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word of commendation. It would be difficult to find more admirable examples of carefully wrought and eloquent rhetoric than the pages of "Christ and the Eastern Soul" present-the rhetoric which is profitable not for embellishment merely, but also for the illumination and enforcement of the thought. This leisurely movement of an adorned and stately argument, with its courteous introductions and recapitulations and its refreshing interludes of illustration must have been peculiarly grateful and effective with an oriental audience.

And the style is the man. Dr. Hall's invariable attitude to his oriental hearers is that of a winning sympathy and appreciation, an assumption that they and he equally revere the truth, a single-hearted endeavor to interpret to them a Christianity to which they cannot be indifferent, since its "natural soil" is the Orient. He discovers no necessary and irreconcilable hostility between the religious faiths of the West and the East. Each possesses something that the other needs. "The truth that is in your several faiths cannot be shaken by your assimilation of the faith of Christ." "Today the greatest religious need of the world is for a Christianity deepened and spiritualized through the recovery of elements germane to the oriental consciousness and best interpreted thereby." In the ears of some, these words are overbold. And when Dr. Hall puts aside the consideration of western ecclesiastical institutions as of no significance for essential Christianity and in the spirit of a thoroughgoing monist refuses to regard pantheism and Christianity as "mutually exclusive types of thought," it is inevitable that the doubt should arise that he is making extravagant, if not unworthy, concessions to prepossessions and convictions of the oriental mind. To all such suspicions his noble protest in the opening lecture against the attribution to him of a spirit of flattery furnishes a convincing reply. The accusation is indeed a serious one, for to sustain it would go far to invalidate the entire content of these lectures. The task to which Dr. Hall addressed himself was to set forth not the differences between the oriental consciousness and the Christian religion but their many agreements and correspondences, and to show to educated Indians the need of "oriental co-operation in the larger interpretation of the divine life to the world." "He vehemently protested," says Bishop Brent in his Introductory Note, "against the theory that the evangelization of the educated Indian was hopeless because of his intellectual pride, and that Christianity's sole opportunity lay among the low-caste poor and the pariahs." To this high task Dr. Hall brought, as his book abundantly testifies, an intellectual equipment gained by long ineditation upon the sacred books of the East, together with the ardor of a singularly lofty and disinterested spirit.

If Christ and the Eastern Soul does not appear to some to be in the truest sense of the word a missionary book, it is because they are taking too narrow a view of the missionary endeavor. For it will live precisely because of the contribution it makes to the forces that are working for the evangelization of India. Its temper and its attitude will give it an enduring value, quite apart from its philosophical basis and the form of its argument, impressive as that is acknowledged to be. It sets forth most persuasively a missionary method, the method, indeed, of the successful presentation of Christian truth to the mind of India. May we not expect that Dr.

Hall's method will be more generally employed in the future, or rather that more men may be called into the missionary service capable of employing it, that his profoundly Christian spirit, his deep sympathy with India, and his large hope for its future may kindle in their hearts?

In a previous book, Le christianisme et l'extreme-Orient, Canon Joly has reviewed at considerable length the history of Roman Catholic missions with the single purpose of showing how little has actually been accomplished in return for a vast expenditure of treasure and of life. At the end of thirteen centuries of toil, of sacrifice, and of martyrdom the Catholic church can claim today but four million disciples as over against the eight hundred million adherents of non-Christian faiths. This scanty and humiliating result, as the "vieux chanoine" esteems it, is due chiefly, he contends, to a mistaken missionary policy on the part of the Jesuit fathers. They have everywhere and always refused, or at least failed to establish, autonomous and self-perpetuating churches, and the history of their missions, in consequence, is marked by a long succession of disappointed expectations and arrested undertakings. This vigorous and plain-spoken arraignment by an obscure secular priest of the most powerful and influential party in the church made, of course, a stir in ecclesiastical circles. At home and abroad arose protests, denials, and explanations, with not a few expressions of approval and encouragement as well. Many readers admitted the force of the argument and demanded for it serious consideration. In the present volume2 Canon Joly returns to the attack. His second book, notwithstanding its length, is, in fact, both in substance and style, a controversial pamphlet, and by virtue of its vigor, its vivacity, and its humor it must prove to all parties concerned very good reading. How account, demands Canon Joly, for this long-continued refusal in the plainest contradiction of apostolic precedent to furnish the churches in foreign lands with a sufficient equipment of native priests, and to set over them a

Le problème des missions: tribulations d'un vieux chanoine. Par Chanoine Léon Joly. Paris: Lethielleux, 1908. 316 pages.

native bishopric? The European, he replies with an evident relish of his own plain speech, "is infatuated with himself." The justice he administers is the only justice he will recognize. The European missionary is very humble, to be sure, before God; but he regards himself at the same time as very superior to the Hindu or the Chinese to whom he preaches the gospel. The suggestion that a native might be found worthy to be invested with sacred orders is stupefying to the superior European mind. It follows that the cause of Christianity in the hands of such advocates is easily identified in the eyes of the common people, and even of governments, with European political aggressions, and, what is worse, with the scandalous lives. of European residents. While Christianity remains a European doctrine it is the thing to be expected that it should be easily overthrown in recurring persecutions provoked by its exotic character. Until the indigenous clergy are much more numerous and are accorded a complete equality with the European clergy it is to be feared that the church, however disinterested and heroic its effort, is building its house upon the sand.

But what if the superiors of the Company of Jesus will not repent and mend their ways? To Canon Joly the future of European interests of whatever sort in the Orient is dark with the threatening of disasters. In his closing chapter, "Missionaires et le mouvement anti-européen," he predicts the eventual triumph of the oriental national movement. When that day comes the missionaries will suffer first because they have not been able to separate themselves from the hatred in which all Europeans are held. Let us be warned in time and make preparation to leave Asia to the Asiatics. If Christianity is to survive that upheaval it will be as it finds shelter in the self-governing churches of Asia, an indigenous growth planted in oriental soil.

Canon Joly's problem, it will be seen, is essentially the problem which all missionaries, Protestant or Roman Catholic, must meet. His conception of the church may be quite erroneous and his apprehensions of European overthrow altogether groundless; but his conclusion cannot be disputed, that the Christianity of the Orient must in the end become an oriental Christianity.

Protestantism in Japan3 deals with a question closely resembling that which vexes the soul of the "vieux chanoine." The really important discussion to which M. Allier's intelligent and agreeable narrative brings us in the end is again "the indigenous church." Christianity in Japan, proscribed fifty years ago, later somewhat grudgingly tolerated, enjoying

3Le protestantisme au Japan (1859-1907). Par Raoul Allier. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1908. ii+262 pages. Fr. 3.50.

today the largest and most complete freedom, is now increasing in strength and influence, in recovery from a serious check, and is controlled more plainly than once by an evangelical spirit. But among a people whose patriotism still glows hotly with the recollection of the victory over Russia, which even in the twentieth century holds the divine descent of the emperor as an article of the national faith, and claims an equal place with the greatest of the European powers, it is impossible that the Christian churches should continue to acknowledge dependence, in any form, upon occidental Christianity. An all-but universal protest is raised against the continued acceptance of western creeds and ecclesiastical organizations solely upon the authority of the missionary. "The Japanese will consent to become Christian only on condition that Christianity shall become Japanese." This, says M. Allier, is "an imperious demand of the soul of the people." It does not appear to be easy to define or to describe with accuracy this nationalized Christianity of the future. A Japanese writer says, in imposing but vague language, "It will be the Christianity of Christ and of the apostles, perfectly digested and assimilated by Japanese human nature." We can 'only await its arrival. M. Allier thinks we need not wait long. Japanese Christianity "has been announcing itself" for eighteen years. "The hour appears to be at hand when it will break forth into bloom." When it arrives-to put it bluntly-the missionary must go. His task is completed. There will be no place for a foreign teacher in a full-blown Japanese Christianity. Denominational distinctions, too, imported from the Occident, must go. The Japanese will not much longer submit to the oppression of a past which is not their But independence prepares the way for something still better, namely, consolidation. Indigenous self-supporting, co-operating churches will at no distant time be merged in the one national Christian church of Japan. Such is M. Allier's forecast. This matter looms large upon the pages of his book, but it must not be thought that they do not contain other and hardly less interesting discussions, upon Shintoism, for example, and its failure as a religion; upon a liberalized and, so to speak, Christianized Buddhism; upon the intrepid attempt of the government schools to teach morality, apart from religious sanctions; upon the moral crisis of Young Japan, upon the utilitarian motive prompting the acceptance of Christianity on the part of not a few of the leading men of Japan. The book may be cordially commended for its candor and comprehensiveness, for its large views, and for the skill with which its material is massed and unified.

own.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

A. K. PARKER

BRIEF MENTION

OLD TESTAMENT

CASPARI, W. Aufkommen und Krise des israelitischen Königtums unter David. Ursachen, Teilnehmer und Verlauf des Absolom'schen Aufstandes. Berlin: Trowitsch und Sohn, 1909. vii+138 pages. M. 4.50.

This study sets forth fully and carefully the various causes contributing to the outbreak of the revolt under Absalom. Its origins are traced back to the circumstances attending the founding of the monarchy. Caspari points out clearly the indisputable fact that the monarchy was not universally acceptable to the Israelites. The establishment and growth of the monarch's influence and power inevitably ran counter to the ambitions and wishes of many of the most influential citizens. Saul had failed to rally all interests around the throne and David's course was beset with most serious obstacles. Absalom was to a large extent only the tool of the disaffected interests in Israel. From this point of view the task of David assumes far greater proportions and the strength of his personality appears conspicuous. The study is well conceived and worked out and furnishes a fine precedent for similar detailed investigations of other periods of Hebrew history.

1.]

SCHNEIDER, H. Zwei Aufsätze zur Religionsgeschichte Vorderasiens: Die Entwickelung der Jahureligion und der Mosesagen in Israel und Juda; Die Entwickelung des Gilgameschepos. Mit zwei Abbildungen. [Leipziger Semitistische Studien, V, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909. 84 pages. M. 1.80. Rarely can so many startling statements be found within forty pages as are furnished by the first of these two studies. Only a few of them may be cited here: Israel's Egyptian oppression was endured, not in Egypt, but in Palestine, and the line on the Merneptah-stele is the proof of it. Israel and Judah had originally nothing whatever to do one with another; they entered Canaan in entire independence of each other. The tribe of Judah and the Aramaic tribe Ja'udi were originally identical and both worshiped the god Jahu after whom they were named. This god Jahu originally was represented in the form of a serpent; hence the bronze serpent which was not destroyed till Hezekiah's time. Later the serpent form gave way to a human figure which continued in the temple until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B. C. Moses is throughout a mythical figure; his work, his life, his very name are unhistorical. The evidence furnished for these and other similar propositions is very slight and far from convincing to a historian. But the author promises us a larger work in which he will substantiate these positions. Meantime we must possess our souls in patience. The second study devotes itself to the history of the growth of the Gilgamesh epic, tracing it from its earliest discoverable form through all the succeeding stages. Students of Babylonian literature and religion will find this discussion of value.

MERX, A. Der Messias oder Ta'eb der Samaritaner, nach bisher unbekannten Quellen. Mit einem Gedächtniswort von K. Marti. [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, XVII.] Giessen: Töpelmann, 1909. 92 pages. M. 5.

This was the last work of Professor Merx, whose sudden death just at the close of the eulogy pronounced by him at the graveside of his colleague Hausrath occurred last

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