The name of Archdeacon Charles stands for a fearless and
original treatment of religious themes, informed by profound
scholarship. Hence his new volume of WORMS, The Resur- rection of Man, which Messrs. T. and T. Clarke have appro- priately added to their " Scholar as Pm-earlier" series, should find many appreciative readers. Nine of these sermons, which were preached in Westminster Abbey. are directly concerned with the great problem of personal immortality. These trace the gradual development of belief in man's resurrection from its emergence about :100 n.c. in the Old Testament to its full expansion and spiritualization in the teaching of Christ and St. Paul ; and then go on to give the chief argu- ments for and against a blessed future life. The Archdeacon has sonic caustic things to say about the irrational notions of immortality which infect much pious literature, and especially popular hymns. He insists that according to New Testament doctrine the " resurrection life " is not something which begins at the death of the body, but is already possessed by all who are "reborn.' These (and only these) puss on at death to an existence in which the spirit has " power to clothe itself in a body adapted to its new environment, or probably to any environment to which it may be summoned by God." Here, then, we have stated with a fresh persuasiveness that doctrine of conditional immortality which has attracted so many modern minds. Included in the volume is the sermon preached at the consecra- tion of the present Bishop of Birmingham. We note with interest that the text was Luke i., V. 76.
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