Isaiah that forms its motto: "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." He says in his preface, "Next to a sound rule of faith there is nothing of so much consequence as a sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion." With this belief, it was his aim to beget in his readers an earnest, thoughtful, reverent state of mind. The book does not touch upon all sides of the Christian life. There is little of the rapture of Christian experience to be found in it. But within its range it is the poetry of genuine and universal feeling. There is occasionally a slight obscurity of thought, as though the mistiness of spiritual feeling had not had time to crystallize into a clear form of expression before it was written down. Sometimes the reader is called upon to supply from his own thought so much that is but remotely implied in the poem that he has to read it slowly and carefully in order to get its full reach or appreciate its beauty. In general, however, the feeling is so direct and genuine that it speaks at once to the heart. It cannot be said that the book is as well adapted to the vulgar and uneducated as The Pilgrim's Progress or an ordinary hymn. It requires a certain amount of culture and poetic sensibility to appreciate it. The poems are written for a thoughtful spirit, and must be read thoughtfully; but they are not lifted out of the spiritual range of any ordinary Chris: tian life.

Considering the life of its author, one of the most remarkable things about The Christian Year is the catholicity of its tone. There is hardly a trace of controversial Tractarianism to be found in it. If one looks closely he can see evidences of the tone and bent of mind that inclined Keble to Tractarian doctrines. But the meditative devoutness of the poems has little in common with the active doctrines of the Oxford school. The author was primarily a poet, and a poet with a rich spiritual nature. He wrote from a heart full of deep religious emotion, alive to the spiritual meaning of the world about him, solemnized by a thought of his responsibility and his dependence upon God, and yet quickened with gratitude for the divine goodness, and warmed with the inspiration of heavenly love. The feeling which pervades The Christian Year is deep and true; it goes down beneath all mere conventionalisms of expression. The strength of Keble's poetic genius can be seen

in the fact that strong as was his reverence for the past, and for the very letter of church formulas and teaching, he yet escapes . almost entirely from the ordinary religious dialect, the conventional phraseology, and uses the fresh and simple language of natural feeling.

No quality of Keble's mind is more apparent in these poems than its reverence. A deep feeling of reverence runs through all the book, and sacred things are treated in a manner that makes them seem really sacred. There is no straining for effect, but always a certain self-command and reserve. One constantly feels that the author might easily have expanded and carried on his thought; and this gives to the poems a cer tain richness that makes them the more satisfying as we read them over and over again. They do not give up all their contents at the first reading. They bear the best test of true poetry-they can be read and reread with increasing pleasure. The book is thoroughly modern in its tone. There is found in it abundantly that undertone of sadness that is so characteristic of our modern poetry. But it is not the sadness that springs from lack of trust. The faith of the poet is strong enough for him to see his way through, and he does not leave the reader in perplexity and doubt. The sin and the sorrow of life sometimes weigh heavily upon his soul. The eager questionings which are begotten by the restless spirit of modern culture may press upon him: but he only looks away to what is invisible and eternal, to the Great Source of all true help and consolation. There is every-where in The Christian Year the calm assurance of faith. Keble believed in the truths of the Christian religion with the profoundest convictions of his soul. The waverings of doubt, the uncertainties of a mind not quite sure of itself, were unknown to him. The feeling which pervades Tennyson's In Memoriam is wholly foreign to The Christian Year. The poems were written for those who believe, and there is nourishment for the believing soul on every page.

There is a decided difference between the poetry of The Christian Year and the kind of poetry which is best represented by that of Charles Wesley. Wesley's poems are vivid expressions of prayer, of contrition, of praise, or of thanksgiv ing. Keble's poetry is that of devout meditation, rising some

times to adoration and praise, solemnized by penitence, quickened by earnest words of warning, but keeping a tone of thoughtfulness through it all. The poems of Wesley were mostly written to be sung or to be impassionately repeated-to move on triumphantly upon a tide of feeling. The poetry of Keble must be read slowly and thoughtfully; it does not force its way into the mind of the reader, but must be allowed to mingle gently with his thought. For times of great trial and trouble, of severe suffering and sorrow, the book is, therefore, not specially well adapted. Its tone is not emphatic enough, nor is its feeling sufficiently vivid, its words not direct enough, for the great crises of life-for those periods when feeling rather than thought bears sway, and when the mind must be strongly stirred by words of inspiration and comfort. But for the long stretches of ordinary existence that lie between, when amid our every-day interests, perplexities, and labors some special influences are needed to keep bright the spiritual life of the soul, it is an admirable stimulant and companion.

Keble had a remarkable appreciation of the beauties of nature, and he saw a spiritual meaning in them all. That symbolical side of nature which can only be perceived by a man of deep spiritual feeling who loves her truly, was open to his vision. He loved nature, not particularly in her striking forms and wilder aspects, but in all the varied unobtrusive charms which she spreads on every hand. He had a poet's eye for all her milder beauties, and they were to him full of tender teaching for the heart. A peace and quietness of soul that corresponds to the peace and quiet of nature in her softer moods, is one of the ideals which every here and there, by a few simple loving strokes, he brings beautifully before us. There is hardly a poem in the book in which there is not some line or image that bears testimony to his keen love and close study of nature. Nature is always healthful, and Keble's genuine love for her no doubt helped him to keep his so clear of any traces of morbid feeling.

poems

In 1846 Keble published a second volume of poems, entitled Lyra Innocentium. Some of them have the grace, tenderness, and beauty of The Christian Year, but, as a whole, the book is decidedly inferior. It was written when he was actively engaged in religious controversy, and is affected by the tone of

his mind at that time. It has not the free vein of inspiration, the range of sympathy, the tenderness of feeling, that are found in the former volume. His muse is not so clearly an expression of the spontaneous feelings of the heart. One sees the denominational element in it, and feels that it is a church book. It has considerable poetic merit, but it does not speak to the universal heart, and will not become a Christian classic.

It was not until Keble had been laid to rest that the English Church realized how much it owed him. To him more than to any other man were due the spiritual influences which inspired the High-Church revival, and whose effects were felt far wider than its doctrines were received. The Church has erected a splendid memorial of him, in the way above all others he would have liked best, by founding in his name Keble College at Oxford. But it is as the author of The Christian Year that the world at large will remember him. This permanently enriched our Christian literature, and to its author, therefore, we all owe a deep debt of gratitude. Amid the tendencies to strained feeling and over-expression of an age like this, its repose and calm faith are wonderfully soothing. In the press of more exciting literature we should not neglect it, for there are in it perennial springs of refreshment and comfort. Its place is on the shelf or table which holds the few but precious books that are the companions of the soul in its choicest hours. The better we become acqainted with it the more we shall appreciate and love it.

ART. III. THE LOGIC OF INTROSPECTION.

The Logic of Introspection; or, Method in Mental Science. By Rev. J. B. WENTWORTH, D.D. 12mo, pp. 446. New York: Phillips & Hunt; Cincinnati:

Cranston & Stowe.

THIS work certainly exhibits the author as a profound thinker in the misty realms of psychology. Few venture here at all, and to miss one's way is no discredit. It is a fault that the book has no index, although there is an elaborate table of contents. The author is very systematic in the treatment of his subject, and his arguments march forward with delightful precision, like the regiments of a well organ

ized army. The style is clear, and in the main correct, although there are no literary charms to augment the value of his arguments. The book is unusually accurate in the grammatical construction of its sentences, although an occasional lapse may be observed. The verb and nominative do not always harmonize; for example: "This analysis and abstraction does not create them" (page 173); "Is there, then, presented here to his inspection certain facts that do not bear the stamp of necessity?" (page 437;) "Metaphysics are moonshine" (page 69). The work contains 446 pages, the type is large and clear, and the mechanical execution all that could be desired. Any difficulty experienced in reading it will result from the abstruse nature of the subjects treated.

The work is of necessity largely controversial, since the author finds most of the great names in mental science arrayed against him; and there is rather too much acid in the controversial passages to make them pleasant reading. He courageously makes an attack on the giants of philosophical inquiry, and slaughters the philosophers "hip and thigh." Francis Bacon, his eminent disciples Dr. Thomas Brown, William Archer Butler, Dugald Stewart, President Porter, and Dr. McCosh are challenged respecting their favorite method of Induction. Bacon is treated with no little severity, and something very like ridicule is heaped upon Dr. McCosh, as the special champion of the application of Induction to mental science, his work on The Intuitions of the Mind being criticised through several chapters. It mars the symmetry of the book that so large a part of it is devoted to the theories of Dr. McCosh.

In a brief introduction the author declares his theme to be Psychologic Method, and in the very outset he overestimates its importance. He says:

Method relates chiefly to the direction of men's thoughts, the systematic course of their intellectual faculties, when engaged in the pursuit and discovery of truth. From its very nature, therefore, the question of method is the prime question of all science. ... Indeed, in science every thing depends upon it. The fate of every system of philosophy is wrapped up in the method of its prosecution and development. . . . I did not, then, overstate or misstate the fact at the outset, when I said that Logic is, in the natural as well as the chronological order, the first of all the