SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.1 Mr. W. S. Lilly has collected in Many Mansions (Chapman and Hall, 12s. 6d. net) a number of articles and essays —" Studies in Ancient Religions and Modern Thought" is the sub-title—which have either before appeared in a volume now out of print, or have been contributed to the Quarterly and the Fortnightly Review. Some of these have been added to and revised. We must be content with quoting a highly interesting passage which Mr. Lilly takes from a paper by the Archbishop of Albi, and to which be expresses his own adherence :—" Holy Scripture, so admirably divine from the point of view of religious inspiration, would be rather an obstacle to belief. It contains a number of facts, of stories humanly speaking impossible, contrary to experience, con- trary to the laws of nature, and more fitted to make us doubt the
contents of the Bible than to establish its veracity They [such `facts' as the Eden story] would even suffice to load us to regard as legendary any profane book which should relate them. If we believe in the Bible, it is because we have antecedent faith.
We do not believe in the Church because we believe in the Bible. No ; we believe in the Bible because wo believe in the Church." This puts the case clearly enough. But Mr. Lilly improves on it. "A man might be a Catholic without the Bible.' The position has its inconveniences ; but if it is accepted it puts the Abb6 Loisy and all his following out of court. Why should a man trouble himself about a book which is really not essential to belief ?
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