crown of glory! Over two hundred boys have been in his class and under his care. His redeeming touch has been felt in many families and he is an angel of blessing to many a one in need. He is a man of God and his work is definitely for Christ, in his profession, as journalist, and in his membership in the church. Thank God there are many laymen doing likewise according to their ability and opportunity. May their tribe increase. Through them will emerge new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Yea all things will be made new.

Not long since Five Points in New York city, which had been notorious as a retreat for thugs, a nest of iniquity, was cleaned up and made the annex of Paradise Park. This world is the vestibule and under God is destined to become a veritable annex to Paradise. The church is chief, central and originative amongst a multitude of agencies making for this end, and it is the meaning of church membership and the privilege and high call of every layman to lend a hand toward effecting this glorious consummation.

VIII.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

RELIGIONS OF AUTHORITY AND THE RELIGION OF THE SPIRIT. By Auguste Sabatier, Late Dean of the Protestant Faculty of Theology in the University of Paris. Translated by Louise Seymour Hougton. New York, McClure, Phillips and Co., 1904. Pp. 410.

The author of this posthumous volume became generally known to American students of theology by the publication, in 1891, of a translation of the work entitled, "The Apostle Paul." His reputation among us was still further enhanced when, in 1897, his brilliant treatise on the Philosophy of Religion was issued in English. The present work, however, is the crown of his theological labors. It is the most comprehensive of all his works and, indeed, incorporates the essential substance and most important conclusions of his earlier writings. To its production he gave the maturest thought of his later years. It bears on every page the evidence of intense conviction and burning enthusiasm. It is replete with knowledge, but what is more, it is full of fire. It bears the marks of wide reading and ample learning, but the learning is never paraded; it is, in fact, remanded to the background; it is obviously but a means to an end; that end is to persuade the reader of the truth of the author's conception of the nature of the Christian religion. While the book comprises an investigation and a discussion of its theme, it is primarily a message. It is the dying message of an intense, sincere and deeply religious spirit to France and to the world. It is Sabatier's swan-song.

The book contains three main divisions. The first describes. the development of the Roman Catholic system of dogma and of ecclesiastical organization. The second deals with the older Protestantism and exhibits in detail the points in which it departed from the assumptions of the Roman system and the particulars in which it remained, in principle, at one with it. These systems, the Roman Catholic and the early Protestant alike, are Religions of Authority; both maintain the notion of an external standard and measure of religious truth and knowledge to which the reason and conscience of man must yield unquestioning assent and obedience. For the Romanist this "authority" is the Church expressing infallibly the divine mind and will through its popes and councils; for the Protestant it is the letter of Scripture whose inspiration is regarded as " plenary" and all whose assertions, alike on matters of faith and of fact, are infallible.

Between the two systems there is perfect agreement in the major premiss: We must have, and do have, an inerrant, external standard and rule of faith; they differed only in the minor premiss as to what the standard was. In the third part the author makes his plea for the religion of the spirit, the freedom of faith, the responsibility of man for the fullest use of his faculties in the ascertainment of religious truth; in a word, for a moral, as opposed to a legal and prescriptive, conception of authority, according to which religion authenticates itself in the conscience and theology becomes, not a supernaturally attested system of speculation, but an exposition of religious experience.

Under the first head he shows how slowly and painfully freedom of investigation and of religious belief has been attained. In the Middle Ages the principle of authority dominated in all sciences. The Church assumed to pronounce on questions of physics, astronomy and philosophy as freely as on problems in theology and morals. Hence the irrepressible conflict which went on, and still goes on, between the Church and whatever form of science may be pushing forward its researches at any given time. The scientific progress of modern times, in all departments of knowledge, has been made in the face of the protests of the Roman Church and, in no small degree, in spite of Protestant suspicion also. The religions of authority have been the sworn foes of science. When Galileo dared to assert the rotundity of the earth, the pope cast him into prison and demanded that he should recant. When Columbus would venture forth upon the seas in search of a passage around the world, grave theologians denounced his scheme as contrary to the revealed cosmology. What ecclesiastical authority did not frown upon Darwin's investigations and conclusions respecting the gradual development of the world's form and life? So has it ever been, and so it is still whenever the principle of authority rules supreme. The ban of the Church upon the scientific investigations of St. George Mivart and upon the "Americanism" of Father Hecker are still well remembered, and just now the brilliant Abbé Loisy is under suspension for exercising too large liberty in Biblical researches. Liberty of thought in any field is a boon which has been gradually won by the labors of such men as Bacon and Descartes, in spite of the unceasing protests of authoritative religion.

In brilliancy, conciseness and vividness the sketch here given of the development of the Catholic system could hardly be sur passed. The evolution of the hierarchical notion of the Church and its authority, the centralization of this authority at Rome, the way in which it buttressed itself with its doctrines of tradition and apostolic succession, and the gradual exaltation of the papacy until it reached, at length, the claim of infallibility-all these events and processes are graphically portrayed. Not less realistic

is the description of the decline of the system in recent times— the collapse of its temporal power, once the most potent political force in Europe, the loss of the papal states and the so-called "imprisonment" of the Pope in the Vatican. It is shown how this theocratic and divinely authorized organization which has ever boasted of its fixity and sameness, has always been subject to the laws and forces which govern all history and which subject all institutions to constant modification and change. Sabatier shows by appeal to the literature of the early Church that the development of this system was natural in the circumstances and that it is entirely capable of historic explanation. Each successive step was taken to safeguard some previous step, each new claim was made to fortify some power actually in exercise. The circular logic of the system became, at length, complete. The Scriptures authenticated the Church and the Church alone had the right to say what the Scriptures meant; the Church was the sole guardian of tradition and tradition was the pillar of the Church's authority; apostolic succession secured the authority of the priesthood and the unbroken priesthood was the witness and proof of apostolic succession.

It must be remembered that Sabatier lived under the shadow of the Romanism of France and had actively participated for many years in the political and ecclesiastical controversies to which the claims of the Church gave rise. He wrote, therefore, with a keen, fresh sense of what this is, and undertakes, in a country where it is paramount. He knew perfectly the practical, social and educational questions in which the religious orders had involved France. He knew its methods in politics and understood that the Church was in politics in order to gain its endsby whatever methods and alliances might seem best adapted to success. It is not strange, therefore, that he writes with spirit on this subject. Yet, his Part I. is no mere attack; it is a severe arraignment, but the proofs are given. The author holds that the history of Romanism is its judgment. But that judgment is not an unmixed condemnation. Sabatier can appreciate the true piety and sainthood of Catholicism as well as denounce its sanction of preposterous legends, its profiting by forged decretals and the quarrels and corruptions which have sometimes disgraced its Papal Court. He recognizes a factor of "profound and noble religion, a vital sap of Christian life, a fountain of mystic uplift and heroic devotion," as well as "a hierarchy that oppresses the conscience, which is the enemy of all free and spontaneous inspiration, filtering the thought in outworn dogmas and the moral life in puerile exercises of devotion" (page 143).

In his Second Part the author describes the process by which Protestantism, which was at first a revolt against the principle of an outward, legal authority in religion, gradually lapsed back

into the application and assertion of the same principle in a new form, having exchanged the Pope for the Bible. This was "Catholicism transposed." He points out that this seventeenth century scholasticism involved a distinct departure from the principles of the Reformer, although these principles of liberty of conscience and freedom of thought and investigation were never clearly defined or consistently carried out by them. It is well known that Luther took up a free view respecting the investigation and testing of the worth of the Biblical books. Those books only deserve to be regarded as authoritative, he said, which teach Christ. Such are apostolic, though written by a Judas or a Herod. On the other hand, no book which did not exalt Christ would be canonical, though written by Peter or Paul. On this principle he designated those which were of chief value, and remanded the others to the background. Similarly, Calvin doubted the authenticity of II. Peter and the Apocalypse. His principle of authority was the "testimonium Spiritus Sancti," bearing its witness in the heart. It is through the enlightened Christian heart and conscience that we learn and know the truth and power of the Bible. Neither the Church, nor the Bible's own word, can impose its truth upon us as by naked authority from without. He whose Spirit breathes through the Bible must and does illumine and quicken the mind of man to apprehend and embrace the truth, and thus the Bible authenticates itself as the Word of God through its power of appeal to the conscience. But, later, this moral authority, this power of truth to shine in its own light, became transformed into a mere legal, external authority, imposed upon man ab extra, silencing reason, denying the right of inquiry, and demanding unquestioning submission. This is, in turn,

Protestant Catholicism; this is a new "religion of authority. The constructive portion of the book appeals from the religions of authority to "the religion of the Spirit.' To show that Christianity is a religion of the latter sort, Sabatier goes back to the New Testament and examines the religious consciousness of Jesus and the apostolic conception of inspiration. He finds the atmosphere of the New Testament to be an atmosphere of freedom. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Jesus was no tyrannical legislator seeking to fetter independent thought, to stifle inquiry and repress the free action of conscience. On the contrary, he sought to emancipate the spirit of man, bound as it was in his time by the power of unreasonable precedents and traditions. His whole life was a protest against the tyranny of traditionalism and ecclesiastical authority. He himself lived the free and unfettered life of a Son of God and it was his aim to introduce men into the same freedom-the freedom which the truth gives.

The apostolic teaching knows nothing of that arbitrary political