13 APRIL 1901, Page 23

THE BOOK OF PEACE.

The Book of Peace. Made by Pamela Tennant. (The Chiswick Press. 6s.)—This is a Very good selection of passages from the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the Imitation of Christ, including a number of poems and carols. It is divided into morning and evening portions, but it would need a very well-regulated mind to read only one extract and poem at a time. The quotations from the Bible are, for the most part, well known, such as that beginning, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels." There are also fine passages from the Apocrypha and Thomas h Kempis. The poems chosen cover a wide geld, from carols in old English spelling down to translations from Ihsen and Byirnson. We are glad -to find Herbert's verses beginning— - " When God at first made man,

Baring a glass of blessings standing by, Let us (said he) pour on him all we can, Let the world's riches that dispersed lie, Contract into a span " ;

and also Barnes's

" Come out of doors I 'tis Spring ! 'tis May."

Here is a specimen of the prose extracts :—" Love is a great thing; yea, a great and thorough good. By itself it makes everything that is heavy light, and it bears evenly all that is uneven. For it carries a burden that is no burden, and makes everything that is bitter sweet and tasteful. Love desires to be aloft, and will not be kept back by anything low and mean. Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing better or fuller in heaven or earth, because love is tr*.n of God, and cannot rest but in God. above all created things." We have one serious fault to find with the arrangement of this book. The names of the authors of the poems are only given in a list at the end, and there are no references at all to the prose quotations. A good index to the whole book, giving chapter and verse, is a really necessary addi- tion to this charming selection. The frontispiece is Bellini's "St. Christopher," and there are three illustrations by William Blake.