5 NOVEMBER 1887, Page 44

Witnesses for Christ. By Edward Baokhouse and George Tyler. 2

vole. (Hamilton, Adams, and Co.)—These two volumes are, in fact, a fragmentary Church history, giving an account of prominent per- sonages and events during a period of about nine hundred years (337.1229). This is divided into four parts, the first period (" The Death of Constantine to the Death of St. Augustine ") occupying the first volume. The object of the work is admirable,—to do justice to the true Christian element wherever it can be found, whether in canonised saint or in heretic. And, to a certain extent, this object is carried out. Wherever the authors can do justioe to some despised, maligned, or persecuted confessor of an unpopular truth or protester against a popular error, they do their beet. But the task is diffi- cult, if not impossible. We never shall know more about most of these men than their enemies choose to tell us. We may pronounce that to be false; hat this helps no a very little way towards the truth. Still, there is something to bo learnt from these two volumes. They want revision ; tested by each a book of reference as "The Dictionary of Christian Biography," they will be found sometimes wanting and sometimes incorrect. A feature of some value and interest is to be found in the illustrations, especially the photographs and fac-similes.