"The Unsearchable Riches," and "The Greater Works of Believers." The last is entitled "What is Man?" and "institutes a search among all the schools of philosopy for a measure large enough to ascertain the proportions of man." All the essays, it may be said in a word, are marked by vigor, breadth, and withal a cheerfulness of view that is contagious. If the author has yet in reserve other basketfuls of such fruit as he here presents to us there is surely a demand for them in "the world's autumnal market."

First American Itinerant of Methodism, William Watters. By Rev. D. A. WATTERS, B.D., Member of the Oregon Conference, and Professor of Systematic Theology in Portland University. Introduction by Bishop CHARLES C. MCCABE. 12mo, pp. 172. Cincinnati: Printed for the Author by Curts & Jennings. Price, cloth, 75.

cents.

The reader of this biography will feel anew the romance of early Methodism. There were many pioneer preachers in those days whose talents, consecration, and success call for lasting memorial. And among them must certainly be enrolled William Watters, who has the additional honor of leading the list of itinerants of American birth. Beginning his traveling ministry in 1772, when our preachers were only eight and the membership of the Church hardly a thousand, he lived until 1827, when the Methodism of our land enrolled 421,105 members and 1,642 preachers. To this large growth Mr. Watters was himself a worthy contributor. His piety of life, his self-denial, his wisdom in counsel, his friendship for Asbury, his passion for souls, and his serene old age are features of his career which his present namesake and biographer has here told with clearness and in attractive style. From his example the Church should gather new inspiration for future service.

European History; An Outline of Its Development. With Maps and Illustrations. By GEORGE BURTON ADAMS, Professor of History in Yale University. 8vo, pp. 577. New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, cloth, $1.40.

Of particular interest, Professor Adams holds, is the study of those nations that have created our present civilization. "If we can see how they came into the field of history one after another, each taking up the work of making our civilization where the others had left it, and can get a clear idea of the more important work that each one did, then we have made a framework for the whole of history which can be filled up with the details as we study afterwards the history of different nations. There are other nations besides these whose history is interesting, like the ancient Peruvians or the Chinese, but, since they have been very much isolated from the rest of the world, a knowledge of their history is not necessary in order to understand how our own civilization came to be what it is." With this principle as a starting point the author divides his volume into the following Parts: "Primitive Europe and the Orient," "The Greek Period," "The Rise of the Romans," "The Roman WorldState with its Fall and its Revival," "The Formation of the Nations," “Renaissance and Reformation," and "The Struggle of the Nations for Supremacy and Expansion." A list of books for reference precedes each

Part, and at the end of each chapter is found a list of topics and frequently a tabulation of important dates. In logical arrangement of text, wide scope of treatment, and charm of typography and illustration Professor Adams has furnished a valuable book, not only to teachers, but also to all students of the past.

The Student's Life of Jesus. By GEORGE HOLLEY GILBERT, PH.D., D.D., Iowa Professor of New Testament Literature and Interpretation in Chicago Theological Seminary. Crown 8vo, pp. 412. New York: The Macmillan Company. Price, cloth, $1.25.

The purpose of this work is sufficiently outlined by its author in his Preface. He does not aim to discuss in detail the teachings of our Lord, except so far as seems necessary to an understanding of Christ's character and life. The book is also made for students in particular, and hence is "compact and predominantly critical." And, still again, it is "written with the conviction that a believer in Christianity may investigate the life of Jesus as scientifically as an unbeliever." With these principles as an inspiring motive Professor Gilbert has prepared a volume which all students of the gospels may use to advantage.

One Thousand and One Thoughts From My Library. By D. L. MOODY. 12mo, pp. 396. New York, etc.: Fleming H. Revell Co. Price, cloth, $1.

This volume is made up of " gems from our great authors." Luther, Spurgeon, Guthrie, Newman Hall, Brooks, and many more upon both sides of the Atlantic are among those who are quoted. The extracts are arranged in the order of their scriptural application, while an index of topics adds to the working value of the book. As a new compilation of textual comments it will be appreciated by many.

The Ministry to the Congregation. Lectures on Homiletics. By JOHN A. KERN, D.D., President of Randolph-Macon College. 8vo, pp. 551. New York: Wilbur B. Ketcham, Price, cloth, $2.

This is an important book. It includes in its pages the homiletic teaching given by Dr. Kern "during the last ten years in the Biblical Department of Randolph-Macon College." The two divisions of the book are entitled, "The Ministry of Worship," and "The Ministry of Preaching." In comprehensiveness, vigor, appropriateness, and clear analysis there seems to be little omitted from these lectures. Their reading would be a benefit to the ministry of all Churches, could the volume generally be put into the hands of the American clergy.

Digging Ditches and Other Sermons to Boys and Girls. By Rev. FREDERICK B. COWL. 12mo, pp. 158. New York: Eaton & Mains; Cincinnati: Curts & Jennings. Price, cloth, 50 cents.

Such sermons as these which had their origin in England are worthy of being preached to the boys and girls of any land. While they are plain, they are not puerile; and while they deal particularly with simple incidents or declarations of the Scripture, there is a touch of genius in their treatment which lifts them altogether out of the ordinary. Their publication should be helpful to many youth.

METHODIST REVIEW.

JULY, 1899.

ART. I.-THE CATHOLICITY OF AMERICAN METHODISM.

CATHOLICITY, which has been the most notable characteristic of Methodism in its relation to the Churches of the Reformation, is but the impress of Wesley, its catholic-minded founder. Emerson says the difference between great men and others is that there are more of them; they are many men rolled into one. A man may be a microcosm, but a great man is a macrocosm. Thus, Dean Stanley claimed Wesley as being in some sense the father of modern Broad Churchism, because of his many-sidedness and real greatness.

His original inclination was toward mysticism, so that the accomplished fellow of Lincoln College proposed a solitary life amid the Yorkshire hills where he could the better cultivate a dreamy philosophy. But a wise friend tells him that "the Bible knows nothing of a solitary religion." He then magnifies the means of grace into saving ordinances, becoming a ritualist of the ritualists, mixing water with the wine of the eucharist, of which he partook weekly, fasting on two days of the week, and refusing to admit to the Lord's Supper any person baptized by a minister not episcopally ordained. Yet, later, he becomes a very ascetic, living on bread and water, even going barefooted in Georgia to encourage those unable to wear shoes, sleeping on the ground, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. By turns he was a missionary, a visitor of prisons and of the poor, an evangelist, and an open-air preacher, willing to give all his goods to feed the poor and his very body to be burned. As the Moravian bishop, Gambold, who was a member of the Holy

34-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XV.

Club with him at Oxford, said of Wesley, "He used many arts to be religious, but none to seem so; with a soul always upon the stretch and a most transparent sincerity he addicted himself to every good word and work." This was the man who was to be broadened by contact with men in his more than two hundred and fifty thousand miles of travel, in the two hundred publications which he wrote or compiled, freely using the works of good men of whatever shade of religious opinion, and in the forty thousand sermons which he preached during his long and eventful ministry. He was ready to hear the opinions of the wisest, whatever their belief, and to sit at the feet of the saintliest, in whatever quarter of the globe. He himself says:

The thing which I was greatly afraid of, all this time, and which I resolved to use every possible means of preventing, was a narrowness of spirit, . . . that miserable bigotry which makes many so unready to believe that there is any work of God but among themselves. I thought it might be a help against this frequently to read to all who were willing to hear the accounts I received from time to time of the work which God is carrying on in the earth, both in our and other countries, not among ourselves alone, but among those of various opinions and denominations. For all this I allotted one evening in every month, and I find no cause to repent of my labor.

Michael Angelo rejoiced that he lived in the same time as Raphael; so Wesley rejoiced to find himself the contemporary of holy men everywhere and of whatever name. He was wise enough to see, what Harnack was later to declare, that "history presents no example of a despotism without the foundation of a common form of worship." And with Irenæus he also believed that "the difference of the usages establishes the harmony of the faith."

This man "sent from God, whose name was John," while owing much to both heredity and environment, was the creature of neither. Some men cannot stand alone unless wedged in a crowd, but Wesley not only had such deep convictions as enabled him to stand alone, but he helped to create the very crowd which was to perpetuate his teachings and his influGreat men can only act permanently by forming great nations or organizations, and the real greatness of the man appears in the persistence of his teachings for many generations.

ence.

Wesley was notable for his genuine intellectual hospitality. It was not that all views were alike to him, but that he saw amid many points of difference certain vital points of agreement-the essentials-and his system was built around these. His favorite benediction reflected his character. It was that with which Paul closed his letter to the Ephesians, describing the Church in Christ Jesus: "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." Though an Arminian he admitted Calvinists into his societies, whose one condition of membership was a real desire to save one's soul. Writing to the churchman Venn, Wesley said, "I desire to have a league offensive and defensive with every soldier of Christ." And on another occasion he wrote of the Methodists: "They ask only, 'Is thy heart herein as my heart? If it be, give me thine hand.' Is there any other society in Great Britain or Ireland that is so remote from bigotry, that is so truly of a catholic spirit?" This was to be true of the United Societies while in the Established Church, and when the inevitable separation took place both in England and America. The Methodist Episcopal Church was, with its Twenty-five Articles, not simply a comprehensive Church, it was a confessional Church. While its Articles of Religion have been pronounced by Canon F. J. Holland to the writer as being the very cream of the English Church creed, nonconformists, as well, now approve them, as is seen by the recent adoption of what is called "The New Evangelical Catechism," an expression of the points of agreement of the Evangelical Free Churches of England and Wales. It will be interesting to trace in American Methodism the development of this spirit of catholicity which marks universal Methodism.

The dawn of the eighteenth century witnessed the birth of two men, one in England and the other in America, whose influence was to extend into the twentieth century and, doubtless, to the end of time. These were John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, who were born in 1703, and less than four months apart. Widely as they differed doctrinally, they had much in common, even as thinkers and preachers. Each traced his ancestral line to clergymen of the Church of England, and each was indebted to gifted ancestors in both the paternal and