that Jesus walks with us now, and that we may inwardly eat. of the Divine food, is the corn. 'What is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?' We must peel the orange, you know, to luxuriate in its sweet juice. You must break the shell to reach the nut. We must rub off the husk to find the grain, We must draw aside the veil to discern the inner glory. So in relation to the Word, we must cast aside the outward form that we may rejoice in the inward reality."-Pp. 9, 10.

Scriptural subjects, then, as stated in the letter of the Word, are regarded as ears of corn; the letter is the husk which is rubbed off, and the inner meaning is the corn which is made apparent in the conversations that ensue. These conversations enter somewhat fully into the meaning of the subjects that are introduced, and several incidents occur which introduce other persons, both clergy and laity, and lead to the discussion of the fallacies prevalent in much of the popular religious teaching. Two subjects are well rubbed out-the mercy and judgment of the Lord in relation to the lot of the wicked, and the Bridegroom and the Bride. The former is specially adapted to current opinion, and offers a popular and lucid treatment of an important subject. It would be easy on this subject to give many interesting extracts, but for these we must direct our readers to the work itself.

The treatment of scriptural subjects in the concrete form in which here presented meets a craving in the minds of many persons at the present time; and if employed as a means of instruction, it could scarcely be done better than in the volume before us.

THE REVELATION OF THE FATHER: Short Lectures on the Titles of the Lord in the Gospel of St. John. By BROOKE FOSS WESTCOTT, D.D., D.C.L., Regius Professor of Divinity, and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. London and Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. Pp. xix. and 188.

The idea of making the several titles whereby the Lord is distinguished a subject of careful study, is a happy one, and cannot fail to enlarge our conception of the true character of the incarnate Saviour. Dr. Westcott says truly: "Each title as it was used was intelligible. Each title when studied afterwards disclosed (and still discloses) fuller depths of meaning. On the other hand, there is not the least indication that this vital unfolding of the truth little by little, these underlying correspondences, were directly present to the mind of the evangelist as he wrote, still less that they were due to a conscious design. We observe them only when we allow every detail of time and place and circumstance to produce its full effect through patient

meditation. In this respect what I have said can only suggest topics for meditation, and not supersede the exercise itself." -Pp. vi. vii.

Such meditation," in the judgment of the writer, and in this we agree with him, "will bring back with a multiplied blessing that complete trust in the Written Word, quickened by the Living Word, which many seem to mourn over." In this patient meditation," one fact, one truth after another, is welcomed and appropriated. All alike point in the same direction: all finally converge in a central supreme fact, a central supreme truth, by which they are harmonized. There is no abrupt transition, no violent passage from one mode of thought to another. Elements of infinity gather round the Lord, and He is seen at last to stand before the soul in His full glory.”—Pp. vii. and ix.

The subjects treated are "The Coming in the Father's name," "the Christ," "the Bread of Life," "the Light of the World," "the Door of the Sheep," "the Good Shepherd," "the Resurrection and the Life," "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," "the True Vine," "the Vision of Christ, the Vision of the Father." To these are added in an Appendix, "the Testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy," "the Revelation of the Glory of God; the Annunciation and the Resurrection," "the Revelation of the Triune God an implicit Gospel."

It was impossible to meditate thoughtfully and carefully on these several topics and not discern many most important truths. It would be easy to cull from the pages of this volume many such truths, but writing, as the author does, with the rooted idea in his mind of the distinct personality of the Father and the Son, he misses the great truth to which the argument points-the Supreme Deity of the Christian Saviour. The Lord in the Gospels turns attention from all else upon Himself. "Come unto Me," "I am the Light of the World," "I am the Bread of Life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger," "I am the Good Shepherd," "I am the True Vine," "I am the Resurrection and the Life." The only logical conclusion from this direction of finite minds to Him, is that He is truly "God manifest in the Flesh," "the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last;" that "in Him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily;' thus that the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is in Him, and that in His Divine Humanity, He is the one undivided Object of human and angelic worship and adoration.

MOSES AND GEOLOGY. BY SAMUEL KINNS, LLD. Nothing more pitiful has, of late years, been presented to the religious world than the book Moses and Geology, by Dr. Samuel Kinns. The interests of orthodoxy had been better

served if Dr. Kinns had not suffered himself to be persuaded to expand the "few notes" for "extempore lectures" to "pupils and friends" into a bulky volume of 500 pages. It is laboured attempt, less to explain the sublime introductory chapter of the Books of Moses than to press into that chapter the advanced revelations of modern science. The attempt fails to convince. It may serve to confirm unscientific orthodoxy on the one hand, and heterodoxical science on the other, each in its opinions; but this will scarcely compass the object that Dr. Kinns and his friends have in view. The recapitulation of what he calls the "fifteen creative acts," on p. 380 et seq., and which is the first chapter of Genesis, rewritten by Dr. Kinns for the edification of Christendom, leaves upon the mind a painful sense of the ridiculous. It will indeed be difficult, on the supposition that the account of the creation here given is scientifically accurate, to resist the conclusion that the sacred writer had no notion of a scientific cosmogony, and no commission to give one. We do not purpose to follow Dr. Kinns through his mazy paragraphs, charged alike with fervid picturing and technic geology; we leave the detailed discussion to those whom it more nearly concerns. We are, however, assured that an orthodoxy which calls for such a defence is doomed.

All

In truth, any value which attaches to Moses and Geology is largely adventitious. Few books of late years have been better "puffed" into popularity. We use the word advisedly. Immediately following the title-page is a dedication to a "Right reverend Bishop, Chaplain-General of the Forces, Archdeacon," etc. etc. etc. At back of this is printed a brief note addressed to Lord Shaftesbury, acknowledging "acceptance by Her most gracious Majesty the Queen of a copy of this work." This is followed by a "List of Subscribers," covering seven pages. The list includes seven peers of the realm, fifteen Anglican bishops, five deans, five canons," etc. etc. etc. this may be only a matter of taste, but it certainly may bear a different and more questionable interpretation. But the time is past when any parade of authority in matters theological will silence the tongue or bind the conscience of laymen. We can well understand that simple-minded laymen should be staggered at Dr. Kinns' vast array, and ask, Why all this ?— should also marvel at Dr. Kinns' bulky volume, and ask, What does it all mean, this nervous desire to prove Moses the first and foremost of all men of science? What has his cosmogony to do with Christianity? Simple-minded laymen indeed! Looking through their theological spectacles, divines see danger ahead; their creed is in danger; if their creed, then their Church is in danger. Modern science has made considerable havoc in

the groundwork of orthodox Christianity. By its robust iconoclasticism it is clearing the ground for the truer doctrines of the New Church.

The fact is, that orthodoxy rests in the literalism of Moses. Give up the literalism of the six days, and the particular account of the creation of man has no base. Relegate the story of Adam and Eve, the garden and the apple, to the realm of myth or fiction, and the vast theological fabric built upon them falls. The orthodox doctrines of redemption and atonement rest on the literalism of Moses in respect both to the creation and the curse. Even heaven and hell owe authority and character, according to the official guardians of orthodoxy, to a literal Eden and a literal wilderness, a talking serpent and an obdurate God. Hence the battle that rages about the first chapters of Genesis. Nor will the learning of Dr. Kinns save orthodoxy from getting worsted in the fight. It has digested Galileo and the new system of the universe. It will have yet to digest the hard fact that it is no part of Bible Revelation to deliver a scientific message. The New Church position alone is unassailable. It is a vain thing to try to make Genesis agree with the sciences: it is as false as vain. Why cannot orthodoxy revise its position? The evasions it has adopted at different times ought to be sufficient to convince its champions that there is in the Bible no inspired account of the genesis of physical phenomena. It is a revelation of spiritual phenomena; or the whole Bible is, as a revelation, nothing at all. The New Church position is sufficiently tenable: it is a relation of the spiritual dealings of God with mankind; and of necessity could only be made in the language, science, and style of that far-back age to which philology correctly assigns it. The divine philosophy of human life parabled, that is the truest idea of this initial chapter of the Bible which Dr. Kinns so cruelly tortures.

Even, however, as a cosmogony, this bit of writing is unique; and even in its literalness makes claim to a revelation that redeems it from the condition of rocks, wood, and bones, which the imagination of Dr. Kinns alone discerns. While all other cosmogonies that have obtained currency are either atheistic, polytheistic, or mythic, that of Moses is simple, sublime, and spiritual. It utters the word "God," and its God is not an abstract “That,” but a “Being;" and this Being is the active cause of all things, and fills all things. The conception is so sublime and so unique that it carries with it its veracity and betrays its origin. "God said, Let be! And there was; it is an argument in itself: it does not sound like science, like human writing. It says: You see the heavens? They are the work

of God's fingers; the handwriting of His very Being. You see the sun, and moon, and stars? God ordained them. And God laid the foundations of the earth: He covered it with the deep as with a garment. You see the cedars? God planted them. God sitteth upon the circle of the earth. He weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. And God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and man became a living soul. Now all this is very unscientific in its form of expression. It does not favour the idea of Dr. Kinns and his patrons, however titled they may be, that the first chapters of Genesis are a God-inspired primer of geology. To the unclerical and unorthodox mind of the present age, the Bible must have another and a higher value, or the age will relegate it to the unauthoritative writings of a world long dead and passed away. Only the New Church doctrine of Inspiration can save the Bible, and preserve to men a Christianity with redemptive power. The New Church cannot too strongly emphasize the truth that the Bible sends the chemist into nature's laboratory, and the astronomer to his pathless journeys among the stars, and the geologist to his mining, each to tabulate and construct; while Itself calls men of all orders and ages to a common council, and proclaims the conclusion of the whole matter,-And God said, Let be and there was: and God said, Let us make man! and in the image of God created He him. CHI.

DUTY; OR, PHOEBE KATTON'S DISAPPOINTMENT. Jarrold & Son, London and Norwich. Pp. 46.

This little book is a pleasant story of a young woman's struggles and ultimate success in the effort to make her living, and to be useful to her parents. Her disappointment was having to give up a promising situation to attend to the wants of her bedridden grandmother. The aim of the story is to inculcate the excellence of Duty, and the certainty that it will not lose its reward.

RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.

WHAT is the ideal of Christianity, and how it may best be realized? are questions which are coming to the front and taking strong possession of the minds of thoughtful persons. "The people of England," says Dr. Fairbairn in the March number of the Contemporary, "seem to be at last awakening to the truth that to have a church or churches is not the same