aires.

Among the advantages noticed are the comforts, the pleasures, the luxuries, the objects of beauty, the aids to health, the improvement of land, the educational advantages, and the relief of distress and suffering that can be provided for by them. The most serious disadvantages under which very rich people labor is in the bringing up their children, defending them from habits of self-indulgence, laziness, and selfishness; and in performing the responsibilities inherent to the power that attends wealth, a sense of which responsibility may become so painful as to quite overcome all enjoyments made possible by riches. In themselves great riches rightly acquired are not an evil. Like most other things and forces in this world, those who possess them are a mixed product, and may work either good or evil for themselves and their children, for their neighborhood and their nation, in accordance with the use or misuse made of them. From all which the conclusion is reached that it is not wrong for a man to make and use a large fortune, and quite unnecessary in this country for its citizens to feel alarm about the rise of a permanent class of very rich people.

The brochure on "Wealth and Worth," by Mr. Hensel, is a painstaking and brilliant inquiry into the moral quality of the acquisition, ownership, and transmission of property, from the standpoint of a Christian lawyer whose rare equipment for performing the service he has rendered is in evidence from start to finish of his discussion. Their personal acquaintance with the author, and their knowledge and admiration of his literary and legal attainments, will furnish most of the readers of THE REFORMED CHURCH REVIEW in advance with some idea of the force and eloquence that characterize his presentation of arguments in these pages. This "inquiry" of his bears many of the marks that belong to all great writing. It shows a command of broad and competent knowledge gathered from classic and scientific, historic and moral, realms. Its contentions move rapidly and logically along, keeping attention on the alert, invariably clothing themselves in language

that is at once plain and dignified, forceful and appropriate. It pleads its cause with the intense warmth and earnestness that are born of deep conviction, but at the same time with a self-restraint that leaves the impression that a great deal more could be said, and said with added emphasis, were it necessary to do so, to carry conviction. And its conclusions bear the impress of that "sweet reasonableness" which disarms opposition and wins assent to them.

Take an example in illustration, from the sentence or two quoted at random. "Labor is God's appointment; it is man's obligation; the material and forces of nature are his inheritance. Therefore, all wealth, or capital, or riches, as you may please to style, what one saves out of what he makes, above what he eats, is of divine origin." "Inherent in mankind and throughout all nature there is the tendency to acquire, increase, exercise, retain, and transmit material possessions. I believe this is sanctioned by God and the better experiences of man; that the tendency to despise and condemn it, and to promulgate the doctrine of communism, and to attack the rights of property, is as destructive of the interests of organized society as it is repungnant to every decent system of ethics or religion." This reprobated tendency, it must be admitted, however, is not only the echo of a considerable amount of religious teaching, but a fair reflex of widely prevailing popular opinion and intense political effort. If on the one hand, there never has been an age of such collossal fortunes as the present, there certainly never has been a time when attacks upon property, wealth and contract were so venomous, so vicious and so popular."

Some of the mean things said about money, and the ease with which assault upon those who possess it can be excited, receive our author's attention. Preachers "wailing that we should take no thought for the morrow"; poets and lovers "breezily singing that even in the wilderness 'a Loaf, a Jug and Thou,' are quite enough"; philosophers with their lanterns, "finding no man honest whose house is bigger than

their tub," and political demagogues proclaiming that "the irrespressible issue between democracy and plutocracy is at last on, and that all men must now choose either to range themselves with the vicious 'classes' or take sides with the virtuous masses,' "—all these are given a hearing and the fallacy and dangerousness of their arguments and purposes pointed out and demolished. The entire community, rich and poor alike, ought to acknowledge the great indebtedness that is owing Mr. Hensel for the signal service he has so courageously rendered by his masterly advocacy of an unpopular cause,—the rich, for being justified in their rights of making, holding, and transmitting wealth and for being reminded of their responsibility to carry food to those that are hungry, light to those that are in darkness, life to those that are in death; the poor, for being warned against the enemies of social order and righteous progress, and for being told that their true friends are not those who would misuse and mislead them-who would incite them to discontent or move them to a sense of wrong— but rather the sympathetic heart, the benevolent hand, the sagacious brain of wealth conscious of its divine mission. BALTIMORE, Maryland.

IX.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

"THE NEW THEOLOGY."*

The author of this volume has taken rank among the great English preachers of this generation. His ministry in the City Temple, London, bears testimony to his ability to preach the gospel and to win the hearts of men for Christ. No one questions his sincerity and his devotion to truth and righteousness. His voice has been heard on two continents and his words are read throughout the English-speaking world. One of his critics in the British Weekly says of him: "He has assuredly a magic power of attraction, such as is possessed by very few men. He has drawn multitudes to his ministry, and of these a large proportion have been touched by no other preacher." When a man of this kind, one whom the people trust and love, writes on theological questions, he will have a host of readers. His recognized leadership in the pulpit, no less than the contents of his book, will explain the fact that more than a hundred thousand copies were sold in a month and that translations have already appeared in several languages. The world is evidently still interested in God, eternity, and salvation. Men like Mr. Campbell, who are able to speak of the great mysteries of life in the simple language of the people, are not so much creators of thought as revealers of the hidden thoughts and intents of the heart. Different theological tendencies are brought to light and the undefined longings and aspirations of the common man are made manifest. For this reason, if for no other, we welcome "The New Theology."

"The New Theology," by R. J. Campbell, M.A., Minister of the City Temple, London. Pages 258. Price $1.50 net. The Macmillan Co.,

New York, 1907.

It was written, according to a statement in the introduction, at the request of a number of my friends who feel that recent criticisms of what has come to be called the New Theology ought to be dealt with in some comprehensive and systematic way." In fourteen brief chapters, containing 253 pages, beginning with a statement of presuppositions and ending with the Church and the Kingdom of God, we have a popular presentation of Mr. Campbell's theology. The book may be called a cross between a doctrinal treatise and a sermon. The author evidently writes with his audience before him, and those who have read his sermons will at once recognize the preacher. One would not expect the style or even the method of a Schleiermacher or a Ritschl from Mr. Campbell. He does not write for scholars, nor is he lecturing before students of theology. He is speaking to the people of his parish, if not indeed of England and the Christian world generally. He has consequently been somewhat centemptuously treated by trained theologians. Dr. Fairbairn has termed the book a farrago of nonsense." The editor of the British Weekly has called attention to the fact that Mr. Campbell "took his position in the Free Church ministry without any formal study of theology, that is, he never attended so far as we know any theological seminary. . . . His methods are all utterly inimical to exact thought, and so if he is misapprehended, he has himself to blame." Men of liberal tendencies, whom the author might have expected to agree with him, have expressed their dissent. Canon Hensley says: "I chiefly differ from Mr. Campbell because in my opinion he dangerously underestimates the fact of sin and the consequent need of atonement. My conviction is that if Christianity is to be a power in human life we must preach Christ Crucified." Some one wrote to Prof. Haeckel, the German scientist and philosopher, for a criticism of the book. The following reply was received by telegram: "I regret sickness, which keeps me from work, prevents me from writing about Mr. Campbell's so-called New Theology. Moreover, I regard it as useless from the gen