There is always good reading in the Hibbert Journal, but
the April number (Constable, 2s. 6d.) seems to us exceptionally, interesting. It is significant that the issue includes three articles on different aspects of mysticism. Dr. John Oman, the author of one of them, remarks that mysticism is a Phenomenon which " always appears in times of political disillusionment and intellectual discouragement." Dr. Oman is unsympathetic to the mystic ; Mr. Edmond Holmes, in another article on " The Mystic as Explorer," is at least doubt= ful of the value of self-centred mysticism. In a paper of considerable novelty and importance Mr. Ernest Pickering, who teaches English in a Japanese high school, tells us how his young Japanese students delight in what they have heard of Oxford ; he quotes some of their essays and urges that we should encourage Japanese students to come to England for a time, in the interests of good fellowship between the two nations. The editor, Dr. L. P. Jacks, comments sardonically on the too familiar phrase, " The Lost Leadership of the Churches," which was, he notes, in current use in 1902 when the Hibbert was founded.
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