religious creed was, at least in the main, a creation of the national imagination at a period when reflection and experience could scarcely have existed. It was recommended to subsequent generations, not merely by the indefinable charm of poetry which was thrown around it, not merely by the antiquity which shrouded its actual origin, but by its accurate sympathy with the genius as with the degradations of the gifted race which had produced it. But of late years we have heard less of the attempt to apply the doctrine of the mythus to a series of well-ascertained historical events, occurring in the mid-day light of history, and open to the hostile criticism of an entire people. The historical imagination, steadily applied to the problem, refuses to picture the unimaginable process by which such stupendous "myths" as those of the Gospel could have been festooned around the simple history of a humble preacher of righteousness. The early Christian Church does not supply the intellectual agencies that could have been equal to any such task. As Rousseau has observed, the inventor of such a history would have been not less remarkable than its subject; and the utter reversal of the ordinary laws of a people's mental development would have been itself a miracle. Nor was it to be anticipated that a religion which was, as the mythical school asserts, the "creation of the Jewish race" would have made itself a home, at the very beginning of its existence, among the Greek and the Roman peoples of the Western world. If, however, we are referred to the up-growth and spread of Buddhism, as to a phenomenon which may rival and explain the triumph of Christianity, it may be sufficient to reply that the writers who insist upon this parallel are themselves eminently successful in analysing the purely natural causes of the success of Cakya-Mouni. They dwell among other points on the rare, delicacy and fertility of the Aryan imagination, and on the absence of any strong counter-attraction to arrest the course of the new doctrine in Central and Southeastern Asia. Nor need we fear to admit, that, mingled with the darkest errors, Buddhism, vast as is the population which professes it, has never yet found its way into a second continent; while the religion of JESUS CHRIST is to be found in every quarter

Buddhism

Not expanding.

Mahometanism.

of the globe. As for the rapid and wide-spread growth of the religion of the false prophet, it may be explained partly by the practical genius of Mahomet, partly by the rare qualities of the Arab race. If it had not claimed to be a new revelation, Mahometanism might have passed for a heresy adroitly constructed out of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Its doctrine respecting JESUS CHRIST reaches the level of Socinianism; and, as against Polytheism, its speculative force lay in its insistance upon the truth of the Divine Unity. A religion which consecrated sensual indulgence could bid high for an Asiatic popularity against the Church of CHRIST; and Mahomet delivered the scimitar, as the instrument of his Apostolate, into the hands of a people whose earlier poetry shows it to have been gifted with intellectual fire and strength of purpose of the highest order. But it has not yet been asserted that the Church fought her way, sword in hand, to the throne of Constantine; nor were the first Christians naturally calculated to enforce their will forcibly upon the civilized world, had they ever desired to do so. Still less is a parallel to the work of JESUS CHRIST to be found in that of Confucius. Confucius, indeed, was not a warrior like Mahomet, nor a mystic like Cakya-Mouni; he appealed neither to superior knowledge nor to miraculous power. Confucius collected, codified, enforced, reiterated all that was best in the moral traditions of China; he was himself deeply penetrated with the best ethical sentiments of Chinese antiquity. His success was that of an earnest patriot who was also, as a patriot, an antiquarian moralist. But he succeeded only in China, nor could his work roll back the invasion of Buddhism which took place in the first century of the Christian era. Confucianism is more purely national than Buddhism and Mahometanism in this respect; it contrasts more sharply with the worldwide presence of Christianity, Yet if Confucianism is unknown beyond the frontiers of China, it is equally true that neither Buddhism nor Mahometanism have done more than spread themselves over territories contiguous to their original homes. Whereas, almost within the first century of their existence, the Church had her Missionaries

Confucius.

The Church always spreading.

in Spain on one hand, and, as it seems, in India on the other; and her Apostle proclaimed that his Master's cause was utterly independent of all distinctions of race and nation. At this moment Christian charity is freely spending its energies and its blood in efforts to carry the work of JESUS CHRIST into regions where He has been so stoutly resisted by these ancient and highly-organized forms of error. Yet in the streets of London or of Paris we do not hear of the labours of Moslem or Buddhist Missionaries, instinct with any such sense of a duty and mission to all the world in the name of Truth as that which animates at this very hour those heroic pioneers of Christendom whom Europe has sent to Delhi or to Pekin. . . .

Who was He that had thus created a moral force which could embrace three centuries of a protracted agony, in the confidence that victory would come at last? What was it in Him, so fascinating and sustaining to the thought of His followers, that for Him men and women of all ages and ranks in life gladly sacrificed all that is dearest to man's heart and nature? Was it only His miracles? But the evidential force of miracle may easily be evaded. One main object of St. John's Gospel appears to have been the furnishing an authoritative explanation of the moral causes which actually prevented the Jews from recognising the significance of our LORD's miracles. Was it simply His character? But to understand a perfect character you must be attracted to it, and have some strong sympathies with it. And the language of human nature in the presence of superior goodness is often that of the epicurean in the Book of Wisdom: "Let us lie in wait for the righteous, because he is not for our turn, and he is clean contrary to our doings. He was made to reprove our thoughts; He is grievous unto us even to behold, for His life is not like other men's, His ways are of another fashion." Was it His teaching? True, never man spake like this Man; but taken alone, the highest and holiest teaching might have seemed to humanity to be no more than "the sound of one that had a pleasant voice, and could play well upon an instrument." His death Certainly He predicted that in dying He would draw all men unto Him; but Who was He that could thus

turn the instrument of His humiliation into the certificate of His glory? His Resurrection? His Resurrection indeed was emphatically to be the reversal of a false impression, but it was to witness to a truth beyond itself; our LORD had expressly predicted that He would rise from the dead, and that His Resurrection would attest His claims. None of these things taken separately will account for the power of CHRIST in history. In the convergence of all these; of these majestic miracles; of that character, which commands at once our love and our reverence: of that teaching, so startling, so awful, so searching, so tender; of that death of agony, encircled with such a halo of moral glory; of that deserted tomb, and the majestic splendour of the Risen One;-a deeper truth, underlying all, justifying all, explaining all, is seen to reveal itself. We discern as did the first Christians, beneath and beyond all that meets the eye of sense and the eye of conscience, the Eternal Person of our LORD Himself. It is not the miracles, but the Worker; not the character, but its living Subject; not the teaching, but the Master; not even the Death or the Resurrection, but He The cause, Who died and rose, upon Whom Christian thought,

Christian love, Christian resolution ultimately rests. The truth which really and only accounts for the establishment in this our human world of such a religion as Christianity, and of such an institution as the Church, is the truth that JESUS CHRIST was believed to be more than Man, the truth that JESUS CHRIST is what men believed Him to be, the truth that JESUS CHRIST is GOD.

BOOKS.

IN The Sacrifice of Praise (Mozley and Masters, pp. 37) the duty and privilege of almsgiving as a thank-offering to God is systematically treated of. The injunctions for the payment of tithes in the Old Testament are also set forth as are the customs of heathen nations, who, by requiring, as they in very many instances did, that a tenth part of their increase should be given to religious purposes,

Field

lead us to conclude that they, as well as the Jewish patriarchs, derived their knowledge of that duty from the tradition of a Divine command. The use and blessing of the weekly offertory are dwelt upon, as are also the advantages, the benefits, and the limits of private almsgiving. Nothing rivets the affections of individuals to the Church more than the contributing to her maintenance. Freewill offerings of thankfulness for blessings received are chains of attachment which nothing but relapse into self-willed forgetfulness of benefits can break. One who understood human nature said, 'If you wish to make converts, do not give money to them, but take money from them."" The instances of the blessings of almsgiving which are narrated towards the end of the tract impart to it a value and character of its own. They who wish to awaken parishes to the duty and blessing of Christian liberality will find much in The Sacrifice of Praise which will help them in their work.

A Memorial Sketch of F. J. Cookesley, by his father, the Rev. W. G. Cookesley, published by William Hunt (pp. 103) is a little work which will give much pleasure to all who take an interest in Missions. The subject of this memoir was born in February, 1839, at Eton, where he spent twelve years of his life at school. He is said to have been a boy of fair abilities, and of much energy and decision, as well as thoughtful and serious. He was from his childhood remarkable for purity of mind, guileless simplicity, and a saintly life, was much given to prayer, and had an absolute disdain of sin. We are also told that he felt, before he was five years old, a desire to be a Missionary which never left him. He entered St. Augustine's College, Canterbury, where he spent three years happily and profitably. He loved his College and its Warden, and it was always in after years a delight to him to hear of an Augustinian. In 1860 he went as Missionary of S. P. G. to Natal, and the Memoir is mainly composed of extracts made by his father from a diary which he kept from that period. Though not of age for ordination, he said the Church prayers on Sundays with the passengers during his voyage to Africa

While on board ship he was ready to visit the sick and to say the last prayers of the Church over the dead. Much of his time was occupied by the study of the Kafir language. Owing