SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Rooks of O. week as hays not buns rsurved far review in other forms.] The Expositor : Sixth Series, IV. Edited by the Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll. (Hodder and Stoughton. 7a. 6d.)—Perhaps the most remarkable papers in this volume are the two which bear the title of "An Individual Retrospect of Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century." They are, however, of a kind with which criticism cannot deal. The writer relates experiences in which the reader, whatever his sympathies, cannot fail to recog- nise the note of absolute sincerity. The original standpoint may be expressed by a reference to a book once well known, now, we imagine, almost forgotten,—Milner's "Church History:' To Milner the Visible Church was as notaing. The true society was to be found where the traditions of a spiritual life had been preserved. He would probably have accepted it as quite possible that every duly ordained priest and Bishop in the world was a mere worldling, and that the really true Christian ministers were a few Waldensian or Albigensian pastors. The oentinuity of the Anglican Church, as commonly understood, did net interest him in the least ; the true continuity he would trace in an obscure succession of true believers, mostly regarded as heretics by their contemporaries. Of other articles we may mention Professor W. M. Ramsay's acute reasoning on the Census of Quirinus. If we can put back the birth of Christ to B.C. 6, and imagine hindrances which delayed the Census—as is proved to have happened elsewhere—we escape the chief difficulty. Other important contents of the volume are Mt David Smith's six articles on "Recent New Testament Critioism," and Dr. Mathe- son's series, " Scientific Lights on Religious Problems." But the whole volume is, as usual, made up of valuable materiaL Is it not doubtful whether St. Paul in 1 Con ay. was consciously quoting Meiaander xpnire. is in all probability the correction of a scribe for the xpaerci which is found in the beat MSS,
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