Scriptural and Catholic Truth and Worsh+p. By the Rev. F.
Meyrick. (Skeffington and Son. 5s.)—Canon Meyrick gives a clear history of Christian doctrine and practice as they existed in the Primitive Church (we should hesitate about including the fourth and fifth centuries), the Transitional, and the Medireval. So far we are taken by Parts I. and II. Part III. is devoted to the Anglican Reformation and its development, and Part IV. to the post.Reformation period, both within and without the Anglican borders. There is a certain danger of estimating too highly the doctrinal purity of the early Church, if "early" is to be so widely interpreted. The student who holds this view is likely to be confronted with some startling facts. Can we suppose that in the sixth century change was so rapid that it began with Scriptural simplicity and ended with the highly developed doctrine of Gregory I.? Canon Meyrick has collected some strange examples of the way in which private extravagances of devotion in the Roman Church are discouraged, permitted, sanctioned, and finally established. Such is the" Cult of the Hands of Jesus," where, in private worship, the hands, severed at the wrists, are adored. There is the worship of the Virgin, again. In this direction Pope Leo leaves very little to be done. Still, even he has not gone so far as to say that the communicant "receives her Body and Blood" (p. 256). And as to his own person he must feel, one would think, a little staggered to be told by one French Bishop that "the Pope is Jesus Christ hidden under a veil; he is as the Host upon our altars " ; and by another that "the Pope is the incarnation of the Holy Ghost" (pp. 257-58).
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