SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this c,lunan d.es not necessarily preclude subuquent review.]
The Edinburgh Review.—The new Bishop of Hereford opens the January number of the Edinburgh Review with a thoughtful article on " The Church of England." Dr. Henson surveys briefly and clearly the history of the Church, in order to lend force to his warn- ing against the ecclesiastics who would wreck it in the name of spiritual liberty :—
" Such a Church, so ancient, so deeply rooted, so illustrious, can only fall from within. If the national idea be repudiated by the English clergy, and they refuse to conform to the conditions of a national establishment, neither the glories of its past nor the services of its present can preserve the national Church. . . . The movement for ` Life and Liberty ' is only an Anglican version of the Liberation Society."
Disendowment is inseparable from Disestablishment, Dr. Henson adds, and " poverty, as we have seen in the case of the monks and friars, may be as hostile to piety as to wealth." Mr. Robert Wilton, the veteran Times correspondent at Petrograd, has a striking article on " Dominant Facts in Russia," which should dispose of the idea that the Anarchist leaders are simple enthusiasts who do not know what hare) they are doing, and who might be talked into sense by a few Labour delegates from Western Europe. An un- signed article on " Early Phases of Food Control " is intended to show that the late Ministry did more than its critics gave it credit for. Mr. Harold Cox, the editor, has a valuable article on " The Finance of the War," urging, as the Spectator has done, that taxa- tion should be increased to provide the State with funds and to compel the citizen to exercise greater economy. Signor Arundel del Re's excellent account of " The Medici Archives," which are announced for sale by auction in London, confirms the view that this unique collection should never have left Italy, and should, if possible, be restored to her. Many friends of Italy would be -glad, we should think, to subscribe to a fund for the purchase of the great Lorenzo's papers, for presentation to his native Florence.
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