Laws Relating to Religious Corporations. A Compilation of the Statutes of the Several States in the United States in Relation to the Incorporation and Maintenance of Religious Societies, and to the Disturbance of Religious Meetings. By Rev. SANFORD HUNT, D.D. With an Address on Laws Affecting Religious Corporations in the State of New York. By Hon. E. L. FANCHER, LL.D. 12mo., pp. 273. New York: Nelson & Phillips. 1876. Every pastor needs a law-book. So varying are the laws of the different States that our itinerancy, that knows no limits, needs a knowledge of the laws of each. His work has been carefully compiled and duly sanctioned by high legal authority. It is the minister's lawyer. Christian Baptism: its Subjects and Mode. By S. M. MERRILL, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 12mo., pp. 311. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1876. Bishop Merrill has here furnished a popular, brief, and inexpensive work to meet the wants of the ordinary inquirer. As such the style is lucid, and the argument logically stated. Pastors will find it a handy manual for practical use. History of the Wesley M. E. Church of Brooklyn, L. I. By GILBERT E. CURRIE. 12mo., pp. 315. New York: N. Tibbals & Son. Rightly claims to be a "pioneer" book. It is the history of the founding and progress of a single Church, in which events and personages of a magnitude proportioned to the history may find themselves duly immortalized. Is "Eternal" Punishment Endless. By an Orthodox Minister of the Gospel. 16mo., pp. 102. Boston: Lockwood, Brooks, & Co. 1876. Written in behalf of that class of thinkers who sympathize with the evangelical Church, but doubt the doctrine of eternal conscious misery. It takes ground in behalf of "nescience." Future punishment is revealed; but no unequivocal revelation is made of its precise nature or duration. The Age of Elizabeth. By MANDELL CREIGHTON, M.A., Late Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford. With Maps and Tables. 16mo., pp. 244. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. This is an admirable series of historical works, small in form, yet written with full erudition by eminent masters of the field from a modern stand-point. They are a lot of history in a nutshell. History of the Intellectual Development of Europe. By JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER. In two volumes. 12mo., pp. 434 and 435. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1876. This work we noticed and disapproved at its first publication, and do not find it at all improved in the present edition. The Church Record. 8vo., pp. 165. New York: Nelson & Phillips. Barnes's Notes on James, Peter, John, and Jude. Revised edition. 12mo., pp. 400. The Holy Bible According to the Authorized Version, (A.D. 1611.) With an Explanatory and Critical Commentary and a Revision of the Translation. By Bishops and other Clergy of the Anglican Church. Edited by F. C. Cook, M.A., Canon of Exeter. Vol. VI. Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. 8vo., pp. 750. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. 1876. Exodus; or, The Second Book of Moses. By JOHN PETER LANGE, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Bonn. Translated by Charles M. Mead, Ph. D., Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at Andover. 8vo, pp. 206. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. The Gospel and Epistles of John. With Notes Critical. Explanatory, and Practical. Designed for both Pastors and People. By Rev. HENRY COWLES, D.D. 12mo., pp. 390. New York: Appleton Co. The Believer's Victory Over Satan's Devices. By Rev. W. L. PARSONS, D.D. 16mo., pp. 310. New York: Nelson & Phillips. Open Letters to Primary Teachers. By Mrs. W. F. CRAFTS. 12mo., pp. 204. New York: Nelson & Phillips. Spiritualism on Trial. Containing the Arguments of Rev. F. W. Evaus in the Debate on Spiritualism between him and Mr. A. J. Fishback. 12mo., pp. 432. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. Select Poems of Thomas Gray. Edited, with Notes, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M. 12mo., pp. 143. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1876. Stray Studies from England and Italy. By JOHN RICHARD GREEN. 12mo., pp. 361. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1876. Words: their Use and Abuse. By WILLIAM MATTHEWS, LL.D. 12mo., pp. 384. Chicago S. C. Griggs & Co. 1876. Principia; or, Basis of Social Science. By R. J. WRIGHT. 8vo., pp. 524. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Harper's School Geography. 1876. Benjamin Franklin. A Picture of the Struggles of our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago. By JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. Illustrated. 12mo., pp. 336. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co. 1876. Familiar Talks to Boys. By Rev. JOHN HALL, D.D. 12mo., pp. 98. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co. On Fermentation. By P. SCHUTZENBERGER, Director at the Chemical Laboratory at the Sorbonne. Twenty-eight Illustrations. The International Scientific Series. 12mo., pp. 331. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1876. The Fall of the Stuarts and Western Europe from 1678 to 1697. By Rev. E. HALE, 16mo., pp. 248. The Greeks and the Persians. By Rev. GEORGE W. Cox, M.A. 16mo., pp. 218. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. The Crusades. By GEORGE W. Cox, M.A. With a Map. 16mo., pp. 225. New York: Scribner, Armstrong, & Co. Free, Yet Forging their own Chains. By C. M. CORNWALL. 12mo., pp. 575. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co. 1876. A Sketch of Real Life. From the Swedish of H. 12mo., pp. 250. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Lena; or, The Stark Family. The French at Home. By ALBERT RHODES. With numerous Illustrations. 16mo. pp. 256. The Crew of the Dolphin. By HESBA STRETTON. 16mo., pp. 232. New York Dodd, Mead, & Co. METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1876. ART. I.-RECENT ORIGIN OF MAN. [FIRST ARTICLE.] The Recent Origin of Man, as Illustrated by Geology and the Modern Science of Prehistoric Archaeology. By JAMES C. SOUTHALL, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. London: Trübner & Co. 1875. This work presents the most complete statement yet made in one volume of the facts bearing on human antiquity. Though the author is comparatively unknown to science, and lays little claim to discoveries made by himself, he has, with great industry and honesty, collated about all the known facts on this subject, and condensed them into one thick volume. Besides his industry, he brings to the work a clear style, a keen, analytic mind, and a thorough honesty of purpose. In consequence of these qualities, the treatise far exceeds in value to the general student the better known, but older and less complete, works of Sir Charles Lyell and Sir John Lubbock. When a new field of discovery is opened up, its explorers are often betrayed by their enthusiasm into many crude inferences. If at the same time they happen to be swayed by a strong prejudice, they seem to know no limits to their extravagance. This is precisely the situation of many writers on "prehistoric man." Excusably enthusiastic over their interesting discoveries, many of them have superadded a strong desire to make their facts tell against evangelical Christianity. It is not fashionable for them to avow this in set words, but they manifest their anxiety for it, and the consciousness that their readers expect it, in a thousand ways. They have strained FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVIII.—37 their facts in the most unnatural ways for proofs of an enormous human antiquity. Determined on their end, of exceeding the traditional six thousand years, they make no account of discrepancies among themselves, and have contradicted each other to the extent of millions of years. When investigators thus lose their balance of judgment, and rush, like a flock of sheep, after a predetermined conclusion, they are sure to commit enormous blunders. In the present discussion they have misunderstood the facts, and erred in stating them; and from data thus warped have drawn conclusions so loose and inconsequent as to excite the amazement of candid investigators. This may seem like harsh language; but the writer of this review, in examining the localities and following up the tracks of the anthropologists, has found so much that is false in fact, and fallacious in reasoning, that he is impelled, in the interest of science, to solemnly protest against such loose and unscientific methods. In the midst of all this willful confusion Mr. Southall comes forward with the book under review, and, going with a clear analysis through the whole mass of real and false discovery, endeavors to separate the proved from the unproved, and to reduce the chaos to order. The facts bearing on this subject are derived from the following sources: 1. Megalithic monuments and tumuli. 2. The relics of pile dwellings in certain lakes. 3. The shell mounds. 4. The peat bogs. 5. The bone caverns. 6. The river "Drift" of England and France. 7. Miscellaneous localities. From these sources a vast number of relics of ancient men have been exhumed, such as knives, arrowheads, spear-heads, hatchets, needles, swords, spurs, helmets, shields, pottery, woolen and leather clothing; articles of food, like barley, dried fruit, burnt bread; also coins, jewels, medals, and other objects too numerous to mention. The materials of them are flint, and almost every other kind of stone, wood, bone, ivory, leather, wool, flax, bronze, iron, lead, gold, silver, etc. The examination of them has led to the belief that in Western Europe there was a time when the ancient savages were unacquainted with metals, and never polished their flint implements, but shaped them exclusively by chipping. This is termed the Paleolithic Age, and is set apparently at any vague period in the past which suits the fancy of writers. Some of them talk of millions of years. At a time believed to be later the savages are supposed to have been still unacquainted with metals, and still to have used chipped flints; but they chipped with a nicer skill, and occasionally went to the prodigious labor of polishing flint. axes by rubbing them for many a weary day on slabs of sandstone. This is called the Neolithic Age, or sometimes the Polished Stone Age. This is vaguely set by some at about ten thousand years ago. In the next period the natives had acquired the knowledge of copper and tin, but not of iron. They still used flint, but supplemented it with bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, which is capable of being tempered almost like steel. Finally, some time after the siege of Troy, and before the Christian era, the age of iron came in, when steel, by its superior excellence and cheapness, drove bronze implements mostly out of use. As applied to actual discoveries, Mr. Southall believes that this distinction of ages is largely imaginary. He does not deny that there was a time when the early men of Europe had little or no metal, nor that there was a period when bronze was frequently used, and iron absent or scarce; but he believes that a clear distinction of ages can only be believed in by one who resolutely shuts his eyes to the fact that flint implements continued to be used down to a few centuries ago along with bronze and iron, and that innumerable articles of metal, and even coins of the Roman emperors, have been found in localities assigned to the Stone Age. MEGALITHIC MONUMENTS AND TUMULI. Commencing with the megalithic monuments and tumuli, he proceeds to examine the recorded facts. The tumuli are closely connected with the great stone monuments, and evidently in many cases were built by the same people. This is shown both by the character of the remains, and by the fact that the two kinds of works are often combined, there being many megalithic tombs with the earth heaped in tumuli over them. The megalithic monuments and tumuli are widely spread, existing all over Western Europe, in Northern Africa, in Pal |