MURRAY'S STUDENT'S MANUALS.

A SERIES OF HISTORICAL BOOKS FOR ADVANCED SCHOLARS.

Forming a continuous Universal History, Sacred and Secular, from the Creation of the World to the Present Time. Each Work contains as much matter as is given in two ordinary octavo volumes.

"We know no better or more trustworthy summary, even for the general reader, of the early history of Britain and Gaul, than is contained in these volumes respectively."-The Museum.

ANCIENT HISTORY.

The STUDENT'S ANCIENT HISTORY of the EAST The STUDENT'S MANUAL of ENGLISH LITERA

From the Earliest Times to the Conquests of Alexander the Great, including Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Media, Persia, Asia Minor, and Phoenicia. By PHILIP SMITH, B.A.' With 70 Woodcuts.

Post Svo. 7s. 6d.

TURE. By T. B. SHAW, M.A. Post 8vo. 7s. 6d.

The STUDENT'S SPECIMENS of ENGLISH
LITERATURE. Selected from the Best Writers. By THOS, B.
SHAW, M.A. Post 8vo. 78. 6d.

SCIENCE.

The STUDENT'S HISTORY of GREECE. From the Earliest Times to the Roman Conquest. With Chapters on the History of Literature and Art. By WM. SMITH, D.C.L. With The STUDENT'S ELEMENTS of GEOLOGY.

100 Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 78. 6d.

The STUDENT'S HISTORY of ROME. From the

Earliest Times to the Establishment of the Empire. With Chapters on the History of Literature and Art. By DEAN LIDDELL. With 80 Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 78. 6d.

By

Sir CHARLES LYELL, F.R.S. With 600 Woodcuts. Post svo. 93.

The CONNECTION of the PHYSICAL SCIENCES.

By MARY SOMERVILLE. Woodcuts. Post 8vo. 93.

The STUDENT'S GIBBON. An Epitome of the PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. By Mary Somerville.

By

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
EDWARD GIBBON. Incorporating the Researches of recent
Historians. With 200 Woodcuts. Post Svo. 78. 6d.

With Portrait. Post 8vo. 9s.

PHILOSOPHY AND LAW.

The STUDENT'S MANUAL of MORAL PHILO-
SOPHY. With Quotations and References. By WILLIAM
FLEMING, D.D. L'ost 8vo. 7s. 6d.

The STUDENT'S BLACKSTONE. An Abridgment of the Entire Commentaries on the Laws of England. By R. MALCOLM KERR, LL.D. Post 8vo. 78. 6d.

The STUDENI'S EDITION of AUSTIN'S LEC-
TURES on JURISPRUDENCE; or, the Philosophy of Positive
Law. By ROBERT CAMPBELL. Post 8vo. 128.

An ANALYSIS of AUSTIN'S LECTURES on
JURISPRUDENCE, for STUDENTS. By GORDON CAMP
BELL, MA. With an Index. Post Svo. GS.

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET,

Lay-Preaching.

The question whether laymen, under any circumstances, should preach and conduct religious services, is one which has been, from time to time, ventilated both at Church Congresses and Diocesan Conferences. Opposite views have, as was likely, been expressed upon the subject; but the balance of opinion has been decidedly in favour of employing lay assistance of this kind, though under certain restrictions. Thus, at one of the Lincoln Diocesan PAGE Conferences, a resolution was carried by a considerable - 367 majority, to the effect that duly qualified laymen "under proper safeguards" should be authorised by the Bishop of the Diocese to conduct services in unconsecrated places, and also "under certain circumstances in consecrated places." Without committing ourselves to the terms of 272 that resolution, with a part of which, at least, we do not - 373 concur, we are fully prepared to admit that there are large and populous parishes where lay-preachers may be with advantage employed.

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We acknowledge that the subject is one which we treat with some degree of diffidence, and approach with a feel377 ing amounting to prejudice. Lay-preaching has been so commonly associated in our minds with Nonconformity and obtrusive vanity, if not vulgarity, that it is rather difficult to sever a connection which has been so long established. However, we will make the attempt.

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The preliminary inquiry must be, is lay-preaching permissible? Secondly, if permissible, is it advisable? Finally, if advisable, what are the limits within which it should be restricted?

To answer the first question, we must refer to Church history; for no amount of advantage, which it may be proved can be derived from any practice, would be sufficient to justify its adoption, if such practice were evidently contrary to all Ecclesiastical precedent. In the earliest times, preaching seems to have appertained to the Bishop alone. One qualification for the Episcopal office is that he should be "apt to teach ;" and ancient Councils define preaching as the Bishop's exclusive duty. It is well known that S. Augustine is said to have been the first presbyter to preach before the Bishop. Afterwards,

SCALE OF CHARGES FOR ADVERTISEMENTS. it was decreed that presbyters should have power to

preach, and then deacons in their absence. The Bishop seems to have preached by an inherent, the priest by a delegated authority. We can understand how the successors of the Apostles, who had received "the deposit"

Displayed Advertisements will be charged according to the space of the faith, would at first be regarded as the sole enunoccupied.

Cheques to be crossed "London and Westminster Bank." Post

ciators of the doctrines with which they had been

Office Orders to be made payable to W. Skeffington and Son at the entrusted. Yet even in primitive times, there are to be Piccadilly Circus Office.

The LIFE of the LORD JESUS CHRIST:
A Complete Critical Examination of the Origin, Contents, and

A

Connection of the Gospels. Translated from the German of J. P. LANGE. D.D., Professor of Divinity in the University of Bonn. Edited, with additional Notes, by MARCUS DODS, D.D. second-hand copy of the original six-volume edition, 8vo. cloth, (pub. 35s.), price 22s. 6d.

W.SKEFFINGTON and SON, 163 Piccadilly, W.

found instances of lay-preaching. Origen preached, as a

layman, in the Church; and the act was sanctioned by Alexander, the Bishop of Jerusalem, who, when questioned upon the point by Demetrius, defended his conduct by quoting precedents. Indeed, lay-preaching was of sufficient account to be dealt with in the fourth Council of Carthage, at which laymen were forbidden to preach in the presence

at S. Paul's Cathedral in 1872, 1873, and 1874 respectively.
The lectures, therefore, if they cannot be said to treat
any one subject in logical order, have the merit of treat-
ing similar and related ones; or it may even be said that
they look at the same phenomenon from different sides.
It does not admit of doubt that the consideration of the
relation between religion, - particularly the Christian
Religion and Civilisation, is just now in the highest
degree opportune. Modern civilisation is, or believes
itself to be, adult; and there are unmistakable signs of
the endeavour on the part of a certain not uninfluential
section to reconstruct its institutions on a purely secular
basis, getting rid entirely of any reference whatever to
religious considerations. It will not have been without
need, therefore, that Dr CHURCH has pointed out once
more to the world at large in these admirable essays what
it really owes to religion; and how great and decisive
has been the part which Christianity has had in shaping
all those points of excellence, or, at all events, of
superiority to preceding forms of social organisation,
upon which modern society is wont to pride itself. Dean
CHURCH analyses, we think very acutely and accurately,
the chief of these older civilisations, that of Rome; and
suggests how it was that, with all its excellences, it fell
utterly, when it did fall, and without power of recovery
"Roman civilisation was only great as long as men were true
to their principles; but it had no root beyond their personal
characters and traditions and customary life; and when these
failed it had nothing else to appeal to-it had no power and
spring of recovery. These traditions, these customs of life,
this inherited character, did keep up a stout and prolonged
struggle against the shocks of changed circumstances, against
the restless and unscrupulous cravings of individual selfishness,
But they played a losing game. Each shock, each fresh blow,
found them weaker after the last, and no favouring respite was
allowed them to regain and fortify the strength they had lost.
The high instincts of the race wore out; bad men had nothing

the world were decided. I know nothing more strange and sorrowful in Roman history than to observe the absolute impotence of what must have been popular conscience, on the crimes of statesmen and the bestial infamy of Emperors. There were plenty of men to revile them; there were men to brand them in immortal epigrams; there were men to kill them. But there was no man to make his voice heard and be respected, about righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come.”—(Page 173.)

After this work we cannot avoid taking for comparison with it, or perhaps for contrast, CHRISTIAN CIVILISATION, with Special Reference to India. By WILLIAM CUNNINGHAM, M.A. (Macmillan), a work almost as noticeable in its way as the former. It has, however, an object far more restricted, and in a sense more practical; and where Dr Church endeavours to recall and to portray the civilisations of the past, Mr CUNNINGHAM contents himself with deducing lessons for the action of the present. Essentially the work is an Eirenicon addressed to all denominations of English Christians, and urging them to unite upon definite principles in a Christian politeia which shall be comprehensive enough to embrace and to utilise all that is positive in the principles of them all. Assuredly if calm and persuasive reasoning might suffice to so desirable a result, Mr CUNNINGHAM might well claim to have framed a pleading that could hardly be resisted; but unhappily it is prejudice and self-interest, far more than real differences of principle, that perpetuate sectarian divisions: and reasoning is thrown away upon the fanatical zealot. Who

"Can minister to a mind diseased?"

Still Mr CUNNINGHAM's little book is ably written and calculated to be very useful, in spite of its not happily chosen title, and we heartily recommend it.

A very different work is THREE POPULAR LECTURES ON CHURCH COMPREHENSION AND CHRISTIAN REUNION. By J. R. PRETYMAN, M.A., formerly Vicar of Aylesbury. to do but to deny that these instincts were theirs. The powers (Longmans, Green, and Co.) The writer commences with of evil and of darkness mounted higher and higher, turning the statement on page 3, that "extravagance or recklessgreat professions into audacious hypocrisies, great institutions ness of statement, one-sided teaching, violence of denuninto lifeless and mischievous forms, great principles into absurd ciation against differing persuasions, ignorant and fanatiself-contradictions. Had there been anything to fall back upon, cal rant, narrow-minded sectarian bigotry of opinion, are there were often men to do it; but what was there, but the now comparatively rare in our pulpits," i.e., of the Nonmemories and examples of past greatness? Religion had once conformists. Would that it were so! but we fear that played a great part in what had given elevation to Roman civil❘ Mr PRETYMAN bases his statement on too small a number life. It had had much to do with law, with political develop- of instances. His book, however, is written to advocate ment, with Roman sense of public duty, and Roman reverence as an Eirenicon, that the formularies of the Church for the State. But, of course, a religion of farmers and yeomen," should be so altered as to allow all Trinitarian and a religion of clannish etiquettes, and family pride, and ancestral jealousies, could not long stand the competition of the Eastern faiths, or the scepticism of the cultivated classes. It went; and there was nothing to supply its place but a philosophy, often very noble and true in its language, able, I doubt not, in evil days, to elevate, and comfort, and often purify its better disciples -but unable to overawe, to heal, to charm a diseased society: which never could breathe life and energy into words for the people which wanted that voice of power which could quicken the dead letter, and command attention, where the destinies of

Orthodox Nonconformists to accept them, and so to be in a position to share in the honours and emoluments and social status of the National Church" (page 21). The reply must be a short one. In the first place, no possible alteration would be acceptable to all; and in the next place, much as we desire Home Reunion, it would be buying it far too dear if we were all to unite on the common ground of what Charles Kingsley somewhere calls "fundamental nakedness in the matter of formulæ.”

Professor CALDERWOOD's Lectures on THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, Interpreted in View of their Relations to each other (Macmillan), is the endeavour to work out an excellent idea, viz., of grouping the parables of the Divine Teacher so to exhibit in some degree for popular use the character of His teaching. It is better conceived, we think, than carried out; for the essential nature of these parabolic discourses, viz., its homeliness, clearness, and vividness, tends too often to disappear under the very length of laborious expositions.

A new volume of Dr EDERSHEIM's valuable popular commentaries or illustrations of the Bible story, HISTORY OF JUDAH AND ISRAEL FROM THE BIRTH OF SOLOMON TO THE REIGN OF AHAB (Religious Tract Society), will be welcomed by all readers. It is marked by all that sympathy with and intimate realisation of the Hebrew archæology, which is characteristic of Dr EDERSHEIM, more than of any English writer we know, or indeed of any contemporary writer, excelling indeed the late Dr von Ewald; and will no doubt be equally popular. Especially worthy of notice are the weighty observations on the general subject of the miraculous (pp. vi.-vii.), to which we invite

attention.

Rather devotional than critical is the beautiful little bijou volume on ROYAL PRIESTS. By AGNES GIBERNE (Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday), which would make the prettiest of presents. Still we could have wished that while enlarging on the Priesthood of the Laity, the specific Order of Priests in the Church of CHRIST, with its appointed ministry and prescribed offering TOUTO TOLEÎTE εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν had not been wholly ignored.

Philosophy of Charles Dickens.

illustrated the remarkable dictum penned by Mr Forster, who states that "human sympathy lies at the heart of everything Dickens wrote. It was the secret of the hope that he had that his books might help to make people better, and it so guarded them from evil that there is scarcely a page of the thousands he has written which might not be put into the hands of a little child." In the contrast Mr CANNING draws between Sir Walter Scott and Dickens, it is well remarked that while Dickens always seems deeply moved and interested in his unhappy heroines, Sir Walter never seems to lose his perfect mental self-control. "He makes his readers indeed pity his hapless heroines: Amy Robsart, Lucy Ashton, Flora McIvor—to the last degree of which sympathy is capable, but he himself never reveals the least personal emotion, and herein lies a most remarkable difference between him and Dickens."

Few, too, will call in question the justice of the following sentence of Mr CANNING:

“But, perhaps, the chief characteristic of Dickens' writings is his extreme detestation of all bypocrisy and affectation. From his first great work, 'Pickwick,' to his last, 'Edwin Drood' inclusive, he exposes what is often termed 'cant,' in either religion or philanthropy, with, if possible, a deeper abhorrence than the subject requires. Doubtless, religious

humbugs' like the Rev. W. Stiggins, Mr Pecksniff, Uriah Heep, and Chadband, or the false philanthropist, Mr Honey

thunder, deserve exposure and consequent condemnation. But it is scarcely possible that rascals like them would be able to do much harm to the community, as Dickens apparently

believes, for their sphere must always be a limited one. They might for a time cheat and impose upon some ignorant or trustful individuals and families, but their utter roguery would surely be discovered sooner or later, and all would be over with them at once. It is a most remarkable fact that Dickens, in all his works, never describes a single religious fanatic or political zealot as willing to endure as to inflict torture or death for the sake of his own opinions. Lord George Gordon is the only character at all resembling this class; but he is a very weak specimen, and a historical character, not the invention of Dickens, who represents him as

him with any fierce, fanatical preachers, by whom such a man was more likely to be influenced, and among whom, indeed, he was probably educated."

PHILOSOPHY OF CHARLES DICKENS. By Hon. Albert S. G. CANNING. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1880. The writer of these pages has clearly studied the works of Dickens with affectionate earnestness, and in many cases from an original and deeply instructive standpoint. It is a work which, with the single exception of Mr Fors-led and ruled by the hypocrite Gashford, instead of associating ter's Life and the Dickens Letters, gives us a clearer and fuller insight into the special characteristics of Dickens' mind, manner, and method, than any book hitherto published. We have in these pages an almost detailed analysis of all that goes to make up the sum total of the philosophical principles which inspired every work of the great novelist, and especially in his creation and delineation of human character. His love for children, his sympathy for human suffering, his love for all that is most loveable and his hatred for all that is most worthy of hatred in humanity, his inimitable and kindly humour, his almost unparalleled originality which leaves him in debt to no other writer, and his absolute independence in politics and religion, his high aims and aspirations in the interests of his kind and his country, his unsullied purity, are all presented to us as constituents of Dickens' philosophy, and verified by examples from his works. Mr CANNING has very abundantly

The literary style of Dickens is scarcely touched upon by our author, although, like his character, it is remarkable for simplicity and force, and the absence of all affectation, which he abhorred in any form. It is also remarkable for its almost perfect rhythmic music, as many of his sentences run unconsciously into Iambic verse, especially in his pathetic descriptions. On a few points, however, it is impossible for us to accept or endorse the views of Mr CANNING. We regret, in the first place, that the author virtually attributes the neglect of the London poor and indifference to their sufferings to the clergy. He would have the world believe that the present spirit of philanthropic interest in the London poor is the outcome, and sole outcome, of Mr Dickens' writings. We do

not wish to rob the great novelist of the glory which is his due on the ground of the philanthropic spirit that animates and actuates the whole of his writings, and on the ground of their beneficial influence on the conscience and action of the nation; but we must bear in mind that this philanthropic tendency was not created by Dickens, it showed itself with the greater religious earnestness which has marked the second quarter of the present century—a time most favourable for the investigation and reformation of social abuses, when education was spreading, the press on the increase, the clergy more zealous than ever, and when Dickens himself could write "The wheel of time is rolling on for an end, and the world is in all great essentials better, gentler, more forbearing, and more hopeful as it rolls." In the next place we must protest against Mr CANNING's distinction between Irish and English criminals, which is as false as it is fanciful. "But," writes our author, "the great difference between English and Irish criminals seems to be that, no matter how wicked the crimes, or how evil the lives of the latter are, they seldom, if ever, can banish the idea of a GOD, a heaven or a hell, as English criminals. They are, indeed, incapable of loving their Maker in any sense, but, notwithstanding any amount of crime, they can still regard Him as a powerful giant, who may be easily cajoled and deceived, yet who certainly exists." If Mr CANNING will study the real character of Irish crime as contrasted with English, he will find that it springs, not from a mistaken idea of GOD as a " powerful giant," but from a mistaken idea of patriotism. It is in the supposed interest of his "country" that Paddy shoots his landlord, or his agent, from a deep-seated and ineradicable conviction that they are enemies to his country, to his religion, and that they are the legalised usurpers of Irish property, and oppressors of the Irish race.

AN ESSAY ON THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF IMMORTALITY.

it is very unsafe to infer the reception of an unrevealed truth in Mosaic times from the writings of an author who dates from post-Christian times. Whatever judgment we may pass on that ill-advised book, Warburton's Divine Legation,' we think the writer had reason on his side when he asserted that the Jews received Moses' words in a temporal sense; and though there is, doubtless, a deeper meaning in the words than meets the eye, it was left to a later age to recognise this generally and to express it in praise and prayer. The other that in Rom. v. 18, which text "declares that the justification passage on which the author relies to confirm his position is of all men, which is their being eventually made righteous through the operation of the Son of Gon, has the quality of conferring life (eis dinalwow (wis)." But it is obvious that "the life" mentioned may be the baptized Christian's life in CHRIST, which is confessedly supernatural, and that nothing can hence be inferred respecting the iminortality inherent in the human soul. In the arguments employed to confute the common idea of the everlasting nature of the punishment of the lost there is not much novelty,-nor indeed could we expect to find anything that has not been said often before from the time of Origen to the present. Much is made of the fact that whereas life, no such expression is used of death and punishment. the epithet arатáλνтоя is applied (Hebr. vii. 16) to eternal

But the term in the passage referred to is asserted of the life of CHRIST, the Priest after the order of Melchisedik, whose priesthood was not, as that of Aaron, liable to be dissolved by death. If the words aftos and àirios conveyed the meaning which the Church has always affixed to them, what need was there for using another epithet which could only by a metaphor be applied to punishment, and which would express nothing more than the others? But the truth is that this entire discussion about day is an attempt to explain matters which God has never intended us to know. What is meant by "æonian life" and "æonian death" is left by Holy Scripture in mysterious uncertainty, and to dogmatise about them is to be wise above that which is written, and to open the way to putting glosses upon God's Word which nullify or dilute its plainest statements. Novel doctrines are always erroneous; and indeed are generally revived heresies which have had their day and have been buried long ago. Professor Challis, with all his reverence for Scripture and assured faith on revelation, seems too much given to thinking out dogmas for himself without regard to the Vincentian rule. Thus he In this interesting essay Professor Challis contends that the denies the existence of an altar in the Christian Church (page soul of man does not possess any innate principle of immor-31), because after the sacrifice of CHRIST that form of religious tality, but that its immortality is dependent upon a state of service came to an end, and deems that, for the efficacy of perfected righteousness. The elect at some period enter on the ordinance, the chief requisite is the faith of the recipient conian life (the life of the age to come), and the rest of the dead undergo æonian punishment, ending in the "second death" which will eventually be effectual to the purification and salvation of the condemned. In support of what the author calls the "self-evident" proposition that immortality is the consequence of, and dependent on pardon from sin, he produces two texts. The first contains Moses' warning: "I have set before you life and death: choose life.' -(Deut. xxx. 19); and Professor Challis argues that the Jews must have understood this as referring to the future covenanted life in the world to come, and he tries to show by reference to II Esdr. vii. 43, 44, that it was so understood. But surely

By the Rev. JAMES CHALLIS, M.A. London: Rivingtons. 1880. Pp. 135.

thus entirely ignoring the objective side of the Holy Eucharist. In his view the bread and wine are merely symbols of CHRIST'S body and blood, and are employed to "inform man's spirit that there is cause for confidence and joy in the broken body of the LORD and His poured-out blood.”—(P. 23)

The essay, which is worthy of study, would be the better for an analysis or division into sections. As printed, it is somewhat confusing, and the argument, being often interrupted by side issues, is difficult to follow. The tone is, of course, reverent and religious, as is all that Professor Challis writes. If we cannot always agree with his opinions, we are always instructed at least by the tone in which he writes.