Sunderland's What is the Bible? Tileston's Daily Strength for Daily Needs. Dr. Thomas' Life and Sermons. Wooley's Love and Theology (a novel). Any of these books will be loaned for twenty-one days to persons outside the city on the receipt of 10 cents for postage; or, upon the payment of expressage, packages of six books will be loaned for two months to any person who will be responsible for their circulation and return. A fine of 2 cents per day will be charged for books retained over the time.

In view of the proposed removal of Manchester New College from London to Oxford, it is of interest to notice that a gift of five thousand pounds has been made to the college by Mr. William Hollins, of Kensington, on condition that before January, 1890, the trustees of the institution shall have purchased land in Oxford for the erection of college buildings.

Mr. Murray, of London, is to publish the correspondence of Motley, the historian of the Dutch Republic.

Miss Frances E. Willard is writing a history of the Woman's Christian Temperance

Union.

The September number of the Magazine of Western History contains a paper by Rev. J. H. Crooker, of Madison, Wis., entitled "John Wise, the Forgotten American." Mr. Wise was the author of "A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches," a work very famous in its day. It seems strange that a man so influential as a forerunner of the Revolution should have dropped so completely out of notice.

George Willis Cooke has a four-and-a-half column running review of the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson, in a recent number of the Boston Transcript. He likes the

romances and wonder stories of Stevenson better than the realistic novels of Howells, and thinks them quite as sure of permanent

life.

Mr. Alvan F. Sanborn has a fine paper in the Open Court of September 6th, on "Shelley's Atheism."

The Old Testament Student, edited by Prof. W. R. Harper, of Yale College, begins with the September number a series of forty studies on "The Life and Times of the Christ" (following the Gospel of Mark) which would promise something particularly rich and good but for the drawback that all its interpretations must be more or less hampered by its allegiance to orthodoxy. A Boston daily calls attention to the fact "that the daughters of the three most noted of Boston's Unitarian ministers paint their fathers' portraits. Miss Hale has

portrait of hers, and now Miss Clarke has nearly completed a portrait of her father from a sketch once made by Hunt."

Rev. J. H. Crooker's series of sermons on "Jesus," which we mentioned some months ago, is to be published in a volume by McClurg & Co., Chicago.

It has been decided to continue the publication of the "Disciples' Pulpit" the monthly pamphlet issue of James Freeman Clarke's sermons. Mrs. Clarke will make the selection of sermons which are thus to be given to the public in a form for preservation.

Rev. Henry D. Stevens, of Moline, Ill., writes: "I wish to highly commend 'Daily Strength for Daily Needs,' as a little book which should be in every household for daily reference and use. It devotes a single page to each day in the year, giving a verse or two of appropriate Scripture as the subject of thought, followed by a verse of poetry, and this in turn by a prose selection or selections by various writers. It gives a theme of thought which aids to lift us each day to a more perfect character. It is published by Roberts Brothers, Boston, for $1, but can be purchased for 65 cents a copy by addressing Mrs. M. H. LeRow, 673 Western Ave., Lynn, Mass."

A pamphlet entitled "The Path-Hewer” comes to us from Rev. E. Rattenbury Hodges, Nottingham, Eng., containing six vigorous sermons on, Man and the Universe; The Eternal Light; The Bible, what it is and what it is not; What must I do to be Saved? Man the Path-Hewer; and Perfection. These sermons are pointed, radical, well calculated to help in the work of hewing a path through the tangled growths of superstition to a freer field for religion. The preacher calls his discourses "sermons of free religious thought"; but evidently they are not in line with the "Free Relig ion" of this country, for in addition to being constructive in their aim, they seem distinctly to accept the Christian name and position.

Voysey, the well known theistic preacher of London, entitled "Some Thoughts on Evolution." The lecture is a consideration of the question, Are any of the operations of law in Nature the working out of a preconceived plan? After a handling of the subject without gloves, from the standpoint of a radical thinker and strong believer in Evolution, Mr. Voysey finds himself compelled to answer: Yes, many things in nature show design, many things do show that they must be the working out of a preconceived plan.

A lecture comes to us from Rev. Charles

The "Library of American Literature, from the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time," on which Mr. E. C. Stedman and

66

Miss Ellen Mackay Hutchinson have been at work for several years, is published by Messrs. Charles L. Webster & Co., of New York. Each of the ten octavo volumes will contain over 500 pages. The arrangement of volumes is as follows: Vol. I., Early Colonial Literature," 1607-1675; II., "Later Colonial Literature," 1676–1764; III., "Literature of the Revolution," 1765-1777; IV., "Literature of the Republic Constitutional Period," 1788-1820; V., "Literature of the Republic," 1821-1834; VÍ., VII., VIII., "Literature of the Republic," 1835-1860; IX., X., "Literature of the Republic," 18611887 (fully representing the writers that have arisen since the beginning of the Civil War). Six of the ten volumes are now

ready. We are sorry to see that the work is sold by subscription instead of through the trade. Its price is from $3 to $5 per volume, according to binding.

The History of Herod, or Another Look at a Man Emerging from Twenty Centuries of Calumny. By John Vickers. 12mo., 360 pages. Williams & Norgate, London. This is a piece of historical special pleading, and it is very well done. There can be no doubt but one will be better able to judge intelligently, not only of Herod as a man and a ruler, but also of the Jewish nation from the time of the return from Babylon to its final overthrow by the Romans, after reading this book. In the case of a ruler like Herod, whose reputation has come to us only through the word of bitter enemies, and they of a race and creed that regarded all mankind except themselves as alien to God, hated by him, doomed to be supplanted by themselves, and having no rights which they were under obligations to respect; who were sure to be implacable enemies to any ruler who was not like themselves an enemy to all the rest of mankind, it is but fair to cross-examine the wit

nesses.

Bluffton: A Story of To-day. By M. J. Savage. Second edition. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis. $1.50. We are glad this book, which was for a time out of print, has been issued in a second edition. Though as a story it has always seemed to us much above the average of novels even from writers of note, yet our chief interest in it arises from its semi-autobiographical character, and the excellent portrayal it gives of the growth of a thoughtful, earnest mind from a traditional to a rational faith. It is justly coming to be regarded as not only one of the most interesting, but as one of the most useful books we have for putting into the hands of persons of orthodox education who are inquiring for light.

How they Lived at Hampton. By Edward E. Hale, D. D. No writer of our day is more alive to every means through which he can practically help men out of poverty, suffering and sin, and do something to bring the Kingdom of Heaven on earth,

than Mr. Hale. The book before us is another illustration of this. It is an attempt to show how a woolen mill may be carried on with financial success, and in a way to lift all concerned in it up into self-respect, independence, virtuous and happy lives. The plan is that of Christian co-operation, essentially the co-operative system worked out by Holyoake at Rochdale, England, only, interfused a little more fully with the principles and spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not see how it would be possible to give the principles underlying successful business co-operation a better popular elucidation.-J. Stilman Smith & Co., Boston. $1.00.

"The Complete Life. Six Sermon-Lectures from the. Standpoint of Modern Thought." By James H. West. Chicago: Chas. H. Kerr & Co. 60 cents.

The subjects of these discourses are, The Complete Life, The Helper On, Moral Purpose, The Deification of Man, Equilibrium, and The Holy Spirit. The author claims that his utterances are "from the standpoint of modern thought." It would at least have been more modest if he had said "from a standpoint of modern thought;" for this is certainly as much as can be truthfully claimed for them. Their philosophy, so far as they manifest a philosophy at all, seems to be essentially the pantheism of Spinoza, but with unlimited "Evolution" mixed with it, and the whole conceived by a naturally somewhat poetical mind and put in shape for a popular audience. There is in the book a considerable amount of earnest exhortation to moral living, "but with a painful lack of any such leverage as men need and as the nobler religions like Christianity furnish to help men to moral living.

Catholicism." By Rev. B. F. Barrett, of "Swedenborg and Channing;” and “True Philadelphia. The Swedenborg Publishing Association. Prices 50 cents and 30 cents.

These two books are singularly broad and candid in spirit, and have it for their object (the last almost wholly and the first in an important degree) to soften the sectarian aspect of Swedenborgianism and to emphasize its more universal features. Mr. Barrett's ground is (and he claims the same to be Swedenborg's) that the "New Church" of which Swedenborg speaks is not a new and separate religious organization based on the doctrines which Swedenborg taught, but is the church universal and spiritualinvisible to the eyes of men-consisting of the good men and women inside and outside of all sects. Hence Mr. Barrett declares it to be no part of his work to build up a new religious sect, but to disseminate the highest truth among all the sects, and as far as possible to overcome and remove out of the way the hurtful spirit of sect.

In the volume entitled "Swedenborg and Channing," a large number of parallel

66

passages is given from these two eminent Christian teachers, showing a remarkable similarity of thought between them on many points of religious doctrine; though the writer does not claim that there is any reason for believing that Channing (who came latest by three quarters of a century) was a student of Swedenborg. He gives Channing high praise, saying of him: A truer, nobler, braver, wiser, saintlier man than be, or one more thoroughly de voted to the cause of truth and righteousness, never adorned the American pulpit." It is not unnatural that he rates Swedenborg higher still, saying of him: "In purity, spirituality and general excellence of character, and in steady and ever-increasing devotion to the highest and noblest ends, he was in no respect inferior to Channing; while in respect to intellectual, and especially scientific acquirements, he was vastly superior to him."

For ourselves we should not differ much from this estimate of the two men, only in this, that while we recognize in the Swedish seer a more powerful intellect and a wider learning (in these respects he has had few superiors in the world's history) and also more startlingly profound and subtle spiritual insights in certain departments of truth, we miss in him the poise, the reasonableness, the undistorted vision, the sweet sanity which Channing always manifests. Swedenborg seems to us to have much enriched and deepened the thinking of the Christian world in some important directions; but in other directions his thinking seems to us fanciful and eccentric rather than profound or true. We think that far less of his teaching than of Channing's, can ever commend itself to the universal Christian consciousness. However, he is so great a religious seer, and has so much important truth to impart (and of a kind, too, that perhaps our age has special need of) that we are glad for all efforts to call attention to his thought, especially when made in so fair and undogmatic a spirit as that manifested by the writer of the two books before us.

THE REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES. We name below some of the more important articles in the magazines and reviews of the month.

Unitarian Review (September). Simplicity as a Test of Truth. Herbert

Putnam.

Ellis's "Puritan Rule."

Common Sense. Rhys ap Rhys. Where Liberalism is Weak. R. A. Griffin. Biographical: Life of Michael Heilprin. John W. Chadwick.

The Forum (September). Causes of Social Discontent. Bishop F. D. Huntington.

Progress from Poverty. Edward Atkin

son.

Religion's Gain from Science. Rev. T. T. Munger.

What Shall the Public Schools Teach? Prof. H. H. Boyeson.

The Increase of the Alcohol Habit. Dr. E. C. Spitzka.

Atlantic Monthly (September). Studies of Factory Life: Among the Women. Lillie B. Chace Wyman. First Year of the Continental Congress. John Fiske.

Stories from the Rabbis. Abram S. Isaacs.

Lend a Hand (September).
The Commercial Temperance League.
Municipal Charities. Hon. Seth Lowe.
President Conaty's Report.

North American Review (September). The Gladstone-Ingersoll Controversy: The Church its Own Witness. Cardinal Manning.

The New Conscience. H. D. Lloyd.

The Sanitarian (August).

Dietetics and Infant Feeding. E. A. Wood, W. B. Atkinson, Frank Woodbury, and others.

Hygiene. Traill Green, M. D.

Ten Years of Cholera in Calcutta. Dr. Simpson's Report.

Andover Review (September).

The Practical Treatment of the Problem of the Country Church. Rev. John Tunis. The Poetry of Matthew Arnold. Vida D. Scudder.

Growth and Decay of the Mormon Power. Rev. D. L. Leonard.

Self-Support of the Native Churches in India. Rev. Edward A. Lawrence.

Some Theological Burdens Removed. William Barrows, D. D.

THE CHICAGO MINISTERS' ALLIANCE, AND THE CHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF THE NEW THEOLOGY.

The following communication from Rev. A. N. Alcott will interest our readers. It will be seen that the Liberal Ministers' Alliance, of Chicago, has at last determined, notwithstanding the opposition made by the Ethical Unitarians, to place itself upon a broad and undogmatic but distinct of the ministers says in a private letter, and unequivocal Christian basis. As one "we have decided that the Ethical men must come to us: we cannot go to them."

This is encouraging. And now, having thus placed itself right before the world, and set its face toward the light, let the Alliance but press forward with wisdom and vigor and it may do an influential work. We see not why it should not take the initiative, as Dr. Thomas and others would be glad if it were able to do, in a movement to draw together into a much

cago.

Art. 2. Object. The object of this Alliance shall be the promotion of a better acquaintance and closer fellowship among Chicago ministers and others regardless of creeds or denominational connections, and also the organization at the earliest future moment when it shall seem practicable of a Conference of such Independent and other churches as can unite together for Christian work on the simple basis of the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of Man, and the Spiritual Leadership of Christ.

Art. 3. Membership. Any Christian minister may become a member of the Alliance by signing the Constitution.

At the June meeting of the Alliance a request was received from Dr. Townsend, of Jamestown, N. Y., through President Cone, of Buchtel College, for the Alliance to appoint two of its members to take charge of two Sundays' work at Chautauqua, in connection with the Lakeside School of the New Theology. The persons appointed were Rev. T. G. Milsted and myself. Our Sundays were August 5th and 12th—I having charge of the former day and Mr. Milsted of the latter. Rev. R. R. Shippen, of Washington, and Prof. Barber, of Meadville, were present to assist on the 5th, and President Cone, of Akron, on the 12th.

It is the opinion of some of the brethren in Jamestown that the cause of the New Theology in those parts has been consider

ably damaged by its connection with "Ethical" Unitarianism; and it seems clear to a visitor that if the School of the New Theology must carry that incubus it will sink under it.

Dr. Townsend is not well enough to preach at present, and consequently did not resume services in his church in Jamestown the first Sabbath in September, much to the disappointment of his people, who are thoroughly devoted to him.

Your correspondent found quite a remarkable growth toward liberal Christian thought in several localities in Ohio where the general character of religious feeling has been exceedingly conservative. At one place, Mansfield, Ohio, he was invited by Presbyterians to speak on a Sunday evening in the Presbyterian church of that place, and accepted the invitation. The discourse, although strongly anti-calvinistic, was pleasantly spoken of by 'them afterwards. This was quite in contrast with occasions some years ago when he had stood in the same pulpit as a Presbyterian minister, and had presented there the iron-clad faith. Ten years have made a great change even in central Ohio, in people's theological city in a position to know, that there was a ideas. I was informed by residents of the

notable undercurrent of sentiment in the orthodox churches there, in the direction of a more rational and simple religious belief. But there was no one to lead it. What a pity that some wise, judicious, capable man cannot be found in such a place to help the people throw off the speculative night-mare of the middle ages. A. N. ALCOTT.

Elgin, Ill., Sept. 15.

NEWS FROM THE FIELD.

Items of news are solicited from all our Churches and workers. But to insure insertion they must reach us ON OR BEFORE THE 18TH OF THE MONTH.

It is hoped that all our ministers will remember the Ministers' Institute, to be held at Worcester Oct. 1-4, the programme of which we printed in our last two numbers.

Barnstable, Mass.-Long continued illness has compelled the resignation of Rev. John Wills, who has been for some years our minister here. Rev. A. C. Nickerson is at present supplying the pulpit.

Boston.-The Ministers' Monday Club held its first meeting after vacation on September 17th. Rev. H. G. Spaulding opened the discussion of Arnold's "Civilization in England."

Secretary Reynolds, Mr. Batchelor, Mr. Horton, Mr. Slicer and Mr. Ames, deprive themselves of the pleasure of the Ministers' Institute for the sake of giving the "good cause" a lift in the west.

-Rev. A. D. Mayo has been lecturing Sunday evenings at the Y. M. C. U. Hall, during September, on "How to Live the Life of our New Times."

-The Boston churches are all resuming work, and by the time this reaches the eyes of our readers, they will be all open again. Rev. W. P. Tilden preached Sunday, September 16, at the re-opening of the church of the Disciples, but nothing is at all decided as to the pastorate. Arlington St. Church re-opened September 23, and Rev. Brooke Herford, who has been resting quietly in his summer home at Wayland, is hoping that in a few Sundays the Vesper services will be resumed as a permanent

second service.

-The re-opening of the public schools has excited more attention than usual owing to the strenuous efforts of the Roman Catho

lics to force their people to send their children to their own "parochial" schools, instead of to the common schools. The Catholic laity, to a larger extent we suspect than is generally known, dislike this. They prefer the public schools, thinking the education better, and wishing their children to grow up with other Americans. But it is difficult for them to resist the threat of the priesthood, now formally promulgated, to treat as sin which means the refusal of the sacraments- the sending of a child to the public school, where there is any parochial school available. In one of our neighboring cities -Waltham-the public schools re-opened with only 1,800 pupils as against 2,700 last

year.

-Rev. H. W. Hawkes, well known and beloved among our English ministers, as one of the most devoted of our city missionaries in one of the dense quarters of Liverpool, has been having a long rest and been travelling through the East, and is daily expected in Boston. He has been in Japan, and has come through San Francisco, where he saw Dr. Stebbins and Mr. Wendte, all of which he has been telling in interesting letters in the (English) Inquirer, speaking warmly of Mr. Knapp's work in Japan. [We publish the most important of his communications in this number of the Unitarian.Editor].

A year ago, Rev. W. F. Davis, an earnest, rather fanatical Evangelical, persisting in preaching on Boston Common without a permit from the city council, was imprisoned. He has just been released from prison, and to a reporter announced that he should preach again on the Common if he felt called to do so, but that he never would ask for "a permit." A few days after, however, one of his friends applied for a permit for him and it was promptly granted,whereupon Mr. Davis is very wroth, and it is said declares that he will never preach under that permit! This seems carrying things a little too far; yet, at the same time, we think that no permit ought to be required for out-door preaching on such a great open space as the Common.

Brattleboro, Vt. The new pastor, Rev. F. L. Phalen, begins his work with

great hope and courage, and under most promising auspices.

vailed.

began services again September 2nd. Camden, N. J.-The Unitarian Church A gentleman from Philadelphia writes: "I attended last Sunday evening and found a good congregation, and great harmony preMr. Corning, the new minister, seems the man for the place and the time.' Carthage, N. Y.-The recent death of Mr. Orrin Hutchinson, a prominent lay preacher in the Universalist denomination, will be deeply felt. Mr. Hutchinson was

well known as associated with the Church of the Divine Paternity of New York, and also as connected with the American Peace Association. To the publications of the latter he had for many years been an able con

tributor.

Chelsea, Mass.-Rev. S. W. Sample will lecture this winter at reasonable prices, on any of the following subjects: 1. The Powers that Be. 2. The Problem of Poverty. 3. Voltaire. 4. The Coming Man. 5. The Friendship of Books.

the four Unitarian, the three Universalist Chicago.- All the Liberal churches and Dr. Thomas' and Prof. Swing's Independent-are at work again. At All Souls church regular services have been held through the vacation.

-The Unity Club of the Church of the Messiah will resolve itself for the time being into a "travel class" and devote the winter to a historical and geographical study of England.

We give elsewhere a report of the last meeting of the Liberal Ministers' Alliance. - Mr. Milsted preached in Unity Church on September 16th on "Robert Elsmere, or the Religious Transition of the Age," showing that the course of religious growth through which the hero of this striking book passed, is simply a picture of the growth and tendency of the nineteenth century.

- Mr. Milsted has established in Unity Church a Kindergarten for the very small children, too young to go to both church The little ones are and Sunday-school. brought to church by their parents and are taken care of during the hour of service by the King's Daughters of the church, and after the service is over are taken into Sunday-school; or if too young for that, they go home again with their parents.

- Prof. Swing spent the summer at his summer-home at Lake Geneva, Wis. -Dr. Thomas spent his vacation in the East, preaching at Weirs, N. H., and other places.

Brothers Adams and Conklin, having new churches, took their vacations earlier in the year and kept open churches through the entire summer, preaching to very good audiences.