17 SEPTEMBER 1910, Page 24

SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.

[Under this heading we notice such Books of the meek as hays not boon reserved for retrisw in other forms.] The Development of Christianity. By Otto Pfleiderer, D.D. Translated by Daniel A. Huebsch, Ph.D. (T. Fisher Unwin. 5s. net.)—Professor Pfleiderer's book may be read with much advantage by those who do not accept his premisses. His account of the various tendencies and movements which are to be found in the history of the Christian Church is admirably impartial, and, being the work of a writer profoundly acquainted with his subject, instructive in the highest degree. But his premisses cannot be accepted by those who are Christians in the ordinary sense of the word. These may differ widely in matters of criticism, interpreta- tion, &c., but they would consider any utterance of Christ as final. Professor Pfleiderer writes :—"This new religious principle was in Jesus in the germ, in his pious attitude, in his active faith in God, and in his pure love of man ; but it was still in the Jewish forms of the messianic idea and confined to the Jewish people." To put this into other words :—"*The Christianity of the twentieth century is a much higher, broader, and nobler thing than the Christianity of Christ and His Apostles."