674 



The Review of Reviews. 



THE CONCORDIA MOVEMENT. 



This movement is explained in the Oriental 

 Review by its originator, Mr. Naruse, Presi- 

 dent of the Woman's University, Tokio. He 

 begins by stating that the Concordia movement 

 is founded upon the belief : — 



First, that digerent religicas, different creeds, and 

 different ethical teachings, though conflicting in minor 

 points, are similar to one another in essential points, 

 such as seeking after Truth and higher spiritual life; 

 secondly, that though mankind is divided into different 

 races, still there is a common ground upon which each 

 race can understand and sympathise with the charac- 

 teristics of others; thirdly, though the nations of the 

 world to-day seem to have conflicting interests on 

 various problems, they can find, if they try and 

 thoroughly understand one another, a way by which each 

 nation might promote its welfare and prosperity without 

 coming to actual clash with others. The movement is an 

 attempt to discover and promote the point of concord 

 between different religions, different races, and different 

 nations. 



Mr. Naruse says it is a human weakness that 

 belittles concord and magnifies discord. People 

 quarrel on matters of small importance and 

 forget great common interests. When reli- 

 gionists dispute about rituals they are forgetting 

 that they worship the same God. When 

 nations fight they do more harm to themselves 

 than to their enemy. Why not stop these use- 

 less conllicts and urge mankind on the common 

 road of enlightenment and prosperity? 



Japan's leading men are enthusiastic about 

 the movement, and the Japan Times, discussing 

 the inaugural meeting, said : — 



At the meeting it developed, we are told, that all 

 present agreed on three .points. To state them in our own 

 words — Truth is one, though ways may differ of arriving 

 at it, and all should unite in upholding the truth, by 

 waiving differences of the ways. (2) The existing peace 

 movements, fjood in their way, are inclined to be material- 

 istic in their objects, as may be seen in the propaganda 

 for disarmament or limitation of armament, for arbitra- 

 tion or for international economic harmony. It is 

 desirable, in these circumstances, that a way be found to 

 introduce a spiritual or ethical influence as a basis for 

 regulating international relations. (3) It is most im- 

 portant to study how peace and fairness may best be 

 maintained in places where international or inter-racial 

 interests come in contact with one another, as in the 

 case of Hawaii, the Philippines, some parts of China, 

 etc. 



SCIENCE AND ISLAM. 



In the Hindustan Review Shaikh Ferozud- 

 din Murad, MSc.B.A., M.A.S.I., shows how 

 Islam has kept alight through the ages the 

 torch of knowledge. Algebra is a result of the 

 fertility of Moslem intellect. The work of Geber 

 in chemistry is also well known to all. The 

 Caliph Mansur and, in fact, several other Musal- 

 man rulers were fond of science ; they had 

 observatories built for themselves. Charle- 

 magne is said to have received a unique pre- 

 sent from the Mustdmans. It was a clock with 

 twelve doors, and at the lapse of an hour a 

 horseman came out of each door, and this 

 indicated the time of the day. Astronomy 

 was specially studied by the Musalmans, and 

 measurements of the diameter of the earth were 

 made in the day of Mansur by the simple 

 method of determining the difference of altitude 

 of the Polar Star by moving through a known 

 distance. The numerals called Arabic numbers 

 are a standing monument of the scientific 

 eminence of the early .Musalmans. U we con- 

 template for a moment the utility of this 

 numerical notation, and compare its simplicity 

 with the cumbersome details of the earlier nota- 

 tions which it has supplanted, and again ponder 

 over the fact that the .Arabic system of numeri- 

 cal notation has not been improved upon even 

 in these days of change and progress, the debt 

 which the world owes to the scientific spirit of 

 the early Musalmans cannot be overstated, and 

 we see that Dr. Wallace has deservedly put it 

 as one of the greatest achievements of man in 

 the history of civilisation. 



As in New Testament criticism, so in Penta- 

 tcuchal criticism, Johannes Dahse, in the 

 Bibliotheca Sacra for October, declares a back- 

 ward movement has set in, " and it is possible 

 that again in the future a greater portion of the 

 Pentateuch than formerly will be ascribed to 

 the time of Moses or to the oldest times of 

 Israel." 



"It is ominous that the most popular cham- 

 pion of orthodoxy should be reduced to a 

 firework display of paradox, as if the very idea 

 of orthodoxy being defensible were the most 

 startling of jokes. Not so did St. Thomas, not 

 so did the Cardinal of St. George proceed." So 

 says Esme Wingfield-Stratford in the Oxford 

 and Cambridge Review in a heavy tirade against 

 " words without knowledge." Poor Mr. 

 Chesterton ! 



Is Good Friday .\ Mistake? — Dean Haggard, 

 of Iowa, discusses in the BibliotJieca Sacra for 

 October the problems of the Passion Week. 

 He declares that the day of the Crucifixion was 

 not Friday, but Thursday ; that the Sabbath 

 which fell between the burial and resurrection 

 was double — 48 hours in length. " These 

 double Sabbaths were frequent and well-known 

 to the Jews," though as a rule entirely over- 

 looked by all classes of modern commentators. 



