Brown, Jr., the author of a work on the Great Dionysiak myth. The third volume of Halkett and Laing's invaluable dictionary of the anonymous and pseudonymous literature of Great Britain is out. A new translation of the Iliad, in rhyming anapæstic hexameters, by A. S. Way, M.A., is highly praised by the Athenæum.The antiquities of Scotland from prehistoric times down to the early Christian centuries have been treated by J. Anderson, LL.D., the keeper of the National Museum, in four volumes of the Rhind Lectures.

Prof. Edward Caird's too brief work on the social philosophy and religion of Comte is an excellent account of Positivism in its religious and social aspects, a thing hitherto lacking in our language. His treatment is a model of candid appreciation; and he finds very much to commend, while urging that the "new relative religion is not a religion at all, but, at best, a morality trying to gather to itself some of the emotions which were formerly connected with religious belief." This volume, and the one on Hegel by the same author, in the "Philosophical Classics," form an admirable introduction to the Hegelian philosophy of religion and the State. Grote's Plato, edited by Bain, may now be procured in a new cheap edition, the volumes of which are sold separately.— Mr. J. A. Symonds is at work on a sequel to his fine volumes on the Renaissance in Italy, to be entitled, probably, Italy and the Council of Trent, 1530-1600. It will trace the changes in Italian politics, society, and culture wrought by the Spanish ascendency and the Catholic revival.

Mr. John Beattie Crozier, author of an excellent little book on the future of religion, has brought out a work called Civilization and Progress, being the Outlines of a New System of Political, Religious, and Social Philosophy, to which we hope to give due notice soon.- The third and fourth volumes of Mr. Thomas Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders cover the years. 476-553, and afford a complete history of the establishment and the overthrow of the Ostrogothic power (Clarendon Press).

Prof. Skeat has completed his scholarly edition of the three versions of the Vision of William concerning Piers Plowman, that remarkable revival poem of Wiclif's day. Amiel's Journal Intime has been translated by Mrs. T. H. Ward. An article on Amiel, containing many extracts, by Blanche Leppington, may be found in a recent Contemporary. A series of articles by Principal Fairbairn, in the same review, on "Catholic Apolo

getics in England," is worthy of attention. The writer is to lecture before the Andover Seminary, during its next year, on "Comparative Religions."

It is said that Lord Salisbury, the present Premier of England, while Secretary of State for India, and Sir H. S. Maine, as a member of the India Council, both gave powerful support to that undertaking which has so gratified the hearts of all students of comparative religion, the translation of the Sacred Books of the East, edited by Prof. Max Müller. The India Office guaranteed a large share of the expenses, and did all in its power to support an enterprise which it considered of supreme import to the Brahminical, Buddhist, Parsi, and Mohammedan subjects of the crown.- The appointment of a young and quite unknown man, Mr. A. S. Napier, to the Merton Professorship of English at Oxford, the place for which Mr. Lowell was mentioned, seems to be one which it remains for time to justify or condemn. Prof. W. Robertson Smith has recently delivered two lectures at Cambridge on Marriage and Kinship in Ancient Arabia.The Memoirs of Darwin, including his correspondence with Huxley, Spencer, Lewes, and Lubbock, are announced for early publication. The Expositor is to publish a full series of articles on the various books of the Old Testament as affected by the revision, by Drs. Driver, Cheyne, and Davidson, and others.

Mr. Rendle, of Southwark, believes that he is in possession of the whole story of John Harvard, having discovered the date of his birth, his parentage, and the house in which the family lived continuously for twenty-eight years. He has traced the breaking up of the family in the great plague of 1625, which destroyed a quarter part of the population of St. Saviour's, the family parish; and he hopes to complete and produce the narrative shortly. The death of Bishop Christopher Wordsworth has removed a man "remarkable as one of the last Englishmen of the old learning, one of the last to be scholar, theologian, and administrator in one."

Some late German works of value are: O. Zöckler's Handbuch der Theologischen Wissenschaften; Dr. H. G. Höllemann's Letzte Bibel-Studien; a new edition of Nägelsbach's Homerische Theologie, revised and enlarged by Dr. G. Auterieth, one of the additions being an appendix of ninety pages on questions of comparative philology and religion; the second volume, covering the Middle Ages, of Dr. G. Uhlhorn's History of Christian

Charity; the first volume of a History of Antiquity by E. Meyer, more full and complete than Maspero or Lenormant; and the fifth and last volume of Alfred Ludwig's Commentar zur Rig- Veda Uebersetzung,-"A veritable mine of information drawn from the original sources," says Dr. Barth, "in which there is nothing to find fault with, except an excess of riches. The volume closes with an estimate of the ethics of the Veda, considered in its influence upon the life of the individual and of the nation."- Ludolf Krehl will soon publish a work on the Doctrine of Mohammed, in continuation of his Life. In the last Jahrbuch, Prof. Lipsius speaks feelingly of Dr. Biedermann, and also closes his contribution to "Dogmatic"; while H. v. Soden concludes his examination of the Epistle to the Colossians. "Our results may thus be briefly stated: The writing sent by Paul, in Rome, to Colossæ, of which the main occasion was the propaganda of an asceticism reduced to a system, was interpolated by a Paulinist of a later time, who was not possessed of independence or wealth of thought, or skill in expression, and who, therefore, did not feel himself called to compose an epistle of his own, perhaps under the name of Paul. This interpolation went so far that it could still be employed with success against the advanced speculations of those ascetics. This interpolation is not only free from any moral reproach, according to the literary notions of antiquity, but it is entirely natural and justifiable; but it certainly refers us to a time in which the letters of the apostle were not yet a sacred canon, but were still meant to serve practical aims in the communities, as at the time when they were first directed to them."

In the Deutsche Rundschau for March, Herr Herzog gives a vivid sketch of modern progress in an article on the influence of modern means of communication on the development of culture. His general conclusion is that the railway and the telegraph tend to make society democratic, and to substitute practical materialism for the moral, ideal life. Only when commerce has really become world-wide, and national interests have ceased to jar and conflict, must we look for a world-state in which ideal ends will again meet with due recognition.

A new History of German Literature by Dr. Franz Hirsch, of which the first volume has appeared, is praised by Karl Blind highly as a conscientious piece of work in a graceful form.—————— The eminent Orientalist, Prof. E. Trumpp, of Munich, and Dr.

Biedermann, of Zürich, the theologian, have lately passed away. To the Revue de l'Histoire des Religions for March, Prof. G. Bonet-Maury contributes an article on the Emperor Akbar, who, says Müller, "may be considered as the first person who dared to undertake a comparative study of the religions of the world.” His syncretism has simply been renewed by the Brahma-Samaj, says the writer, and he may be compared with Marcus Aurelius to advantage.- A new edition in French of Tiele's Manual of the History of Religions is just issued. M. Ph. Cobinet has written a work of value on the Theodicy of the Bhagavad-Gita, studied in the poem itself and in its sources.

M. Désirée

Charnay's volume on the ancient cities of the New World relates his voyages of exploration in Mexico and Central America. He affirms the unity of civilization in America, assigning a preponderant rôle to the Toltecs.

Among recent American works of interest, Mr. E. P. Vining's elaborate volume on An Inglorious Columbus will attract, though it will hardly convince, students of our history. He endeavors to show that America was discovered in the fifth century by Hwui Shan, a Buddhist monk, who is supposed to have landed on the Pacific coast of Mexico. But the Chinese documents translated by Mr. Vining, and the Mexican tradition which he alleges, are too slight a foundation for his large conclusions. -Prof. Edegren's Compendious Sanskrit Grammar, Prof. Gildersleeve's Odes of Pindar, and Siever's Old English Grammar are recent educational books of exceptional value.- Gen. Grant's personal reminiscences will soon be ready for subscribers, in two volumes of five hundred pages each. Longfellow's Life, Letters, and Journal, edited by his brother, is announced for the fall. Mr. R. K. Douglass' Brief History of China, Dr. R. Heber Newton's Philistinism, Mr. F. W. Taussig's short account of our present tariff, and the third part of Prof. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, of which the first two parts have been warmly received, especially by English critics, and Darmesteter's Mahdi, in Harper's Handy Library, are valuable miscellaneous works.

THINGS AT HOME AND ABROAD.

UNITARIAN ASPECTS.

It has been a little discouraging of late to hear the comments which have been made upon our National Conferences of New York and Syracuse,-those dignified bodies which bore the burden and heat of the day, made an honorable record, and now "rest from their labors, while their works do follow them." Such is the spirit of self-criticism in our denomination that we must not only be continually dissecting ourselves in the present, but we must dig up from their graves these venerable and worthy embodiments of our denominational zeal and unity, and hold them up to the scorn of the passer-by, who knew them not. This periodical fever of criticism and condemnation of the best national gatherings we ever had in our Church seems to come about the time of our anniversaries, and soon after our Free Religious brethren have held their meetings in Boston. They are looked upon as martyrs to the cause of religious liberty, who were forced out of our denomination by the illiberality of our Conferences; and the combined action of these meetings is spoken of not only with indignation, but in terms of contempt. We will not discuss the stand-point of our Free Religious friends. It is sufficient to say that their leaders deny that our Conferences had anything to do with their organization as an association. The attitude of the times develops new societies. They come into existence because they answer the wants of certain minds. Would that we might respect our own denomination as much as other bodies respect themselves! We have as little sympathy with those who are ever looking to see if our orthodox brethren are satisfied with us as with those who are continually uneasy about our extreme radical friends outside the denomination. The main point is, Are we satisfied with ourselves in regard to the vote of these significant Conferences, touching the great historical and spiritual truths at the basis of our union? Time has shown that we are. Never was a vote more solemnly and tenderly passed than when that great body of delegates, in 1870, after refusing to lower the standard of their beloved leader in the Church, altered and realtered their words, with