Christ said, "But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery," he both condemned the existing practice of Jewish and pagan society, and re-affirmed the law of primal humanity as the marriage law of his Church. The author clearly shows that Christ allowed divorce solely for fornication. He proves plainly that the practice and the teachings of Paul were in harmony with the teachings of the Saviour. He demonstrates that the early Church understood the words of the Saviour and of St. Paul in this sense. He shows that the Catholic Church, through its tendency to exalt celibacy as a virtue of perfection, exaggerated the severity of the rule of Jesus; and that when the sacramental notion of marriage crept in divorce was not even allowed for the cause of adultery.

This Catholic exaggeration led to an undue reaction in the fathers of the Reformation. Divorce was granted by them for many causes not allowed in the word of God. This looser view of matrimonial obligations has led to the relaxed legislation of modern and Protestant nations. The law of the Church and of the State has been one wherever the National Church system has existed in full vigor.

It surely becomes all Churches of the Lord Jesus which are untrammeled by the State to make the rule of Christ their rule and the practice of the primitive Church their practice. Particularly should the American Churches make their legislation such that all their members, officers, and ministers shall know beyond all doubt whether any particular act is or is not a violation of the order and discipline of the bodies to which they belong. It is a question which we may fairly submit to our Bishops and to our next General Conference, whether some precise legislation should not require both our ministry and membership to obey the New Testament law on this subject, or be subjected to a stringent ecclesiastical discipline. President Woolsey's treatise will be a valuable aid in the formation of correct views in this matter. May it light all our Churches on their path to a more consistent practice.

The style of the book is solid and compact, its arrangement of topics excellent, and its mechanical execution creditable. Sometimes a bad sentence slips carelessly from the author's pen. He has several times over rendered the German word Prozess by the English "process," where it really means a lawsuit; and pro

jet de loi and other like phrases are sometimes rendered too literally to convey their true meaning.

Mr. Evans's book shows learning, industry, and excellent printing; but it is heavy reading-one of those books, like Guicciardini's Wars of Pisa, rather than finish which one would willingly go to prison.

The Heavenly Father. Lectures on Modern Atheism. By ERNEST NAVILLE, Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, (Academy of the Moral and Political Sciences,) late Professor of Philosophy in the University of Geneva. Translated from the French by HENRY DOWNTON, M.A., English Chaplain at Geneva. 12mo., pp. 364. London and Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. 1865. Life Eternal. From the French of M. ERNEST NAVILLE, late Professsor of Philos. ophy in the University of Geneva. Translated by special permission. 12mo., pp. 253. London: W. H. Dalton. 1867. Three courses of lectures were delivered by Ernest Naville at Geneva and at Lausanne, entitled respectively, The Heavenly Father, The Life Eternal, and The Problem of Evil. The first two have been translated into various languages-in English as above indicated. The third is translated by Professor Lacroix, of the Ohio Wesleyan University, with a sanction and a preface from the author, and will soon be issued by our own publishing house.

From a purely philosophical stand-point Naville asserts that God, Immortality, and Christianity possess imperative claims upon our belief. The Professor's chair sustains the divine authority of the Christian pulpit. "The author having few rivals on the Continent in the graces of polished eloquence," his public deliverances were attended by crowds and produced a very impressive effect. Their publication in different countries was demanded by the exigencies of the hour as a power in the great collision of moral forces now existing in Europe. The mind interested in the momentous topics discussed is borne along by the full current of a lucid, exuberant and rapid eloquence. Profound problems are discussed, not in condensed style or technical phrases intelligible to professionals alone, but in a series of luminous diffuse touches, taking even to a popular audience intelligent enough to be awakened to such high themes.

Naville's argument in the first volume shows historically that pure Theism was the first creed of the race and Polytheism the corruption and that true Theism has been elucidated and reasserted to the reason of man by no other means than the Hebraic records, perfected by the teachings of Christ. He then pictures the moral chaos in the mind from which God is blotted out first in the individual, and then in society. For the human soul, both

individually and collectively, God is the key-stone that binds the faculties into unity and capacitates them for harmonious and perfect action. He then takes a broad survey of the influences of the "Revival of Atheism" in the mind of Europe. This is a saddening chapter. It seems as if religion were to be wrecked and man's higher nature be swallowed in a base animality. But no! The Divine Pilot is on shipboard. The atheist's triumphal song, "Jehovah is dead," would, were it true, be indeed the requiem of our race. But the blessed hymn, "Christ is risen indeed," which can never be silenced, is the glorious anthem of our immortality. Naville next surveys the theories of modern Atheism, and exposes their contradictions, their tendencies, and their debasement. He then unfolds the argument for God from nature. Finally, he presses with great force and beauty the doctrine that God is not merely the Creator, but that creation is the offspring of Goodness, and that therefore God stands to us in the relation which the word Father feebly shadows. Brevity obliges him to give but the positive side of the argument for the paternal view; the objections drawn from the dark facts of the world are reserved for answer in his Problem of Evil. The vigorous logician would often prefer a terser argument; many difficulties are unmet, and many an argument unpressed. But the lectures flow in a stream of fresh and vigorous thought, abounding with fine passages and beautiful illustrations, apposite anecdotes, portraitures of character, and striking quotations both from opponents and supporters of the argument.

The volume on Eternal Life states the argument against Materialism, and then unfolds with great clearness the immeasurable superiority of Christianity over the most boasted rival systems, whether of classic philosophy or Buddhist religion, in presenting a worthy view of man's responsibility and immortality. Christianity is demonstrated to be the only religion for the human race.

One is struck throughout both volumes with the pure and noble spirit of the author. Candor in argument, kindness toward every opponent, however severe the reprobation of his degrading dogmas, a cheery elevation of spirit, and a glow of joyous piety winding off at the close of each volume in Christian triumph, leave an impression of light and happiness perfectly in contrast with the volumes of skepticism closing in darkness and gloom as to man's eternal destiny. A powerful realization remains that the dignity of our nature, the value of virtue, truth and

honor, the hopes of human progress, and the firm anticipation of immortality, are all bound up in the Gospel faith.

The "Revival of Atheism," heralded and prepared in its way by self-styled "radical Christianity," is struggling for a mighty demonstration in our own country. Doubtless it is to be met by the Church with a deeper self-consecration and the grasp of a still firmer faith upon the cross of Christ. So consecrated and so faithful we shall wage a fearless, though terrible battle, sure of victory through the blood of the Lamb. And part of the weaponry of that battle is the issue from our press of the master efforts of champions of the evangelical faith like Pressensé and Naville.

The Early Years of Christianity. By E. DE PRESSENSÉ, D.D., Author of "Jesus Christ: His Times, Life, and Work." Translated by ANNIE HARWOOD. THE APOSTOLIC ERA. 12mo., pp. 536. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. San Francisco: E. Thomas. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1870.

The present is the first of four volumes, each complete in itself, yet following in series, in which Pressensé proposes to portray the history of the early Church. His Life of Christ was the prelude to this great work. His object is to checkmate the efforts of Renan and others who would clothe the results of negative and destructive criticism in the form of vivid narrative to fascinate the popular mind, by presenting a counter statement of the story which shall be sustainable by a thorough criticism and yet win the public attention. Church history has hitherto worn a very dry and repulsive aspect even to the profes. sional student. Until Milman wrote it has been truly said that Gibbon was the only classic English Church historian. We imported Mosheim who furnished us with the substance of the matter, as solid as statistics and as arid. Neander gives us the spiritual life of the Church, yet in a lax and hazy style. But to Pressensé both French and English criticism have given the palm for making this, the garden of God, blossom as the rose. The young Church walks forth in the dew of her youth, with the light of heaven in her eye, and the bloom of morning on her cheek. By flinging the discussion of knotty problems into an appendix of critical notes, he leaves the body of his volume free for fresh-flowing narrative and pictorial statement. The pages of the work are, therefore, interesting alike to the critical student, the popular preacher,

and the literary reader.

The full work is to embrace the great conflict of the Church with Paganism. In the present volume is contained the history of the Apostolic Age, commencing with the Pentecost and closing

with the close of St. John's career. It is a picture of the Christianity of the first century, with its expansions, its apostolic leaders, its growing institutes, its struggles with persecution, its forming of the canon, its doctrinal announcements, its heresics, its spiritual life. Based primarily upon the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles, illustrated by the most authentic documents of the age, and tested by the keenest criticism of our skeptical era, we have a work for our times. It is intrinsically one of the most momentous of histories. It embraces a period and a train of events pregnant with the destiny of ages then future, and of ages yet future. It opens up problems of the highest interest to the human soul.

The work is published from our press in a liberal spirit, rather for its rich evangelic tone than because it represents in all respects our own theology. It is published, indeed, with our caveat on that point. The theology of Pressensé is not Augustinian, nor Calvinistic, nor to the last shade Arminian; but may, perhaps, be called Melanchthonian. He holds the European lax views of the Sabbath against which evangelical England and America protest. He has not the slightest doubt that immersion is the New Testament mode of baptism.

On the subject of the atonement his views are peculiar and may attract the attention of the evangelical Church. He does not adopt the Anselmian view of substitution. He does not hold that Christ suffered the penalty of the sinner's guilt as Damon might have, suffered for Pythias's deed, by dying in his stead. His view is that as our representative Adam separated us from God by a great act of disobedience, so our representative Christ restores us to God by the highest act of obedience, even the suffering of death. Birth from Adam brings us under the headship of disobedient Adam; faith in Christ brings us under the headship of obedient Christ. Yet since death was the penalty for sin, so Christ, by suffering death, suffered that penalty for us. He became a curse for us, for cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. By this view of the matter he holds that all the texts of Scripture are fully satisfied and their true meaning completely expressed.

Pressensé denies a second imprisonment of Paul, holding the argument of Wieseler on that subject conclusive. He maintains the authenticity of all the canonical Epistles of Paul and that of Second Peter. He favors the theory that Apollos was the author of the Book of Hebrews, and maintains its rightful place in the He defends St. John's authorship of the Apocalypse and gives a brief view of the import of that book.

canon.