Review of Reviewi, 1110/06. 



Notable Books of the Month. 



411 



no earthquake it is easy to foresee the diflSculties 

 that would have arisen when two children were to 

 be shared between four parents. The doctrine of 

 the Twice Born is based upon thf teaching of the 

 mystic Boehme. The spiritual body described by 

 St. Paul is held to be existing within the physical 

 bodv, and to be capable of independent function 

 as in drearn, clairvoyance, etc. 



But the physical senses of bearing, seeing, touoliing, etc., 

 wliich npi)ear to us so marvellous in design, are in reality 

 tlie prison bars— the grille through which alone we can look 

 out upon the physical world. . . . The i)eyc!iic body has 

 also its definite form and its definite organs, but these 

 organs are windows for the spirit, and not bars for the 

 prisoner.— (P. 23.) 



Everyone knows something of the clairvoyant 

 capacities of this psychic body. But says the 

 author : — 



Some, of whom I can only speak tentatively, have pene- 

 trated even further than this. To them has been granted 

 the knowledge tliat this inner body can not only function, 

 as we know, with regard to finer perceptions of vibrations 

 of sound and light. It can function also with the same 

 superiority of range and intensity in those fields of ex- 

 perience where lies hidden the Ke.v to this world's most 

 sacred my8ter.\-, and probably to the secret of all existence. 

 I need not say that 1 refer to the sacred union, so often 

 terribly abused and misunderstood when it reaches physical 

 expression, tliat union which mystics in all ages and in 

 all lands have traced to its divine Fountain, and have 

 there called the union of the Soul with the Source. — (P. 

 26.) 



In other words, the mvsterious union of the 

 spiritual bodies takes place like that of the physical 

 body, with the same results in spiritual offspring: — 



Where the invisible, but not less real, psychic body func- 

 tions, the children would also be invisible, but not legs 

 real, and not even invisible to those amongst us who can 

 already see and hear on tlie next plane of vibration to our 

 own. ." . . They would represent the higher faculties and 

 ideas of the parents free from tlie coarser vibrations of 

 lower physical life. . . . These children, conceived and 

 born under specially favourable conditions, have a great 

 work before them in the Redemption of the Race — or the 

 Evolution of the Race — whicliever you choose to call it. 



So these little ones must come into physical incarnation 

 some day through ordinar.v physical channels: to bear lip, 

 each according to his capacity, tiie heavy weight of our 

 Earth-dragging limitations. But these children of the Sun 



have taken ou no clogging heredity from their earthly 

 parents when this descent into matter occurs. Their 

 heredity is from the higher elements of their True 

 parents, who whilst yet in the flesh conceived thtra tl'.Poug 1 

 these finer conditions. 



This doctrine of " true parentage '' would fit Cyn- 

 thia's case and Jethro Bass. But it is easy to see 

 what serious complications such a possibility might 

 occasion. 



After this excursion into dim and m\sterious 

 realms some readers will rejoice to revel once more 

 in the familiar borderland of old romance. Sien- 

 kiewicz's latest story, " The Field of Glory," is full 

 of the elements which give perennial charm to the 

 romances of Scott and Dumas, In " The Field of 

 Glory " the novelist transports us to the heroic 

 davs when Poland, under John Sobieski, rode forth 

 to save Christendom from the Infidel, who but for 

 the Poles would have captured Vienna. " The 

 Field of Glory " gives us a vivid picture of the 

 bloodshed and turmoil of the seventeenth century in 

 the territories which formed the rampart of Christen- 

 dom, It enables us of the West to understand why 

 the Poles think so much of themselves, and how 

 bitterly they resent their present position. The 

 Pole, in his own estimation, at least, and in that of 

 the Turks, was in those days the finest fighting man- 

 in Europe. The borderland of Christian and Pay- 

 nim was the natural seed-plot for deeds of derring- 

 do. " The Field of Glory '' reminds us of " Ivan- 

 hoe ■' and " The Talisman." and the three burlv 

 brothers are an Eastern somewhat brutalised variant 

 upon the three musketeers of Dumas's immortal 

 romance. The names are somewhat uncouth, and 

 Panna as a substitute for Countess is unfamiliar to 

 our ears. But despite these drawbacks, " The Field 

 of Glory " is a good, stirring romance of Polish 

 chivalry'. 



'AMERICAN SOCIALISM": BY PROFESSOR PRIM. 



One of the most powerful descriptions of Ameri- 

 can Swialisin is contained in a recently-published 

 work entitled " The War of the Classes." The 

 author. Jack London, who is a man to be reckoned 

 with, is one of the most interesting personalities in 

 the world of letters. Like Dryden's Zimri, he has 

 been ■■ evervthing by starts and nothing long." As 

 a child he lived on a Californian ranch, as a boy he 

 hustled newspapers in the city streets, as a youth 

 he served before the mast, and later on he gained 

 an immense amount of ex]>erience tramping over 

 the United States and Canada, " from the open 

 West, where man bucked big, and the job hunted 

 the man, to the congested labour centres of the 

 East, where men were small potatoes, and hunted 

 the job for all they were worth." And there he 

 saw the vision of the Social Pit, felt himself 

 " slipping down, down into the shambles at 

 the bottom," and became a Socialist. In his 

 latest effusion on the " War of the Classes," he 



draws attention to tlie surprising increase in the 

 number of American Socialists during the last few 

 years. From 150,000 votes in 1900, the number 

 rose in 1902 to 300,000, and in 1904 to 450,000. 

 In Europe, too, the number is increasing, Ger- 

 manv has three millions, France a million, Belgium 

 and .Austria three-quarters of a million each, the 

 last-named having raised her Socialist vote from 

 90,000 to 750,000 in a couple of years, Mr. M. G. 

 Cunniff, who lately made an intimate study of 

 American Trades Unionism, tells us that almost 

 every other man is a Socialist, pleading that Trades 

 Unionism is but a makeshift, or a sort of half-way 

 house. 



The author gives us a vivid glimpse of the great 

 movement that is going on all over the United 

 States, for the increasing vote of the Socialists is, 

 of course, due to steadv and persistent work on 

 their part. Behind them, we are told, is " a most 

 imposing philosophic and scientific literature; they 



