8o 



The Review of Reviews. 



A NEW MISSIONARY REVIEW. 



There appears this month the tirst number of the 

 International Reviao of Missions, a quarterly that is 

 issued by the Continuation Committee of the World 

 Missionary Conference at Edinburgh, edited by J. H. 

 Oldham, M.A. (Frowde. 2S. 6d. net). The Editor 

 takes fourteen pages to describe the purpose of the 

 Review, which may be briefly stated as the continua- 

 tion of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 

 black and white, a systematic study in a religious 

 spirit of the science of missions. The Review is 

 about as far removed as could well be conceived 

 from the missionary periodical which delighted or 

 bored our infancy. It is rather a quarterly Blue-book 

 on foreign missions, issued for the perusal and study 

 of Christian statesmen. Even the most cynical 

 scoffer at foreign missions would profit by a dogged 

 perusal of this first number. He would find that the 

 problems before the world involved in the endeavour 

 to evangelise it demand the most strenuous applica- 

 tion of intellect and will, as well as the driving power 

 of the religious heart. 



Mr. Bryce's impressions of Christian impact upon 

 non-Christian peoples, as well as Dr. Warneck's study 

 of the problems caused by the mass movement to 

 Christianity among the Bataks in Sumatra, have been 

 separately noticed. Rev. W. H. T. Gairdner com- 

 pares the vital forces of Christianity and Islam, and 

 insists that the character and spirit of Jesus are the 

 attractions to Islam. But at the same time, the 

 writer says, we may learn from Islam the absolute 

 importance of insistence on monotheism. 



President Tasuku Harada, of Kyoto, discusses the 

 present position and problems of Christianity in 

 Japan. He declares that Japan is far from being a 

 Christian nation : in some respects she "is more anti- 

 Christian than ever since 1873. Then there was 

 unreasoning antipathy : now there is a reasoned 

 opposition. The victory or defeat of Christianity in 

 Japan will largely determine the future of Christianity 

 in the whole of the Far East. 



Miss Agnes de Selincourt discusses the place of 

 women in the modern national movements of the East, 

 and declares that wherever the East is being touched 

 with the breath of awakening life, the woman's ques- 

 tion leaps into prominence. It has appeared in 

 Turkey, in Persia, in China, and in India. 



President Goucher discusses the problems of 

 education in China ; H. T. Hodgkin the special pre- 

 paration of missionaries. Dr. John Mott describes 

 the work and needs of the Continuation Committee. 



In the new Foreign Olficc which it is to be hoped 

 the British democracy will before long establish the 

 study of such a Review might form one element in 

 the preparatory course of training. 



"Fraternities and Sororities in State-supported 

 institutions of learning "—such is the title that occurs 

 to an article in the American Educational Revietv. 

 "Sororities" is enough to set an English scholar's 

 teeth on edge. 



THE OCCULT MAGAZINES. 



The Theosophist for December contains a very 

 ambitious article entitled " Electricity and Psycho- 

 logy." This article was dictated by a blind lad of nine- 

 teen, who professed to receive it from the astral 

 world. 



THE COMING SCIENTIFIC REVELATION. 

 G. V. Jepp is nineteen years of age and totally hlinJ. He 

 has been blind from birth. His parents are living in Ports- 

 mouth, and his father is a working- upholsterer. He received 

 the education possible to one in his condition at the School for 

 the Blind, St. Edward's Road, Portsmouth, and at the Queen's 

 Road School, Clifton, Bristol, between the age of six and 

 si-Kteen years. He left the latter school finally on 3rd June, 

 190S. While at school he excelled in intellectual work, but 

 was incapable of taking up manual labour, and is unable to 

 engage in any occupation. 



His paper, which it is impossible to summarise, 

 begins with the following magniloquent prophecy : — 



The Great jNLasters of Wisdom, who are the inspirers and 

 directors of evolution, are preparing the way for the infusion 

 into science of a new life, an impulse which will direct scien- 

 tific research into the channel of the higher philosophy, estab- 

 lishing on a sound basis, within the reach of the concrete mind, 

 the doctrines of the Divine Wisdom. This spiritual impulse 

 will unite physical science, western psychology, and the great 

 schools of oriental Occultism into one vast system of scientific 

 thought and spiritual philosophy. 



Mr. Rup Singh publishes a paper claiming that 

 Sikhism is well qualified to be a universal religion. 

 But, as usual, the most important articles in the 

 magazine are those contributed by Mr. Leadbeater 

 and Mrs. Besant, extracts from which appear else- 

 where. There is also a very delightful paper by 

 Miss M. E. Cousins, drawing an analogy between 

 Ireland and India. 



THE NEW CHURCH MAGAZINE. 



With the December issue the Nnv Church Maga- 

 zine, writes Mr. J. R. Rendell in that number, 

 completed its course of one hundred years. The first 

 number was pulilished in January, 181 2, with the title 

 The Intellectual Repository. In 1830 this was altered 

 to the Inlelleelual Repository and Netv Jerusalem 

 Magazine ; and the present title was adopted in 18S2. 

 FotTr previous journals for the use of the New Church 

 had failed. The M-cv/ernsalem Magazine, a monthly, 

 issued in January, 1790, of which only si.K numbers 

 appeared ; tlie Ne7ii Magazine of Knowledge, started in 

 March, 1790, of which only twenty numbers appeared ; 

 the Netv Jerusalem Journal, started in 1792, of which 

 only ten numbers appeared ; and the Aurora, or Daivn 

 of Genuine Truth, begun in 1799, and ending in 

 October, 1801. Since 1790 no fewer than sixty-five 

 different magazines have appeared in connection with 

 New Church effort, including those in foreign 

 languages. At the present time six are maintained 

 in this country, and seven in the United States. The 

 Ne7i.i Church Magazine is, however, the only one that 

 has served three generations of English-speaking 

 people. Mr. J. R. Rendell has been editor since 

 1899. 



