reader to understand the Old Testament Prophets by setting their prophecies in their historical connections, gives us now the fifth of his series of Studies.1 This embraces the second half of Isaiah and the Post-Exilian Prophets. The prophecies with which he deals in this volume are of peculiar interest, and Mr Blake does his best to present them in their proper continuity. Where scholars differ in matters of material moment, the competing views are carefully stated and estimated. The Book of Daniel is included, but the last six chapters of Zechariah are excluded, as belonging to an earlier date. Joel is also omitted, having been already placed in Part I. It is noticed also that while chapters xxiv.-xxvii. of Isaiah are placed in Part II., they are now regarded by most critics as PostExilic. The text of the prophecies is first given in a series of thirteen chapters. In a second series of thirteen chapters the historical setting and appropriate explanations are given. In the closing division of the book we get a summary of the "Prophetic Conceptions" in the period in question, a useful "Chronological Table," a Glossary of Names," and a series of Notes. Mr Blake is to be congratulated on having now completed, in so satisfactory a manner, a study of the Prophets, which will make a large part of the Old Testament a new thing to many English readers.

Professor Shedd of New York has added a third volume 2 to the large and important system of Dogmatic Theology, which he published in 1888. This volume is supplementary, and that in two senses. It works out more fully some of the more difficult points stated in the earlier volumes, and it gives a very considerable number of illustrative passages, selected from the writings of theologians of different schools and times. Professor Shedd's system is the completest statement and the most elaborate defence of the . Augustinian and Elder-Calvinistic Theology which has been produced in our day. If any one wishes to understand the broad dividing lines of Calvinism and Arminianism, and the more specific points of difference between the older Calvinism and the more recent, it is to Professor Shedd's book that he ought to go. Nowhere else will he find the various questions which are connected with the doctrine of the "self-determined and responsible fall of mankind as a species in Adam" discussed with so much mastery of the entire subject, or with so perfect a conviction of the importance of the issues. The publication of this supplementary volume will be welcome to many. It places at our disposal a wealth of matter,

1 How to Read the Prophets, &c. By the Rev. Buchanan Blake, B.D. Part V., Isaiah (xl.-lxvi.), and the Post-Exilian Prophets. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Cr. 8vo, pp. 246. Price, 4s.

2 Dogmatic Theology. By William G. T. Shedd, D.D. Vol. iii., Supplement. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 8vo, pp. iv. 528. Price, $4.00.

which will be of use to all who have an interest in the profoundest questions of Theology.

We are glad to see a second edition of Dr Dennis's book on Foreign Missions.1 The volume consists of a series of Lectures, which were delivered in the spring of 1893, in Princeton Theological Seminary. They are the first fruits of a new foundation -a Student's Lectureship on Missions. They are lectures for the present times, their general object being to deal with the Message of Foreign Missions to the Church, the Meaning of the Macedonian Vision, the Conflicts of the Foreign Field, the Problems of Theory and Method in Missions, the Controversies of Christianity with Opposing Religions, and the Summary of Success-all in relation to the present day. The lectures are written in an easy style, which becomes now and again eloquent. They give a mass of facts which it is important to know. Both in form and in contents they are well suited to widen the views of students on the subject of missions, and to deepen their interest in the work.

The Rev. P. Thomson publishes the results of a very painstaking study of the Greek New Testament in his volume on The Greek Tenses in the New Testament.2 His object is to show how much depends upon attention to the distinctions in the Greek Tenses in interpreting the New Testament. He gives, in the first place, a brief statement of the Origin and Characteristics of New Testament Greek. This seems to us to be by much the best part of the book. It is a remarkably correct summary of the sources, constitution, and qualities of New Testament Greek, compressed within a very few pages. This is followed by a condensed account of the Force of the Tenses. This also is well done on the whole, although some doubtful things are said on the relations of the aorist and the perfect. The bulk of the volume is occupied with a rendering of the four Gospels, which is meant to illustrate the author's general view of the distinctive uses of the Tenses, and their bearing on exact interpretation. There are many good passages in this section, but there are also not a few awkward renderings, and some which are in no sense an improvement on those either of the Authorised Version or the Revised. It is impossible to give details here. But a perusal of Mr Thomson's version of the opening chapters of Mark will probably be enough to satisfy most that this is the case. The book, nevertheless, deserves to be attentively read. It is a careful study,

1 "Foreign Missions after a Century." By Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., of the American Presbyterian Mission, Beyrout, Syria. New York: Revell. Published also (with Introduction by Professor T. M. Lindsay, D.D.) by Messrs Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, Edinburgh. Cr. 8vo, pp. 308. Price 5s.

2 Edinburgh : J. Gardner Hitt. Cr. 8vo, pp. 317. Price 4s. 6d.

and shows a large acquaintance with the subject. Mr Thomson has studied the best grammarians, and done it to purpose. His book will be of use to students of theology.

Mr Lyttelton's excellent translation of Godet's Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith1 appears in its third edition. It would be difficult to name any book which handles the great questions of Christian Apologetics with a finer combination of the scientific with the popular than this one by the venerable Neuchâtel scholar. Every thing is touched with the skill of one long familiar with the subject, alive to its difficulties, and convinced of the truth of the Christian position by patient and reverent study. The papers on the Perfect Holiness of Jesus Christ and His Divinity are of particular value.

In his Handbook to the Psalms,2 Dr Sharpe has brought together a great deal of matter bearing on the structure and characteristics of Hebrew poetry, the compilation and divisions of the Psalter, and the authorship and ideas of the Psalms. The book is written from a conservative standpoint, and all that can well be said on the traditional view of the origin and relations of the Psalms is said here. Some new lines of argument are followed in support of the old opinions on the headings, dates, and authorship of the Psalms. These are of some interest, though they are far from convincing. Other matters are dealt with at some length, which seldom find a place in books of this kind. There is a chapter, for example, on the Topographical and Historical Elements in the Psalms, and another on the Poetic Imagery and Treatment of Nature. These are pleasant and instructive reading. The sections, however, which will be read with most interest, are those on the Theology of the Psalms. The names and attributes of God, as they appear in the various sections of the Psalter, the references to the life beyond the grave, and the Messianic Hope are handled in succession. There are chapters also on the inspiration of the Psalms, and on their moral teaching and moral difficulties. In these discussions there are some interesting points. There is a useful appendix also on the Use of the Psalms in the New Testament. The book is a laborious collection of things of very different values. It is meant especially for those who are not Hebrew scholars. The Hebrew student will find something to engage his attention, if not to convince his understanding. The general reader will be furnished with a mass of information on many subjects, and will so far be able to draw his own conclusions.

1 By Professor F. Godet. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Cr. 8vo, pp. viii. 295. Price 4s.

2 The Student's Handbook to the Psalms, by John Sharpe, D.D., Rector of Elmley Lovett, formerly Fellow of Christ's College. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. 4to, pp. xv. 440. Price 12s.

Principal Wace has done much good service as an Apologist, most of all by his Boyle Lectures on Christianity and Morality. In his Christianity and Agnosticism,1 he makes a further contribution to the literature of Christian Defence. The Essays which make up this volume have all appeared in print elsewhere one of them in the report of the proceedings of the Manchester Church Congress, two of them in the Nineteenth Century, and four in the Quarterly Review. They will bear re-publication, however, in this form. There are several of them that one is glad to have at hand, especially the one on the Historical Criticism of the New Testament, which gives a very useful conspectus of recent discussions and their general results, and another of earlier date on the Speaker's Commentary on the New Testament. The replies to Mr Huxley, the refutation of Mr Cotter Morison, and the criticism of Robert Elsmere, have also many good passages, and will very well bear to be read now.

Dr Robert Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible, is a book so well known and so generally valued as to make it unnecessary to speak at length of its merits. It is one of the most laborious, exact, and complete works of its kind. It contains all that any one can well desire to have, and is not burdened with matter which is of small profit. It is convenient to use and may be safely trusted not to send one off upon a vain quest. The sixth edition is a thoroughly revised edition, and has the benefit of a Sketch of recent Explorations in Bible Lands, contributed by Dr. Thomas Nicoll. The book will hold its place against any competitor.

It

Canon MacColl's Life Here and Hereafter is a book of very various contents. Consisting of sermons preached from time to time in Ripon Cathedral, St Paul's, and elsewhere, it gives popular and powerful statements on purity of heart, temptation, party spirit, forgiveness, capital and labour, and similar subjects. also deals with such topics as Agnosticism and the Christian doctrine of Immortality. The addresses devoted to the last-named subject are of most interest. There are many suggestive things in these, forcibly stated and appropriately illustrated. There are also some things of very doubtful value-speculations on the powers of the departed, their knowledge of affairs on earth, and the like. One of the most attractive of these discourses, however, is the one

1 By Henry Wace, D.D. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons. Post 8vo, pp. xxvi. 339. Price, 10s. 6d. net.

2 Edinburgh: George Adam Young & Company. 4to, pp. vi. 1090 and 80. Price, 24s. cloth.

By Malcolm MacColl, M.A., Canon Residentiary of Ripon. London : Longmans. Cr. 8vo, pp. xiv. 405. Price, 7s. 6d.

on The Many Mansions of the Spiritual Realm. But perhaps the most striking are those in which Canon MacColl grapples with the position in which the doctrine of immortality is placed by modern science, where he states the conclusion that, though at first sight physical science seemed to negative the doctrine, it "now supplies us with a principle which really furnishes us with an antidote to its own scepticism-the principle of the reversal of appearances." There is much original and stimulating thought in the book.

The Expositor has now reached the tenth volume of its fourth series.1 It has a long and honourable record, and its wellearned reputation is sustained by the present issue. Among articles of special interest are those by Professor Beet on the New Testament Teaching on the Second Coming of Christ, Professor Bruce on Paul's Conception of Christianity, and Professors Lindsay and Cheyne on Professor W. Robertson Smith's Doctrine of Scripture. These are but some out of a large number of papers of great value on a wide variety of subjects.

Two books of profound, but very different, religious interest are Ernst Haeckel's The Confession of Faith of a Man of Science, and Thoughts on Religion,3 by the late George John Romanes. The former says all that can be said in favour of Monism, and is remarkable among other things for the strength of its rejection of the doctrine of personal immortality on the one hand, and its anxiety on the other hand to conserve religion in some fashion. The God to whom the twentieth century is to build its altars is a certain "triune Divine Ideal," a certain "enforced combination and mutual supplementing" of the "three august Divine Ones," known as the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. The latter volume has all the pathetic interest of a series of reflections and reasonings, often broken and incomplete, which let us into the secret workings of a trained scientific intellect and an open, receptive soul, and show us how the writer won his way back, step by step, from something like blank scepticism to a spiritual faith, which brought him at last into communion with the Christian Church. Both books deserve to be studied and pondered again, and yet again.

The Life and Letters of Dean Church will be perused by a wide

1 Edited by W. Robertson Nicoll, M.A., LL.D. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Cr. 8vo, pp. 476. Price, 7s. 6d.

Monism, as connecting Religion and Science, translated from the German by J. Gilchrist, M.A. London: Adam & Charles Black. Cr. 8vo, pp. 117. Price, 1s. 6d. net.

3 Edited by Charles Gore, M.A., Canon of Westminster. London: LongCr. 8vo, pp. 184. Price, 4s. 6d.

mans.

Edited by his daughter, Mary C. Church. London: Macmillan & Co. 8vo, pp. vii. 355. Price, 12s. 6d. net.