, without revolts, or schisms, or even very serious discussion, the passages in question, which no church council within the past hundred years would have dreamed of originating.

IN all these stirrings of various shades of radical feeling within the churches, in such phenomena as Archdeacon Farrar's recent article, it is impossible not to see a steady movement toward simpler standards of theology in the evangelical churches. A great system such as they constitute is necessarily

conservative: it must move like a glacier, not like a river. It is necessary to its stability, its dignity, its weight with the consciences of men, that it should never be convicted of having run after novel errors. As Archdeacon Farrar points out, it is scarcely less humiliating to have gained the name of always fighting new truth. The ridiculous light into which a body is put that has protested, and denounced, and called the sacred names of religion to witness against something which proved to be a step of progress in civilization, is a terrible detriment to its moral force. A dignified suspense of opinion, then, the archde: con urges, is the right attitude of the church toward novel opinion, the only one that may not cause it humiliation hereafter. But such a suspense is less possible the more specifically a creed hedges about a religious body with minutiae of belief, which may at any moment come into conflict with unforeseen developments in human understanding. In view of this, the visible movement toward reducing to broader elements the doctrines that shall be insisted upon in creeds, foreshadows a possible future increase in the already mighty weight of the churches in the purely ethical affairs of society, together with a cordial self-limitation in the extent of their power as arbiters of opinion.

Holiday Books.

kelp, sea-gulls, and so on, all in softly shade grays, giving more the effect of an etching than of ordinary black and white work. The work seems to be either lithographing of some sort, or one of the newer photogravures, which imitate so closely the appearance of monochrome water-color washes. Interspersed with these studies are verses and sentiments, all of a devout cast, and all decoratively wrought, either in knotted ropes or with more or less close suggestions of seaweed. Of course, such devices might be made very crude, but these are very

prettily drawn, with a real air of sea and breeze about them, and are altogether pleasing. A good deal of the text is more well-meant in sentiment than inspiring in a literary way, but there are fine bits, such as,

Lord, ere we go we trust our all to thee

Thy sea is mighty, and our boats are small; and Emerson's, "Never strike sail to a fear.- Come into port greatly, or sail with God the seas." There is a sort of progression throughout, from "The sail at sunrise daily outward bound," to the returning sails under moon and stars, nearing the harbor lights.

The Rainbow Calendar,1 a sort of calendar book, with a page for every day in the year, differs from most other calendars in being selected from everybody's writings, instead of from those of a single author. It has no special arrangement, but the tone that is intended to run through it is that of hope and courage against a background of trial,— distinct on one side from the tone of mere hopefulness and courageousness, on the other from that of consolation. Thus we see, as we turn the pages over, such fragments of perpetual strength as Clough's "Say not the struggle naught availeth,"

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent flooding in the main ;

or Longfellow's "Santa Teresa's Bookmark,"

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth.

Other extracts are mere bits of shrewdness, often quite as helpful practically; as this from Carmen Sylva: "It is better to have a doctor for a father confessor than a priest; you tell the priest that you detest mankind; he tells you that you are not a Christian. The doctor gives you some quinine, and behold you love everybody. You tell the priest that you are tired of life; the priest answers, 'Suicide is a crime.' You tell the doctor the same thing, and he gives you a stimulant; then you begin to love life very much." A good many more are merely jokes, put in apparently for the sake of making blue people laugh when they chance to come on them in their calendar. Columbia the Gem of the Ocean 2 illustrates the familiar song with a great many bits of American landscape, in colors, and with monochrome designs,

1 The Rainbow Calendar. Compiled by Kate Sanborn. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

2 Columbia the Gem of the Ocean. By David T. Shaw. Profusely illustrated. New York: Frederick A. Stokes & Brother. 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Strickland & Co.

chiefly symbolic. We cannot say that either the colors or the symbolism strike us as good—“ May the service united ne'er sever," for instance, illustrated with a monochrome Cupid sitting on the cloudsbut it makes a showy book. The music is given after the words.

Under the head of holiday books, too, should be mentioned two illustrated poems, The Wooing of Grandmother Grey3 and Legend Laymone,* since in both the verse exists for the sake of the illustrations, rather than the illustrations for the sake of the verse. Both are attractively illustrated, with a good deal of photogravure work. The drawings in The Wooing of Grandmother Grey are by Charles Copeland: those in Legend Laymone are all by different artists, William Hamilton Gibson leading off. The Wooing of Grandmother Grey is a sort of reminiscent monologue of the grandmother on Christmas eve, — "I was thinkin', Jabez," said Grandmother Grey, "How it all was so long ago,

When you lived with your father miles away,

And the ground was covered with heaps of snow. "Then Christmas was very different, you know. I was young, and fair to see, And, Jabez, you did n't mind rain or snow

When you came a-courtin' me."

The verse, it will be seen, is not more than a fair vehicle for a bit of the homely and tender sentiment to which Christmas time is dedicated, and which is by tacit consent free, at that season, from depreciatory measuring by critical standards. The pictures are of the good, yet not excellent, sort of character and landscape drawings to which we are accustomed at the holiday times, a little perfunctory, yet delicately done, and reproduced and printed with every possible advantage of mechanical art and luxurious thick paper. In Legend Laymone the illustrations are more elaborate and the text slenderer. It is a story of California Indians and Padre Junipero, told in a curious little metre, pleasant at its best,- as of the moon :

azines. These are reproduced either from photographs of clay or plaster modelings, or from some sort of painting imitating these, - probably from the photographs, as the title page says they are "modeled" by John J. Boyle. They represent the Indians of the text in various conventionalized poses, and are interesting and ingenious, but hardly beautiful.

Some one laments that we must always have holiday "novelties," and that the season carries off the most trivial literature under cover of a little decoration; while really good books are unsalable, once they cease to be new. But this does not apply to the case of standard books, even in the old editions: no doubt volumes and sets of Shakspere, and Tennyson, and Dickens, and George Eliot, and Emerson, are constantly given as holiday presents. When there is added to this constant demand the stimulus of new and beautiful editions, it would seem as if the best literature must hold its own pretty well against the ephemeral: the desire of novelty and of luxury is gratified, and at the same time the gift is one that can be offered to the most fastidious literary taste. More attractive, to our mind, than even the beautifully decorated and illustrated editions of some familiar classical poem or sketch, are those that depend upon perfection of type and make-up, and compact convenience of form; for they are more readable. They usually, too, select small classics, such as are most easily lost to popular acquaintance amid their surroundings of old-fashioned books familiar only to men who live a good deal in their libraries. We have seen no more beautiful set of such small classics than the half-dozen published under the rather trite series name of Literary Gems.1 Each tiny volume, bound in dark red leather, and printed in the clearest of type, on paper not glossy, but of a grateful dullness in tone, is in a separate box, yet there is no needless expense in accessories. At the same time, a new series of those most satisfying publications, the Riverside Aldines, 2 is begun, and three volumes have reached us. They have a somewhat less holiday air, and one may have any one of them without fearing to "break the set," but they are all the more perfect in their way for

that.

Two American Statesmen.

It was, perhaps, merely a coincidence that the volumes devoted to Franklin and Washington in the American statesmen series appeared almost simultaneously, but if so, it was a happy conicidence.

1 Literary Gems: Poe's The Gold-Bug Brown's Rab and His Friends; Drake's The Culprit Fay; Curtis's Our Best Society; Arnold's Sweetness and Light; Goldsmith's The Good-Natured Man. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

2 The Gray Champion, etc. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

Walden. Vols. I and II. By Henry Thoreau. Ibid.

There is something appropriate in this association of the two men who not only hold the most prominent position in the popular mind as the most significant characters of the revolutionary period, but whose services as American statesmen had one common characteristic. Franklin and Washington, among all the leaders of that day, were most conspicuously the early advocates of union, and did more than others to promote the movement towards nationality in its earliest stages. With Franklin it was perhaps natural that the necessity for nationality should early present itself. Passing the greater part of the troubled years that prece led the Revolution outside of the country, where he represented not one colony alone, but in a great measure upheld the cause and defended the interests of all; enjoying the advantages of being a spectator in the stupendous events that were taking place in the colonies, and being therefore free from the passing jealousies and antago nisms, yet feeling deeply the mighty significance of all that was occurring; having forced upon him continually the weakness resulting from the lack of harmonious and concerted action -- surrounded by such forces, it was inevitable that the movement toward nationality should find an early and earnest advocate in him. With Washington, on the other hand, the influences were different. Throughout the whole struggle preceding the revolution, as well as during the war, he was in the thick of events, and was thus deprived of the advantage of perspective that Franklin enjoyed. It was due rather to his breadth of mental grasp, reinforced by the fact that his position as commander-in-chief placed him between the two contending forces colonial and continental that clashed throughout the years of the war, and after peace had been gained, threatened to destroy all the advantages that had been won on the battlefield.

Mr. Morse in his work is confronted immediately by the many sided character of his subject. Dr. Franklin, the scientist and the philosopher, is a different character from Mr. Franklin, the statesman and diplomatist; and back of both of these characters is the figure of Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man at which Americans love to point as an example of what is noblest and best in the possibilities of the American character. Mr. Morse has, however, simplified his task wisely by remembering that Frankin the statesman is his subject, and he has clearly separated this phase of his life, resisting the temptation to present the other phases. In doing this, there is of necessity much comment on the events happening in Europe during those years of struggle for the independence of the colonies. And it is to be doubted whether the character has lost from the omissions, when we see his services to the cause of

3 Benjamin Franklin. By John T. Morse, Jr. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Publishers. Boston and New York: 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

freedom thus thrown into prominence. Single-handed and unaided, surrounded by adverse, even hostile forces, tempted in all ways calculated to satisfy the ambition and cupidity of a man less strong, he presents a very striking figure. Those in the colonies had the advantage of the sympathy and co-operation of others working with the same aim, but he stands alone and undismayed. Mr. Morse justly calls him the diplomat of the Revolutionary period, and an interesting account of the vicissitudes of early American diplomacy is given.

The broader view of the statesman is presented by Mr. Lodge in his life of Washington. Instead of confining himself to a consideration of the political services of Washington, he has aimed rather to overthrow the Washington of tradition, and to present Washington the man. There is what would be unnecessary attention given to the myths of Weems and the Weemites, had not these fairy tales taken such a hold upon the popular mind. There is a very gratifying attempt on the part of later biographers of Washington to clear his memory of these stories that have for a generation or two surrounded him with an artificial and unhuman halo; and Mr. Lodge's is not the least successful of these attempts. Washington in these pages is presented to us as the well-to-do country gentleman, who takes pleasure in the successful management of his estate, who rides to hounds and enjoys it, who looks always toward his domestic life with a yearning destined never to be fully satisfied, and yet with a strong interest in the affairs of his country, that will not permit him to withdraw from some participation in them, and that draws him forth from his seclusion to take the place of a leader when necessity requires. This desire to present the human Washington has compelled the expansion of the work into two volumes in order not to slight the labors as a statesman, and it has tended to throw this latter phase of his character somewhat in the background. But this can be overlooked more easily than can the somewhat partisan tone of the comments on some of the leading statesmen in the latter part of the book.

California Fruits 2

In this book Mr. E. J. Wickson has made a very valuable contribution to the literature of this branch of horticulture. There is at present no book covering the same ground, for Eastern books are of little value as guides in this State, where climate, soils and even the same varieties and the needs of the market are so different, to say nothing of many of our best varieties of fruits which are either Califor

1 George Washington. By Henry Cabot Lodge. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., Publishers. Boston and New York 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

2 California Fruits and How to Grow Them. By Edward J. Wickson, A. M. Dewey & Co: San Francisco. 1889.

nia seedlings or come to us from the Orient, or from sub-tropical regions, and are unknown in the East. California Fruits treats of almost all the subjects on which it is necessary to have knowledge for the successful and profitable growth of fruits: of" Climate,' according to the main divisions into coast, valley, and mountain, which are so important, and so little known or understood by many even of Californians, while they are perfectly incomprehensible to the Easterner; of "Soils" with the careful statistics of the State University Agricultural Department; of Preparation of Land," "Growth of Trees," "Budding, Grafting, etc.,' Varieties of Orchard Fruits," "Grapes," "Semi-tropical Fruits," "Nuts," "Small Fruits," and so on. A chapter on "Markets and Transportation," giving a classification of varieties suitable for the various uses to which fruit is put in near or distant markets, fresh, dried, or canned, would have been of immense value to the would-be planter, and it seems to us that the work is incomplete without more on this subject than is given.

99 66

Indeed, the point of view of the book is that of a horticultural editor, rather than that of a fruitgrower. To the fruit-grower the dollars and cents are the primary consideration. He is interested in new varieties, but he is cautious about putting in many trees until he knows something pretty definite about them and their status in his locality, and for the purposes that he intends his fruit. The editor on the other hand is something like the botanist, to whom an absolutely new weed is a great acquisition; he is apt to think that notes on any new variety are very valuable, and to give undue weight and space to what the originator may say. The originator is, of course, the person most ready to speak and write about the kinds he has brought to notice, but is very seldom as good a judge as some one who has no personal interest, either of money or pride, at stake. Mr. Wickson is no more open to this criticism than other compilers of such books, indeed, he is in some ways less so, for he is very careful to give his authority, so that to the old fruit-grower who knows pretty thoroughly the personnel of his fellows throughout the State, it is easy to tell which statements are to be taken with a grain of salt, and which are "gospel truth." But to the new-comer and the city man it is not so simple a matter.

Mr. Wickson's position has been for many years past one of exceptional advantage for the collection of material for this work, and he has brought together a great fund of information in a handy shape for reference; and although he distinctly disclaims any originality in the material, there is not a fruit-grower in the State who will not find much valuable information in it, nowhere else to be had so conveniently and accessibly.

The Beginnings of New England.

In this book we have John Fiske again in his excellent capacity as historian, wherein he is accepted

as more interesting than most novelists by even general readers who are at all interested in the subject. And it seems as if anyone that cared for any reading involving the least use of the mental faculties ought to read this volume from beginning to end with unfailing pleasure.

The charm of the author's style is such that he is able to take up subjects that are anything but popu lar, and yet his readers are led along in a skillful and systematic way, so that in the end they have a very scholarly view of the subject or period treated. It was the same in his scientific books; they were congenial and suggestive to scholars; have never, so far as we know, been charged with any superficiality, and yet have been delightfully acceptable to any intelligent mind without special preparation for the subject. The only thing we have ever heard criticized in them from the specialist's standpoint is that they state doctrines less tentatively than the man of science would,―sifting out from conflicting views the one most probable and of most general acceptance among those qualified to know, and presenting it simply with little indication given the reader of the minor hesitations and controversies that may still beset it. This is perhaps scarcely a defect in a popular writer. And in history John Fiske is more on his own ground -- charming scientific and philosophic essayist as he has been than in science; here he is to a great extent a man of original research. The chapter on "The Roman and English Idea ” is very laudatory of the Anglo-Saxon. It shows the gradual displacement of all older ideas of government and of the rights of man by the English one of popular suffrage, and no power except from the free will of the people. This was very different from even the most liberal of other methods, where the suffrage of either the priests, or at best the most prominent personages, was as far as they dreamed of going. The growth and spread of Calvinism he regards a great power in this respect, for Calvin taught that "all men were equal in the sight of God," hence one man, because he was called king or duke, was not by any means thereby given power to oppress other

men.

1

The exodus to Holland was for the sake of freedom, and was mainly from the east Anglian counties, the part of England that was always most impatient of restriction of liberty. Here, around the ancient monastery of Ely, Robin Hood and his merry men

preferred to live for years, hunted as outlaws, rather than submit to what they deemed tyranny, and they had the sympathy of the region, too. This country was the strongho'd of Lollardry, and was noted as the most heretical corner of England.

The class that these people who founded New England belonged to was the Yeomanry,—a class that

1 The Beginnings of New England. By John Fiske. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.

scarcely exist in England now,- is most nearly represented in type by the upper-middle class. They were used to a good deal of consideration at home, for the side that the "Yeomanry of England" chose to espouse was sure to win in the end, and they had learned to do their own thinking and say their say regardless of priests, king, or pope. When they found that liberty was not to be had in England, they left their well loved homes, and risked life and all in a wild and far region, to found a new England where they might worship as they believed right.

From the first they resisted all attempts of England at dictation, and succeeded to a most astonishing degree in maintaining almost complete autonomy, partly by ignoring unpleasant demands, and partly by simply refusing to do as they were bid, but mainly because of the various complications of home politics, and because the colonies had always strong friends about the court.

Mr. Fiske makes a very interesting point in regard to the persecuting spirit of early times, i. e., that it is largely due to the very evident need of uniformity of belief in weak communities, that they may present a solid front to their enemies. This was in part the reason of intolerance in the New England colonies, but also it was because they had come across the seas, and made a commonwealth on virgin soil expressly to have a place all their own, where they could worship in their own way; they did not recognize a right in any one to follow them thither and interfere with their purpose. It was not as if they and the intruders had been on common footing, in the land of their nativity. The logic has much justice, and it is probable that even in these tolerant days a party of people who had with immense labor hewed a home out of a wilderness for a special purpose would make things reasonably unpleasant for any who followed afterward and interfered. But it makes against the theory, that the faction to which these same men belonged at home in England had been advocating repression of dissent, and it was as much from the Presbyterian as the prelatical party that the earlier colonists, at Plymouth, had suffered there.

The Houghton-Mifflin Thackeray. It is a good sign when a great publishing house makes a leading card of the publishing of a new edition of Thackeray. The edition now being issued

by the Riverside Press will take its rank with the

standard editions. Viewed simply in its external features, counted as “books that should be in every gentleman's library," it is quite satisfactory. It is to be in twenty-two volumes (eighteen already issued) of rather more than the usual octavo size. The

2 The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray. Vols. XXIII. Illustrated Library Edition, with introductory,notes, setting forth the history of the several works. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 1889. For sale in San Francisco by Samuel Carson & Co.