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Those who have a fancy for statistics will be interested in the following tabular statement in regard to Sunday Schools in the United States, presented by Mr. E. Payson Porter at the recent International Sunday School Convention at Chicago:

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The Universalist's share in this showing is 634 Schools and 53,553 teachers and scholars.

-In a recent number of the Contempary Review, Aachdeacon

Farrar has an article on " Africa and the Drink Trade," which presents some awful facts for the consideration of the great commercial power of Christendom. He charges that British commerce is doing far more for the destruction of the African tribes, by carrying to them the worst kind of spirituous liquors, than Christendom has done for the salvation of Africa by stopping the African slave-trade. Sir Richard Barton and many others bear the same testimony. "It is my sincere belief," says Sir Richard, "that if the slave trade were revived with all its horrors, and Africa could get rid of the white man with the gunpowder and rum which he has introduced, Africa would be a gainer in happiness by the exchange." The same substantial conclusion is enforced by the testimony of native chiefs. What makes the matter worse is that these facts have been officially brought before Parliament by Government inquiries and nothing is done to stop the wrong which is at once destroying the native population and paralyzing English and other commerce. Nay! worse than this; the English government has absolutely interferred to prevent the exclusion of rum from the African communities, when African chieftains have attempted to exclude it. In Madagascar the able and courageous king, Radama I., paid the duty and ordered every cask of rum to be staved in on the shore, except those that went to government stores. The merchants of Mauritias (which was sending the rum to Madagascar), complained; the English officials interfered, and from that day to this the cursed stuff has had free course, and deluged the land with misery and crime." In 1883 the natives of the South Africa Diamond fields petitioned to the Cape Parliament to have the public houses removed six miles from the fields, but the petition was rejected. These are apparently typical facts. Some pitiful entreaties quoted by the Archdeacon from native chieftains to the English government to put a stop to this destructive traffic. Thus, for example, King Malike, the Mohammedan Emir of Nape, to Bishop Crouther: "Barasa, barasa, barasa; by God! it has ruined our country; it has ruined our people very much; it has made our people become madFor God and the Prophet his messenger's sake he must help us in this matter that of barasa. We all have confidence in him. He

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must not leave our country to become spoiled by borasa." No one can read this article without a profound conviction that the liquor traffic cannot be left to laissez faire and the law of supply and demand. Christianity has destroyed slavery and the slave-trade; its next battle-field is drink and the drink trade.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

1. The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Eight Lectures Preached before the University of Oxford in the year 1886; on the Foundation of the late Rev John Bampton, M. A. Canon of Salisbury. By Charles Biggs D.D., Assistant Chaplain of Corpus Christi College. New York, Macmillan & Co. 1886. 16mo. pp. xxvii,304. $1.50.

The Bampton Lectures, interesting and valuable as a series, have probably never been devoted to a better theme than the one treated by Dr. Bigg, in the volume before us, which is an eminently suggestive contribution to an understanding of the progress of Christian doctrine in general, and especially to the Greek, as distinguished from the Latin thought. Clement of Alexandria and Origen, Clement's successor in the Theological School, are after Philo and the Gnostics, the chief subjects of the volume; and they find in Dr. Bigg a generous admirer, and a judicious critic, as well as a warm defender from the assaults and anathemas of the Latins. The distinctive and distinguishing peculiarities of the Alexandrine School," the consistency and power with which virtue was represented as a subject not merely for speculation but for practice; the sympathy and magnetic personal attraction of the teacher; but above all the Theology, to which all other subjects of thought were treated as ancillary," - are clearly presented, and the shades of differences in the opinions of the two great teachers in that school are brought out with great distinctness.

The doctrine of the Logos, a word which "denotes with equal facility the uttered word, the reasoning mind, or again a plan, scheme, system," is traced through its inception in Greek thought, to its absurd and dogmatic Trinitarian conclusion by the Latins. Possibly Clement taught the unthinkable doctrine that the Father and the Son, are one and the same person; but Origen kept quite clear of this absurdity. In his reply to Celsus, he is plain on this point: "We worship the Father of Truth, and the Son who is Truth, Two in Person, but One in agreement and concert and identity of will." His illustration is that of the Union of the Church: "the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul." While Orgien believed that evil in man was accounted for by his pre-existence, Clement declared that there is no inherited depravity of human nature, but all are created capable of wisdom, goodness and happiness. Neither believed in the resurrection of "this flesh," but of a glorious body fit tor the abode of pure spirit. Both believed in the "restitution of all things to God," Clement holding that all punishment tends to purification, and Origen that the human will remaining forever free, man will sooner or later forsake the evil and choose that which is good.

The volume before us not only brings out these facts in the lives and theories of the Greatest of the early Teachers of Christian Theology, but vigorously defends Clement from the ill-judgment of Popes Clement viii. and Benedict xiv. and shows how groundless was the abuse which the Latin Church heaped on the memory of Origen. Dr. Bigg is evidently no novice in the history of Christian doctrines, but has studied long and faithfully, and to good purpose. His valuable lectures

will enrich any library and profit every Christian student.

2. American Commonwealths. New York. The Planting and Growth of the Empire State. By Ellis H. Roberts. Two vols. 16 mo. pp xii. 758. $2.50.

These are the 8th and 9th vols. in a series to which we have frequent

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ly called attention. In no other form is the story of the planting and growth of America so well told. And, so far, none of the vols. are more interesting and instructive than those relating to the great state of New York. Mr. Roberts, who is admirably qualified for the work, writes with great enthusiasm and commendable pride of his native state, and has exhibited rare skill in putting in his seven hundred and fiftyeight pages the story of its fortunes during the more than three and a half centuries since Verazzano first cast anchor at Sandy Hook. The French, under Champlain, sailed from Quebec through the lake named for himself, and landed, on a war-like mission against the Iroquois in what it now Essex county, in July, 1609 and in September of the same year the Dutch sailed up the "River of the Mountains," from New York to Albany, in a vessel commanded by Henry Hudson, whose name was afterward given to this famous river, The French from the first incurred the hatred of the aborigines of the territory, while the Dutch at once entered into friendly relations with them, made a treaty of alliance, buried a tomahawk, and "built a church to cover it so that it could not be dug up." For about sixty years the Dutch controlled the new settlement, when they were forcibly dispossessed by the English. From this point, the history as related by Mr. Roberts is highly fascinating. The claims of the Swedes, the power and authority of the Indians, the sacrifices of the Jesuit missionaries; the fierceness of the French and Indian war; the encroachments of the English on the land of the Indians, and their greed for vast possessions; are all related with great fidelity to necessary details, though of necessity, with the conciseness demanded by the limited number of pages employed. Then follows the story of the growth of the idea of Liberty and Popular Government, terminating in the separation of the American Colonies from Great Britain, and the establishment of an Independent Nation. Following this we have the narrative of the part taken by New York in the War of 1812; and later the grand response made by her citizens in overthrowing the Slave-holders rebellion. The work concludes with notices of the French, Dutch and American Literature: the Progress of Education; the prominent statesmen and politicians of the Empire State; and the great wealth and resources of the soil. The total number of farms in 1880, was 241,058, averaging 99 acres each, and giving employment to 377,460 persons, producing harvests valued at $178,025,695 exceeding those of any other state except Illinois. At the same time the manufactured products of the state, employing 629,869 persons in their creation, reached the vast sum of $1,080,696,556. As indicating the industry and thrift of the people at large, it may be mentioned that 1,234,241 persons - more than one in five of all the inhabitants of the state had on deposit in its savings banks in 1886, $469,662,557. Of course the history of the great Canal system and Railroad operations of the state are given, and the social, moral and religious condition of the more than 6,000,000 population is portrayed. No more valuable addition to our State Histories has yet been made.

8. The Ruling Principle of Method applied to Education. By Antonio Rosmini Serbati Translated by Mrs. William Grey. Boston; D. C. Heath & Co. pp. xxv. - - 363.

1887.

This work of Rosmini is but a fragment of what he intended to be an exhaustive philosophical treatise, based on the essential principles of human nature, concerning method in education from infancy to the decline of age. He divides the progressive development of the child into periods corresponding to orders of cognition, and lays down as the

"ruling principle of method" that the teacher should present to the mind of the child objects which belong to the orders of cognition in due succession. Rosmini has developed and classified these cognitions, and formulated corresponding principles and methods of education only as far as the child's fourth year when it is declared, in average cases, to have entered on the fifth order.

The method of treatment is metaphysical and formal in a high degree. Its terminology peculiar to the author's philosophical system, and the constant reference to his other works for elucidation of terms and propositions, render a perusal of the work a rather heavy mental gymnastic, and detract sensibly from its value to the average teacher who will be likely to feel disappointment in the illuminating power of this profound treatise. Portions of the book are of high value, but they might be gathered into much fewer pages. By no means its least worthy passages are the frequent quotations from Madame Necker de Saussure's 'Progressive Education," which surely justify Rosmini's opinion of her great acuteness, and illustrate besides, the value of lucidity of statement. The work as a whole is likely to prove valuable only to those of philosophical habit and training.

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No opinion can be ventured as to the merits of the translation, but there are small inaccuracies in the English, as when on page 71 occurs the expression "to whose diligent observation . . . . we shall have to refer to again." On page 237 the headline should of course be “Limitations to Possibility" instead of "Limitations to Passibility." However the execution of the book is generally excellent and the external appearance agreeable.

4. His Star in the East. A Study in the Parks, Rector of Emanuel Church, Boston. flint & Co. 1887. 16mo. pp. 292. $1.50.

Early Aryan Religion. Br Leighton
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mif-

To one who is not in a position where access can be had to more extended information concerning the Aryan Religions, we know of no book superior to the one before us as containing an epitome of the doctrines, and the peculiar tendency of the Religion of the East. The author's hope is that his lectures will "first, point out the excellence of each religion which is considered, and then show that the religion of Christ has the same; secondly, to show that over and above the excellent things which may be found elsewhere, there is that in the Gospel which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, but which God hath revealed in the life of Jesus the Christ." Hence he has an open eye to discern the excellencies in all the various forms of Eastern thought, and a quick and accurate judgment by which to detect their imperfections, and to set forth the superior teachings and tendencies of the Gospel. His answer to the demand for an illustration of Christianity as being the revelation in which all the nations of the world are to be blest, is: "In the life of Jesus is gathered the Aryan revelation of the Immanence of God, and the Semitic revelation of the Personality of God; and more, in that commingling both are transfigured; the Immanence of God means power and law and wisdom manifesting themselves as making for righteousness; and the Personality of God means love and forgiveness and grace gathering together the children of God that are scattered abroad." Vedaism, Brahminism, Buddhism in its various branches, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism, are then described, both as to their history and their doctrines; and the Future of Christ's Religion as the enduring and Universal Truth, is glowingly portrayed. We heartily commend the volume to all

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