Selections from Early Christian Writings. By Henry Melvin Gwatkin. (Macmillan.)—"
It is hoped," writes the editor in his preface, " that the present volume will be found within its limits a fairly representative selection of original documents for the use of students." The period taken in reaches down to the time of Constantine. A certain licence is taken by Mr. Gwatkin in his selection. The first extract, for instance, is from Tacitus, describing the Neronian persecution ; the ninth is Pliny's letter to Trajan and Trojan's answer. In all, the extracts number seventy-four, and many of them are highly interesting. Few students of theology are wholly ignorant of the work of the early Christian Apologists and Fathers ; but their knowledge is almost universally second-hand. Not one in a hundred has ever read a word of either of the Clements, of Hippolytus, or Origen, or Tertullian, in the original. This is what Mr. G-watkin's little volume will now enable them to do. It is certainly a happy instance of the way in which knowledge is now being opened up to the many.
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