phant. To be capable of rejoicing with them that rejoice and of weeping with them that weep is to have in you the mind of the Master."

"People should be taught to talk less, think more and pray most."

"If, in the first place, a man really has his eyes fixed upon Our Lord, he is not likely to think in terms of sacrifice of the dedication of himself to the Master's service."

"I believe it to be an error in judgment to call for volunteers to teach in Sunday school and so to present the matter as to create the impression that the volunteer is doing the Church a favor."

"We must, as it seems to me, seek [Christ] and find Him in mystical communion; but what we gain at the altar we must spend on the world."

"The spread of the Kingdom is hindered because friend will not talk to friend about its coming."

"There are few utterances more dogmatic than those of thinkers who affirm that the creeds are outworn.

"The man who is ready to cheer an exhortation, to discard dogma and strive to spiritualise human society would at least ask for time to consider a proposition to wipe out the Constitution and the Supreme Court and instead to influence people to be just."

The book is a distinct challenge to both pulpit and pew.

T. P. BAILEY.

THE WORN DOORSTEP. By Margaret Sherwood.
Brown, & Company.

New York: Little,

The story is written in the form of a diary by an American woman settled in England during the present European war. Her lover having been killed in the first year of the conflict, she seeks refuge in a little out-of-the-way village, hoping to find peace and solace in her sorrow. For a time she lives in the past, communing with the spirit of her dead lover, thinking only of him, working only for him, unable to understand or to measure With Madge to keep house for her and

the extent of her loss.

Madge's husband, Peter, to look after the garden, she settles

down to a quiet life, intending to shut the world and its cares outside. But soon the waves of war reach even to her remote nook, and she finds herself drawn out of herself and her own sorrows in aiding Belgian refugees. Though she is not blind to the faults of her adopted country, she comes to appreciate more fully than ever what England stands for: "liberty for the individual, fair play,-these watchwords of England are the hope of the human race. . . . . Under her [England's] rule, the individual has his chance of self-government . . . . he is not compelled to become a soulless cog in a gigantic conscienceless mechanism." So in the end she is comforted in the thought that her lover gave his life for the cause of human freedom, and that "life has no greater boon than a chance to die for one's faith." It is a simple, touching revelation of a keenly sensitive, sympathetic soul, told with kindly humor, delicacy, and charm.

A COUNTRY CHRONICLE. By Grant Showerman. Illustrated. New York: The Century Company. $1.50

Having achieved a reputation in the essay as a gentle humorist, Professor Showerman enters a new field as a chronicler of boy life and gives an account of a ten-year-old youngster's experiences on a farm in the Middle West. The boy tells the story in the first person throughout and describes old country dances, temperance lectures, talks on politics (which he hears at the store), the making of snow forts, the shovelling out of the road, the gathering and boiling down of maple sap, and many other rustic scenes and incidents. Thus we become intimately acquainted with nearly all aspects of farm life in the earlier days and learn to know and admire the splended qualities of some of the earlier settlers who came from the East to make their homes in a new section of the country. Seen through the boy's eyes it is a pleasant picture, but we can read between the lines something of the sublime courage and faith that entered into the characters of the sturdy pioneers. Though the Chronicle consists in rather a losely connected series of incidents in a boy's life, there is a unity of effect throughout both in the point of view and in the style, which, without depending on dialect or on the ungrammatical speech of boyhood, reproduces in fresh, clear,

truthful fashion the thoughts and feelings of a typical American country boy. As a sympathetic, realistic, humorous portrayal of boy nature, this Country Chronicle is worthy of a permanent place in our literature, and it has value as an accurate record of characters and conditions now fast passing away. The illustrations by George Wright are excellent.

UNION PORTRAITS. By Gamaliel Bradford. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. $1.50 net.

PORTRAITS OF WOMEN. By Gamaliel Bradford. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. $2.50 net.

Mr. Bradford's previous books, Lee the American,—one of the most sane and sympathetic estimates yet made of the great Southern leader,-and his Confederate Portraits, have established his reputation as an analyst and interpreter of character. In these two volumes he extends his studies to include typical leaders of the North: McClellan, Hooker, Meade, Thomas, Sherman, Stanton, Seward, Sumner, and Bowles, all of whom he treats with impartiality and fairness. His characterizations are not only interesting, vivid, and individual, but also of historic value in the light they throw on various phases of the war between the States. His Portraits of Women, including Lady Mary Montagu, Lady Holland, Miss Austen, Madame D'Arblay, Mrs. Pepys, Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Deffand, Madame de Choiseul, and Eugénie de Guérin, are no less successful examples of what Mr. Bradford calls the "art of psychography." The purpose of this art, he explains, is to disentangle those habits, "the slow product of inheritance and training, from the immaterial, inessential matter of biography, to illustrate them by touches of speech and action that are significant, and by these only, and thus to burn them into the attention of the reader, not by any means as a final or unchangeable verdict, but as something that cannot be changed without vigorous thinking on the part of the reader himself." His portraits reveal a nicety of discrimination, a delicacy of touch, a refinement of taste, a keen sense of humor, psychological insight into character, as well as power of dramatic delineation.

HOW TO KNOW THE MOSSES. By Elizabeth Marie Dunham. New York and Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

This is a popular guide to the mosses of Northeastern United States, containing keys to eighty genera and short descriptions of over one hundred and fifty species with special reference to the distinguishing characteristics that are apparent without the the aid of a lens. "If it were not for the mosses,' we read in the Introduction, "it is difficult to say how barren the woods would be or how much beauty would be lost to nature." Scientific in arrangement, the book succeeds nevertheless in presenting the subject in a simple, non-technical way, and opens up a new source of enjoyment for us on our walks through the woods in winter. It is a practical guide for use either in home or school.

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY OUTLOOK UPON HOLY SCRIPTURE. By Edward Lowe Temple. Washington and Richmond: B. F. Johnson Company.

The first six chapters (pp. 18-57) are devoted to a discussion of the character and method of revelation; chapters vii-xxvii take up in detail the books of the Old and the New Testament; and the final chapter deals briefly with "The Bar of History." In his preface the author frankly and humbly disavows all claim to originality and quotes Montaigne: "I have here only a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together." The book is set forth "with the devout and humble prayer that, by the Blessing of God, it may prove to be of real service in His glorious cause." With all due credit for the author's zeal and sincerity and honesty of purpose, most readers will regret that he has not restrained himself within reasonable limits and reduced his book by at least one half of its present proportions.

SIX ONE-ACT PLAYS. By Margaret Scott Oliver. American Dramatists Series. Boston: Richard G. Badger. $1.00 net.

These little plays, written in prose, exhibit considerable range in subject and treatment. They are clever and readable, and suitable for amateur performance in the home or the school.

The Old WivES' TALE. By George Peele. Edited with notes and an introduction by Frank W. Cady. Richard G. Badger. 60 cents net.

This edition is prepared with a view to the actual presentation of the play on the stage in school or college, and grew out of Professor Cady's experiences in presenting the play at Middlebury College in 1911.

THE NEW PURchase, or SeVEN AND A HALF YEARS IN the Far West. By Robert Carlton (Baynard Rush Hall). Princeton: The University Press. 552 pp., illustrated. $2.

In 1818 the United States purchased from several Indian tribes that portion (approximately) of the present state of Indiana lying north and east of the Wabash river and comprising what is now thirty-seven counties. In 1823 Dr. Hall, a young Princeton graduate arrived in this new territory and for the better part of ten years labored as a pioneer teacher, being elected the first professor in the Indiana Seminary, now Indiana University. In 1843, after his return to the East, he published this book under the nom de plume of Robert Carlton. It met with great success, and in 1855, through the efforts of a New Albany, Indiana, publisher, a second edition was brought out. This edition, however, failed to reawaken public interest, and the book had been almost forgotten, until last year, when the Princeton Press decided to reproduce it. As showing the primitive conditions and describing the difficulties and hardships of the pioneer settlers of Indiana, it is of great interest to the historian, but its length and its style are such as to prevent it from becoming a popular F. S. H.

success.

ROY IN THE MOUNTAINS. By William S. Claiborne, Archdeacon of Tennessee. New York: Edwin S. Gorham.

A plain, straightforward narrative of how Roy, born in Virginia just after the Civil War, saved up his earnings as bookkeeper and jack-of-all-trades to a railroad contractor, went to college, graduated, entered the ministry, and became rector of the mountain missions near his alma mater. It is a record of splendid determination, self-sacrifice, and devotion to duty, interspersed with realistic scenes of mountain life.