13 APRIL 1895, Page 24

The Imitation of Christ. With an Introduction by Archdeacon Farrar.

(Methuen.)—Dr. Farrar, in his introduction, deals at some lea gth with the question of authorship. He is inclined to. find the writer in Chancellor Gerson rather than in Thomas Hammerken. The book seems, he thinks, to come from one who has been in the world and has left it, rather than from one who has not known any place but the cloister. But if the evidence for Thomas is too strong—and certainly the external evidence is very strong—then "there is one escape from this psychological difficulty,"—" the book can hardly be regarded as the outcome of any single mind." This volume is printed in excellent type, " black-letter " it might be called, but that there is nothing archaic about the forms, There are five illustrations by C. M. Gers.