The Official Year - Book of the Church of England, 1905. (S.P.C.B.
3s.)—This volume appears for the first time without the name of the editor so long associated with it. Mr. Burnside conceived the idea of the book nearly a quarter of a century ago, edited the first issue in 1882, and for twenty-two years continued, latterly under the burden of much suffering, to spend upon it a vast amount of gratuitous labour. No idea of what that labour comes to can be gained except by personal inspection of its pages, numbering as they do close upon seven hundred. It is needless to say that they have the most varied interest and utility. Much of the value of the statistics depends upon the willingness of the clergy to make the returns asked for.- It is satisfactory to see from the table on p. ay. that out of some fifteen thousand incumbents; only eighty failed to do so. In ten out of thirty-five dioceses there was no return missing, and, as will be seen, the average was little over two per diocese. It is worth noting, in view of the discussion now proceeding as to the rearrangement of the diocesan boundaries of Canterbury and Rochester (on occasion of the establishment of the new See of Southwark), that the population of twelve dioceses is larger, and that of twenty-two smaller, than the population of Canterbury. The Archbishop's diocesan work ought, in considera- tion of the many claims on his time, to be reduced to a minimum, whereas it is above the average. Sixteen contain more incum- bencies and eighteen fewer. We see a useful summary of "Recent Church Literature," giving notices, of course neutral in character, of nearly two hundred and fifty books.
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