"The Historic Christ in the Faith of To-day," by William Alexander Grist (Fleming H. Revell Company), is a profoundly interesting and remarkably well-proportioned work, of immediate importance and enduring value. It is not a life of Christ, in the ordinary sense of the term; but it is a reverent study and vivid presentation of the commanding figure in human history, in the light of all that modern scholarship has disclosed. The author says of the writers of the New Testament: "They wrote with their eyes fastened upon Jesus. They occupied different points of view, they brought varied qualifications to their task; and yet, from their twenty-seven books there emerges one vital, consistent representation of Jesus as the Incarnate Son of God." This also it is which emerges from the author's own study of the historic Christ. He is familiar with the results of modern study and criticism and of modern science; he is broad and tolerant, and his temper is not that of the controversialist; yet the conclusion which he reaches is that Jesus has become the Objective Conscience of our race. "His Gospel is the inexhaustible fount of spiritual inspiration: His Divine Kingdom is the norm of a universal community; love of Him is constituting a bond of human brotherhood and is the directive force of all that is noblest and best in the world; while faith in His Divine-Human Person is the secret of a virile and exalted theism." It would be difficult to exaggerate the value and significance of this new study of the historic Christ; or the singular lucidity, beauty and simplicity of its style. That it should be the work of a writer hitherto comparatively unknown makes it the more surprising. Owen Johnson adds the fourth to his Lawrenceville series with "The Tennessee Shad," which bids fair to vie with its predecessor, "The Varmint," in popularity. Many of the characters of the earlier books reappear-Doc Macnooder, Dink Stover and Dennis de Brian de Boru Finnegan-and to them is added a red-headed young snob who writhes under the nickname of "The Uncooked Beefsteak." To the cooking, or education, of the Beefsteak, the Tennessee Shad gives the best of his varied talent, and the process is amusing in the extreme. It includes the purchase of a lot of bogus trophies at prodigious prices; the trundling of the Shad ten times round the school Circle under the impression that fame, not derision, will be the reward; and finally, the hospitality of his father's hotel in New York extended to the Shad and four of his fellow-conspirators. The chapter describing the visit to the Regal, with Skinner, pater's cash-offer to his son if it can be abbreviated, is one of the drollest in the book, and readers who would fain find a lesson in the fun will be quite satisfied with its conclusion. While a serious estimate of the Lawrenceville stories cannot overlook the fact that they show nothing of the nobler side of school-boy nature, they undeniably reflect its rollicking merriment and mischief in immensely entertaining fashion. The father who reaches out for one of them to see what his son is chuckling over will be provokingly slow about handing it back. The Baker and Taylor Co. The first instalment of ten volumes of the "Home University Library of Modern Knowledge" (Henry Holt & Co., Publishers) abundantly justifies the expectations aroused by the announcements of the new series. The volumes are of convenient size,-each containing about 250 clearly-printed and attractive pages; and each is freshly-written by a competent authority upon the special subject. While the volumes, taken together, will constitute a sort of encyclopædia of up-todate knowledge, the volumes are of independent interest and value, and whoever begins the acquisition of them will read them separately with satisfaction while he watches contentedly the lengthening row upon his shelves. In the volume on "Parliament" Sir Courtenay P. Ilbert, clerk of the House of Commons, describes the constitution of Parliament and reviews its history and practice for more than six hundred years, closing with a comparison of its methods with those of Congress and the European parliaments. John Masefield, writing of "William Shakespeare" touches briefly upon his life, and upon the methods of the Elizabethan theaters, and passes to a compact but illuminating discussion of the plays and poems. Hilaire Belloc's volume upon "The French Revolution" is, as the author explains in his preface, less a chronicle than a thesis: it is an attempt to explain the underlying causes and motives of the great upheaval as well as their manifestation. The author's personal attitude, which he frankly avows, as a Catholic and as a sympathizer with republican institutions, gives his judgment upon the issues involved a peculiar interest. G. H. Perris's "A Short History of War and Peace," is something more than a survey of the causes which in the past have led to war and the influences which at present tend toward peace: it is an attempt to indicate the material interests in which the causes of war and peace are to be found, and it places special stress upon two simple, present-day facts, the first that the earth is now nearly filled with human societies, and the second, that in the most advanced of these, the increase of population is rapidly slackening. “The Stock Exchange" is a short account of investment and speculation, not only on the London stock exchange but in Wall Street and elsewhere, by F. W. Hirst, editor of "The Economist." "The Irish Nationality," is a vivid and sympathetic sketch of the past and present of Ireland, by Mrs. J. R. Green, than whom there could be no better authority. "Modern Geography," by Marion I. Newbigin, editor of the "Scottish Geographical Magazine," describes the discoveries and developments of the last fifty years, which have transformed what some may have been tempted to regard as a somewhat stationary science. William S. Bruce's "Polar Exploration," is a succinct presentation of the essential facts and problems of polar exploration, not a history of polar expeditions. It is rich with the fruits of personal experience, gained during the author's own nine polar voyages and especially his leadership of the "Scotia" expedition in 1902-4. "The Evolution of Plants," is a popular account of the development of flowering plants from the earliest times, written by Dr. D. H. Scott, president of the Linnean Society of London, and fully illustrated. "The Socialist Movement" is at once a history, an explanation and a defence of Socialism, by J. Ramsay MacDonald, chairman of the British Labor Party. Another group of ten books in this series may be expected in July. |