The Paranoia. By J. Stuart Russell, M.A. (T. Fisher Unwin.)-
This work, which appeared somewhat more than eight years ago, we noticed at the time at considerable length. The author, while speaking in complimentary terms of our critique, has to " confess his die- appointment that no serious attempt has been made to disprove any of his positions," and accordingly sees "no reason to cancel a single sentence of what he has written." Our attempt was quite serious, but no more successful than such attempts commonly are. It would be useless to repeat it; but we may say that one of the most astonishing propositions of the book—that the saints living at the time of the Second Appearance of Oar Lord (as Mr. Russell conceives of it) were actually caught up into the air—is not made more pro- bable by a reference to the Christian Charoh at Jerusalem that we find in the preface to the new edition. Indeed, the author seems to be himself a little doubtful. "Admitting," he Bays, "that the predictions do not require an absolute and universal removal of the whole body of the faithful," Jo., and goes on to point out the distinction between the watchful and the unwatohful. There were "faithful," then, who were " unwatchful." But does not this mean that, at some time in the early days of the Church, it lost by one stroke all that was vigorous and holy in it ? A recent writer on the persecutions of Diocletian speculates as to what would have been the result if the Emperor had simultaneously destroyed all the Bishops, and so put an end to the succession. But what would this have been to the simultaneous removal of every genuine Christian At the same time, we may say that we heartily welcome the reappearance of so very able a book as The Parousia.
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