or forty females. The number of converts to Christianity is only about a few dozens. The Jews nowhere exceed one and a half per cent. of the total population. The proportion of Roman Catholics to Protestants does not materially differ in the several colonies. The Roman Catholics formed in New South Wales, 29.3 per cent. of the total population; in Western Australia, 28.4 per cent.; in Queensland, 26.5 per cent.; in Victoria, 23.4 per cent.; in Tasmania, 22.2 per cent.; in South Australia, 15.4 per cent.; in New Zealand, 13.9 per cent. The greater or lesser per centage of Roman Catholics in the several colonies keeps pace with the per centage of persons of Irish descent. The following table, which exhibits the relative per centage of persons born in Great Britain (England, Wales, Scotland) and in Ireland, proves this. In 1871 there were of every one hundred natives of the United Kingdom: The following table exhibits the statistics of the principal divisions of Protestantism: Total....... 9,064 7.187 3,931 9331 63,624 22,004 3,941 4,732 2,341 759,147 264,066 214,960 46,814 37,754 36,900 22,943 It appears from this table that the Anglican Church is the leading denomination in each of the colonies. The Presbyterians are the second largest denomination in five colonies; in South Australia they are exceeded in number by the Wesleyans and the Lutherans, and in Western Australia by the Wesleyans and the Congregationalists. The Wesleyans are the second largest denomination in South Australia and in Western Australia, and rank third in all the others. The united membership of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists constitute 90 per cent. of the total Protestant population. The following table gives the percentage of Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Wesleyans in the total Protestant population of each of the colonies: Western Australia.. 83.6 3.0 8.0 New Zealand ..... 51.9 30.0 10.6 Tasmania... 71.5 12.2 9.7 Victoria..... New South Wales.. 49.8 21.8 18.2 68.4 14.5 117 South Australia... 34 6 9.2 29.6 The Anglican Church had in 1877 sixteen dioceses, namely: In New South Wales, the dioceses of Sydney, Goulburn, Grafton and Armidale, Newcastle, Bathurst; in Victoria, Melbourne; in Queensland, Brisbane; in South Australia, Adelaide; in Western Australia, Perth; in Tasmania, the diocese of Tasmania; in New Zealand, Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, Christ Chureh, Waiapu, Dunedin. The bishop of Sydney has the title of Metropolitan of Australia. The Roman Catholic Church sent the first priest to Australia in 1818. The first vicarate apostolic was established in 1835. The first establish ment of regular dioceses took place in 1842, when Pope Gregory XVI. appointed an archbishop of Sydney and bishops of Adelaide and Hobarton. In 1874 a second archbishopric was erected at Melbourne, to which belong five suffragan sees, Ballarat, Sandhurst, Adelaide, Perth, Hobarton; while the Archbishop of Sydney retains six suffragans, Bathurst, Maitland, Goulburn, Armidale, Brisbane, Port Victoria. In addition to these thirteen archdioceses and dioceses on the Australian continent there are three dioceses in New Zealand, at Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin. As the percentage of large religious denominations may be expected to remain nearly if not wholly stationary, we can calculate with a high degree of probability the number of Protestants and Roman Catholics at the time of the latest census or enumeration. The following table contains the population of each colony in 1875 or 1876, the percentage of Protestants and Roman Catholics at the time when the last religious census was taken, (1870 or 1871,) and a calculation of what the number of Protestants and Roman Catholics would amount to in 1875 or 1876, in case the percentage of both would remain about the same: THE "History of the First Three Centuries of the Christian Church," by E. de Pressensé, has long taken its place among the standard works of the Protestant world on Church history. Up to the end of 1876 three divisions, making five volumes, had appeared. The first division, containing vols. i and ii, treats of the "Apostolic Age;" the second, (vols. iii and iv,) of "The great Struggle of Christianity against PaganismThe Martyrs and Apologists;" the third, (vol. v,) of "The History of Christian Doctrines." The fourth division, constituting the sixth volume, has recently been published. It is entitled "Ecclesiastical, Religious, and Moral Life of the Christians in the Second and Third Centuries," (La Vie Ecclesiastique, Religieuse et Morale des Chrétiens au Deuxième et Troisième Siècles. Paris, 1877. New York: F. W. Christern,) and is divided, as the title-page indicates, into three books, the first of which is devoted to the ecclesiastical life, and treats of the growth of the Church, catechumens, and baptism; the organization of the Church authorities; Church discipline; the mutual relations of the Churches to cach other; the religious crisis in the third century—its general character and its issue at Alexandria; the crisis at Rome, and the ecclesiastical crisis at the time of Cyprian. The second book refers to the private and public worship of the Church, and contains six chapters: 1. The first transformation of the primitive worship; 2. Family worship; 3. The days and edifices devoted to public worship; 4. Character and transformation of public worship during the second and third centuries; 5. Archæology of public worship, public prayer, sacred chant and reading of the holy writ, sermons; 6. Celebration of a public worship at Alexandria at the time of Origen. The third book, headed "The Moral Life of the Christians," treats of, 1. The principle of moral reforms of the Church in the face of the attempts of social renovation in the Roman Empire; 2. Christianity and the family; 3. Christianity and slavery; 4. Christianity in its relations to the State; 5. Christianity and social life; 6. Christianity and Asceticism; 7. The Christianity of the Catacombs. Like the former volumes, also, the present will appear at once in an English and a German translation. Several chapters had previously been published as articles in the Revue Chrétienne, and have been noticed in our review of that periodical. We know of no Church historian who combines to a higher degree than Pressensé thoroughness and scholarship with brilliancy and elegance of style, and his works, therefore, are as interesting as they are instructive. In what esteem he is held by the literary authorities of France may be seen from the fact that the second division of this Church history has received a prize from the highest literary tribunal in France, the French Academy. We cannot recommend the present volume more highly than by saying that it is in every respect equal to the best that Pressensé has written before. A very valuable addition to the literature of cyclopedias has just been made by J. Vapereau, the editor of the well-known Dictionnaire des Contemporains. He has completed a Dictionnaire Universel des Littératures, (Paris, 1877; New York: F. W. Christern,) which, in one volume of 2096 pages, treats, 1, of authors (about eight thousand) and their works; 2, of anonymous, collective, and national works; 3, different styles of literature: 4, history of literature, literary facts and institutions; 5, literary esthetics; 6, prosody; 7, linguistics and grammar; 8, bibliography. The book is the fruit of more than fifteen years' labor, and, as might be expected from the well-known reputation of M. Vapereau and his experience in cyclopedic works, it contains a very large amount of interesting material. M. Vapereau has a happy talent of condensing many important facts into a small compass, and this dictionary is really the repository of much valuable information which it will be difficult to find even in the large general cyclopedias. This may especially be said of the very valuable department of anonymous, collective, and national works, to which greater prominence is given than in most other cyclopedias. Although the work is not of a theological character, it abounds in interesting theological articles. We have noticed a number of omissions and some inaccuracies in articles relating to American affairs, but no one who is familiar with cyclopedias will on that account conceive an unfavorable opinion of the book; for imperfections of this kind are common to all cyclopedias. On the whole, this work contains so large a number of valuable articles, especially on the literature of France, that we can heartily recommend it. ART. X.-QUARTERLY BOOK-TABLE. Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature. Systematic Theology. By MINER RAYMOND, D.D., Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute, Evanston, Ill. Two vols., 8vo., pp. 534. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. New York: Nelson & Phillips. 1877. These fine volumes, coming with little pre-announcement from our Western Publishing House, are a pleasant surprise. That Dr. Raymond was competent to furnish an able Systematic Theology we were well aware, but had no notice that he had so imminent a purpose, or that he would come upon us in such magnitude and momentum. Yet the magnitude is largely due to the stately print, broad leads, and liberal margins so handsomely furnished by the publishers. Compressed into the close print of our Commentary, the work would be a respectable duodecimo. But how smoothly one can run over the magnificent pages! How rapid our progress; and with what velocity are we becoming a great theologian as we read! And, then, the author's own style rushes on in an impetuous yet transparent current, and it is wonderful with what dispatch a row of false dogmas is knocked down and a true system built up. A gracefully written Introduction, by Dr. Curry, gives a brief survey of our past theological history as a Church. We think his survey leaves too decided a blank in its account of our theological text-books previous to Watson. Wesley intended his ser mons to be a "Theological System;" and Fletcher's Works, together with our Doctrinal Tracts, all early republished in this country, and deposited in the itinerant saddle-bags, formed a noble body of divinity; rendering the earlier generations of Methodist preachers in many respects better theologians than our younger ministers of the last forty years. We, moreover, cannot see why the distinctive phrase "evangelical Arminianism" should be used in this Introduction any more than evangelical Calvinism; for Arminius was as evangelical as Calvin, and there is as much unevangelical Calvinism as unevangelical Arminianism. Nor does it seem to us quite accurate to say, that as to "the character and work of the Holy Spirit there is really no difference" between Methodists and Calvinists, when we recollect how strongly Wesley emphasized and Calvinists denied both the witnessing office of the Spirit and the extent of his sanctifying work. Dr. Raymond's style is fresh, free, copious, abounding in full, cumulative periods, sometimes with sentences rolling rapidly over a whole page and more. It is in a strain of almost uninterrupted oratory from end to end. His expositions consist not in exact incisive lines, but in a bold current; elucidating rather by successive touches than by precise statements. We see the true shaping of doctrines in the symmetry of the entire representation. The great outline of his system is true to the Wesley-Arminian theology; presenting that theology in its clearest, most modern, and most American aspects. As a New Englander, he owes some of the clearness of his distinctions to the discussions among the different classes of Calvinisms in New England; and far more to the contemporaneous discussions of our Wesleyan New Englanders, whose chief was Wilbur Fisk. The animated style of Dr. Raymond's work, its moderate compass, its avoidance of overmuch scholastic erudition, its clearness and trueness to the structure of our theology, render the work very properly a "popular theology," and adapt it, as intended, to pupils in theology, to intelligent laymen, to our sub-pastors, and Sabbath-school teachers. The structure of the work accords with the usual order of topics in systematic theologies. The first volume is occupied with proofs of the reality of revelation, and of the existence and nature of God. The second treats of the Scripture doctrines of man's fall and his redemption, and the finalities of human destiny. A third volume will discuss Christian ethics and institutions. In his anthropology Dr. Raymond takes very uncompromising ground against the genetic evolution of species, including man, |