The Reformed Church Review

literature on Cyprian and his age, and his judgment carries one with him on mooted points. Illuminating comparisons between the morals of ancient and modern days are a striking feature. He has little patience with those who in our time glorify Roman life. He says, "It might appear from such books as Steffen's 'Shame of the Cities,' that corruption could not well be more appalling in the Roman Empire than in some of the cities of Christian America, and especially in Philadelphia. Such towns

are as the isles of Araby the Blest by the side of conditions revealed to us in both the pagan and Christian literature of ancient times."

Cyprian interests specially the ministers of the Reformed Church because Dr. Nevin was greatly influenced by him and wrote several powerful articles on him in the early years of the Mercersburg Review, and molded therby in no small measure the thought and worship of our Church.

HENRY H. RANCK.

QUIET TALKS ON PERSONAL PROBLEMS. By S. D. Gordon. Pages 224. New York, A. C. Armstrong and Son.

Many volumes of " Quiet Talks" have come from this author the last few years and they have been enthusiastically received. They certainly have a message for our day. In his discussion of self-mastery there appears to be a paragraph of the author's autobiography touching how he came to seek the quiet mood.

"The earth has grown noisy, man has become noisy, God is quiet. To a man absorbed in Christian activity, rushing, pushing, with nerves on tension and blood boiling, who wearily turned to God in prayer, there came one day into the inner ear, as he was on bent knees, a voice speaking with great softness and equally great clearness: "Study to be quiet." It brought a great hush into his spirit; in the following days it became a veritable sheet-anchor, holding the bark steady in many a storm.

The problems treated are of Sin, Doubt, Ambition, Self-mastery, Pain, Guidance, the Church and Questioned Things. They are very unequal in merit and there is nothing essentially new for one's thought on these subjects; but the author's manner of treatment is unique and striking and the moral ideal he sets for us is the highest.

When one reads a book he should be on the lookout for the good and there is much that is wholesome and stimulating here. Yet one is not a little annoyed by his continually ringing the changes on phrases and clauses like these: "A bit of soft quiet prayer together," "say it very softly and reverently,” “better hold very quiet and still," as though he were speaking to a spoiled child.

For many of us the book is marred by its antiquated theological viewpoint. The author asserts the Bible's scientific accuracy"; and that the height of doubt is to question the substitution theory of the atonement. He speaks of man's fall in Eden and God's plan in traditional mechanical fashion. His view of Christ's second advent appears in these words: "Jesus would remain away until his dying for all men had been made known to all men; then He would return to carry out the fulness of his plan of saving men."

HENRY H. RANCK.