THE CENTENARY OF LEICESTER ACADEMY, held September 4. 1884, including the historical address by Hon. WILLIAM W. RICE and the poem by Rev. THOMAS HILL, D. D., with historical supplement. Worcester, Mass. [Published by the Trustees.] 1884.

The centennial celebration at Leicester Academy last September was a notable one, and has a worthy memorial in this attractive volume, to the preparation of which the Rev. A. H. Coolidge, president of the trustees, has given much rewarding care and labor. It contains incidentally much biography, town and family history, as well as the wit and good feeling of a festival, and it preserves in becoming form the valuable historical oration by Hon. W. W. Rice, and the poem by ex-President Hill, together with the letters and addresses of other alumni and friends of the school. The appendix and supplement give additional information, and the whole book, including the illustrations, tells in a connected way the good work of this important school and its varying fortunes for a hundred years.

This book has interest for many besides Leicester people and Leicester pupils. It is a contribution to the discussion of an important problem. Much attention has been directed of late to our incorporated and endowed secondary schools. Many of them were crippled and some were closed when the free public high schools came in thirty years ago. The patronage of the best and strongest was different, if not less than before, and pupils came for different reasons and for other ends. But the high schools are no longer an experiment; they have showed what they can do, and also what they cannot do; the academies are reviving, new ones are established, and in one or two cases an endowment is already secured not altogether inadequate to the wants of a strong and stable institution of learning. The changes in the colleges also give new dignity and responsibility to the secondary schools, requiring changes in instruction, administration, government. The schools must do much of the work once done by the colleges, both in creating scholarship and forming character. To do this work well requires men of ability and of ample equipment and experience. A good academy needs buildings, appliances, faculties, funds, of the same kind and almost to the same extent as required by a college of thirty years ago. To support university methods in the colleges, and make them effective, the secondary schools must be well administered and well manned. The formative and decisive period is passed by our boys in the schools. The schools accordingly must be strengthened, and the friends of sound learning and of true religion, not neglecting the colleges, the universities, and the professional schools, must give for a time their best thought and their best gifts to our endowed academies and other secondary schools. The usefulness of Leicester Academy, in spite of all obstacles and hindrances, is a powerful argument and appeal. If it has not had the uniform and brilliant prosperity of such schools as the Phillips Andover Academy and the Phillips Exeter Academy, the reasons are easy to see, and yet it has done enough to stand in the goodly fellowship of these and a few other schools which have been pioneers, and have shaped the policy and set the standard of the so-called "preparatory "schools of the country. They were planted "to benefit mankind" and "in the name of the Great Redeemer;" they were fostered by the liberality of truly great men, who saw prophetically

the needs of the coming generations; they have with very small resources done a great work. At this moment they have a new and larger work laid upon them. They are straining every nerve to do it. They need money, and what is better than money, and even more difficult to command the strong mind, the great heart, the generous purposes of such men as the Phillipses, and Crafts, and Pearson, and Abbott, and Taylor. C. F. P. Bancroft.

LECTURES ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. BY GEORGE P. MARSH. First Series. Revised and enlarged Edition. Pp. xv., 583. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1885.

THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND OF THE EARLY LITERATURE IT EMBODIES. By GEORGE P. MARSH. Revised Edition. Pp. xv., 574. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1885.

Twenty-five years have elapsed since the first of these two notable volumes was given to the public, antedating its companion volume by about two years. They were received on both sides of the Atlantic with immediate and distinguished favor by the best authorities in English scholarship. The first volume at once became a text-book in many of our leading colleges. Public libraries and private were enriched by the addition of these scholarly works. Their accurate and extended erudition, their admirable arrangement, the skillful conduct of inquiry, and the clear, vigorous, flexible, and interesting style, made them eagerly welcome to the college-student, the accomplished philologist, and the man of literary tastes leading the intellectual life. Mr. Marsh's opinions on the English language, and upon its literature prior to the Elizabethan era, became of inestimable value as authority, and his guidance to the purest springs of information on the topic was trustworthy and entertaining. Other impor tant works upon the same interesting subject have been published during the last quarter of a century, but the authority of Marsh still holds an undisputed eminence in the front rank of scholarship in English. The most significant evidence that he has not been outgrown is the publishers' re-issue of the series. The "Origin and History," etc., is an exact reprint of the earlier editions, with a slight change in the weight of the paper and in the binding. The First Series has been greatly improved by the incorporation of the notes, composing the Appendix in the previous edition, into their appropriate places in the foot-notes in the body of the volume. There are also occasional modifications in the text which embody certain results in linguistic criticism during the past twenty years. The new arrangement has necessitated a reprinting of the entire volume. The change appears in the use of closer type and narrower "leading," and results in another advantage - the reduction of the size of the book by more than a hundred pages. But there is one serious and irritating disadvantage that must not be overlooked — the omission of the copious index that was so invaluable to the former editions. If this omission is an exceptional negligence of the binder in the single volume before us, it is a blameworthy misfortune; if it is an intentional omission as a policy of the publishers, it should meet with unsparing animadversion from every reviewer of the book. An index to a work of this kind is not merely a convenience, it is an essential. Notwithstanding this grave deficiency the two volumes remain a noble and enduring monument of American scholarship in English Language and Literature. J. W. Churchill.

THE EARTH AS MODIFIED BY HUMAN ACTION. A last Revision of "Man and Nature." By GEORGE P. Marsh. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1885.

One of the fascinating books of boyhood was Marsh's "Man and Nature." The story it told of the changes wrought on forests, rivers, lakes, and deserts by man was almost incredible. The new edition of this book under a more specific, and therefore better, title, furnishes many additional details and refers the reader to a great number of authorities on the subject, while the treatment and general conclusions remain unchanged. The chapter of chief importance at present is that on Forests, in relation to inundations, the rainfall, retention of moisture, and climate. The facts are carefully collected, and opinions cautiously expressed.

George Harris.

EGYPT AND BABYLON, FROM SACRED AND PROFANE SOURCES. BY GEORGE RAWLINSON, M. A., Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford; Canon of Canterbury Cathedral. 12mo, pp. 329. New York: Charles Scribner's

Sons. 1885.

Canon Rawlinson is best known by his "Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World," which appeared more than twenty years ago. The object of that work was to shed new light from the monuments on the story of the past. The present volume is an essay in the same direction, only here the records to be illustrated are sacred. The author cites in succession the notices of Babylon in Genesis, in Kings, in Chronicles, and in the Major Prophets. With them he gives the secular confirmations. Having devoted his first twelve chapters to the Empire on the Euphrates, he devotes the last twelve to the Empire on the Nile.

The book has obvious and decided merits. Its plan is simple. The style is clear and flowing. Dry details are avoided. There is evidence of ample learning, especially on the classical side. The author pre

sents in an English dress some striking modern discoveries that had not come before the popular eye. For the most part he shows sobriety of judgment and candor of temper. He is not afraid of the predictive element in prophecy. Where others are sapping the faith he would strengthen it.

One of the interesting facts brought out by the book is the monumental corroboration of Nebuchadnezzar's campaign in Egypt. This had been foretold by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Infidels, however, laughed at the idea of such an event. Whereupon an Egyptian statue in the Louvre and a Babylonian cylinder in the British Museum come forward to attest it. From their joint witness Professor Rawlinson appears to fix the very year of the campaign to be 568 B. C., and the name of the king to be Amasis.

Our author's reasoning is manly. A good specimen of it is his argument for the presence of Joseph in Egypt under the Shepherd Kings. Why? Because the chief characteristics of the Shepherds marked the sovereign whose vizier Joseph became. According to Syncellus, the Byzantine chronographer, this was Apepi (Apophis). Now his capital at Tanis in the Delta and his monotheistic movement oward Set (Sutekh) were precisely in the vein of the Pharaoh who gives audience to the arriving Jacob,' and who sees the Spirit of God in Jacob's gifted son. The 1 Genesis xlvii. 7.

Hyksôs, too, introduced the horse into Egypt. But in Joseph's time the horse is named, where in Abram's day there is no trace of his existence. How natural to think of Joseph as associated with the dynasty that rode into power on their Eastern steeds. It is a pleasure to find our author combating Brugsch's route of the Exodus and recognizing the Egyptological merit of Dr. Trumbull's "Kadesh-Barnea." Here and there we note inexactness and precipitancy. M. Chabas's famous identification of Aperiu and Hebrew, which Professor Rawlinson makes his own, is an instance of the first blemish. An instance of the second is his statement on page 226 that Tel-el-Maskouteh has been proved to mark the site of Pithom. This was denied by Lepsius and is disputed by Dr. Birch.

We commend the book as an epitome and a pioneer. If it call out a volume more technical, more elaborate, more original, it will fulfill a high function. Assyriology has given us the masterly "Keilinschriften und das alte Testament," by Dr. Eberhard Schrader. It remains for Egyptology to produce its peer.

John Phelps Taylor.

ECCLESIOLOGY. A Treatise on the Church and Kingdom of God on Earth. By EDWARD D. MORRIS, D. D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Lane Theological Seminary. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1885. This is a book of rare breadth and candor. The treatment throughout is strong and clear, not evading controverted questions, but never passing over into mere polemics.

The book is divided into five chapters under the following titles:

Chapter I. The Church in the Divine Plan. Chapter II. The Impersonal Constituents of the Church. Chapter III. The Personal Constituents of the Church. Chapter IV. The Church as a Divine Kingdom. Chapter V. The Church in Human Society.

The discussion of church creeds, under Chapter II., though brief, is most satisfactory. The creed is considered as vital in its relation to the church, as well as formal and, within proper limits, authoritative; but it is never to stand forth as a divisive standard, and is never to be used as an instrument to arrest freedom of inquiry or 66 to bind the household of faith in unwilling allegiance to opinion or dogma." We wish that we could share fully the opinion of Dr. Morris in respect to the comparative growth and influence of the great teaching branches of the church, as expressed in the following question: "Is it not an obvious lesson of history that those branches of the Church which have rested less on the priesthood or the sacraments, or on liturgies or polity or other externalities, which have made much rather of doctrine, and have held themselves most strenuously to the task of teaching the world what the Christian doctrine is, have attained the largest growth, the most enduring position, the widest influence?" If this question means that the teaching church has been and is the greatest factor in intellectual and spiritual progress we should as unhesitatingly, as gladly, answer, Yes. But we suspect that as a present fact, and in respect to numbers, even in the Protestant commnuion, the branches of the church which rely most upon teaching are not outgrowing those which place chief reliance upon the sacraments and the liturgy, or those which place large reliance upon an effective working polity, united with evangelistic ardor.

1 See Brugsch, Egypt under the Pharaohs, vol. ii., pp. 91 and 134.

In passing from the Impersonal to the Personal Constituents of the Church from the thought of doctrines and sacraments and ordinances to that of the personality of the church in its members and officers the discussion is at once lifted to a spiritual plane. It is refreshing and inspiring to read such words as these: "The Church is not a mechanism or a crystallization, but rather a vital organism instinct with life. Within its sacred inclosure, and under its gracious influence, the human soul is to hear and accept divine truth, to be anointed and sealed through the sacraments, and to be cultured and stimulated through the means of grace into vigorous spiritual life. In a word, it is the Personal Element which renders all impersonal elements worthy, and which above all else should make the church itself glorious in our eyes." The treatment of the doctrine of church membership is largely historical, but the historical illustrations are adduced to show the danger of departing from spiritual tests. The position of President Edwards is stated and maintained, that it is a true spiritual experience which constitutes a person a worthy candidate for admission to the organized household of faith. And as regards the relative responsibility of the church and the candidate in the matter of admission our author accepts the further opinion of President Edwards "that the particular church must share with the professing disciple in the solemn act in which he is engaging; that it is sacredly bound to settle for itself no less than for him the question whether his profession is credible, whether it may be accepted as the outward evidence of a truly regenerate nature."

In the chapter upon Polity the fairness of Dr. Morris counts to the advantage of Presbyterianism. High Church Presbyterianism is the most difficult of all forms of High Churchism to maintain. In discarding the Biblical warrant for any exact and extreme form of government, Presbyterianism is given the advantage of those points when it is strong. "Presbyterianism pure divino-a system directly prescribed and enjoined as to details in the New Testament- can no more be proven than a pure divino Prelacy or Independency. The attempt to find in the Bible a full, exact, invariable mode of government, adjusted to the needs of the Church in all varieties of condition, and so enjoined upon it that all departures and deviations become unscriptural and schismatical, has often been made in the interest of each of the three Protestant varieties of church polity, but has always been made in vain. And well will it be for Protestantism if it surrenders this futile effort in future to the Papacy, and plants itself on the broad principle that any polity is legitimate which stands substantially on Biblical foundations, and which justifies itself practically in the judgment and experience of the household of faith." Having made this statement Dr. Morris proceeds to argue that the Presbyterian or representative polity meets these tests in a high degree, and in the aggregate more fully than any other.

The least satisfying part of the book - owing to the want of a sufficient expansion is that in which the church is considered in its relation to human society. Here we think our author might have treated his subject much more fully. Indeed, we question whether he has made his definition of the church sufficently emphatic at this point. "The Church is an organization of those who love God, existing permanently under some prescribed constitution for the purpose of worship and testimony concerning Him. More broadly, the Church of God on earth is the company or