Saturated Civilization, by Sigmund Mendelsohn (The Macmillan Company, New York), should serve as profitable reading in a class of economics. The author does not think that our modern complex civilization yields a harvest of greater happiness than that enjoyed in past centuries. But his authorities quoted in the chapters dealing with the middle ages are not always first-class. Hence to the critical student some of the assertions are open to serious debate. However, though the author has not had recourse to first sources, a careful perusal of the book will be enlightening to the average reader. The chapter on labor reforms will be particularly interesting to all engaged in welfare work.

Acoma, the Sky City. A Study in Pueblo-Indian History and Civilization, by Mrs. William T. Sedgwick (Harvard University Press), indicates that the aborigenes of our country furnish rich material for acheological and ethnological research. The author has observed closely the characteristics of the Indian tribes of New Mexico and Nevada. She has given scientific study to the Sky City of Acoma, New Mexico, built "in the colored air," more than 6,500 feet above sea-level. She depicts the minute details of pueblo civilization so graphically that her story is interesting to even a casual reader. Legends, customs, and social organizations are carefully scrutinized. In striking contrast to the solicitude of the Church for the temporal and spiritual welfare of these people from the early missionary days of New Spain is the present attitude of American legislation. The United States has done much for the negro. But has equal interest been manifested in the Indian? Not by bread alone doth man live. The book is well printed, profusely illustrated and provided with a copious bibliography and index.

The Worship of Nature, by Sir James George Frazer, O.M., F.R.S., F.B.A. (The Macmillan Company, New York), contains the Gifford Lectures delivered by the author at the University of Edinburgh in the years 1924 and 1925, together with much additional matter which could not be compressed within the limits of twenty lectures.

The book is really an addition to the history of religions. It deals with the worship of the sky, earth, and sun among the ancient civilizations. The intellectual prestige of its author made us expect vast erudition, and we were not disappointed. Every page reveals scholarship wide and dep. In the remote past the human mind has been led into many a labyrinth of religious vagary. These Dr. Frazer deals with at length. Remnants of the story of the fall can be traced in the various cults of ancient Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and our own Americas. In this way man feebly tried to express his adoration of nature, little suspecting the existence of nature's God. He fell far short of the Infinite in his gropings after what was most beautiful in the finite. In turning over these pages on can not help wondering at the courage of those who, imbued from on high with a supernatural intrepidity, preached "the strange story of a crucified God," and became thereby the civilizers of Europe.

J. F. L.

The Commission of Historic Documents of the Province of Quebec has published an attractive volume, Les Vieilles Eglises de la Province de Quebec. The volume is really an appeal to French Canadians to put an end to "la manie de détruire et l'amour de la nouveauté which in the Ancient Province as elsewhere seems to have become an obsession.

Thirty-eight churches of the Province are treated in the volume. For each there is a brief historical account and illustrations showing exterior, interior, and important details of decoration. In the older buildings, dating back to the French régime in Canada, there is a rare interest from the standpoint of architecture and sculpture since their builders and decorators were untrained artisans who brought from France nothing but clear memories of similar work. The commission believes that they "were modest artisans who probably had never opened a manual." And yet they were able to produce some beautiful examples of structure and decoration.

The records of the old churches are taken from parish archives, letters and other sources. The illustrations are particularly interesting and are successful in setting out clearly many details of the old and later style of architecture and sculpture.

A reviewer in the Catholic Times says of Joannes Scotus Erigena, by Henry Bett, M.A. (Cambridge University Press):

The author desires to fill what he considers to be a gap in English philosophical literature. We suggest that his work would have had a more permanent value if, at least summarily, he had given us a clear exposition of the theological controversies of the day into which Erigena plunged with so much zeal in defence of the doctrines of the Church whose loyal son-and this cannot be too much insisted on-he, all through his life, believed himself to be. His writings on predestination and the Eucharist, directed respectively against the Saxon monk Gotteschalk and Paschasius Radbertus, were indeed unorthodox, and condemned as such by the Church at the Councils of Valencia, Langres, and Vercelli, butand the author omits to point this out-his errors, grave though they undoubtedly were, were material rather than formal. Taking for granted, as he did, the authenticity of the works ascribed to Dionysius, he considered himself justified in adopting the doctrines he discovered in them, not suspecting for one moment that the Christian teachings in that loosely articulated system of thought were mingled inextricably with a subtle but profoundly anti-Christian pantheism.

It is misleading, then, to call this treatise on the brilliant but erratic philosopher "a study in mediaeval philosophy" when every student knows, or should know, that in his teachings Erigena was in clear contradiction with the entire Western Church and, therefore, with mediaeval tradition. Omitting the temporary vagaries of Wiclif, the Albigenses, the adherents of Pierre de Bruis, and perhaps Beregarius, who, however, died repentant in the pale of the Church, Erigena's views find nowhere any support. He describes the Eucharist as "typicam similitudinem spiritualis participationis Jesu, quam fideliter solo intellectu gustamus." After this quotation we are inclined to smile when we find the

author gravely wondering why the Church condemned Erigena's teaching in favor of the later Scholasticism as represented orthodoxy of pseudo-Dionysius; but it was ignorance and not malice that led him astray, and he strove all his life to reconcile these views with Aristotelian empiricism, Christian creationism, and theism; and in his own mind he was successful. This is his justification— he was no wilful heretic; this, too, is the explanation of the absence of any English philosophical exposition of his doctrine; the Church, putting aside the fact that Latin is her language, does not broadcast her children's errors, and, precisely because he was so absolutely her child in spite of his errors, heretics hesitate as a rule to claim him as their master. We do not think, then, that Mr. Bett's book fills a gap; and we think that if he tries to force Erigena between the massive tomes of St. Thomas he will pinch his fingers and, what is more, make himself ridiculous.

In An Epic Scenario: Napoleon's Campaign and the Retreat from Moscow (Harper, New York), Hilaire Belloc offers a vivid narrative of several dramatic episodes in Napoleon's Russian campaign. The story appeared originally as a series of articles for the Pall Mall Gazette.

Dr. J. Franklin Jameson, in The American Revolution Considered as a Social Movement discusses the true setting and significance of the social and economic facts which underlay the political movements of 150 years ago. He treats the subject under four general heads: "The Revolution and the Status of Persons"; "The Revolution and the Land"; "Industry and Commerce"; "Thought and Feeling."

Needless to state that the treatment of each topic in the hands of such a competent scholar as is Dr. Jameson is both graphic and instructive.

A contributor to the Fortnightly Review (June 16th) says of a recent Catholic work on anthropology:

Those who are acquainted with Fr. Schmidt's and Fr. Koppers' volume "Völker und Kulturen" (Vol. I "Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft der Völker") know what a splendid contribution these two-priest-ethnologists have made to the science of man and will not be surprised to learn that the book has been favorably reviewed by the foremost authorities in the field of ethnology and anthropology. This volume is one of a series intended to treat the entire history and culture of man under the appropriate title, "Der Mensch aller Zeiten." The other chief contributors to this imposing series of volumes are the two well-known German priests and scholars— Hugo Obermaier and Ferdinand Birkner.

Dr. Robert Lowie, editor of the American Anthropologist, an authority in ethnology, reviews the volume in Vol. 28, No. 1, of that journal, and concludes as follows: "While bound to express his doubts on a number of

points, the reviewer cannot close without giving vent to his profound admiration for the work reviewed. While the presentation of all data from the angle of a special theory diminishes its pedagogical utility, advanced students will be goaded by this very circumstance into a variety of special inquiries purporting to corroborate or refute the authors' contentions."

The Bible at the Reformation.-S. Leigh Hunt has contributed to the Catholic Gacette the following illuminating article on the Bible at the Reformation:

The progress of Protestantism is thus epitomised by the Vatican Council: "The divino magisterium of the Church being rejected, and religious matters abandoned to the private judgment of each individual, the heresies prescribed by the Tridentine Fathers gradually became dissolved into numerous sects, separated from and contending with one another, until at length not a few lost all faith in Christ, Kven the Holy Bible itself, which had previously been declared the sole source and judge of Christian doctrine, began to be no longer accounted divine, and to be ranked among the fictions of mythology" (Dogmatic Constitution de Ade Caskolion, introd.) First the Church is treated as a merely human, fallible institution, then the Bible becomes a merely human, fallible book; finally, Christ Himself is regarded as a merely human, fallible Person. Facilis descensus

It is not difficult to trace the modern Protestant attitude towards Holy Writ to its source " ascertain and judge about doctrine pertains to all and to every Christian," wrote Luther; "and in such a way that let him be anathema who injures their right by a single hair" (Werke, ed. Erlangen, xxviii, 39). "Thou ungest forward the slave, ie, the Scriptures. I leave this slave

to you [Papists)" (Comment, in Gal, iii, 10). "I care nothing for these. Do thou ever urge on the slave I ask not concerning all the sayings of Scripture, even though thou bringest more against me" (ibid.). “I will have none of Moses with his law" (Cushniem, celxxix). The Books of Kings are "a mere Jewish Calendar“ (oðið, iv, 405), Job is simply “a drama in glorification of resignation" (Werke, Ixiii, 25), "like the comedies of Terence" (Tischreden, iii, 130). “Ecclesiastes has neither boots nor spurs, but rides in socks, as I was wont to do when still in the cloister (ibid. lxii, 127-131). "The story of Jonas is more lying and more utterly absurd than any poet's fable. . . . The sequel, too, is so foolish" (ibid. iv, 418), "The predictions of the prophets often turned out wrong" (Werke viii, 23). Concerning II Machabees Luther declared: "I am so hostile to this book and to Esther, that I wish they had not remained extant, for they contain much heathen folly" (ibid. lxiii, 93-104; Tischreden, iv, 403.) The so-called deutero-canonica he relegated to an appendix in his version: according to the Preface, they were "not to be regarded as Scripture."

The Epistle to the Hebrews was not of apostolic origin, but "a made-up letter," consisting of fragments among which "there is wood, hay, and chaff" (Werke, lxiii, 153). "James' Epistle is nothing but a letter of straw" (ibid. 156; ed, Walch. xiv, 105; Welches die rechten und edlisten Bücher des N. T. sind, lxiii, 15), of doubtful authenticity, which flatly (stracks) contradicts St. Paul (ibid.). James was mad (delirat) with his crazy doctrine of works (Opp. lat. exeg., v, 227, in Gen. xxii), "This James does nothing else but drive on to the Law.

I will not have him in my Bible" (Hermann, M. Luther's Leben, 97). “He did not consider the epistle to the Hebrews, nor that of St. James, to be of apostolic