TincoLoorr. — Key to the Apocalypse. By H. Grattan Guineas, D.D. (Hodder
and Stoughton.)—We do not wish to make fun out of what are, without doubt, serious convictions in the mind of Dr. Grattan Guiness, though it would be only too easy to do so. He has been, in particular, so ill-advised aa to reproduce, after a certain Genevan divine of half-a-century ago, a moa., absurd pictorial representation of his prophetic theory. It will suffice to say that his main point is the identification of the Papacy with the harlot of the Apocalypse. In this view he is not by any means singular. Bishop Christopher Wordsworth took a view not unlike. Nor can there be any doubt but that the writer of the Apocalypse had Rome, though it was the Rome of his own day, in his mind. That Papal Rome is largely the heir of Pagan Rome can hardly be denied. Who can say how much of her supremacy in Christendom came with this inheritance ? On the other hand, we have to consider the fact which Professor Ramsay has brought into such prominence, the importance of the Roman Imperial system in the missionary work of Paul,—i.e., of the Christian Church. For without Paul the Church would hardly, to speak Kara avOpeorov, have passed beyond the limits of a Jewish community. We do not underrate the importance of the Apocalypse as an element in early Christian thought and history, but we strongly deprecate the use of such methods as Dr. Grattan Guineas's. He begins, by the way, by an assumption about the date of Daniel which few well- informed students would now attempt to maintain. Religion of Israel to the Exile. By Karl Budde, D.D. (G. P. Putnam's Sons.)—Dr. Karl Budde is Professor of Theology at Strasburg, and one of the contributors to the " Encyclopaedia Biblica." His theory of the origin of the Hebrew religion is that Jahveh was the tribal God of the Kenites, " the mountain God of Horeb, who appears to Moses and promises him to lead his brethren out of Egypt." But how, it may be asked, did this tribal faith rise above the level of its peers F Because it was the result, as far as Israel is concerned, not of inheritance but of choice. " Israel's religion became ethical because it was a religion of choice and not of nature because it rested on a voluntary decision which established an ethical relation between the people and its God for all time. There is something attractive about the theory. It accords with the undoubted importance of the Beni-Rechab in the Hebrew history. But is there anything like this national choice in history ? Why not, it might be asked, have recourse to a not more difficult hypothesis of a divine guiding ? Doubtless, in one sense, Professor Budde would accept it. We cannot fallow the lectures further—the volume gives the fourth series of the "American Lectures on the History of Religions "—but we may say that they are worth study.— The King and His Servants. By Edith M, Dewhurst. (Elliot Stock. 5s.)—This is a book of family devotion arranged on the Prayer-book lines. For every Sunday in the year there is a meditation suggested by the services appointed for the day. The Gospel and Epistle for the day are given (in reference). The volume seems to have been carefully prepared.—Ethics and Religion. A Collection of Essays by Sir J. Seeley, Dr. Felix Adler, and others. Edited by the Society of Ethical Propa- gandists. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 6s.)—We are not so sanguine about the results of ethical propagandism as some persons for whom we have a great respect. It has been tried
for some thousands of years with but little success, a success always limited to a narrow circle and liable to sad failures even there. The preacher of non-religious ethics chooses his own audience ; let him try his teaching on one that is chosen for him, as the priest of every kind has really to do. But we gather from the preface that propagandism does not mean "dogmatic incul- cation." We must not "descend from theory to practice." We do not mean to say that these essays are not worth reading and even instructive. Those of us who believe that the divorce of ethics from religion is injurious, if not fatal, to both, will yet learn much from these speculations. And they can be read with-
out offence. The only essay in which we seem to detect a tone of anything like hostility to religion is that entitled "Ethics and Theology," the work of Professor G. von Gizycki. The essays, twelve in number, have all, we should say, been already for some years published, and are now collected for the first time.
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