of these great books must be impressed with the dynamic power and momentum of the kingdom of God as now in action throughout the world. From Dr. Geikie we quote this: "The provisions indicated in the New Testament are ample, whether these be natural, providential, or supernatural. We are assured that there is to be a restoration of all things, and this magnificent result is to grow out of energies, active or latent, now existing in the Christian Church. The commanded business of the Church is the conversion of the world; and God does not demand from unit or corporation what it is unqualified to perform." And from Dr. R. S. Storrs is the following: "Men say sometimes, with Pilate of old, 'What is Truth?' That was not a serious question, of course; it was only the sarcasm of proconsular arrogance. Truth-it is a dream of the mind, he implies; it is a breath in the air; truth has no power; one rush of the Roman legionaries and it vanishes forever. Ah, but that truth at which Pilate sneered took the mighty empire of which he was a subordinate official, and crushed it at last as the mailed hand of a giant might crush an eggshell. Pilate was mistaken. And men of the world are mistaken now, when they say that the Gospel is an ineffective force, something for women and children, something for sick people, perhaps, but which for the prosperous and powerful is nothing but breath. The Gospel of Christ is invisible but dynamic. See how it operates on individuals and communities wherever it goes. It touches evils, cruelties, vices, despotisms, to loosen and dissolve them; just as the ice bank in springtime does not require to be broken up by drill and dynamite, but melts into drops and ripples, into rills before the kiss of sunshine in the warmer air. That is the way in which the Gospel produces its sublime effects wherever it is preached and established among men. God means the future of this world to be molded and glorified by the Gospel of Christ, by the invisible power of which the nations are to be redeemed and elevated. And all we are to do our utmost to promote this ever-advancing plan of God in the world." The weighty worth of these three great volumes must be to Dr. Dennis a sufficient reward for his enormous labor; and every purchaser of them will feel that they more than repay their cost.

European Days and Ways. By JAMES F. RUSLING, A.M., LL.D., Brigadier General (by Brevet) United States Volunteers, Author of Across America, Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days, etc. Crown 8vo, pp. 420. Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye. New York: Eaton & Mains. Price, cloth, ornamental, $1.50. Those who read that vivid, realistic, and stirring book, Men and Things I Saw in Civil War Days, do not need to be told that this new volume from General Rusling's pen is the work of a master of eyewitness description. Few men have written who had a finer gift for making the reader see, as if with his own eyes, what the author sees. Something in it suggests the lawyer; the blending of fluency and exactness in its style may be the result of long practice at the bar. General Rusling's book makes us see how Europe looks to-day

to a practiced observer who travels with open eyes and keen intellect through Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Holland, France, England, and Scotland. It is a common-sense account of a tour which is easy for anyone to take. For those who plan to take the trip this book is informing and preparatory; while for those who must stay at home it is with its pictures and matter-of-fact narration of experiences an entertaining substitute for the journey. Where all is good it is difficult to say which is best, but the chapters on Rome, Venice, Nuremberg, Brussels, Paris, London, and England are conspicuously interesting. But the most remarkable chapter in the book is that on "Waterloo." It indicates intimate familiarity with Waterloo literature, including the official reports on both sides of that desperate and decisive conflict. It is such an account of the battle of Waterloo as only a soldier, a general, with full military knowledge, studying on the spot the progress of the fight, could possibly write. To a civilian's judgment it seems an extraordinary achievementaltogether the most intelligible, vivid, and illuminating explanation and description of that tremendous struggle in which the defeat of Napoleon and the victory of Wellington decided the fate of Europe. Anybody who reads these twenty-five pages will understand Waterloo. General Rusling enters on his description thus: "In many respects Waterloo is indeed an ideal battlefield, and not unlike our own Gettysburg. It is easy to see why Wellington won, when one rides over the battlefield. I never understood it before going there. Let me see if I can now make it plain to others. . . . Here on the crest or ridge of a long swell Wellington posted the English army. Opposite, a mile or so away, on a much lower swell, Napoleon posted the French army. This was not unlike Meade and Lee at Gettysburg, on Cemetery Ridge and Seminary Ridge, respectively. Between was a considerable intervale, and, as Napoleon attacked, the French had first to march down and across, and then charge up, much as Lee had to do; and Wellington had only to stand still and hold fast, as Meade did, with Mount St. Jean and La Hougomont to help him, as Meade had Kulp's Hill and Little Round Top to help him." Throughout his description General Rusling notes the various points of similarity between Gettysburg and Waterloo. He points out Napoleon's mistakes, and evidently thinks Meade made a stupendous mistake, on the last day of the Gettysburg fight, in not charging with all his army upon the defeated and retreating Confederates, sweeping all before him, and making a merciful end of the war then and there. If Grant had been in command at Gettysburg that is what would have happened. Lee's army would not have been allowed to get away. Appomattox would have happened at Gettysburg. The publishers have done handsome justice to General Rusling's energetic and engaging story of travel, and a full index makes the inwards of the book easily accessible. Of making many books of travel there is no end; the impulse seizes multitudes of tourists; but the contents of this one justify its existence.

...

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Man from Glengarry. By RALPH CONNOR. 12mo, pp. 473. New York and Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company. Price, cloth, $1.50.

Glengarry School Days. Same author and publishers. 12mo, pp. 340. Price, cloth, $1.25.

The first of these two books has sold one hundred and fifteen thousand copies, and fifty thousand of the second were ordered before it was off the press. Such is the phenomenal and persistent popularity of the author of Sky Pilot and Black Rock; and such the public's "Oliver Twist appetite." All the books which have made Charles W. Gordon famous are virile, wholesome, full of the freshness and ruddy vigor of out-of-doors, astir and eventful with the swift rush of incident, full of strong characters, morally bracing, and noble to the top of possibility. They burn and throb with healthy excitement. For man or woman, boy or girl, they have an irresistible spell. For city boys or country boys Glengarry School Days is a great book, and no less attractive to older people. All four of Ralph Connor's stories are as full of fight, physical or spiritual, as Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and as fascinating to battle instincts as the Pirate's Own Book; while at the same time they are as religious in effect as a revival meeting. The core of the author's creed seems to be that the soul is saved by fighting the devil, and every chapter rings with the clash of moral conflict. It is a spiritual prize fight, muscular, sinewy, gritty, sometimes grim and bloody. Then there is the exultant joy of moral triumph, and all along these stories are suffused with the sweet and the tender in a way to fill the eyes and choke the throat. No wonder that when the publishers announce a new book by Ralph Connor they are flooded with advance orders by the next mail.

The Illustrative Lesson Notes. By Rev. THOMAS B. NEELY, D.D. LL.D., and ROBERT R. DOHERTY, Ph.D. Pp. 400. New York: Eaton& Mains. Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye. Price, $1.25

The unusual excellence of this annual for 1903 attests the care and labor of the authors in its preparation. Since lesson helps are needed by all workers in the Sunday school field it is difficult to imagine how a more useful requisite than this could be produced or desired. The notes, presenting in condensed form the salient thoughts of the best commentators on the sacred text, constitute a library in themselves, while the maps and illustrations with which the book abounds render the student thoroughly familiar with the geography and topography of the Holy Land. A new and valuable feature of the volume for 1903 is the insertion of the American Revision for the parallel lesson text. The ripest scholarship of the age is reflected in this revision of the text, and the use made of it in the parallel passages cannot but win for the authors the grateful appreciation of Bible students.

METHODIST REVIEW.

MARCH, 1903.

ART. L-IS IT A GOOD OR A BAD INHERITANCE? In the original preface to the Sunday Service or Prayer Book revised and recommended by him to the societies in America, of date September 9, 1784, John Wesley says: "I believe there is no liturgy in the world, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety than the Common Prayer of the Church of England. And though the main of it was compiled considerably more than two [now three] hundred years ago, yet is the language of it not only pure, but strong and elegant in the highest degree." He goes on to say that in the revision made for American Methodists there is little alteration except as to the omission of holy days, the shortening of the Lord's Day service, the omission of certain sentences in the offices of baptism and the burial of the dead, and, what is very significant, the leaving out of many psalms, and many parts of others, "as being highly improper for the mouths of a Christian congregation." Thus he claimed and exercised the right of sitting in judgment on what among the chapters of the Old Testament was fit and suitable for Christians. To this extent he was a critic of the ethics of the Old Testament. It may also be said, in passing, that in his Philosophy he adopted with hearty approval, quoting several pages, the views of a Swiss savant which cannot easily be distinguished from the doctrines of theistic evolution.

This prayer book was accepted by our fathers, and evidence of its use in its entirety is not wanting; as evidence also is

not lacking that in apparel, robes, and belief in three orders (not the same as Anglican orders, but still three) some of them felt themselves to be in close sequence to the ministry of the parent Church. It is also true that the book as a whole, both as to the mass of the ministry and of the people, fell very early into disuse and even dislike, except as to the forms for special services. To this several causes contributed. First, and chiefly, the Revolutionary War bred strong prejudice against things English. Until comparatively recent years our younger sister the Protestant Episcopal Church suffered greatly from this prejudice. It is singular, to say the least, that Asbury, himself an Englishman, suffered so little as he did. It argues well for his tact and essential Americanism that he was so readily accepted as a leader by our fathers upon the nomination of Wesley, shrewdly reinforced by election by his brethren. Connected with this prejudice against things English was the feeling which led the Conference to drop Mr. Wesley's name from the Minutes for a while-a gentle hint that he was no longer master of an international situation.

But mainly, however, the book fell into disuse because it was found impossible to make it effective in the missionary work of the Church. An obligatory ritual largely confines the Church which commands it to the pavements of the cities and the denser communities. How different appears the Roman ritual in a country chapel and in a city church! For missionary reasons, with others, the Protestant Episcopal Church has permitted the abridgment of her services, and even the disuse of the ritual entirely on occasion.

Our Church has always, sometimes wisely, more often unwisely, taken color from her surroundings. Her ecclesiastical justification from the beginning was in her middle place between prelacy and independency; between wholly ritualistic and nonritualistic churches. But wherever she invaded territory occupied by Congregational or Presbyterian churches she found intense prejudice against prayer books or any estab lished forms of religious expression. As always happens,