4 AUGUST 1894, Page 25

History of the Christian Church in the Middle Ages. By

the late Dr. Wilhelm Moeller. Translated from the German by Andrew Rutherford, B.D. (Swan Sonnenschein and CO—This volume carries on Professor Moeller's account of the Christian Church from the end of the sixth century, at which it was left by his earlier volume, down to the beginning of the sixteenth. The scale on which the history is written in this continuation is necessarily somewhat smaller than before, for the space is larger, and the period more crowded with figures ; but all the substantial excellencies of Dr. Moeller's work continue to be found in it, his profound learning and his calmly judicial temper being cons spicuou.s among them. We may instance, as exemplifying both, the subject, at once obscure and closely touching upon controver- sies still full of life, of the revolt against orthodoxy and discipline made by the Albigenses and the allied Beets in the twelfth century. The book is indeed primarily a book of reference. It does not pretend to give vivid and detailed descriptions, but it supplies the student with the means of making himself master of the subject. It is scarcely too much to say that from this point of view it is indispensable. Any one who may be called to give, whether orally or in writing, a view of some particular period in the first fifteen centuries, in relation to the growth and development of the Christian Church, cannot begin better than by consulting this standard work.