12 AUGUST 1899, Page 25

Country Life, Illustrated. Vol. V. (Hudson and Kearns. 21s.) —This

is the half-yearly volume of a journal that appeals to "all interested in country life and country pursuits." It is quite im- possible to give any adequate account of its contents. It is a collection of quidquid agunt ruricohe, and, we may add, the urbani, when they find the opportunity of rusticating. Sport in all its branches, games, the garden, the field, the dairy, the past and the present of rural life,—these and many other things are treated of, and handsomely illustrated. The journal is one that gives a more than adequate return for its modest subscription. THNOLOGY.—Th• Evangelical Succession. By Thomas F. Lockyer, B.A. (C. H. Kelly. 2s. 6d.)—Mr. Lockyer thinks that the "wide- spread triumph of church' principles" is due to the power of the ideal which they present. Accordingly he seeks to controvert them by holding up "a greater and truer ideal," an "evangelical succession "—i.e., an inheritance of faith and righteousness—as against an "ecclesiastical succession,"--i.e., an inheritance of privilege. There are extremes in this as in all questions. There is the mechanical view of those who hold that the Church would perish if all its officers capable of handing on the succession were to be simultaneously destroyed (said to have been the aim of the persecuting Decius), and there is the negation of all order by those who think that Christianity begins, so to speak, afresh in every individual believer. But this is not the place for such questions.— /renics and Polemics. By Leonard Wolsey Bacon. (Christian Literature Company, New York.)—Mr. Bacon is an iconoclast. Perhaps the most famous image that he demolishes is the gracious likeness which various admirers have presented to the world of St. Francis de Sales. "Two Sides to a Saint" is the title which he gives to his essays. The side with which the world is familiar is the mild evangelist ; the other side here presented is the unscrupulous zealot who, having spent twenty.seven months in the attempt to convert the Chablais from Pro- testantism without gaining as many converts, let loose upon it a regiment of Spanish ruffians. These were much more successful evangelisers. When one of them had split a pastor's skull with his sabre the flock were found amenable to argument. Another image of a very different kind is William Lloyd Garrison. A third, also different, is the real "Prisoner of Chillon." The " polemic " of our author is a very formidable weapon ; for the " irenic " we cannot say quite as much.—Edward White Benson. By Randall Thomas Davidson, Bishop of Winchester. (Macmillan and Co. le. net.)—This is an able appreciation of the lath Primate's work, given in the form of a sermon preached on occasion of the unveiling of the monu- ment in Canterbury Cathedral. "Four or five times in his public life," says the preacher, "ho stood alone, or nearly alone," and proceeds to give three instances of his firm adherence to a policy unpopular at the time, but justified by events. These are the reconstitution of the bishopric in Jerusalem, the revival of the Archbishop's Court for the trial of a Bishop, and the refusal to approach in any way the See of Rome in the matter of Anglican Orders.— Calvary and the Tomb. By the Rev. Evan H. Hopkins. (Marshall Brothers.)—Mr. Hopkins has given us here a careful study of the "Holy Sepulchre" question. It is a pity that he could not keep himself from using hard words. Be these true or not, they destroy the judicial character which is essential to a summing up of evidence. Mr. Hopkins pronounces emphatically against the traditional site, and of its two rivals, the tombs respectively known as "Conder's " did "Gordon's," gives a preference to the latter. Golgotha he sees in " Jeremiah's Grotto" ; to this "Gordon's Tomb" is very close. When the course of the second wall is definitely and incontrovertibly defined, an event not at all improbable, the question will be considerably narrowed. Mean- time, though generally agreeing with Mr. Hopkins, we Gannet accept his argument that the word " encircled " "cannot be applied to a wall that forms a sharp angle."