so that after him the deterioration of the popular faith in that direction went on faster than ever.

It is needless to attempt to give any adequate idea of the rich treasures of this volume, since it is really a cyclopædia in itself, and must be owned and read to be fully appreciated. For convenience and fulness of detail, combined with the authoritative statement of the wonderful facts of Egyptian history, it has no equal in the English language..

THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD: The Most Ancient and the Most Important of the Extant Religious Texts of Ancient Egypt. Edited, with Introduction, a Complete Translation, and Various Chapters on its History, Symbolism, etc., by Charles H. S. Davis, M. D., Ph. D., Member of the American Oriental Society; American Philological Society; Society of Biblical Archæology of London; Royal Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland; Associate of the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain; International Congress of Orientalists; Société d'Anthropologie of Paris; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Local Honorary Secretary of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, etc. With ninety-nine Plates reproduced in Facsimile from the Turin Papyrus and the Louvre Papyrus. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1894. (Pp. 186. 9x658.) $5.00.

In this beautiful quarto volume the ordinary student has brought before him the great original itself, as well as a translation of the "Egyptian Book of the Dead." Such is the power of modern science that one can now study the relics of ancient and far-off civilizations as well at a distance as near at hand. If we mistake not, many a clergyman on a small salary will rejoice to have this work brought within even his means. Once in possession of it, with a small manual upon the hieroglyphic characters, and such a history of the ancient empire as that recently published in translation from Erman, the lone student can feel that he is reading history and studying archæology at first hand.

In addition to the text and translation of the celebrated book, this volume contains a full account of "The Mythology and Religion of Primitive Peoples," of "The Egyptian Pantheon" (with illustrations of some of the more important Deities), and of "The Mythology and Religion of Ancient Egypt." The special introduction to the document occupies fourteen of its large pages.

THE EXHAUSTIVE CONCORDANCE OF THE BIBLE: Showing Every Word of the Text of the Common English Version of the Canonical Books, and Every Occurrence of Each Word in Regular Order; together with a Comparative Concordance of the Authorized and Revised Versions, including the American Variations; also Brief Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, with References to the English Words. By James Strong, S. T. D., LL.D. New York: Hunt & Eaton; Cincinnati: Cranston & Curts. 1894. (Pp. 1340, 262, 128, and 79. 10x74.) Cloth, $6.00; Half American Russia, Cloth Sides, $8.00; Half Turkey Morocco, extra strong, $10.00.

THE COMPREHENSIVE CONCORDANCE to the Holy Scriptures. By Rev. J. B. R. Walker. A Practical, Convenient, Accurate Text-finder. Un

essential Words omitted; all Serviceable Words retained. Only One Alphabet for All Words, including Proper Names. Proper Names accented. Fifty Thousand More References than in Cruden. Based on the Authorized Version. With an Introduction by M. C. Hazard, Ph. D. Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society, 1894. (Pp. 922. 74x44.) Cloth, $2.00; Half Leather, $3.00.

The simultaneous appearance of these two Concordances is one of the striking indications of the continued interest in the study of the Bible. We have no doubt that they will both receive, as they merit, such a wide sale as amply to justify the immense work which has been spent upon their preparation, in which the authors have aimed to remedy the deficiencies of all previous works of a similar character. So far as we can see, they are both of them successful and as nearly perfect in their way as human workmanship can make them.

Dr. Walker contents himself with carrying out more fully the plan of Cruden, but does it so thoroughly that there is now no verse in the Bibie which cannot, by the use of this concordance, be found by any one who remembers a single word occurring in it. A great recommendation of the volume is its compactness, combined with comprehensiveness,-the 922 pages being printed on such thin and elegant paper that the book can be easily handled; its cheapness, -retailing at the low price of two do!lars; the arrangement of the proper names in the alphabetical order of the rest of the material; and the legibility of the type, -the verses being printed in a lighter faced type than the chapters, which prevents the confusion of the two in the reader's mind.

Dr. Strong's "Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible" is a more costly and larger work, covering a wider range of topics, and will prove invaluable to the large number of students of the Bible who need to have at hand the variety of references which are here combined in a single book. The Main Concordance seems to be as complete and accurate as it is possible to make such a work. A marginal numeral reference opposite each verse quoted indicates whether the original is translated by the same word as in the A. V., in the regular R. V. of 1881, and by the English Revisers and the American Revisers. Where a change has been made, its character can be readily determined by consulting the Comparative Concordance. By referring to the corresponding number in the Dictionary of the Hebrew and Greek Words of the Original, one will find the transliteration, pronunciation, and ordinary meaning of the Hebrew or Greek word represented. This is of especial value to those whose knowledge of the Hebrew language is limited, and will be found extremely convenient for all. This addition combines the excellences of Young's Concordance with the advantage of giving a complete list both of the translations of each particular original word, and of the various original words which are occasionally translated by the same English term. It is difficult to see how any additional features could improve the volume,

or how it can help finding its way to the study table of all thorough students of the Bible.

LIFE OF SAINT FRANCIS OF ASSISI. By Paul Sabatier. Translated by Louise Seymour Houghton. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1894. (Pp. xxxv, 448. 64x358.) $2.50.

This book, as we had been led to expect from the notices coming across the water, proves itself to be a notable one. The author gives us also a critical study of the sources from which he has formed his particular conception of his hero. The study of the times is exceedingly interesting, and although this is but the background it forms an important part of the picture. The author, having gained what to him seems the true conception of St. Francis, is probably justified in this case in focusing his lenses until these particular features are brought out in the clearest light, while others are either materially reduced, or rejected entirely as unworthy (p. 212).

The two great thoughts of the book are the early freedom and originality of Francis, and the later transforming of the Brothers Minor and the Clarisses through the determined and persistent agency of Ugolini, afterwards Pope Gregory IX. Around these two ideas the illustrating facts are gathered, and from them the obscuring legends are cleared away. Although the atmosphere in which Francis ripened was thoroughly saturated with the ideas of the Poor Men of Lyons, it was unconsciously to himself that these entered into his being. The subjectivism of St. Francis is clearly established. He was an original character, and in that originality free. The authorities of the church clearly see the dangers. They see also the value to the hierarchy of such a power as the Brothers Minor were creating. St. Francis sees the impending ruin of his ideal: the black shadows settle over his soul; but out of his agonizing struggles he finally comes to something of his early joy; he sets the brothers to singing the Canticle of the Sun and joins in it himself when others are thinking of his death. In his last will he seeks to reconnect the developed order with the original ideal. His Rule and Will were never to have commentary or gloss. But the papal penman at once set about interpreting the rule according to the church views, while the will itself was annulled. The little brothers whom he had brought into being through the travail of his soul were persecuted or enticed from the simplicity of their early life. How changed from those little ones whom Francis sent forth in poverty and love were the mendicant friars whom Wyclif saw in his day!

The author's account of the conversion of Francis, in spite of the vivid picture which it presents, must be characterized as not free from superficiality. One is almost led to suspect Francis of being only an adventurer seeking the glory in religion which he could not find elsewhere. It needs the real Francis in his later love and simplicity to dispel the misapprehension. He would have his family "content to be real saints and not to wish to appear such." They were not only to be minores when neces

sary, they were never to allow themselves to be majores! Conversion was not something vague and indistinct, to take place only between God and the hearer. He will have immediate and practical proofs of conversion. Men must give up ill-gotten gains, renounce their enmities, be reconciled with their enemies.

The real mission of the Brothers Minor consisted, above all, in being the spouses of Poverty. Terrified by the ecclesiastical disorders of the time, haunted by painful memories of his past life, Francis saw in money the special instrument of the devil. "Grave authors," says Sabatier," have demonstrated at length the economic troubles which would have been let loose upon the world if men had followed him. Alas! his madness, if madness it were, is a kind of which one need not fear the contagion." Francis saw only too well that the brothers, having renounced everything, were in danger of being unjust or severe toward the rich and powerful of the earth, and often concluded his counsels with these noble words, "There are men who to-day appear to us to be members of the devil who one day shall be members of Christ." "Be not an occasion of wrath or scandal to any one, but by your gentleness let all be led to peace and good works. Ye proclaim peace; have it in your hearts!" His only weapon was love.

That the original brothers did not feel the burdens of poverty is clear from the fact that the word "joy" comes most frequently to the pen of the Franciscan authors. Bursts of joyous laughter rang out high and clear in the history of the early Franciscan missions. When Gregory IX. offered to release the astonished Clara from her vows of poverty, she exclaimed, "Holy Father, absolve me from my sins, but I have no desire for a dispensation from following Christ." Francis never separated the contemplative from the active life. He never dreamed of creating a mendicant order: he created a laboring order. With all his gentleness he knew how to show an inexorable severity toward the idle: he even went so far as to dismiss a friar who refused to work. But the bread of charity is also the bread of angels: it is also that of the birds, which reap not nor gather into barns. He called the table around which the little poor ones gathered, mensa Domini. St. Francis no more condemned the family or property than Jesus did: he simply saw in it the ties from which the apostle, and the apostle alone, needs to be free. He and his companions aimed to be the apostles of their times, and their association was meant to be the leaven of the rest of humanity. Their life was literally the apostolic life, but the ideal which they preached was the evangelical life of love, joy, peace. To Francis the gospel life is the natural life of the soul. The sentiment of nature was innate with him: it was a perpetual communion which made him love the whole creation,--forests, brooks, flowers, birds. "Only a profoundly religious and poetic soul (is not the one the other?)," declares Sabatier, "can understand the transports of joy which overflowed the souls of St. Francis' spiritual sons. The greatest crime of our

industrial and commercial civilization is that it leaves us a taste only for that which may be bought with money, and makes us overlook the purest and truest joys which are all the time within our reach. . . . Joys bought with money-noisy, feverish pleasures are nothing compared with those sweet, quiet, modest but profound, lasting, and peaceful joys, enlarging, not wearying the heart, which we too often pass by on one side, like those peasants whom we see going into ecstasies over the fireworks of a fair, while they have not so much as a glance for the glorious splendors of a summer night."

Although the author finds no place in the world for real miracles (p. 433), he believes in the reality of the stigmata. He acknowledges the difficulties, yet the historical testimony, to which he gives a place in an appendix, seems to him "too abundant, and too positive not to command conviction." On the whole, this new St. Francis whom Paul Sabatier has made to live before us is not entirely out of the sphere of our sympathy, admiration, and love. Minor! Little child of God and of nature! Findest thou not in these our days some kindred spirits who feel thy sorrows, and live very near thee in the joy of simple love?

A. T. SWING.

SOCIAL EVOLUTION. By Benjamin Kidd. New Edition with a New Preface. New York and London: Macmillan & Co. 1894. (Pp. x, 348. 673x378.) $1.75.

The old proverb "Out at the door, in at the window," applies to the supernatural after every supposed expulsion at the hand of natural science. Avowed Christians like Clerk Maxwell and Asa Gray have declared that their deepest investigations in science only led them to God, whose purposes of wisdom and love work in and through all processes of evolution. A naturalist like N. S. Shaler, whose early bent was toward atheism or at least agnosticism, has found so many "critical points" in the evolution of life that he calls its history "revolutionary." Benjamin Kidd,--perhaps a Christian believer, but in this book expressing no opinion of Christianity except that it has been influential and useful,--writing from the standpoint of strictest evolution, finds the progress of society inexplicable without the introduction of “ultra-rational sanctions" (pp. 92, 101, 103, and passim). The supernatural enters in another form in the appeal to "the unseen evolutionary forces at work amongst [sic] us" (p. 327), and equally in his repeated acceptance of Weisman's sweeping denial of the preservation of acquired characteristics. Variations that are the acquired characteristics of individuals adjusting themselves to their surroundings might be called the work of nature. Congenital variations call for an explanation back of the individual parents, and back of their physical environment; i. e., a supernatural explanation. Before hailing such an argument for the supernatural, however, the Christian reader 1 The Congregationalist, Nov. 1, 1894.