the courses of a turbid conscience, and the highest worship be raised from the wreck of a ruined "idealism," is to throw all ideas of moral causation into the dreariest confusion. This is to us the most painful feature of M. Renan's book. That he is Platonist in taste does not restrain him from cynicism in morals; his imagination lingers in the upper world of divine ideas, but his belief keeps its footing on the ground, and trusts no power but the mixed motives of an infirm and self-deceiving humanity. We venture to say that his real world lies in the wrong place for an historian of religion; the true causes of what he seeks he leaves behind in his dream-realm, and descends for them to a level where they are not to be found. His moral construction is, in consequence, deficient in compactness. He combines incompatible attributes in one person, and then apologises by commonplaces about the contradictions of human nature. one time he seems to attribute the marvellous success of Christianity to the fortunate errors and fanaticisms, perhaps even unscrupulousness, of its Founder: at another to the sublimity of his character and the imperishable truths at the heart of his religion. That ultimately he will rest, with less wavering, in the higher doctrine of moral dynamics, we cannot but hope when we read such a comment as the following on the words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father;" "but the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth” (John iv. 21, 23): : At "The day when he pronounced this word he was truly Son of God. He spoke for the first time the sure word on which the edifice of eternal religion shall rest. He founded the pure worship, of no land, of no date, which all lofty souls will practise to the end of time. His religion that day was not only the religion good for humanity, it was Absolute Religion and if other planets have inhabitants endowed with reason and morality, their religion can be no other than that which Jesus proclaimed at Jacob's well. Man has not been able to abide by it, for the ideal is tenable but for an instant. The word of Jesus has been a gleam in a dark night; it has needed eighteen hundred years for the eyes of mankind (what do I say ?-of an infinitely small part of mankind) to accustom themselves to it. But the gleam will become the full day; and, after having run through the whole circle of errors, mankind will return to that word as the imperishable expression of its faith and its hopes" (pp. 234, 235). CURRENT LITERATURE:-BOOKS OF THE QUARTER SUITABLE FOR READING-SOCIETIES. 1. Fortune's Journey to Yedo and Peking. 2. Eleanor's Victory. By M. E. Braddon. [It is difficult to say why people should read Miss Braddon's novels, and easy to show why they should not be read. Yet they are, and will be so.] 3. Alexander's Incidents of the Maori War. 4. Andrew Deverell. [An amusing book by an American. Ill-written, but not without interest. He writes to a young lady to ask her to wait and marry him, and she does wait.] 5. Ansted's Great Stone Book of Nature. 6. Shakespeare's Home. By J. C. M. Bellew. [A careful book on a subject of which but little can be known.] 7. Browning's Poetical Works. [Reviewed in Article VII.] 8. Carey's late War in New Zealand. 9. Border and Bastille. By the Author of "Guy Livingstone." [Written with energy, but saying little.] 10. Carey's Four Months in a Dahabeek. [A dahabeek is an Egyptian boat, and Mr. Carey amused himself there, and amuses his readers.] 11. The Footsteps of Error. By Dean Close. [The author's name suggests the nature of this book.] 12. Davis's Tracks of M'Kinlay across Australia. [Interesting, though rather heavily written.] 13. Chesney's View of the Virginian Campaigns. [Interesting and valuable.] 14. Davidson on the Old Testament. [Reviewed in Article I.] 15. Denise. By the Author of "Mademoiselle Mori." [A very interesting novel, written with artistic grace.] 16. The Fairy Book. By Dinah M. Muloch. [An excellent set of fairy tales, happily without morals.] Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 565 17. Fawcett's Manual of Political Economy. [A very clear, comprehensive manual, and, what is more, readable and animated.] 18. Captain Gronow's Recollections. Second Series. [Amusing enough.] 19. A Study of Hamlet. By Dr. Conolly. [A curious attempt to discuss Hamlet's sanity or insanity, as if it were a reality.] 20. Hind's Introduction to Astronomy. New Edition. 21. Incidents in my Life. By D. D. Home. 22. A Residence in Georgia. By Mrs. F. Kemble. [A most instructive book on American slavery, written long ago from personal knowledge.] 23. Kingsley's Sermons on the Pentateuch. [Animated and vigorous, though suggesting many questions which it does not solve.] 24. Essay on Government. By Sir G. C. Lewis. [Reviewed in Article X.] 25. Lowth's Wanderer in Western France. [Amusing enough.] 26. Maurice's Claims of the Bible and Science. [With more of Mr. Maurice's faults and fewer of his merits than most of his writings. He states two opposite opinions, which are intelligible if not satisfactory, and then a third of his own, which may be satisfactory, but is not intelligible.] 27. Mommsen's History of Rome. Vol. III. [The best part of M. Mommsen's valuable History, now translated for the first time.] 28. Monat's Adventures among the Andamans. [Interesting, though not without defects of style.] 29. Notes on the Pentateuch. By Andrews Norton; with a Preface by the Rev. J. J. Tayler. [A most valuable and timely republication.] 30. Phillimore's History of England in the time of George III. [An animated but otherwise unsatisfactory work.] 31. Remarkable Misers. By Cyrus Redding. 32. Romola. By George Eliot. [The most powerful of George Eliot's novels since Adam Bede, and the best historical novel since the best of Sir Walter Scott's.] PP 566 Books of the Quarter suitable for Reading-Societies. 33. Does the Bible countenance American Slavery? [Written with Mr. Goldwin Smith's usual vigour.] 34. Stephen's Criminal Law of England. [A very interesting book to all who wish to know why, as the author suggests, they may legitimately "kill, torture, and imprison their fellow creatures." It gives a general account of English law, but is not technical. There are some excellent abstracts of French criminal trials.] 35. Christian Names. By Miss Yonge. 36. Life of General Stonewall Jackson. the South." By the Author of "Life in [The time is hardly come for a Life of General Jackson.] 37. Our Old Home. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. [An interesting account of England, a little in the style of Washington Irving, but with caustic criticisms of far greater power both on the Americans and the English.] |