Catholicism, not to be mistaken for a philosophy. Professor Huxley, in one of his clever phrases, called the Salvation Army 'corybantic Christianity.' Huxley was the last and noblest of those Stoics who never understood the Cross. If he had understood Christianity he would have known that there never has been, and never can be, any Christianity that is not corybantic." At the Comtists, who offer us the great being, Humanity, as the proper and only object of worship, Chesterton thrusts this: "It is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the Trinity, three persons in one God, as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons in one God." Noting the joylessness of irreligion, he has this to say: "There has been no rationalist festival, no rationalist ecstasy. When Christianity was heavily bombarded in the last century, upon no point was it more persistently and brilliantly attacked than upon its alleged enmity to human joy. Shelley and Swinburne and all their armies have passed again and again over that ground; but they have not set up a single new trophy or ensign for the world's merriment to rally to. They have not given one name or event or reason to be a new occasion of gayety. Swinburne exalts Victor Hugo, but he does not hang up his stocking on the eve of the Frenchman's birthday. William Archer glorifies Ibsen, but he does not sing carols descriptivė of Ibsen's infancy outside people's doors in the snow. In the round of our rational year Christmas remains the one festival out of all the ancient gayeties and jubilees that ever covered this earth. In all the winter in our woods there is no tree in glow but the holly. Whenever you have Christian belief you will have ilarity." Writing about "Omar and the Sacred Vine," he makes this unlooked-for comparison: "Jesus Christ made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. Omar feasts because life is not joyful, he revels because he is not glad. 'Drink,' he says, 'for you know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for you know not when you go nor where. Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle and meaningless as a humming top. Drink, because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing worth fighting for.' So Omar stands offering us the cup that is in his hand. At the high altar of Christianity stands another Figure, in whose hand also is a cup with the juice of the wine. And He, too, says 'Drink.' But 'Drink, because the whole world is as red as this wine with the crimson of the love and wrath of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle, and this is the stirrup

cup. you.

Drink, for this is my blood of the new testament that is shed for Drink, for I know whence you come and why. Drink, for I know when you go and where."" Writing about George Moore, the novelist, Chesterton says: "The truth is that the tradition of Christianity (which is still the only coherent ethic of Europe) rests on two or three paradoxes or mysteries which can easily be impugned in argument and as easily justified in life. One of them, for instance, is the paradox of hope or faith, in that the more hopeless the situation the more hopeful must be the man. Louis Stevenson understood this, and consequently Moore cannot understand Stevenson. Another is the paradox of charity or

chivalry, that the weaker a thing is the more it should be respected, that the more defenseless a thing is the more it should appeal to us for some kind of defense. Thackeray understood this, and therefore Moore cannot understand Thackeray." We must close with something. Let us close with this epigram, "Charity of judgment is a reverent agnosticism toward the complexity of the soul;" and with this about rationalists, "There are no real rationalists. We all believe something beyond reason's proving. Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the lady clothed with the sun. Some, with a more rustic, elvish instinct, like Mr. Joseph McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself. Some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; some the equally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door."

MISCELLANEOUS

The Moslem Doctrine of God. An Essay on the Character and Attributes of Allah According to the Koran and Orthodox Tradition. By SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, author of Arabia, the Cradle of Islam, Raymund Lull, ete. 12mo, pp. 120. New York: American Tract Society. Price, cloth, $1.

The author of this book is a valued missionary of the Reformed Church in America, who has spent fifteen laborious and self-sacrificing years in Arabia. He has the instincts of a scholar, an eager, glowing desire for the truth, considerable literary skill, well displayed in a former book on Arabia, and he has first-hand knowledge of the Mohammedan faith in its own original home land. The book now before us had a real raison d'être, and deserves a very hearty welcome. There is so much loose thinking in certain quarters concerning the great non-Christian religions that not a few superficial people are disposed to think the difference between Christianity and Mohammedanism very slight. Do not the Moslems believe in one God, and is not that also the Christian faith? so they argue. There is a need that somebody point out that the great question after all is the content of the view of God. What do the Mohammedans really think of God's character?-that is the real question. Dr. Zwemer has gathered from the Koran and from orthodox Mohammedan tradition the actual belief of the Moslem world concerning God, and put it forth soberly and temperately. It is a melancholy exhibit, and deserves the attention of all who are interested in one of the greatest of all non-Christian faiths. We have tested the book severely, and it stands the test well. We are quite unable to convict its author of a single mistranslation of an original document, and his acquaintance with modern scientific literature in both German and English is wide. We miss mention among recent discussion only of the elaborate disquisitions of Houtsma in the second edition of Chantepie de la Saussaye's Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte and of Orelli's temperate discussion in his Allgemeine Religionsgeschichte. Here and there we might venture to think that Dr. Zwemer would be more convincing if he wrote with a little less of the advocate's and a little more of the scholar's manner. But that is a small matter. The book is on the whole sound and true.

Jesus and the Prophets. By CHARLES S. MACFARLAND, Ph.D. 12mo, pp. xví, 249. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Price, cloth, $1.50.

The subtitle of the book well describes its purpose and indicates its importance. It is "an historical, exegetical, and interpretative discussion of the use of Old Testament prophecy by Jesus and of his attitude toward it." Now, although the writer goes most of the way with the advanced group of New Testament critics, yet his work is plainly done in a very devout spirit and is a valuable contribution to the growing interest in the subject. He looks at the data "naturally" and from the standpoint of "inherent probability," and the like, but on the whole his conclusions are defensible. He concedes that "nothing like intentional falsification appears in the treatment of the text," and that "the work of the writers of the gospels was faithfully and truthfully done, but yet in accordance with the somewhat careless and unguarded literary methods of their time." Dr. Macfarland's discussion of the keyword λnpów is done with marked ability, and in general the exegetical is rather more satisfactorily done than the interpretative side of the book. The use by the Saviour of apocalyptic prophecy is another feature in which the author has done some good exegesis. That Jesus was himself a prophet, and that his relation to the prophets as their chief is essential to the understanding of that relation, sums up the position of the book.

The Methodist Year Book. By STEPHEN V. R. FORD. Pp. 216. New York: Eaton & Mains. Cincinnati: Jennings & Graham. Price, 25 cents net; per dozen, $2.40 net.

THIS indispensable annual, larger by eight pages than the largest of its predecessors, reflects the growth of our denomination. Aside from the reports which it contains of every institution and organization of the church, the statistical tables, prepared by the editor, giving the growth of the membership of the church in our domestic and foreign fields, respectively, in 1905, and the "Ministerial Record," showing, in addition to other items of interest, the number of ministers gained from and lost to other denominations, are "a revelation to Methodism." The volume fairly bristles with information which no Methodist can afford to do without. The most intelligent church member must have it; the least intelligent absolutely needs it. No pastor should fail to call the attention of his parishioners to this imperial publication.

METHODIST REVIEW

MARCH, 1906

ART. I.-A FATA MORGANA*

(FIRST PART.)

If it were possible to draw aside the curtain which hides the spiritual world from our view a conflict would discover itself to the eyes of the soul which is so violent, which engages the powers of the deep on so vast a scale, and which so wildly tears along with it everything that stands in its way, that in comparison the bitterest war ever waged in the earth would appear but idle play. Not here but above us is the clashing of the real forces. Our struggles are but the faint echoes of the reverberations of its violence. Even these are oppressive to our weaker spiritual life and at times alarming. From every direction the conflict of spirits presses itself upon us. Everything beneath and around is in a state of fermentation and at the boiling point. The firmest foundations are assaulted, the deepest principles torn loose. It almost seems that the wild shrieks of the French Revolution in 1793 were but the shrill prelude to the mighty battle-march which now is played in our ears.

Even in pivotal times it may be deemed the better part of valor to refrain from the fray rather than by a personal act to encourage the same, for does not resistance increase the enemy's courage, and does not self-defense make the fire of contention burn the more fiercely? Yet, with unabated reverence for those who judge otherwise, I state it as my conviction that in the present hour this style of tactics may no longer be ours.

*Translated from the Dutch by the Rev. John Hendrik de Vries, D. D.

This I will explain by a memory from the "House of Commons." The 6th of May, 1791, will ever remain memorable in the annals of England's Lower House. Fox and Burke, leaders among the greatest statesmen England ever prided herself upon, were, at the time, at the height of their parliamentary glory,— while the close friendship between them seemed a sure safe-guard of Old England's welfare. But what happened? A year had passed since the French Revolution had broken out, and Edmund Burke had attacked that violent subversion of all things in his brilliant paper, "Reflections on the Revolution in France," which had a wider circulation than any other brochure, and in which the aged statesman had poured out all the ardor of his breast and all the power of his vigorous intellect. To him all the roads of his forceful catilinaria end in this-the French Revolution was a monster of corruption which he took by the hair in order to crush it on the hard floor of God's word and God's ordinance, in law and in fact. Thus had he written, and lo, on the 6th day of May, Fox, who was Burke's peer and bosom friend, rose from his ministerial seat in the full assembly of parliament and with warmth and emphasis entered a plea for the principles of that same revolution. That was too much for Burke. Without a moment's hesitation he sprang to his feet and not merely disproved what Fox had said, but then and there, openly, in the hearing of all England, he broke the tender tie of friendship which had united him to Fox for almost thirty years. And though Fox burst out in tears, and swore that he would not break with his faithful friend, Burke remained immovable, inexorable. Where principles were con

cerned he knew nothing of accommodation.

"I know the value of my line of conduct," he answered. "I have indeed made a great sacrifice,-I have done my duty though I have lost a friend. There is something in the detested French Revolution that envenoms everything it touches."

Under no consideration would I dare to bear the shoes after a man like Burke. But there is something in his bold action and manly word which charms and captivates, and which in spite of the apostolate of peace writes in the heart of every man of character this lesson of life.