which were eminently hopeful and progressive in tone. Nothing was more noticeable throughout the papers and addresses, as well as in the conclusions of the councils, than the recognition of the mission of the Independent churches in the civilization of the world and the building up of a purer and stronger social organism; progress, theologically as well as socially, was admitted to be a condition of the life of the Congregational communities. An attempt was indeed made by a few to assume that the only possible faith for a Congregational minister or a Congregational church was the Calvinism of a century ago, but at the end of the council meetings those who had assumed this position found it untenable, or at least held their peace, and so silently acknowledged the possibility of another view. It was a source of constant regret that Dr. Dexter and Dr. Hannay, the originators of the council, were present only in memory. Possibly it was due to the death of these men that the arrangements as to papers and speakers was not quite successful; too many papers were read, and too much detailed ground was attempted. But, on the whole, the council was an undoubted success, and the idea of its reassembling for it concluded by adjourning, not dissolving-was favored by all.

The protracted illness of Mr. Spurgeon has called forth from all classes of society and all sections of the Christian church an amount of eager interest and deep sympathy which shows how deeply and widely his eloquence and labors have appealed to his countrymen. Newspapers which usually would not favor his ecclesiastical, doctrinal, or political views, which were all so marked and always so forcibly expressed, have vied with his own disciples in expressions of sympathy. The Archbishop of Canterbury has been amongst those calling at Mr. Spurgeon's house to make inquiries, while many a heartfelt prayer has gone up from obscure country meeting-houses and from the lips of those who never heard the voice or saw the face of him for whom they prayed. Never, since the Prince of Wales, twenty years ago, hung for days between life and death, has the British public followed with such anxiety and eagerness the daily bulletins recording the progress of any great man's malady. This is strong proof of the power which Mr. Spurgeon has exerted in the religion and life of to-day.

Another testimony that, after all, the men and women who seem so to have but little interest or care beyond the temporal and passing events of the day have really a conscience, was given when the recent disclosures in the law court revealed the extent to which the highest class of society wastes time and money in gambling. It was of course because the Prince of Wales was an offender that so much attention was given to the question for a time. Some of course made it a ground for condemning the whole life of fashion and high society; really, however, the scandal was a mere incident in the history of one of our national vices, the craze for gambling and betting. There is in connection with this question a pleasing fact to record, that some of the most conscientious of our newspaper proprietors are refusing to publish any record of the betting transactions on the race-course. This has cost the "Leeds Mercury," a well-known daily paper which has been long and honorably managed by one of our leading Nonconformist families, the loss of much patronage among a certain class; but it will surely gain for it prestige and position among those whose approval is most worth gaining.

The whole question, which I have previously referred to as one of those moral problems which have a political aspect, is coming more and more into prominence, and a recent attempt in Parliament to alter the law of money-lending as it affects those under twenty-one years of age, and the approval the attempt met with, leads one to hope that the national conscience is being aroused effectually as to the great issues involved.

very useless.

In the political or rather social life of the country, an event of prime importance has occurred in the passing of an act of Parliament which will practically abolish school fees in nearly all the elementary schools of the country. On and after the first of September, the managers of any elementary school can obtain an additional grant from government of ten shillings ($2.50) per head per annum, on condition of giving to their scholars free education, or of reducing the "school-pence" at the rate of threepence per week. This new arrangement is permissive, not obligatory, on the so-called managers, who are either the school boards where schools are under popular local control, or the self-elected committee where the schools are under no popular local control; but, undoubtedly, almost all managers will elect to take advantage of the grant and "to free the schools." Free education has been inevitable for some time past, and the protests that were raised against pauperizing the people and endangering the religious or "church schools were very feeble and From the point of view of educational progress proper, the new act is open to very grave objection. It has been the policy of both parties in the state in previously increasing the grants of public money for popular education to insist at the same time upon increased efficiency and excellence in the education. Unfortunately this wholesome policy has this time been dropped. The Conservative ministry which passed the bill made no serious attempt to insist on this principle, probably out of a fear of making its supporters in the country districts suffer by being forced to improve their schools; the Liberal party, on the other hand, though they attempted to remedy this defect, were unwilling to press this aspect of the measure too far in fear of endangering the passing of the bill, in which case their opposition to a measure popular with the masses would have been a useful party-cry in the hands of their opponents. This state of affairs in the House of Commons was unfortunate; but what shall we say of the House of Lords, which struck out of the bill the provision that the free education grant should only be given to schools in which the school accommodation should be suitable and sufficient? It is a notorious fact that there are many privately-managed schools living on the grants of public money in which the education and accommodation provided for the scholars is miserably inefficient, and indeed far below the actual requirements of the Education Department. They are allowed to continue, as they were in existence before the present regulations and requirements were in force. The House of Lords have no fear of losing their seats at a general election, and should be above the fear of popular clamor, but, led by the bishops, they were willing to allow these unsuitable schools to continue rather than pay their own share of the local taxation which would be required to set the schools on a higher level, and so earn increased grants by giving a better education. It is short-sighted and mean-spirited actions such as this which have so often disgraced the House of Lords in the past, and which are confirming even moderate

politicians in the opinion that the time is coming either to "mend or end" the upper house of our imperial Parliament.

The first results of our recent decennial census, which was taken in April last, have now been made known. The total population of England and Wales is returned as 29,001,018, an increase of 3,026,579, or of 11.65 per cent. during the last ten years. The most salient facts hitherto disclosed by the census are that the population of London is now 4,211,056, an increase of 10.4 per cent. during the decade. London is thus now for the first time found to be growing at a slower rate of increase than the country at large, though it must not be forgotten that the suburban districts just outside London are growing with great rapidity; that the rate of increase during the last ten years has been less than it was during the previous period; that in thirty-eight counties of England and Wales there has been an increase of population varying from 36.3 per cent. downwards, while in fourteen counties there has been a decrease amounting in one case to 11.7 per cent., these latter counties being without exception agricultural districts. The total population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is given as 37,740,283. Scotland has again largely increased, while Ireland has again largely diminished in population since last census. The number of emigrants from the United Kingdom during the last ten years is given as 3,552,952; of these over one and a half millions were English, over a quarter of a million were Scotch, nearly three quarters of a million were Irish, while nearly a million were of foreign extraction. But interesting and suggestive as these figures are, there are further returns to follow from the census, such as the number of persons living on unearned incomes and the number of families living in three rooms or less. This information is being taken from statistics which were collected for the first time last April.

Mr. Charles Booth has just brought out the second volume of his marvelous work, Labor and Life of the People" (London: Williams and Norgate, 1891), dealing chiefly with central, southern, and outlying London. A terrible tale is unfolded of the amount of poverty, thriftlessness, and uncertain subsistence of many thousands; but the very facts that the life of the poor is treated in a patient and scientific spirit, that the conclusions are arrived at from such a mass of observations and based on such ample statistics, and that so many able persons are united in the labor of these volumes, make the work of unusual importance. Mr. Booth is very cautious in drawing conclusions, but he is of the decided opinion that the crux of the situation" in view of the social wreckage of so many in our great city is not in the criminal and semi-criminal class, which he estimates at .9 per cent of the population of London, but in the very poor class, who live by casual labor a hand-to-mouth existence and are in chronic want. This class in London is 7.5 per cent. of the whole population, and "hangs fatally round the necks of the classes above it, and especially of those but just above it, and is industrially valueless as well as socially pernicious." To abolish this class is to have the social problem already solved.

66

HAMPSTEAD, LONDON.

Joseph King.

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

The Church in the Mirror of History. Studies on the Progress of Christianity. By Karl Sell, D. D., Ph. D., Darmstadt, editor of "Life and Letters of H. R. H. Princess Alice of England and Hesse-Darmstadt." Translated by Elizabeth Stirling, and dedicated by permission to Her Royal Highness Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. New York: Scribner & Welford, 743-745 Broadway. Pp. viii, 250. $1.50. -The first part of this book appears to us the clearest and tersest. After reaching the Reformation, and especially in treating of the local ecclesiastical conditions of Germany, the author seems to become somewhat more entangled and cloudy, at least to us who are not Germans. But the whole book is readable and profitable.

At the beginning, he admirably describes "this personality, transparent and clear as crystal, original in every utterance, attractive and benevolent, serious and gentle, tender and courageous." A miracle within the sphere of Judaism, exactly expressed by the church predicate, the Godhead of Jesus Christ.

As to primitive divergences in the church, the author assumes a gradation of tendencies, even among the Twelve, who, however, acknowledged that Paul's mission was a true carrying out of the mind of Christ, though not all able to feel fully at home in it, and not always, we may remark, sufficiently courageous in defending it against undermining intruders. Since Ritschl and Weizsäcker, the notion of two antagonistic Gospels may be regarded as antiquated. But James and Paul still remain as two not very harmonious personalities.

The author, with Hatch, holds bishops to have been financial administrators, often also elders. He does not take account of Hilgenfeld's suggestion, that the ȧpxovváywyou had episcopal functions, and so that Ignatian episcopacy is older than the church.

The author gives an exceedingly luminous exposition of the moral necessity felt by the nobler pagans of vindicating the Empire as the sum of all human achievement, material, moral, and even spiritual, against the undermining power of the church, which insisted on not stopping short of eternity.

The consolidation of the Catholic Church over against Gnosticism and Montanism, its decline from the true ideal, and yet its historical necessity for the triumph of the gospel whose freshness it dimmed, is treated familiarly, yet originally. As to the theological and christological controversies, the author, while admitting how far they went beyond practical possibilities, well says that "although they may appear incomprehensible and aimless to us, they concerned the essentials of Christianity, and were discussed in conformity with the ideas and opinions of that age." These decisions mark the main channel of Christian thought. Monasticism he treats as in part an early Protestantism, not breaking with the Catholic Church, but secluding itself from it. He gives a very fine description of the Civitas Dei, and of the true progressiveness of Augustine. This may help to correct some of those shallow Pelagianizing depreciations of Augustine of which to-day is so fond. It is a way of smiting Paul at second hand which seems to be much in fashion. Yet Augustine, while the prophet of the Reformation, was, as a Roman thinker, no less the prophet of the Middle Ages. He hardly, however, appears to be the

prophet of Franciscanism, whose extravagant love of poverty, nevertheless, remarks the author, exalted trust in Providence, independence of external accidents, boundless brotherhood and charity, marching side by side with the chivalric ideal, at last gained predominance over it among the people. The influence of the persecuted fraticelli on the birth of the Reformation seems to deserve a deeper investigation.

"Ger

Of his own country, after the Thirty Years' War, Dr. Sell says: many had lost all else that makes a nation great, authority, power, honor, and wealth, but she had maintained the Reformation." And these other things are now being added to her. "A sense of gratitude that the light of primitive Christian doctrine had again risen, after centuries of Egyptian darkness, was the motive power of the Reformation movement. That alone accounts for its uniting hearts instead of driving them asunder like a storm." That the open Bible engenders 66 as many creeds as it has readers," as the Catholics jeeringly say, is sufficiently refuted by the fact that the Reformation divided into only two parties. Even in the Anglo-Saxon world, remarks the author, multiplying church formations go hand in hand with deepening unity of fellowship and effort.

The author does full justice to the Martyr Church of the Huguenots, the child of "austere and sublime Calvinism." He also appreciates the Independents so highly that he seems even to glory in the execution of Charles I. Of early Independency he says: "It was the reign of inspiration, if but for a moment, and that moment was the greatest and the most fundamental in the history of England's evolution."

66

The author shows how the Spanish church had secured a reform in the sense of the Council of Constance. Instead of submitting to Rome, Spain rather domineered over Rome, and sometimes even made her tremble for her own repute of orthodoxy. He points out the strong resemblances between Jesuitism and Methodism, which yet are so antagonistic in principle, the one repressing individuality, the other advancing it. The Jesuit is out and out a politician. That is his strong point, and the secret power wherewith he fascinates politicians; but it is also his limitation. There is no place for the living God in such a religion.” He has abdicated in favor of his vicar, whom they control. The papacy has again reached a magnificent height, but all freshness of Christian life and thought under it is a reflection from Protestantism. Rome may now be worthy of interest, and not seldom of respect, but she is no longer worthy of awe.

Modern Protestantism, the author says, a victorious and civilizing force throughout the world, has less of the Reformation in it than of Pietism and Christianized Illuminism. It has opened the Bible, it is now waiting for the coming forth from it of the Living Christ. Science and Religion, the author fancies, can only be reconciled through Kant. The legitimate aspirations of Socialism may be peacefully met, or it may pull down the fabric of modern society. The gospel, independent of any social fabric, will survive either event.

James Freeman Clarke. Autobiography, Diary, and Correspondence. Edited by Edward Everett Hale. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Company. 1891. Pp. 430. $1.50.. This book seems like a cheerful, rambling country mansion. It is plain that it would just have suited the taste of James Freeman Clarke. "Cheerful godliness precisely describes his life and character. His own description of his happy and various childhood is charming. It was a good setting off to