SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK;
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the meek as has, not beim reserved for scrims in other forms.] Church and People. By the Rev. W. J. Sexton. (Skeffington and Son. 2s. net.)—Mr. Sexton describes his book as "an attempt to answer the question : What has the Church of England done for the People of England ?" He gives an historical sketch in which he shows how the Church has worked for morals, civilisation, and freedom. With much of his contentions we agree ; sometimes he seems to be in the wrong. Whatever we may think of Laud as a theologian, there can be no question that as a statesman he brought the Church into a most perilous position by allying himself with the personal government of Charles I. The para- graphs about criticism might have been profitably omitted. "The four Gospels," Mr. Sexton tells 1213, are a collection of "four accounts of the Gospel written by the very men whose names they bear." The result of recent criticism is to establish this as to the Second and Third, and to make it highly probable as to the Fourth. As to the First the case is _different; no competent person believes that as it now stands it was written by Matthew.
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