»3* 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ing discussions. The retiring president, 

 Mr. John Mansfield, recommended a division 

 of the society into sections, embracing va- 

 rious brandies of scientific research and 

 history proper, and the admission of the 

 teachers and pupils of the Normal and 

 High Schools to its privileges. These rec- 

 ommendations are approved and made more 

 definite by the new president, Mr. Isaac 

 Kinley, who would also embrace art within 

 the scope of the society's objects. Mr. 

 Kinley urges energetic industry in the pur- 

 suit of the special historical work, while 

 those who were not only the spectators 

 but the makers of the history are still 

 among them, and because the records are in 

 a perishing condition. " The old Mission 

 buildings are crumbling into soil, valuable 

 old manuscripts are being gnawed into 

 illegibility by the tooth of time." Besides 

 the two presidents' addresses, the report 

 contains papers on " California in the Eight- 

 eenth Century," as it was described by 

 Father Francis Palon, founder of the Mission 

 Dolores, by J. Adam ; " The Glacial Pe- 

 riod," by Professor Ira Moore ; " Trap-door 

 Spiders," by Miss Monks; and "North 

 American Lakes," by Isaac Kinley. 



A Study of Primitive Christianity. By 

 Lewis G. Janes. Boston, 1886. Pp. 

 319. Price, $1.50. 



This book is the fruit of many years of 

 study, issuing in a scries of lectures for the 

 benefit of " The Association for Moral and 

 Spiritual Education" connected with the 

 Second Unitarian Church in the city of 

 Brooklyn. The point of view is Unitarian 

 as regards theological conceptions of the 

 personality and mission of the Nazarene ; 

 but the author is a sincere lover of the 

 character of Jesus, and disposed to do full 

 justice to the influence and value of his 

 teachings. Dr. Janes is evidently a thorough 

 scholar, and one can not fail to be impressed 

 with the care, the honesty, the faithfulness, 

 the impartiality, the love of truth, the con- 

 servatism exhibited throughout this admi- 

 rable volume. Quite irrespective of the 

 author's conclusions upon special disputed 

 points, no one can gainsay that his work is, 

 in the language of the pastor of his church, 

 who writes a preface, " a wonderfully clear 

 and strong expression " of the facts which 



his study has determined ; and that to this 

 study he has brought " a singularly just and 

 patient mind." We commend the book, net 

 only to Unitarians, but to all who are willing 

 to trace, or to see traced in a masterly man- 

 ner the operation of natural causes, of race, 

 politics, and social conditions generally, 

 upon the rise and progress of Christianity. 



It is not within our province to enter 

 upon a critical discussion of either the the- 

 ological or historical questions which this 

 work involves ; but it is very interesting to 

 note the method which Dr. Janes pursues, 

 and observe his theory of the development 

 of the organized Christian system. lie fol- 

 lows its course up to the point when it be- 

 came the Roman state religion, and his con- 

 clusions arc, that it " arose by a natural 

 process of evolution out of pre-existing sys- 

 tems to complete the overthrow cf the pre- 

 vailing though effete polytheistic cultns, and 

 to supplement the narrowness and partial- 

 ism of the decaying ethnic religions by the 

 principles of universalism and human broth- 

 erhood." The influences determining its va- 

 rious phases from the simple altruistic teach- 

 ing of Jesus to the formidable political power 

 which it came to wield in its union with the 

 state are thoroughly studied and set forth 

 effectively in the method of truly scientific 

 exposition. 



The author distinguishes sharply be- 

 tween the Jesus of the first three gospels, 

 the " Triple Tradition," and the Jesus of 

 the fourth. The " Triple Tradition," in his 

 judgment, represents the man as he really 

 was in life, " a simple, noble, manly person- 

 age, full of intense conviction and prophetic 

 enthusiasm, who moves naturally and freely 

 in his Hebrew environment." The fourth 

 Gospel, however, presents the Great Exem- 

 plar with the incumbrances of the many 

 myths of Aryan and Egyptian thought ; and 

 to separate the Christ of actual history from 

 the legendary Christ, to whom have been at- 

 tached these ancient myths of the East and 

 of Egypt, is one of the main purposes of Dr. 

 Jancs's critical study. For instance, the 

 great solar myth is indicated as the source 

 of the narrated miracles of cure, of the doc- 

 trine of the Logos, and again of the final 

 miracle of the resurrection. 



The religion of the future, Dr. Janes be- 

 lieves to be, " the true religion of humanity," 



