Sermons for the Christian Year. Trarslated from the German of
the late Richard Rotho, D.D. With a preface by W. R. Clark, M.A. (T. and J. Clark, Edinburgh.)—In this selection from Dr. Rothe's Sermons all are not of equal merit, but some are really powerful. We are re- minded by tliem of a voice now heard no more,—that of Professor Maurice. The reader becomes conscious of a strange power in this preacher by which words that in the mouths of many are little but names, start into life and become awful realities. We have marked as worthy of special attention a sermon with the title, "Tribulation and Comfort." In another, "The Christian's Conflict with Life," Dr. Rothe says, "Fighting is certainly a grand word, and one which flatters our imagination and vanity, but fighting in itself does not make the Christian." He goes on to show what is the final aim of our enemy- & thing which in our " fighting " we forget—to rob us of our love:— " The evil enemy would willingly tear thy love from thy heart The enemy of thy peace will endeavour to disgust thee with the life of this world in which God has placed thee, will deprive thee of the desire to love with a divine love this world, which thy God yet loved before thee,—to lead a life of love in it, and to do good in the land of thy bit- terest enemy." We give one more quotation from a discourse whieh reminds us of one of Professor Maurice's most striking sermons, that on "The Power of His Resurrection:"—" Shall this resurrection of Jesus no longer be able to produce the same effect on us now, after so many centuries which lie between? Why not? Perhaps because the fact of the resurrection of Jesus has no longer for us the same undoubted certainty as for the Apostles. Strange ! and so by the great chain of historical, mighty works by which Jesus has proved himself for 1800 years the ascended Lord, raised to the right hand of the Father, by which he has removed the old history of the world from its place, and called forth a new form of the world, which by no accident is called by his name, is his resurrection to be made doubtful ? No, no, my friends, this resurrection is, and remains to all times, an im- movable and unshaken fact, as firm as a rock, upon which you may confidently set your foot. It is just that one of all the strange facts of the divine revelation the attempts to lay which aside are most visibly frustrated ; and an event which we cannot imagine out of the world's history without making the mere existence of Christianity in the world an inexplicable mystery." One remarkable peculiarity of these ser- mons is that they will be acceptable to thoughtful men of all parties to High Churchmen, Low Churchmen, and to Broad Churchmen, alike. All will find much in them with which they will be able to sympathise, much which will raise them above the ordinary level of their thought ; something also, doubtless, which they will not accept, as we cannot accept this statement :—" Regeneration is a work which always must begin at some particular period of time, and that period must be known to every one of us." Who can say that he knows the period when the "death unto sin" first began to work in him?
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