The two numbers of American Art Illustrated, a monthly magazine, appear as the most promising of recent efforts in this direction. Devoted to painting, engraving, sculpture, architecture, and industrial arts, the two numbers seem to be wisely made up and sufficiently well illustrated, do not descend to mere decorative instruction, and deserve success. The increase of the art loving public ought to make this success possible. American Art Magazine Co., Boston. $2 50 per annum.

The January number of the English Illustrated Magazine (Macmillan & Co.) contains the first of a series of illustrated papers by the author of John Halifax, Gentleman, descriptive of a recent visit to Ireland. Among the other articles are "The Daughters of George III.," by Mr. W. Outram Tristram, with illustrations; and a series of illustrations to Fouqué's “Undine," by Mr. Heywood Sumner, with an article on the romance by Miss Julia Cartwright. The illustrations in this magazine are generally good, and its reading matter of a high order.

The Art Journal (Virtue & Co.), London, International News Co., New York, is a publication of high merit, both artistically and as a vehicle of a high grade of literature. Among its engravings for the past year are some of the best that have been issued. Price, fifty cents per monthly number.

BOOK NOTICES.

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE. Clark's Foreign Theological Library. New Series. Vol. XXVII. Commentary on St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. By F. GODET, Professor of the Faculty of the Independent Church of Neuchatel. Translated from the French. by Rev. A. CUSIN, M.A., Edinburgh. Vol. I. (Chap. I-VIII.) 8vo, pp. 428. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. New York: Scribner & Welford.'

PROFESSOR GODET has won for himself, by his abundant, fruitful, and conscientious labors, a place among the highest class of biblical scholars and exegetes; and the present volume will, in no inconsiderable degree, add to his heretofore well-established reputation. His place among modern commentators is that of an evangelical expositor, bold without recklessness, conservative without narrowness, and also rational without being rationalistic. The author's method is first of all critical, for he aims specially to fix the meaning of the text, and this leads him to make free use of the original, which is in fact the text upon which he comments; and yet by means of literal and concise translations of both words and phrases the course of thought is brought within the range of the "unlearned," that is, of those who use only the English language. In this feature of his work he is brought into comparison with Meyer, in respect to both likeness and contrast-the latter apparently arising from differences in their national modes of thought; the German being more rigidly literal, and the Frenchman freer and using larger liberty of the imagination-in

their several expositions and uses of the sacred text, and also in their distinctive doctrinal deductions.

The doctrinal character of the work is specifically Pauline, bringing prominently to the front that phrase "of righteousness" which is so fully asserted and defended in the epistles to the Romans and the Galatians, combining with this, as its inseparable concomitant and consequent, a mystical union with Christ (in Christ ") and active obedience, the fruits of the faith of justification-which form of belief, he seems to think, is "a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort."

The Introduction, which is in many instances among the most significant and instructive parts of a commentary on any given book of the Bible, is in this case simply what the name imports, sufficiently full to properly prepare the way for the body of the work, without either anticipating its matter or attempting any exhaustive disquisitions on collateral subjects. It briefly relates the well-known account of the founding of the Corinthian Church, tells of the external circumstances, the environments, of that Church; the condition in which it had come down to the time of the writing of this epistle; and lastly, a general syllabus, or plan of the epistle. Of kindred commentaries, he names, among "recent works," that of Beet (a British Wesleyan minister), author of a commentary on Romans, of whom he says: "He seems to me to possess in a high degree the gift of expounding the course of the apostle's ideas in a simple, clear, and judicious way;" and also that of Edwards (1885), principal of a university college in Wales, who, he says, "possesses high philological culture." This last book has escaped our attention.

As a specimen of book-making, designed to answer the requirements of utility, this volume deserves high praise. Its binding is embossed cloth, its paper is fine, white and firm, its letters are sufficiently large and well-defined, and the lines are separated by broad "leads," altogether presenting a page that allures to its perusal.

Clark's Foreign Theological Library. New Series. Vol. XXVIII. System of Christian Certainty. By Dr. FR. H. R. FRANK, Professor of Theology in the University of Erlangen. Second Edition. Revised and Improved Throughout. Translated from the German, by Rev. MAURICE J. EVANS, B. A. Vol. I. 8vo, pp. 482. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. New York: Scribner & Welford. The task undertaken by the author of this volume is to show that the principal truths and doctrines of Christ are so well ascertained, by rationally indubitable proofs, that they belong to the category of things certainly known. It is not a treatise on apologetics, nor a philosophy of religion, but an appeal first to the consciousness of the individual, and then to the consensus of believers as expressed in the analogy of the faith of the Church-genuine catholic orthodoxy. The certainty in this case must, of course, be adapted to both the object to be known and to the knowing subject; and since the object is neither material nor mathematical, so neither sense nor exact science can be applied to it. But because essential Christianity subsists entirely aside from both of these, and has its own

modes of self-manifestation, to respond to which the spiritual nature of man is adapted, the conceptions arising from the interaction of the subject and its object become self-assuring, just as the results of physical perceptions or of logical deductions enforce convictions. These positions the author presents with scientific accuracy, and then he elaborates their proof with admirable force and fullness, and from them, so fortified, he carries the assault against the more subtle forms of unbelief-rationalism and pantheism.

In pursuing these acute discussions the simple Christian believer, who has attained to the best forms of Christian knowledge in the scriptural way of faith and obedience, will often be gratified to meet his own assurances in Christ clothed in a philosophical dress, but not in any essential matter any thing else than the "assurance of faith," the "witness of the Spirit," the sense of acceptance in Christ, the assured hope of eternal life.

The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Eight Lectures Preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1886, on the Foundation of the Late Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By CHARLES BIGG, D.D., Assistant Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, etc. Oxford: Clarendon Press. New York: Macmillan & Co. 12mo, pp. 304.

The appearance of the annual Bampton Lectures has come to be expected with the regularity and the certainty of the changes of the seasons. Those for the past year, as described in the title given above, will fairly maintain the high average that has been established for the volumes of the series. The subject chosen and discussed has a pleasant history and character, which will attract readers to this somewhat sketchy discussion. The specific subjects of some of the individual lectures are, 1. Philo and the Gnostics; 2, 3. Clement; 4, 5, 6. Origen; 7. The Reformed Paganism; 8. Summary-the last touching upon Clement in respect to his after history and relations, and Origen among his successors, the Alexandrian Exegesis, Special Doctrines, Paulinism, Quietism, and, lastly, the General Merits of the Alexandrians. The discussion is learned, yet easy, and remarkably free from slavish devotion to pater-olatry. If these learned churchmen continue their discussions, the world will find out that the authority of the primitive Church is at best a doubtful quantity, leaving only the Scriptures as a safe guide in matters of both doctrines and ecclesiastical orders.

The Book of Revelation: An Exposition; Based on Principles of Prof. Stuart's Commentary, and Designed to Familiarize those Principles to the Minds of Non-professional Readers. By ISRAEL P. WARREN, D.D., Editor of the Christian Mirror, Portland, Me. 12mo, pp. 300. Cloth, $1. New York: Funk & Wagnalls. The author of this became known as a biblical scholar and writer by his Parousia, published a few years since. He there shows himself adroit and powerful in casting down old fabrics built of "hay, wood, and stubble," and upon sandy foundations; but when he attempted the work of reconstruction he evidently went beyond his calling, for his structures are as fanciful in form and as far away from the rock as any of those that he so

effectually demolished. The scheme for the "exposition" or interpretation of the Book of Revelation is substantially that of Professor Stuart, for which perhaps as good a case can be made as for any other; and although that scheme, with able and scholarly arguments in its favor, has been before the Christian public for more than half a century, it has not found a general acceptance. The extent of the knowledge of history, both civil and ecclesiastical, required to enable one to have an intelligent opinion of the subjects discussed is such as to make it essentially esoteric; only specialists can know any thing at all trustworthy, and, unhappily, scarcely two of these are agreed. We confess that we are not of the number of those to whom the Apocalypse has ceased to be a sealed book; and yet we find not a little to admire and approve in Dr. Warren's exposition.

Religion: A Revelation and a Rule of Life. By Rev. WILLIAM KIRKUS, M.A., LL.B., University of London, Rector of the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Baltimore, Md. 12 mo, pp. 365. New York: Thomas Whittaker. This book is made up of thirteen elaborate essays, most of them having also the distinctive features of sermons, preceded by a thoughtful preface. As a whole they are apologetic, but none the less belligerent and aggressive. The author sets himself the task of restating and defending the old faith, as held and taught by the "historic" Church, against the attacks of open enemies and of the misled, and therefore misleading, nominal friends of religion. The work is apparently as much intended to assert Church-ianity as Christianity, and in favor of both much learning and forceful argumentation is used. As a defense of the religion of the New Testament it is worthy of great praise, and while we should dissent from much of its ecclesiology, even that may be not without its use in counterworking the excess of the liberalism, falsely so-called, of the times.

HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND TOPOGRAPHY.

Westchester County, New York, during the American Revolution By HENRY B. DAWSON, Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Morrisania, New York. 1886.

The city of New York during the incipiency of the war of the Revolution occupied a peculiar position, and its action appears, at this distance of time, the more interesting because of its midway position between the East and the South, Massachusetts and Virginia, and also the uncertainty that seemed at first to attend the question as to what would be its action respecting the dispute of the Colonies with the British Government; and the county of Westchester was simply part and parcel with the city in all these things. There was no lack of the spirit of opposition, nor of headlong violence in that opposition; and yet it is evident that at first there was no wish on the part of the men of character and substance to push things to extremities. There was much real loyalty to the crown, and the

presence of a considerable number of royal officers gave a kind of loyalist flavor to society, and men of social standing and property were not in haste to risk these in a conflict with the Government.

But these were numerically not a very considerable proportion of the whole population, and, among the more numerous and less conservative class, leaders were not wanting who were ready to precipitate a collision with the Government. It is very well known that the men with whose names we are most familiar as leaders, in the actions by which New York became at length fully committed to the revolutionary movement, were not at first the leaders in that movement, and that the provincial assembly which placed the colony in the attitude of rebellion was elected for just the opposite purpose. But the whirlwind of events was too powerful for them to resist.

Mr. Dawson's method of writing history, as is seen here and elsewhere, is to set down the facts as he finds them in original and authentic documents, without "cooking " them to suit any body's palate, either by suppressing a part of the truth or by mingling with them foreign ingredients. By this process it happens that occasionally some popular idol is toppled from his pedestal, and the painted masks are torn from long-admired faces. The deftness with which this work of demolition is done seems to indicate that the writer enjoys his work, and, like other iconoclasts, he is sometimes not less passionate than severely just. That our popular histories, even the best of them, are partial in their statements, and often garbled and purposely one-sided, cannot be disputed, but it is quite possible in attempting to correct these errors to pass over to the opposite extreme. Of our author's use of his facts his readers will form their own judgment; of the correctness of the facts themselves the proof is given by references to original authorities of which even generally well-informed persons have very little knowledge.

The Westchester county (N. Y.) of the revolutionary period was, as to its inhabitants, two nations. Along the Hudson were the descendants of the original Dutch colonists, constituting, except the chief proprietors, a rude and extremely illiterate peasantry, among whom were mingled a later arrived infusion of English and Scotch.

In the eastern towns the Connecticut element prevailed, for these towns, as far down as Eastchester, were largely settled from the New Haven colony, of which they were, for awhile, claimed to be integral parts. These were inclined to sympathize with their eastern kinfolks in their opposition to the British Government, while their more quiet and phlegmatic Dutch neighbors would have preferred less violent methods. But the times were revolutionary, and very soon any possible middle ground became untenable. It is ascertained by satisfactory proofs that till after the Declaration of Independence was made at least three fourths of the people of the river towns were opposed to any violent opposition to the royal colonial government; but the wild blunder of the British at Concord and Lexington so inflamed the revolutionary spirit that moderate counsels became impossible, and even many who had hitherto been