THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By Justin H. McCarthy, M. P., Author of "An Outline of Irish History," "England Under Gladstone," etc. In two volumes. Vol II. 12mo., pp. 700. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1898.

All readers of history, and especially those who read with such great delight the author's first volume, published about eight years ago, are to be congratulated upon the appearance of this volume, which completes the work. Its clear, captivating style, not less than the ability with which it studies and depicts the scenes of that most tragic period in French history, will attract and hold a multitude of readers. The volume sustains the interest excited by the first and makes of the whole work a classic in history which will stand alongside of Carlyl's and others, while it will be invested with a charm unequalled by any of them.

ALONE IN LONDON. By Hester Streten. Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Association. Pp. 123. 15 cents. 1898.

The Bible Colportage Association sends us another of Hesta Streten's pure, simple and gospel-spirited works. This is the story of an outcast waif in the streets of London protected by an over-ruling Providence. It is worth buying and reading.

OUR DAILY BREAD. By F. Grather. Cleveland, O.: Publishing House of the Reformed Church. Pp. 513. 12mo. 1898.

A series of devout meditations for each day in the year, translated chiefly from German, French and Latin texts, the list of authors ranging from the Reformation to the present. The work is a very good, though simple, aid to private devotion.

VIRGIL. Book VIII. By John Tetlew, D. Sc. Boston: Ginnn & Co.

This is a small convenient hand-book, with maps, vocabulary and word-groups. The word-groups are a splendid feature, aiding materially in the recognition of the relationship of words through observation of their roots.

HASSAN, A FALLAH. A Romance of Palestine. By Henry Gillman. New York: Little, Brown & Co. 12mo. Pp. 597. $1.50. 1898.

This is a graphic description of life among the Fallaheen or peasants of to-day. As a delineation it is interesting in the extreme, though filled with tiresome digressions. Mr. Gillman is well acquainted with his theme, having sojourned in Palestine upwards of fifty years. Wherefore, as an historical work it will be read with pleasure. However, a fly in the ointment irretrievably mars its excellence and minimises its value. While apparently not countenancing, the author plainly palliates vice, and extracts sympathy for it. Hence a repulsive vein of impurity pervades the whole book.

The World WELL LOST. By Esther Robertson. New York, Cincinnati and Chicago. Henziger Bros., Printers to the Holy Apostolic

See.

The Church of Rome is flooding literature with her subtle, ingenious pleas. Here is a characteristic one. It is the story of a young girl who had been taught to abhor the Roman Catholic Church, and especially the Convent. By a change of circumstances she is compelled to enter a Catholic hospital. She finds it so different, according to the story, from what she expected that she is completely won over, becomes a nun and considers it a high privilege to devote her life to the service of the Church. The book is a Roman Catholic work, full of Papist superstition and dangerous. In the present position of the heroine nun, as Mistress of the Novices, she is awaiting the call to come up higher to join the band of Soul Workers, a class who, while present in the body, are absent in the spirit working miracles, performing healings and doing other wonders, like the "Blessed Mary of Agreda, who converted a tribe of Indians in New Mexico while her body lay in a trance in her Convent in Spain." THE PRODIGAL'S DAUGHTER, AND OTHER STORIES. By Lelia Hardin Bugg. New York, Cincinnati and Chicago: Benziger Bros. 8vo. Pp. 255

Another work of the same character as the above, and which we equally condemn, in its matter. However, in its conception and execution, as (though without approval) his lord commended the unjust stewart, we commend the authoress because she has written wisely for the interests of her Church.

THE CREW OF THE DOLPHIN. By Hesta Streton. Chicago: The Bible Institute Colportage Association, 15 Cents.

The author of Jessica's First Prayer needs no introduction. This is another of his delightful English stories, illustrating the watchful care of him who "holdeth the sea in the hollow of his hand." A good book for our Sabbath school libraries is this.

SONS OF ADVERSITY

By L. Cope Cornford. Boston: L. C. Page &
Co. Pp. 313. $1.25.

The scene of this tale of love and adventure is laid in England and Holland and in the time of Elizabeth, petty intrigues with Spain forming the basis. The plot is well conceived, an unusual feature being the viliainy of the hero's father. There may be those who will find it to their liking, but for us it savors too much of the dime novel. Kennedy's frontispiece illustration is a happy conception.

THE

Presbyterian Quarterly.

No. 48--APRIL, 1899.

I. GENESIS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY.

For great events in either Church or State there are usually well defined periods of preparation. Such events do not arise suddenly, but come to pass in their fulness of time.

It is with them as with a mighty river. Its vast volume of rushing waters is the product of many smaller streams, and these in turn are made up of many lesser rivulets, which, gathering from distant mountains and flowing through fertile plains, combine to make the great riverthe St. Lawrence, the Mississippi or the Amazon; the Rhine, the Danube or the Nile. To understand the river aright, we must trace its various converging streams to their respective sources, in the recesses of lofty mountains, in the depths of trackless forests, or amid the loneliness of distant lakes. Thus explorers have sought the sources of the Nile, the Mississippi and the Amazon, and in this way reliable geography is made.

So it is with the Providence of God, as it works out its great movements, alike in the life of nations and in the history of the Church. These movements can only be rightly understood by tracing the various streams of influence

which have led up to them, and which flowed forth in their great events, up to their distant sources and down their winding courses.

From this view-point we see how the Roman Empire of world-wide dominion, and the Greek language of universa diffusion, made ready a highway for the swift-winged Gospel to spread its blessings speedily over the civilized world. So, too, we see, later on, that the revival of learning, the unrest of men under the tyranny of the Romish hierarchy, and a deepening interest in the spiritual side of religion, flowed together to produce the resistless current of the Protestant Reformation.

With the Westminster Assembly, and its noble and enduring work, the same is true. Various things led up to the convening of this historic and memorable convention, and gave shape to the great task which it was raised up of God to perform. On the inner side the logic of events made the calling of this Assembly both natural and necessary. It met in its fulness of time also.

The theme which this article is to discuss leads to the study of these events, in their real significance, as they culminated, and were crowned in the Assembly at Westminster. We shall seek to trace the logic of Divine Providence, alike over Church and State, in the main events which led to the formation of the Assembly, and we shall take a brief glance at the Assembly itself as thus formed.

The events which combined to bring the Assembly into existence were partly civil or political, and partly religious or ecclesiastical. They lay, in part, in England, and, in part, in Scotland; while continental influences also came in. In only the briefest way can these events be traced out under two main heads, one treating of the political, and the other of the religious aspects of these events, though these were so merged into each other as to be really identical in many cases.

I. The political series of events leading to the calling

of the Assembly carries us back to the Reformation in England, about a century prior to the Assembly. The name of Henry VIII., who came to the English throne eight years before Luther sounded the first loud notes of the German Reformation in 1517, comes up here. About 1526 Henry's quarrel with the Pope began, in connection with the King's desire to divorce his wife of many years, Catherine, to marry Anne Boleyn. After some years of delay the King grew impatient; and, finally, renouncing the jurisdiction of the Pope altogether, he assumed to himself the Headship of the Church in England. A few years later the Pope, when he saw that all hope of submission on the part of Henry was gone, solemnly ex-communicated him from the Church, and went through the hollow form of deposing him from his throne.

Henry was succeeded by Edward VI., who came to the throne as a lad, and who favored the true Reformed faith in various ways. His brief reign of six years did not a little to settle matters in the realm, and one can scarcely help feeling that his reign was all too short.

Then came the dark and dreadful period of Mary-the bloody Mary-when the storm-tossed bark of the Protestant faith was in great danger of utter shipwreck. For a time the prospect was as gloomy as it could be, for it looked as if everything would be lost, that, under Edward, the people had gained for true religion in the realm. Hundreds fled from England to the continent, and a very great numberover 300-suffered martyrdom during less than five years. This was indeed a dark day for true religion in England, and Mary's short reign was as much too long as Edward's had been too short.

Then follows the long and brilliant reign of Elizabethfrom 1558 to 1603-a period of 45 years, when the Reformation in the modified form represented by the Anglican Church was virtually established, as it has continued down to the present time. The national power of England was