LITERARY NOTICES. 



417 



I 



given, or, that socialism is no importation, 

 but a home product, wherever found ; to 

 give good reasons for expecting that the 

 new social order will be a " happy issue " 

 to every ohc, and to justify the conviction 

 that the situation must come to this new 

 order within a comparatively short period, 

 or to barbarism. The author has also a 

 more serious purpose than the one of mere 

 information, which is to prepare the public 

 to take such an attitude as to make the rev- 

 olution, which he foresees as a certainty, a 

 bloodless and dangerless one, resulting in 

 the establishment of a wholesome security. 



The Blood-Covesant, By H. Clay Trum- 

 bull, D. D. New York : Charles Scrib- 

 ner's Sons. Pp. 350. Price, $2. 



The blood-covenant is a rite by which 

 two persons absorb each the other's blood, 

 either by drinking or by transfusion to the 

 veins, whereby they become bound to one 

 another in even a closer connection than 

 that of brotherhood. It prevails in many 

 countries — savage, barbarous, and semi- 

 barbarous — and may be traced back to ex- 

 treme antiquity. Dr. Trumbull discovers it 

 first in Syria ; then finds numerous accounts 

 of it in the journals of African travelers 

 and of adventurers among the North Amer- 

 ican Indians ; detects it in the Norse lands 

 of Europe and in India, and so around the 

 world. He might also have found it a char- 

 acteristic custom among the Albanians and 

 some of the south Slavs. Going back into 

 history he finds it still more prevalent in 

 the olden times, and, seeking to discover it 

 in its origins, he detects it in the rites and 

 literature of the ancient Egyptians, and al- 

 lusions upon allusions to it in the books of 

 the Bible. Besides description and history, 

 the purpose of his book is to investigate 

 the meaning and symbolism of the rite. 

 He believes that its origin, to use one of the 

 many statements he makes respecting it, is 

 m " the universally dominating primitive 

 convictions that the blood is the life ; that 

 the hcai't, as the blood-fountain, is the very 

 soul of every personality ; that blood-trans- 

 fer is soul-transfer ; that blood-sharing, hu- 

 man or divine-human, secures an inter-union 

 of natures ; and that a union of the human 

 nature with the divine is the highest ulti- 

 mate attainment reached out after by the 

 VOL. XXVIII. — 27 



most primitive as well as by the most en- 

 lightened mind of humanity." With sav- 

 age and barbarous peoples the rite lies at 

 the foundation of cannibalism ; it is the mo- 

 tive of sacrifices, in which the animal is of- 

 fered to the god as a substitute for the hu- 

 man blood. In one form the drops of blood 

 were put in wine or other draughts and 

 drunken : then the wine was drunken without 

 the actual presence of the blood ; whence we 

 have the use of wine in pledges of friend- 

 ship and in marriage. Among the Jews it 

 is symbolized in circumcision ; and, finally, 

 It found its culmination in the offering of 

 the blood of Christ, which Christians of all 

 denominations again observe symbolically, 

 after their Master's own institution, in the 

 use of wine at the sacrament. These views, 

 which Dr. Trumbull sets forth with much 

 force and copious illustrations by references 

 and quotations, are not a theory which he 

 set out to prove, but are thoughts that have 

 grown upon him as he has advanced in his 

 work, and have been suggested by his re- 

 searches ; and the fact that they have been 

 hitherto overlooked furnishes, to his mind, 

 another illustration of the " inevitably 

 cramping influence of a preconceived fixed 

 theory — to which all the ascertained facts 

 must be conformed — in any attempt at thor- 

 ough and impartial scientific investigation." 



iliND - Cure ox a Material Basis. By 

 Sarah Elizabeth Titcomb. Boston: 

 Cupples, Upham & Co. New York : Bren- 

 tano Brothers. Pp. 288. 



The author of this work having acquired 

 the method of curing disease which is prac- 

 ticed by the mind-curers, came to the con- 

 clusion that the success attending that meth- 

 od is due to concentration of thought, and 

 not to the theology underlying the method. 

 She regards it as a well-attested fact that 

 disease, even inorganic, can be cured as well 

 as caused by the mind or the imagination. 

 Besides especially elaborating this theory 

 she reviews " The Theology of the Christian 

 Scientists"; discusses "The Single-Substance 

 Theory," or MateriaHsm, and the manifesta- 

 tions of " Mind in Animals and in the Lower 

 Places of Men"; attempts to trace "The 

 Origin of the Doctrine of the Immortal 

 Soul " ; and searches for " Bible Proofs of 

 the Single-Substance Theory." 



