institutions in their own country in which their children can receive a higher education. Of ancient books and writings little appears to be left in Yezd and Teheran. Special inquiries made by a European trav eler in those regions led to no result, and Mr. Manuktshee, who likewise spent some time in those places, was equally unsuccessful. It appears, therefore, probable that the hope which was expressed by W. Ouseley that important literary treasures might still be found among the Parsees will not be realized. The Parsees are not allowed by the Mohammedans to ride either on horseback or on asses, but they have always to travel on foot. Like other tribes subjected by Mohammedans they have to pay a capital tax, which amounts to about nine thousand francs annually, and is paid for them to the Persian Government by their coreligionists in India. The apostasy of their members to the Islam is encouraged by the law, which transfers the whole property of a Parsee family to that member which embraces the Islam.

In British India the descendants of the Parsees are in a much more fortunate condition than in their native land. They chiefly live in the Presidency of Bombay, where they numbered, according to the last census, more than 132,000 souls. Of these 44,000 lived on the island of Bombay, where they have three fire-temples, erected in the years 1780, 1830, and 1844. The English government has protected them from all oppression, and regulated by special law their marriage affairs, their property, and their hereditary laws. They have gained a very high reputation for honesty and intelligence, and as merchants, bankers, shipowners, builders of railroads, literary men, and, especially, as high-minded philanthropists, have taken an active and a very prominent part in the development of their second home. One of the noblest and most liberal merchants of India, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, received in 1842 the title Sir, and was in 1858 raised to the baronetcy. He spent more than £300,000 sterling for philanthropic purposes. His memory is perpetuated by a statue in the town-hall of Bombay. In London the Parsee commercial firm of Cama & Co. has been established. Recently a reform movement has sprung up among the Parsees of India, which aims at discarding the principle of a radical dualism. In reply to an English clergyman, J. Wilson, who some forty years ago wrote a work against the principles of the Parsee religion, two Parsee scholars denied that the sect had a doctrine that every thing existing in the world had proceeded from two principles. One of them, Doshabhai, maintained that the words found in the Vendidad on Ormuzd and Ahriman were only a parable of their prophet Zoroaster, describing the good and bad qualities in man. According to the other Parsee writer, Aspendiardjee, Ahriman is not a real being, but only a symbol for vice and evil. The doctrine of Dualism is also opposed in the Vadshar-Kart, a book which is ascribed to Mediomah, the uncle of Zoroaster, but which probably dates from a very recent time. According to this book Ahriman is a powerless creature of Ormuzd, who has created all creatures, useful as well as hurtful, each of which, however, serves for some purpose in the creation.

ART. IX.-FOREIGN LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

FROM the posthumous works of the late Dr. von Hofmann, one of the most distinguished theologians of the Lutheran Church, and Professor of Theology at the University of Erlangen, a new compendium of theological science has been published by Bestmann, (Encyclopädie der Theologie, Nördlingen, 1879.) The work does not give, as some might suppose from the title, a treatment of all important theological subjects in alphabetical order, but it gives the author's views on the entire system of theological science, its divisions and subdivisions, and their mutual relations to each other. All German students of theology are bound to hear a course of lectures on this subject, and of late quite a number of text-books on the subject have been published. The best known German work on the subject is that by Hagenbach; some years ago a shorter work was published by J. P. Lange, and recently a posthumous work of Emil Rothe, author of the great work on Christian ethics, has been announced.

Besides the Encyclopädie, a work on Biblical Hermeneutics has been compiled from the manuscripts and lectures of the late Dr. Hofmann. (Biblische Hermeneutik, Nördlingen, 1880.) It is edited by M. Volck.

The work of the late Bishop Haneberg, of Spires, on the Gospel of John, has been completed by the appearance of the second volume. (Ecangelium nach Johannes übersetzt, etc., Munich, 1880.) The editor of the work is Professor Schegg, who is himself the author of several exegetical works, and of a life of Jesus. The present volume also constitutes the tenth volume of a collective commentary to the Gospels.

The centenary of the birthday of De Wette (January 12, 1880) has called forth a short biography of the celebrated theologian, by Professor Stähelin, of the University of Basle. Most of the works of De Wette still have a wide circulation in revised editions and in translations, and a brief sketch of their author will therefore be a welcome gift to many of his admirers. The author of the sketch, Professor Stähelin, is well known in the theological world as a Church historian.

A special work on the "Account of the Temptation of Christ, Examined in Regard to its Historical Basis," has been published by A. Hünefeld, (Versuchungsgeschichte, Berlin, 1880.) The author takes as his guide the opinion of the Church historian Neander, according to whom the biblical account of the temptation contains not only an ideal; but a historical truth, which, however, is reported in a symbolical form.

The theological literature of Russia is steadily growing in importance, and begins to produce works which are favorably noticed by the scholars of Western Europe. A work by Barsow, on "The Patriarch of Constantinople, and his Authority over the Russian Church," (St. Petersburg, 1878,) is pronounced by a reviewer in the Theologische Literaturzeitung of Leipsic to be one of the best works published in Russia on Church history.

ART. X.-QUARTERLY BOOK-TABLE.

Religion, Theology, and Biblical Literature.

Fragments: Religious and Theological. A Collection of Independent Papers Relating to Various Points of Christian Life and Doctrine. By DANIEL CURRY. 12mo., pp. 375. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. 1880. Price, $1 50.

Platform Papers: Addresses, Discussions, and Essays on Social, Moral, and Relig ious Subjects. By DANIEL CURRY. 12mo., pp. 389. Cincinnati: Hitchcock &

Walden. New York: Phillips & Hunt. 1880.

Thousands of our Church who have felt the gratification of being readers in past years of Dr. Curry's productions scattered through our periodicals, and in other forms, will be glad to receive these two volumes, made up by his own hands, of selections from his mass of writings, and reduced to permanent form. In style and thought they are an acknowledged part of our literature, discussing the living topics of our Church and age in a free, bold, thoughtful spirit. Independence, individualism, and vigor, characterize all he writes. He has not, we think, much studied style and manner as an art; but his style of language takes form and character from his style of thought, being its natural self-investment. The genial humor that forms so large a part of his personal demeanor and conversation among his friends never appears in his writings. He abounds not in imagery, poetical or rhetorical; and calls to his aid only so much imagination as shall give shape to his logical conceptions. He enchants you with no fine metaphors, brilliant antitheses, or swelling climaxes. He is always in earnest, and goes on in his career of thought through the regions of pure intelligence. He has thus impressed his own personality upon his writings; and, through them and his various public activities, upon the mind of the Church.

Our limits do not, of course, allow our reviewing him through the varied topics of these two volumes. Nor need we say that in the great body of his utterances we accord very much with his views. But from the very fact that one of his "Fragments" is a trenchant critique upon a production of our own, involving extensive difference of opinion in regard to our Arminian theology, our "notice" must be, more than we could wish; controversial.

During a large share of Dr. Curry's career there are many who honestly have held the impression that he was "a Calvinist." This he has repeatedly felt called upon to deny, and has, no

doubt, with a profound sincerity, denied. The sincerity of that denial is demonstrated by the fact that he here brings together, mostly in the first of the above volumes, some of the decisive statements on which that impression has been based. His own self-exposition of his views, as here given, justifies, we think, the impression that in his theory of responsibility he is but dubiously Arminian, and that he makes concessions which weaken, if they do not knock from under, the props upon which his Arminianism rests. His wavering upon the freedom of the human will gives an apparent doubt and doubleness to all his views.

He affirms that the will is "free;" as all necessitarians do at the present day. He grounds this affirmation on our "consciousness;" and so does Prof. H. B. Smith. He affirms "a self-determining power;" and so does Dr. Shedd. He holds that the rational soul "rises above the passions, and acts by its own energy, and independently of all beyond itself; this is original volition." The younger Edwards, a rigid necessitarian, holds all that. Nay, every cause, however physical, which is a complete and sufficient cause, Edwards holds "acts by its own energy, and independently of all beyond itself." So far, we have not got beyond the most rigid necessitarianism. The question remains: Is this free causal agent limited to a solely possible result, or does he possess power for either one of the two or more alternative results? On this question-the vital question of the freedom of the will, the dividing question between Calvinism and Arminianism-Dr. Curry doubts, vibrates, and straddles. He coolly tells us (p. 19) that "The assumption of a contrary choice, always within possible reach, is only a theory invented to meet a supposed necessity." He discusses the "theory" more fully, (pp. 20, 21,) pervaded with a similar dubitation. Again, (pp. 25, 26,) it is argued that free-will does not solve the problem of sin "unless we assume that the power of free-will is wholly unconditioned and anarchical." Now, we hold that the freedom of the will is not "unconditioned," and we have endeavored in our volume on the Will, on pp. 68-75, and elsewhere, to show the "conditions and limitations of the Will's free action." And, when that analysis is completed, we hold that the solution of the problem of sin and responsibility is as complete as the solution of any other problem of theology. On many theological topics no more clear than this our respected brother is firm and positive; this, the decisive point between us and Calvinism, he selects for hesitating lips and weak knees.

On page 41 we find the following passage:

Should an automaton be endowed with consciousness and affection, it would seem to itself to act with entire freedom and from its own impulses; and yet, obviously, all its movements are the result of forces in itself that act independently of its own volitions, and by a law above the dictates of its will. The impulse determines the choice, and not contrariwise. The human consciousness may recognize the free action of the will, but it can know nothing of the impelling causes which lie beyond the range of its observations, and which may effectually control all the volitions of the will. The freedom of the will, as attested by the mind's cognizance of its own processes, may, therefore, be only formal, and, in fact, entirely necessitated.

Here is an illustration drawn from mechanics producing the conclusion that an apparent freedom of will may be only formal, and said will may, after all, be "in fact entirely necessitated." How does Dr. C. know that a conscious automaton would imagine himself to be free? If his consciousness included a Will he might wish to act counter to the controlling physical forces; and so a very cruel collision might result between Will and opposing force, rendering him terribly conscious of his slavery and misery. If Dr. C. means, however, as we suppose he does, psychological volitions in addition to the consciousness to be really substituted in the stead of the physical forces in his automaton, then we reply that we would have no longer a physical "automaton," acting under physical forces, but a volitional agent acting under motives, whose external actions are controlled by his will; and so it ceases to be an illustration by becoming an identity. For what is the use of telling us that a living conscious volitional being, controlling his own actions by his own will, would not know that he was free?* Equally nugatory is it to tell us that we cannot know causes beyond our "observations; " which, of course, we cannot. But causes we do know; the whole science of mechanics or of astronomy is built upon our known knowledge

*This argument of Dr. Curry's we have discussed, under the illustration of a "conscious watch," in our volume on "The Will," p. 365. Dr. Fisk answers Leibnitz' similar illustration drawn from a compass needle (repeatedly used by Dr. C.) in his "Calvinistic Controversy, p. 164.

And how explicitly Dr. Fisk grounds a genuine Arminianism on a genuine alternative power of the Will may appear from passages like the following:"Both parties agree that man is a free moral agent; both maintain that he is responsible; but we maintain that what the Calvinists call free moral agency is not such in fact as is commonly understood by the term, nor such as is requisite to make man accountable. What is that power, or property, or faculty of the mind, which constitutes man a free moral agent? It is the power of choice, connected with liberty to choose either good or evil. Both the power and liberty to

choose either good or evil are requisite to constitute the free agency of a probationer."-Page 149.