harmony and even to instrumentation, and how it spread until it attained the high position it holds to-day, we advise our readers to learn for themselves. It is a noble story.

From the beginning Mr. Curwen understood his mission to be not simply to spread musical knowledge for its own sake, but as an indirect method of aiding worship, temperance and culture, of holding young men and women among good influences, of reforming character, and of spreading Christianity.' Accordingly, he addressed himself, not to artistic coteries, or to the musical profession generally, but to Ministers, day and Sunday-school teachers, and workers in various philanthropic efforts. 'There is nothing,' he wrote, we desire more than that our Tonic Sol-Fa classes should be connected with the social influence of Christian Churches everywhere. It is always happiest and best when our young peoples' classes can work in harmony with Church efforts for the promotion of psalmody. The Christian life of England is that to which our Tonic Sol-Fa life must cling.' It was to him a matter of great joy that through his labours the working-classes in such large numbers were led into the enjoyment of a new pleasure, and that in the Temperance movement and in Reformatory and Ragged-School work his music was such a power for good. The fact that a Tonic Sol-Fa ball was held in Victoria, and that the managers of the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, advertised for Sol-Fa singers, gave him intense pain, and he protested strongly against both.

Our space will not allow us to insert the many passages we have marked as to the sacredness of music, and against the careless use of devotional words; but we commend them to the notice of our readers, and cordially endorse every word.

Mr. Curwen's musical work, and the fact that for the last sixteen years of his life he gave himself entirely toward the business arising from it, has almost hidden from many the fact that he was Pastor of a Congregational Church, first at Basingstoke, then at Stowmarket, and for twenty-one years at Plaistow. His influence was perhaps greater as a Pastor than as a Preacher: though his simple, earnest manner had a great charm for many, especially for children. He was a wise and loving counsellor, tender and faithful, not fearing to warn against congenial temptations, or to reprove where he saw need. Nor was he simply a man of one idea. His people were kept

abreast of the great movements of the times.

There are traces of haste in the book, -two chapters being marked V.,-and some lack of methodical arrangement; but on the whole the son has done his work well, tenderly and lovingly; if anything, almost too lovingly; for we are tempted to ask: Had this man, being but a man, no faults?' Perhaps if he had, it was not for his son to show them to the world. His father's many opponents are always mentioned with respect and gentleness; there is scarcely a word to which any of them could fairly take exception, not even Dr. Hullah. The chapter on Home Life, at the end of the book, by Mrs. Banks, is a graceful tribute to her father's memory, and enhances its value, as does the photograph at its commencement.

We hope these Memorials will be widely read, not only by Sol-Fa-ists and musical people. Christian workers of every degree may find in the story of this remarkable man many a useful lesson, and not a little healthy stimulus to strenuous exertion in the Master's service.

Autobiography, Intellectual, Moral, and Spiritual. By Rev. Asa Mahan, D.D., LL.D. London: T. Woolmer, 2, Castle-St., City-Rd, E. C.-This is a book worth writing, and worth reading. He must be a remarkable man who, at the age of eighty-two,is able to give a clear and detailed account of a life of hard work and intense thought. Sixty-five years of his life, Dr. Mahan tells us, have been spent in the service of God; eighteen in the dim twilight of a semifaith, forty-seven in the clear sunshine of perfect love. The chapters which are devoted to the narration of his intellectual history, are full of interest, and abound in shrewd, weighty, sensible remarks, which all who are interested in education will do well to ponder.

Dr. Mahan is justly proud of having been, when President of Oberlin College, the prime mover and for years the animating spirit of a school which was the uncompromising advocate of the inalienable right of human nature irrespective of sex or nation.' But perhaps the most practically valuable part of the book is that in which the doctrine of Entire Sanc. tification is explained and objections answered. The writer has on his side all the force of truth well and practically known; and the result is one of the finest apologies for the doctrine that has ever been given. The very distinct vein of

egotism which runs through the volume is rather amusing than offensive, and quite pardonable in view of the writer's age and nationality.

Jubilee Lectures. A Historical Series, delivered on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. Two volumes. London: Hodder and Stoughton.-The delivery and publication of these Lectures is one of the happy modes in which the Jubilee year of the Congregational Union has been taken advantage of. The volumes are almost throughout marked by intellectual vigour, literary expertness, and a fine Christian spirit. They form remarkably pleasant and instructive reading. The choice of subjects and of Lectures is as admirable as is in the main the handling of the various topics. The only unsatisfactory Lecture is the Introductory one, on Ecclesiastical Polity and the Religion of Christ, which happily was never delivered. Dr. Fairbairn cannot, during its composition, have been in his best mood, either as to temper or mental force. In fact, he is not himself. He forgets that Athens free' was Athens enslaving others. There is about this Lecture an aggressive theorizing, in unpleasant contrast with the fine spirit of the other Lectures. There are some very good points and fair puttings-as, for example, that Episcopacy is 'constitutional' and 'qualified' monarchy. The question is stated fairly at the outset. But very unfair strictures are made on Mr. Hatch for not having done something which he never undertook to do, and for not having written in the interest of Congregationalism, or at least from a Congregationalist point of view. He accuses Mr. Hatch of 'cunningly' drawing inferences. A subsequent Lecturer, however, shows that Independency has no cause to complain of Mr. Hatch's invaluable book. It would require a volume to sift Dr. Fairbairn's too often exaggerated statements, criticisms and arguments. He forgets that St. Paul expressly directed the transmission of the apostolic doctrine' to a selection and succession of faithful men.' His eulogy of the Genevan Church under Calvin is strangely unhistoric. A more bungling, meddling, persecuting piece of StateChurchism has seldom appeared-with its sumptuary laws and compulsory hypocrisy, and enforcement of the form of Godliness,' by civil penalties. And what has become of the Genevan Church? Again, what a strange statement is this: that at the Reformation in

England, There was no attempt at a return to the religion of Christ, only at the re-formation of the Church of England!' Has Dr. Fairbairn never seen the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Homilies? not to name scores of other documents and publications which refute that charge.

Much of the Lecture has no more to do with Congregationalism than with Presbyterianism. Dr. Fairbairn puts his finger on the true historic claim of the Independents to the gratitude of England: namely, that they were the first to understand and to champion the true principle of religious liberty.

The next Lecture, The Early Independents, by Dr. Dale, is, on the other hand, characterized by exemplary fairness.

He admits that the earlier 'Congregational literature' was too 'vehement,' 'reckless,' 'volcanic.' The Lecture is written in Dr. Dale's own bright, crisp, clear, free-flowing style. The second Lecture: Laud and the Puritans, by Dr. Allon, is remarkably well done. For the most part, Dr. Allon evinces all his characteristic candour and kindliness. He admits that the temper' of Puritanism in James II.'s time was " uncompromisingly resentful.' On this account we are the more surprised and sorry that Dr. Allon should have been betrayed into the introduction of a harsh element of present-day party politics, to which the epithets 'vehement,' ' reckless,' and ' resentful' are not inapplicable: an element which has no historic value whatever, except as showing to what extent party spirit was able, in the waning nineteenth century, to sour the style of one of the most temperate, fair-minded and genial of imaginable gentlemen: a style which would do no honour to the hustings, and is sadly out of place in such a Lecture, such a series, as this: a dead wasp embedded in a pot of ointment.' The Lecture is throughout spirited and interesting; but is in some points more suited to the Lecture Hall than the library. We confess to our ignorance of 'good Bishop Hall's' having been one of Laud's own school.' Dr. Allon fully vindicates the higher class of Puritans from the charge of Puritanism in the modern conventional sense of the word. Like nearly all writers, he greatly underrates the intellect of Laud; the mischievousness of his principles and policy it is impossible to overrate. Dr. Allon gives a most touching description of the Puritan embarkation from the Isle of Wight. The third Lecture, The Westminster Assembly, is in Dr. Stoughton's best manner.

Lecture IV., Independents in the Days

of the Commonwealth, is not unworthy of Eustace R. Conder, M.A. A fine and just tribute is paid to the peerlessness of John Howe as a theologian. The account of the Savoy Confession is especially valuable. Mr. Conder points out the failure of John Calvin's Church system in Geneva, which Dr. Fairbairn's lecture eulogises without qualification. He does justice to Cromwell as a ruler over men. But the most valuable part of the lecture is the vigorous exposure of Dean Stanley's fascinating special pleading with regard to the original theory of the Church of England.' Mr. Conder also, like Dr. Fairbairn, indicates the true and unvoidable historic glorying of the Independents in the words of Milton: 'The Independents were the only men who from first to last kept to their point, and knew what use to make of their victory.' And he takes occasion to quote a Miltonic axiom which especially needs to be laid to heart at the present day: 'The Independents well deserved the superiority which they acquired....for nothing is more agreeable to the order of nature, or more for the interest of mankind, than that the less should yield to the greater, not in numbers, but in wisdom and in virtue.'

Lecture VI., Bishop Burnet and Schemes of Church Comprehension, by S. Pearson, M.A., is very able. But we cannot suppress our surprise that he does not, with Macaulay, recognise the clear-headedness as well as the noble-heartedness of the rejection by the Nonconformists of James II.'s Declaration of Indulgence.

In Lecture VII., The Struggle for Civil Liberty in the Georgian Era, Mr. J. Baldwin Brown goes far below the surface. His treatment of the theme is

strong and fresh. We are glad to find him appealing to the Bible as the decisive standard; and accept that appeal as a retractation of the charge of Bibliolatry laid against all who hold themselves amenable to that standard, in his book on Ecclesiastical Principles. He deals a deft side-blow to the exaggerations of present-day party-spirit, of which Dr. Allon gives such an unfortunate example. It is startling, however, to find Mr. Brown giving to the deistical writers of the last century, of whom he admits that, their constructive system was a miserable abortion,' and that 'the great theologians of the day knocked their arguments to pieces;' 'their system was torn to tatters; the credit of having exploded

Calvinism. Not so; such writers as Whitby and John Fletcher accomplished that feat. Mr. Brown is much nearer the truth when he sees in the English Deists the precursors of French and English revolutionary infidelity as represented by Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot and Tom Paine. But we cannot agree with him in his felicitation of them on that account. He thinks that the controversy 'exhumed many buried Christian ideas.' Assuredly those ideas had not been buried long: they appeared in full life and bloom in the writings of such men as John Goodwin, John Howe, and Whichcote.

But the two best Lectures by far are The Evangelical Revival in the Georgian Era,etc., by A. Mackennal, B.A., and Broad Church Doctrine and Independency, by Edward White. Mr. Mackennal begins with the sentence: 'The Jubilee year of the Congregational Union of England is also by a happy coincidence the year of the first Ecumenical Conference of the WesleyanMethodist Churches.' He has evidently studied Methodism closely, and understands it intimately. Mr.White's Lecture is a most wise and manly manifesto against the extreme Broad Churchism of the present day. It is to be earnestly hoped that not only the Congregationalist Churches, but all others, the Methodists included, will take timely warning from the clarionblast which Mr. White has sounded. The Lecture contains passages of a very high order of eloquence. It ought by all means to be published separately and circulated as widely as possible. Mr. White nevertheless does full justice to the aims of the founders of the Modern Broad Church School, especially Whately, Arnold and Maurice.

Mr. J. G. Rogers's Lecture on Clericalism and Congregationalism is characteristic; that on Nonconformity in Wales, by H. Richard, M.P., is strongly marked by moderation and 'sweet reasonableness.'

Ready Money. An Essay. By M. E. Hume, M.A., LL.D. W. H. Guest and Co., London. We hope this wonderfully wise and practical little volume will be very widely circulated. In a clear and forceful manner, and a very kindly spirit, it points out the advantages of prompt payment, and the utterly unsatisfactory character of the credit system. This essay should be read by all young men starting in life, and all young women setting up housekeeping.