The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge has commenced a useful
and interesting series of little books, "The Fathers for English Readers," of which four are now before us, The Apostolic Fathers, by the Rev. H. S. Holland; Defenders of the Faith ; or, the Christian Apologists of the Second and Third Centuries, by the Rev. T. Watson; St. Jerome, by the Rev. Edward L. Cutts; and St. Augustine, by the Rev. William R. Clark. We are inclined to think that Mr. Holland places an exaggerated value on the writers whom he discusses. It would not be easy to point in literary history to a more singularphenomenon than the enormous gap between the writings of the Apostolic and of what may be called the sub-Apostolic age. Nor is it easy to resist the inference that something more than a merely literary difference must be acknow- ledged. The "Shepherd" of Hermes is one of the instances in which, as it seems to us, Mr. Holland much overrates his subject. It is difficult to imagine how any one, who is acquainted with the puerile fancifulness of this curious treatise (interesting, as it is for other reasons), should speak of it in the terms which are employed of it, as, for instance, the following :—" The book has a most wonderful charm for us j it is the first in which we Seem to breathe the earnest, pathetic tranquillity, the solemn peace that entranced us in the 'Imita- tion.' There is a stillness in the air, as we read, such as dwells in tender times of twilight, or in early dawn before the world is stirring, or in the deep quiet of Perugino's skies." This seems to us shooting quite
above the mark. Mr. Holland's style, indeed, though often genuinely rich and eloquent, would be better for some chastening. He devotes
considerable space to discussing the Ignatian Epistles, and developes a theory which seems to exaggerate the principle of Episcopacy into a fundamental article of the faith. The best part of the book is the historical portion, though the whole, as while differing from some of its conclusions, we gladly acknowledge, begins worthily the series. Mr. Watson's book deals with a subject which is to a great extent neutral. He has studied it carefully, and he treats it with judgment and ability. St. Jerome is an interesting book, in which the writer has to deal with a difficult subject, and holds the balance between opposing parties with discretion and fairness. We are scarcely inclined to agree with him in the value which he puts upon the revival of asceticism in the present day, but we gladly acknowledge that his judgment of the matter as it stood in the fourth century is temperate and sound. The volume is disfigured by one or two blunders, which look strangely out of place in the biography of so learned a saint, as "ars grammaticus" and "loculce." These, however, need not disturb or corrupt an English reader. To Mr. Clark's Saint Augustine NVO hope on some future occasion to return.
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