14 JANUARY 1922, Page 22

AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF RELIGION - Si - Tax student who takes up this

" Encyclopaedia of Religions the Deities, Sacred Books, Rites and Ceremonies, Institutions, Sects, &c., among the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans and others, as well as various primitive tribes —and among Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Jews, Muham- madans, and Christians "—will be disappointed. Elaborate and over-comprehensive as it is, it illustrates Matthew Arnold's remark, which one might have hoped was less true now than when Essays in Criticism was published, that " the journeyman- work of literature " is very much better done in France than here. "No one," he adds, "would use an English book of reference when he could get a French or German one."

This particular book of reference, which contains 397 pages in double column--i.e., some 750,000 words—has neither an index

• The Wisdom of the Beasts. By Charles Augustus Strong. London : Constable. [5s. net.] t An Encyclopaedia of Relioions. By Maurice A. Canney, London: Boutiedge. 1255.] nor a list of contents, and it is diffioult to see what, if any, principle. oi selection, has. been adopted. in its compilation. As an Encyclopaedia it is at once defective and redundant.. The account of Psycho-analysis is thin ;. there is no article on Psychiatry or on the New Psychology or on Modernism, on the Papacy,,on Catholicism the Synoptic Problem is. dismissed in a few lines. On the other hand, we find articles on the. Life and Liberty Movement, the Catholic Truth Society, the Protestant Alliance, the Christian Commonwealth newspaper, the Church Association, the Churchmen's Union ;, such minutiae of clerical tailoring,as the " Berretta " and the "Zucchetto" are described ; an account is given of obscure. American sects—" Tunkers," " Tumblers," " Shakers," " Junkers." ; and, under the head of " City Templeism," we read that " this name was given to the New Theology (q.v.) or the teaching of Mr. R. J. Campbell, formerly, minister of the City Temple, London."