558 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



is so co-ordinated in the class that each 

 member may, to some extent, reap the bene- 

 fit of the labors of his companions. The 

 seminary method is adapted from the old 

 scholastic methods of the ecclesiastical and 

 philosophical seminaries, and has been ap- 

 plied in numerous German and some Amer- 

 ican institutions. 



The Bible analyzed in Twenty Lectures. 



By John R. Kelso, A. M. New York : 



"Truth-Seeker "office. Pp.833. Price, 



$3. 



We believe that the Bible should be 

 subject to criticism and investigation, in 

 all its aspects, like any other book ; and 

 that the criticism should be searching and 

 fearless. Still, there are proprieties to be 

 observed, even by a critic who does not 

 believe the book the product of divine in- 

 spiration. It is a very ancient book, em- 

 bodying unique historical records and tra- 

 ditions of the earliest times of civilization, 

 the genuineness of which is newly illustrat- 

 ed by every new excavation in the ruined 

 cities of the East ; prophetic books and 

 poems which, regarded in the literary as- 

 pect alone, are worthy to be ranked with 

 the world's masterpieces ; and religious dec- 

 larations and moral precepts which have 

 been built into the foundations of modern 

 manners. These things should entitle it to 

 respectful treatment, even at the hands of 

 an enemy. Mr. Kelso has not given it such 

 treatment, but has made it the object of 

 persistent ribald, indecent, blasphemous as- 

 saults, the very violence of which obscures 

 whatever of force his argument might have 

 had he presented it in a becoming style. 



The Book of the Beginnings. By R. Ee- 

 BER Newton. New York : G. P. Put- 

 nam's Sons. Pp. 310. 



In this little book Mr. Newton gives a 

 study of Genesis, with an introduction to 

 the Pentateuch, conducted according to 

 the canons of free, independent investiga- 

 tion. The study is based upon the lectures 

 which the author, a well-known Episcopal 

 clergyman, had begun to deliver to his 

 Bible-class, but which he discontinued at 

 the request of his bishop. The singular 

 position in which he was put by this event 

 made it seem due, he says, " alike to my 

 people and myself, that the public should be 



enabled to judge of the real nature of the 

 lectures which had called forth such a very 

 unusual if not unprecedented episcopal in- 

 terruption of a presbyter in the course of 

 his parochial ministrations." Mr. Newton 

 accepts to the full the results of what is 

 called the " new criticism " with regard to 

 the mode of composition, the time, and the 

 authorship of the five Mosaic books ; and 

 while he presents these clearly and in all 

 their force, he does it in the spirit and 

 with the manner of one who accepts, as he 

 avows that he does, the religious teachings 

 of the Bible as authoritative. 



The Outskirts of Physical Science. Es- 

 says, Philosophical and Religious. 

 By T. Nelson Dale. Boston: Lee & 

 Shepard. Pp. 187. Price, $1.25. 



The studies contained in this book seem 

 to be products of a mind much exercised 

 about the relations of religion and modern 

 science. Its author has read widely, and 

 is evidently in much sympathy with the 

 study of natural science, for which he de- 

 clares he had an early fondness, while he 

 possesses strong religious convictions, and 

 strives with sincerity to bring the two orders 

 of thought into unity and harmony. The 

 second part, on " Scientific Studies : their 

 Place and Use in Education," presents a 

 very fair resume of the educational claims 

 of the sciences, but the author is still in 

 agreement with the classicists, holding that 

 there is nothing like " the humanities " for 

 the cultivation of the mind. 



Home and School Traixixg. By Mrs. H. 

 E. G. Arey. Philadelphia : J. B. Lip- 

 pincott & Co, Pp. 192. 



The author of this plea for home instruc- 

 tion has made it under the feeling that the 

 subject has at no time received the attention 

 it demands, but that we are coming to neg- 

 lect it more and more. We are apt to leave 

 the whole matter of the training of our chil- 

 dren to the schools, in utter forgetfulness 

 of the fact that the specially important 

 phase of it — that which forms a symmetri- 

 cal character — is ostensibly ignored in many 

 of them, and that " the most abiding portion 

 of the child's mental seed-sowing has already 

 taken root and given its tints to the soil be- 

 fore the period for entering the school-room 

 arrives." The oversight of " this first lush 



