would lead one to anticipate. We can scarcely suppose that it will be used, to any considerable extent, outside of the circle for which it was especially designed, and yet Sabbath School teachers and others, who desire brief and concise annotations on the Gospels to aid them in their studies and instructions, will find much in this work that will be useful to them.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST.*-This little volumn has already been published in part at least by the American Tract Society and in its chief peculiarities is not unknown to the public. It is a comprehensive and exhaustive argument for the Divinity of our Lord, drawn from the internal evidence which the evangelical history and the history of the church furnish when taken in their connection. The argument is finished by a series of replies to all sorts of objections and particularly to the counter theories of Strauss and Renan. To this is appended a collection of the testimonies of unbelievers, beginning with Pontius Pilate and his wife, and ending with Frances Power Cobbe. The work is learned, yet perfectly simple. It is sober and plain, yet not uninteresting. It is serious and correct without cant or sermonizing. It is fitted to be eminently useful, and we bespeak for it the attention of the clergy and others who are brought in contact with the vague but pretentious infidelity of the times.

THE SHADOW OF CHRISTIANITY.-The author of this little voluume is a strong and sound thinker, and a bold writer. In these few unpretending papers, written originally for the columns of a newspaper, during the crisis of our late war, there is more solid Christian statesmanship and profound political philosophy than are embodied in many an elaborate treatise, or specious statepaper. His views of the Christian Church are thoroughly spiritual. His views of the simplicity of its organization and the autonomy of its government are derived from the model given in the New Testament. His theory of the relation which the Church holds to the State recognizes the essential independence of each upon the other,

* The Person of Christ: The Miracle of History-with a Reply to Strauss and Renan, and a collection of Testimonies of Unbelievers. By PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1866. 18mo pp. 375. New Haven: Judd & White.

The Shadow of Christianity; or the Genesis of the Christian State. A Treatise for the Times. By the Author of the “ Apocatastasis." New York: Hurd & Houghton. 24mo. pp. 167.

in respect to authority and support, and the practical dependence of the State upon the Church for all that makes the State healthful or valuable. Hence the significance of the title, "The Shadow of Christianity." The work is divided into the following chapters: The Church, The Commonwealth, The Pagan State, The Christian State, The American Republic. A copy of this book would be a not unsuitable present to every legislator in our land. Were its principles carefully pondered, and thoroughly accepted, it would make our politicians more intelligent as well as more honest.

GOULBURN'S "IDLE WORD." *-There is an unfortunate appropriateness in the title of this little book. It will ordinarily be quoted as we have here given it, and in that form expresses an opinion which we fear will be generally entertained as to the value and efficiency of the work. The author's books, which have been republished in this country, have been a descending series. The "Thoughts on Personal Religion," we still value as highly as at first. The "Idle Word" seems to have less of valuable and original thought than either of its predecessors.

"Method," says Lord Bacon, "carrying a show of total and perfect knowledge, has a tendency to generate acquiescence." Our author, who quotes from that work of Bacon in which these words occur, seems to have taken these "pregnant words" for a commendation of method. He has fallen into the error which they condemn. Another and more serious fault is the use of analogy as if it were always argument. The whole third chapter (and the note to chapter VIII) is full of analogies, distorted and pressed beyond their points of contact. It contains, too, a most absurd argument for the Trinity-God is Love; but love implies more than one person: hence there is more than one person in God. We should be much happier, and Christianity would be much stronger, if two things could be done away,pulpit logic, with which this book overflows, and Christian illiberality. The tirade against modern liberality (pp. 50-52, Am. ed.) is a good (and bad) example of the latter, the only one we notice in the book.

There is much else in it to condemn, but also much to praise.

*The Idle Word: Short religious essays upon the gift of Speech and its employment in conversation. By EDWARD MEYRICK GOULBURN, D. D. New York: D. Appleton and Co. New Haven: H. C. Peck. 1866. Price $1.25.

The sermon at the end is perhaps the best thing in it; admirably direct, practical, and, for once, logical. We recommend also chapters vi., vii., ix., and x.

INGHAM ON BAPTISM.*-This large octavo volume attempts to give a presentation of the argument on the Baptist side of this great subject. The author, who is a pastor of a church in Todmorden in England, was moved to undertake the work by seeing two volumes bearing upon the other side of the controversy, which had been recently published-one of them by a prominent Methodist gentleman, and the other under the auspices of the Congregational Union of England. He was, therefore, led to take the position of an advocate and to contend against opponents in a greater degree than might naturally have been the case, if he had proposed to himself only a general tratise on Baptism. The main part of the volume, indeed,-some four hundred pages, -is taken up with the answering of objections of all sorts; and the continual repetition of remarks concerning "the influence of prejudice," etc, shows that the adversaries are never for a moment forgotten. The author himself admits that a handbook so controversial as this is very undesirable, but believes it to be necessary, so long as the present mode of defense is continued upon the other side. We cannot but think, that the book would have been more valuable, if it had been less of this character. But the reader who has the patience to go through, or the skill judiciously to pass over, those passages or pages which deal with the two writers above referred to, or with others of the same party, will hardly fail to feel that the author has set forth, with much fullness, the views of his own church, and has been quite exhaustive in searching out all the points of objection. Those who desire to have at hand the Baptist argument may find it for their interest to look into this book with a view to purchasing it.

BAKER'S SERMONE.t-We have read the memoir in this volume with intense but mournful interest. Our interest was in part excited by our personal knowledge of the religious history of the

*A Handbook on Christian Baptism. By R. INGHAM. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1865. 8vo. pp. 624.

Sermons of the Rev. Francis A. Baker, Priest of the Congregation of St. Paul, with a memoir of his life. By Rev. A. F. HEWIT. New York: Lawrence Kehoe. 1866. 12mo. pp. 504.

author, and of his strange wanderings from the simplicity of the gospel. We seem to read upon every page and in almost every sentence an explanation if not a vindication of the reasons which led him step by step to accept the authority of the Bishop of Rome as the ruler of his heart and conscience, and the dogmas of the Romish Church as decisive of his personal faith. In recording the struggles of Father Baker, Father Hewit has transcribed the recollections of his own. In stating at length the arguments which decided Father Baker with much hesitation and after long delays to enter the Romish communion, he but recapitulates the reasons which once moved himself to a similar decision. In dwelling upon the sacrifices and sorrows which this decision involved, and the fancied peace and satisfaction with which it was followed, he gives us the story of his own trials, and, as he fancies it, of his own exceeding joy, at finding repose at last in the bosom of "the church."

There is also inwrought into this biography an argument very skillfully adapted to affect powerfully many Protestants, whose views of the nature of the church and of the ministry are like those which were entertained by Fathers Baker and Hewit before they exchanged the name of Protestant for that of Romanist. It is very obvious that this memoir was not designed so much to commemorate Father Baker as it was to present satisfactory reasons why all Anglo-Catholics should become Roman Catholics. These reasons derive all their power to convince from the assumption that the true church can only be one, as it is united in a single organization under officers who derive their authority from the Apostles in a direct line of succession, and that their authority alone gives efficiency to the sacraments and other ministrations of grace and salvation.

At the time when we were reading this memoir, we happened to open a "Hobart's Companion for the Altar," a book which was formerly esteemed high authority among many Episcopalians in this country. In the preface, the Bishop thus expresses himself: "In the following pages, the writer has endeavored to keep in view two principles which he deems most important and fundamental. These priciples are: That we are saved from the guilt and dominion of sin by the divine merits and grace of a crucified Redeemer; and that the merits and grace of the Redeemer are applied to the soul of the believer, in the devout and humble partici. pation of the ordinances of the church, administered by a priesthood who derive their authority by regular transmission from

Christ the Divine Head of the Church, and the source of all the power in it." It is to those who accept these principles that the argument of Father Hewit addresses itself. They only can be af fected by it. To them the question is a very serious one, where can I find "the priesthood that derives its authority by regular transmission from the church?" Which is the church," by the participation of whose ordinances, the merits and grace of the Redeemer are applied to the soul." Is it the Anglican body that was broken off from Rome by the parliament of Henry VIII., and organized under the direction of Elizabeth, whose bond of union in this country is the House of Bishops, which house was violently rent in twain at the fancy of those "successors of the Apostles," who resided in the Confederate States? or is it the one body that is held together by the headship of the Bishop of Rome and the outward and continuous unity of which is no matter of doubt since the time of the Apostles? To persons to whom these are serious questions, the argument of Father Hewit is a serious argument, but to none others. To those who reject this conception of the church, and the sacraments, and the priesthood, and the transmission of authority, and of saving virtue, it has no force whatever. To the man who interprets the words of Christ aright, "where two or three are gathered in my name there am I in the midst of them," its reiterations are as powerless as "the blowing of smoke through a gun-barrel."

We are told on the title page and in the memoir that Father Baker is "a priest of the congregation of St. Paul." This is a society chiefly devoted to missionary work. It holds missions of several days in continuance in all the large towns, in which there are meetings, early and late, for confession, for communion, for meditation, and for preaching. To these missions the "young fathers," who have founded this society, devote themselves with laborious and praiseworthy zeal. In the sermons which they prepare and preach, if we may judge from the specimens in this volume and in the several series previously published, from which these are taken, there is used great plainness of speech and unflinching fidelity in reproof. Many of the truths and claims of the gospel are urged with admirable point and force. In form and in much of their matter, these are model sermons. The zeal, and patience, and fidelity, and missionary enterprise of the members of this society, are all worthy of the name of the Apostle whose name it bears. But the gospel which they preach, in its principal features, is anything but