the style of her writing, in its quaint terms, humorous reminiscences, and familiar treatment of some very practical questions of pastoral and social etiquette, relieves in no slight degree the otherwise severely business-like character of the volume. It is to Mrs. Lawrence that the readers of the book are indebted for the reprint of "A Apele for Are: 2 The Sextant of the Old Brick Metin 'ouse, by A Gasper.'

The variety of authors and of subjects precludes the possibility of a review of the volume in detail. Several of the sections have been written by specialists, but on the whole there is a noticeable absence of professionalism. Hobbyists have been carefully excluded, and the relation of parts in the general scheme has been secured, as has been suggested, by good editing. Special mention ought to be made of the chapters or sections on Parish Business, by Austin Abbott, Esq.; on Music in Worship, by Prof. Waldo S. Pratt; on the Mid Week Service, by H. M. Scudder, D. D.; on Study and Pulpit, by Theodore T. Munger, D. D., and on Organizing the Church for Work, by George R. Leavitt, D. D. The most unsatisfactory chapter is that on Parish Buildings. Some good hints are given in a blunt and vigorous way, but they are chiefly on the negative side, while the discussion itself is very fragmentary and incomplete. No one could expect a treatise on church architecture, but one might reasonably ask for more positive suggestions in respect to parish buildings. A valuable reminder to churches in city and country is given in the title of the section on Unproductive Property.

The practical effect of this book upon the churches will be most wholesome. It will correct many inherited abuses, and stimulate to much wise activity. A church will learn from it how to respect itself as well as how to treat its minister. And it can be read with advantage by the ministry, if a minister is not already inclined to state his case too strongly. The professional minister will get, however, little comfort from its pages: he will find himself rebuked and instructed in the lessons which are so plainly taught to the members of churches and parishes.

ANDOVER.

William Jewett Tucker.

AMERICAN STATESMEN.

In

LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. By CARL SCHURZ. two volumes. 16mo. Vol. I., pp. 383; Vol. II., pp. 424. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1887. $2.50.

CARL SCHURZ is, among us, a good deal like Homer's imagined spectator of the fight, conducted invisibly through it by Hermes. He has unquestionably an immovable attachment to that republic to which he has committed all his fortunes, and in which he has made for himself so eminent a career. But a dispassionateness which is doubtless in a measure constitutional is in him fortified by a happy impossibility of viewing our national conflicts of one and two generations back with quite that quickening of the pulse felt by those whose personal and whose hereditary life is rooted in them from the beginning. Especially is Mr. Schurz, as enjoying an inviolable immunity from the "Presidential fever," qualified to describe its confusing effects upon the intellect and conscience of those who are smitten with it, as visible in the life of this most illustrious of all its victims. The author carries us back to 1818, and from that point almost to the end shows us, with evident reluctance, what in Clay's transparent character is only too plain, how

often "that strange disturber of impulses and motives, of perceptions and conclusions . . . clouded his discernment."

...

Clay's life, as set forth here, gives the full impression of the other clouds through which his generous greatness so often shimmered uncertainly his want of an unimpeached morality, though not of a spotless integrity, his want of a thorough foundation of knowledge, and perhaps his too impressible temperament. But though these things clouded his greatness, nothing could conceal it. From his boyhood till his death he took a first place everywhere, simply because he could not help it. He could throw away his advantages fast enough to lose the Presidency, but he could not help being greater than a President.

Mr. Schurz has often enough occasion of grave disapprobation of Henry Clay's course, but he never forgets the essential nobility of his public character. He describes as "the wellspring from which Henry Clay drew his political inspirations, a grand conception of the future destiny of the American republic, and of a government adapted to the fulfillment of that great destiny; an ardent love of the Union, as the ark of liberty and national grandeur, a Union to be maintained at any price; an imaginative enthusiasm which infused its patriotic glow into his political opinions, but which was apt to carry him beyond the limits of existing things and conditions, and not seldom unfitted him for the formation of a clear and well-balanced judgment of facts and interests. But this enthusiastic conception of national grandeur, this lofty Unionism constantly appearing as the inspiration of his public conduct, gave to his politics, as they stood forth in the glow of his eloquence, a peculiarly potent charm." The biography brings out in surprising distinctness the measure in which the Great Compromiser, in and beneath all his compromises, was inspired with a hatred of slavery. This appeared from the time when in youth he vainly endeavored to rid Kentucky of it up to the time when, in old age, he fruitlessly repeated the effort. He could not attempt an occasional apology for slavery without betraying his scorn of it. If he opened his lips to bless, he was apt to end by cursing it altogether. The most amusing instance of this appears in the letter which certain mercantile poltroons of New York had procured him to write, in maintenance of his own compromises of 1850, and in which he would only spare one fifth of the space for strictures on the Abolitionists, giving up the other four fifths to denunciations of Southern disunionism. He could not, it is true, as Mr. Schurz points out, apprehend the absolutely "irrepressible conflict" as could those Northern men who led the anti-slavery cause, as he was also incapable of understanding the mortal offense he had given to the North by sharpening the penalties of the Fugitive Slave Law. But he was constitutionally and territorially designated as the one who, through concessions to the South, often of baleful extent, was, now and again, to put off the inevitable collision until the time to which, as our author shows, he never ceased to look forward, when the free States should have so irresistible a preponderance that, if the South broke away, it could not fail to be crushed. The emphatic passion of his declaration that he would go with the Nation, whatever his State might do, must have been worth many battalions after his death, to keep Kentucky in her place.

Henry Clay's "American system" has prevailed after him, with a thoroughness the prospect of which would have made him stand aghast. But the history of its fluctuations and mutations under him, the tricks of

prestidigitation by which he tried to convince his admirers that a tariff simply for protection, simply for revenue, for revenue with incidental protection and for protection with incidental revenue, were all substantially one and the same thing, with a little difference in the angle of vision, is as droll as anything can be that is so curiously unintelligible. Clay was no great economist, private or political, and seems, like Fox with the funds, to have enjoyed seeing the duties go up or down as might best perplex the other side. Still, a man who so strongly accented the rights and duties of the national government could hardly fail, other things being equal, to like a high tariff best.

Clay appears especially contrasted with one man, and mortally opposed to another, - Adams and Jackson. The author sums up John Quincy Adams very well as "a man of great ability, various knowledge, and large experience; of ardent patriotism, and high principles of honor and duty; brimful of courage, and a pugnacious spirit of contention; precise in his ways, stiff and cold in manners; tenacious of his opinions; irritable of temper; inclined to be suspicious, and harsh in his judgments of others, and, in the Puritan spirit, also severe with himself." He describes him elsewhere as seeming formed to make admirable principles and character as disagreeable as possible. He succeeded only too well, when, under a tempest of dislike, and of long-surviving and ever-reviving slander, he, and Clay with him, had to strike their flag to the semipiratical craft of Andrew Jackson.

Mr. Schurz gives Jackson credit for certain blind instincts of the public good. A man so portentously ignorant could not very easily have any other than blind instincts. His services against nullification were great, and would have been essentially greater but for Henry Clay's irresistible propensity for compromising. Mr. Schurz also regards his distrust of a National Bank as warranted, though exaggerated beyond measure. But he was himself a greater nuisance and danger than anything short of nullification. The absolute demoralization of the public service for one generation, if not for two, ought to have been enough to make an administration infamous. But even that is less than the absolute incarnation, in his own revengeful personality, of the most aggravated unreason of democratic absolutism. He was not an Attila, but in his lesser measure he too deserves to be called a Scourge of God. strangely he contrasts with that other man, who also rose from the very bottom, and who also governed his countrymen absolutely, but only by reflecting upon them the light of the eternal verities from the mirror of his fatherly wisdom!

How

It is hard for even those of us with whom, in our youth, Henry Clay was contemporary in his age, to follow him back to the utterly different conditions before the second war with England, which his eloquence helped to make inevitable. His arguments and his prophecies were hardly borne out by facts, but, as Schurz thinks, he rendered a great service to his country. He delivered us from the misery and shame of a nationality that did not know whether it had leave to stretch its limbs in the world or not.

Mr. Schurz gives an entertaining account of the tedious and uncertain negotiations in Ghent, and of the amusing brushes between Clay and Adams, held in balance by the Switzer Albert Gallatin. It is with very comprehensible feeling that our author recounts the passionately ungenerous thrust which this grand servant of our republic afterwards suffered at

Clay's own hands, because he was an American by free choice, and not an American because he could not help it. But Clay lived to be deeply ashamed of it.

We cannot but see that this biography suffers essentially from lacking a certain smack of the soil, which of course it could not be expected to have, but which is only a subordinate and dispensable merit. The same remark applies to the style, which is, of course, good and clear, but perhaps a little wanting in color.

ANDOVER.

Charles C. Starbuck.

GERMAN THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Kurgefasster Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften Alten und Neuen Testamentes, sozu den Apokryphen, herausgegeben von Herrmann Strack und Otto Zöckler. A. Altes Testament. Dritte Abtheilung: Die Bücher Samuelis und der Könige, ausgelegt von August Klostermann. II. Hälfte. Pp. 305-504, and xiii-xl. 5 mks. B. Neues Testament. Dritte Abtheilung: Die Briefe Pauli an die Thessalonicher, Galater, Korinther und Römer, ausgelegt von O. Zöckler, G. Schnedermann und E. Chr. Luthardt. Pp. xiv, 440. Nördlingen: Beck. 6 mks. The first half of the commentary on Samuel and Kings was noticed in the August number of the "Review." It is therefore unnecessary to speak further of the author's method. The second half, like the first, is characterized by its careful discussion of questions of textual criticism. With the present installment appears the general introduction, of which the excellent sections upon the Sources and the Text deserve especial mention. The commentary upon the Epistle to the Thessalonians and the Galatians (pp. 1-86) is by Professor Zöckler, that upon 1 and 2 Corinthians (pp. 87-288) by Dr. Schnedermann, Dozent in Basel, and that upon Romans (pp. 289-439) by Professor Luthardt. The well-known Lutheran standpoint of the authors, especially Zöckler and Luthardt, is sufficient to assure us of their position upon all of the general questions under discussion between liberals and conservatives in connection with these epistles. It seems to the writer that the authors might have allowed themselves more space for a discussion of some of the most important and still agitated questions without detriment to the general plan of the series. The criticism of Schürer, which was mentioned in my former notice, apparently finds in the present volume especial justification. In the treatment of Galatians ii. the author contents himself with scarcely more than a reference to his discussion of the same subject in the commentary on Acts xv., where unfortunately the matter is handled in a very meagre way. The commentary upon Corinthians is more

satisfactory, though one could wish for a more thorough treatment of 1 Corinthians xv. and of 2 Corinthians xii. In regard to the historical setting the author rejects the theory of a lost epistle between our present First and Second, and assumes but one visit to Corinth upon the part of the apostle before the composition of 2 Corinthians. Conciliengeschichte. Nach den Quellen bearbeitet von Carl Joseph von Hefele. Fortgesetzt von J. Cardinal Hergenröther. Achter Band. Freiburg im

Breisgau Herder. 8vo, pp. vii, 896. 9.60 mks. The continuation of Hefele's " History of Christian Councils," interrupted for thirteen years, is resumed with the present volume, which treats Die Zwischenzeit vom Basler bis zum fünften Lateran-Concil and Das Achtzehnte allgemeine oder fünfte Lateran-Concil. With the completion of the revised edition of Vol. IV. the aged author was obliged to lay down his pen and to entrust the continuation of the revision to his pupil, Professor Knöpfler. From his hand has already appeared (1886) the second edition of Vol. V., and Vols. VI. and VII. are soon to follow. The work done by Professor Knöpfler is most thorough, and puts the fifth volume, in a largely augmented form, fully abreast of the times. The theological world may therefore promise itself from his hands a revision of the remaining volumes in every way worthy of the original. The present volume, by Cardinal Hergenrother, is a continuation - not a revision of Hefele's work, which in the first edition was carried no further than the seventh volume. Hergenrother has undertaken to complete the whole work (for which at least two more volumes will be required), and Vol. IX. will shortly appear. It is unnecessary to say that the volume just issued exhibits the widest research and the most careful scholarship. The author's reputation is a sufficient guaranty for the quality of the work done, and his connection with the Vatican library furnishes him with unsurpassed opportunities for the collection of materials. The general plan pursued is the same as that of Hefele, and the author has endeavored to remain true to the methods and principles of his predecessor. Die Heiligen. Ein Beitrag zum geschichtlichen Verständniss der Offenbarung Johannis und der altchristlichen Verfassung, von Past. Dr. C. H. Manchot. Leipzig: Veit. 8vo, pp. vii, 160. 5 mks. - This is one of the most remarkable books that has appeared in the sphere of early church history for many years. The learning and ability of the author are not to be denied, but his imagination runs completely away with him, and his results are, most of them, absolutely without historical worth. His thesis is that the Saints of the Apocalypse and of the earliest Christian literature do not embrace all true Christians, but form an especial and higher class by themselves. His proofs, drawn from the New Testament and other early Christian writings, are most remarkable, and where he finds difficulties he does not hesitate to emend the text. His fondness for allegory leads him to some very wild speculations which are worthy to be compared with those of the Alexandrian fathers. Among other interesting discoveries he finds that the Paul whom we know is not one but two persons a Saint Paul and an Apostle Paul whom tradition has confounded. It is not necessary to describe the book further. It is certainly worth reading as an excellent lesson in historical method.

PERIODICALS.

Religion nach dem Neuen Testament, mit besonderer Beziehung auf das Verhältniss des Sittlichen und Religiosen und auf das Mystische in der Religion, von Dr. Julius Köstlin. Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1888. Heft I., pp. 7–102. An interesting article by the Halle Professor of Dogmatics, the author of the well-known "Life of Luther." The writer discusses, first, the general utterances of Jesus and of the New Testament, secondly, the special Pauline and Johannine expressions, and finally considers the religious Being in his relation to himself and to his own good. He concludes with the following words, which form an excellent summary of the article: "So ist die Religion des Neuen Testamentes ein