LITERARY NOTICES. 



555 



movement, which, assuming an anti-Church 

 attitude, is leading the people into unbelief ; 

 and he here lays down the lines along which 

 he thinks the revision should be made. The 

 points of evolution and the antiquity of man 

 have already been conceded by the best 

 thinkers in the Church, but Mr. MacQueary 

 has outrun them by applying evolution to 

 the soul as well as to the body of man. The 

 doctrine of the fall of man is rejected as 

 irrational and contrary to the theory of evo- 

 lution, yet our progenitor sinned, or freely 

 violated moral, divine law, and transmitted 

 to us an inheritance of corrupt habits ; but 

 Jesus, by what he taught, did, and suffered, 

 has more than repaired the evil which re- 

 sulted from Adam's transgression. The 

 books of the Bible are believed to be works 

 of slow growth, or collations made from 

 documents or notes left by earlier writers ; 

 but " even the most radical skeptics admit 

 that the books of the New Testament fur- 

 nish us the essential facts of our Lord's life 

 and teachings." The question as to the mira- 

 cles is made one of evidence ; the scientific 

 man does not deny the possibility of any- 

 thing. The author believes in prayer and 

 Providence and in miracles, or that God has 

 actually wrought extraordinary events. Some 

 of the recorded miracles are treated as cases 

 of faith-healing, some as invested with a po- 

 etical significance, and some as exaggerated 

 versions of older traditions. The resurrec- 

 tion is believed to be spiritual and not of 

 the earthly body, and the resurrection of 

 Jesus and his forty days' sojourn with his 

 disciples is interpreted as an investment with 

 a spiritual body like that described in St. 

 Paul's chapter on the resurrection. The 

 miraculous birth of Jesus from a virgin, 

 though its possibility is not denied, is re- 

 garded as " a poetic description of a great 

 fact." The theory of verbal inspiration is 

 treated as of heathen origin and as contra- 

 dicted by the Bible itself ; but insomuch as 

 God has sent religious as well as philosoph- 

 ic and poetic geniuses into the world, who, 

 though not absolutely infallible, are infalli- 

 ble so far as they discover and reveal truth, 

 we have inspiration. The doctrine of the 

 Trinity is traced back to extremely ancient 

 times, and may be looked upon as a sym- 

 bolic description of the manifold Infinite 

 Spirit of God. The divinity of Christ is re- 



solved into " the closest and most vital union 

 of the Spirit of Jesus with the Divine Spirit 

 from whom it sprung," so that " he was the 

 divine under the limits of humanity." In- 

 stead of the Calvinistic doctrine of the atone- 

 ment, which is exploded by evolution, showing 

 its inconsistency with any true idea of God, 

 we are shown Jesus saving his people from 

 their sins, " first by setting them an example 

 of perfect obedience to God's will, and then 

 by assigning a motive to virtue strong enough 

 to enable men to live soberly, righteously, 

 and godly. That motive is the fatherly love 

 of God toward man, which love was mani- 

 fested in the mission and person of Jesus." 

 Heaven and hell are believed to be spiritual 

 conditions, not places; future punishment, 

 though real, to be limited by the possibility 

 of the ultimate recovery of the soul by in- 

 finite power, wisdom, and love. Immortality 

 is accepted. The author's purpose has been, 

 not to stir up bitter controversy, but to help 

 those who are troubled by the difficulties of 

 traditional and popular theology to a plane 

 of thought where all will be made more clear 

 to them ; and he anticipates as the result of 

 previous discussions an elevation and puri- 

 fication, a dematerialization and spiritualiz- 

 ing of our views on all the subjects involved. 

 "While no one may be ready to accept all 

 the author's conclusions as he states them, 

 the book must be hailed as an earnest and 

 honest attempt to reflect the light of science 

 and modern research on the most difficult 

 points of Christian doctrine, and to make 

 the way more easy for their acceptance in 

 their true sense. "Whatever may be the fate 

 of his particular views, his essay will tend 

 to stimulate thought, and that in the direc- 

 tion of freeing religion from the excres- 

 cences which traditional superstition has 

 fastened upon it. 



The Physical Properties op Gases. By 

 Arthur L. Kimball. Boston: Houghton, 

 Mifflin & Co. Pp. 238. Price, $1.25. 



Regarding imitation as the most sincere 

 praise, the International Scientific Series has 

 received two very hearty indorsements lately, 

 by the announcement of two series of scien- 

 tific books, which follow its plan in part. 

 One of these originates in England, and is 

 also published in this country ; the other is 

 the Riverside Science Series, of which the 



