29 AUGUST 1908, Page 22

SOXE BOOKS OF nig NuEN.

(Under this Twilling we notice such Books of Pe week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.] In the "Handbooks of Church Extension," Edited by W. 'U. Dodson, MA., and G. IL. Bullock-Webster (A. R. Mowbray and Co., 2s. net per vol.), we have two volumes, South Africa, by the Right Rev. A. Haroiltoa Baynes, and 4astralia, by the Heir. E. David. Bishop Baynes, who at ope time occupied the much- diaputed Sea of Natal, has the more diffserilt taelt, AO he hes accomplished it with much success. We 40 not, it may he, regar4 the questions discussed from exactly the same standpoint, but we gladly acknowledge the fairness and liberality with which Bishop Baynes examines them. The painful storiof the Colenso con- troversy, for instance, is told in an excelleat spirit. One peipt of supreme importance does not appear. What was the iatrinsie worth of Bishop Gray's condemnation of Colenso? What has been the course of opinion during the fifty yearEi that have passed siace then? Would any one now be condemned for holding that the Leviticus ritual is of much later date than the Exodus, and that the numbers and other details of the wilderness wanderings cannot be accepted? Happily, there are other subjects besides the controversial that have to be dealt with. Here Bishop Baynes is naturally more at his ease, and gives us a very goqd narrative. The Australian Church has not been without diffi- culties; but it has not had the fortune, good or bad, to have such protagonists as Gray and Colenso. For the most part its con- troversies have been about organisation,—the question of the Primacy, for instance. The reader will find an interesting and• illuesioating account of the growth and development of the Church. These, judged by the ordinary test of numbers, have certainly been most satisfactory.