to be the greatest empire the world has ever seen, with a territory of 9,000,000 square miles and 300,000,000 subjects of the Queen, and now only waits the statesman whose genius shall gather it into one mighty federation, animated by loyalty and dignified by freedom. When that day shall come we may hope that

the united Anglo-Saxon race, English and American, will join hands across the Atlantic, and, disdaining all possible occasion of quarrel, cement a lasting alliance which will insure the peace and progress of the world.-Fortnightly Rcview.

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TEACHINGS OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES, RECENTLY DISCOVERED AND PUBLISHED BY PHILOTHEOS BRYENNIOS, METROPOLITAN OF NICOMEDIA. Edited with a Translation, Introduction, and Notes. By Roswell D. Hitchcock and Francis Brown, Professors in the Union Theological Seminary, New York. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. According to the history given us of this somewhat remarkable fragment of the earliest Christian literature (for as such, if its pedigree be authentic, it yields only to the New Testament Scriptures), the MS. of which it is a part was a find of Bishop Bryennios in the library of the Most Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople. Other parts of the same manuscript consist of Chrysostom's Synopsis of the Old and New Testament ;" The Epistle of Barnabas ;" The Two Epistles of Clement;""The Epistle of Mary of Cassobelæ to Ignatius;" and · Eight Epistles of Ignatius." "The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles" Διδαχή των δωδεκα 'Aπоσтоλv occupies about four pages out of the one hundred and twenty of the manuscript, and consists of about twenty-five hundred words. It was published in Greek last year in Constantinople, and it is now produced in English (the Greek being given on the alternate page). It is believed to have been written in its present form in the year 1056 A.D., the assumption, of course, being that it is a transcript from an earlier MS., the date of which is fixed early in the second century. Accepting this supposition, it is reasonable to believe that the author knew those who had sat under the teachings of Christ's immediate successors and so received the stream of instruction from very near the fountain head. Such a testimony cannot fail to be of vast interest to the Christian world.

It is impossible to suppress a tendency to scepticism in accepting the facts as given us. The fact that Shapira very recently so nearly succeeded in palming off his impudent forgeries

on the Christian world and even hoodwinked several eminent scholars, is only one instance out of many, which will recur to the mind, of cunning imposition, which nearly attained its purpose. That there should be an extraordinary eagerness to discover fresh manuscripts relating to Christianity in its early period is but natural, and no less natural is it that there should be attempts to gratify this hunger by deceptions. It is singular, certainly, that a manuscript of this importance should have remained so long unknown in a library so well known and so easily accessible to scholars. When Tischendorf discovered the Codex Sinaiticus" in the year 1850 in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and made it known to the world, there was less occasion to wonder. The library of St. Catherine's had always been strictly and jealously guarded against western scholars, and Tischendorf was one of the first who got access to its treasures.

Putting all these questions of authenticity, however, aside, let us glance briefly at the general character of "The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles." Its Greek is the provincial Syrian Greek of the New Testament, and the whole tone of it is eminently archaic. In all respects it corresponds with the spirit of the age to which it is credited. The internal evidence is in its favor. That such a manuscript existed is vouched for by the fact that it is alluded to in the writings of several of the Greek patristic authors. It will not be very difficult then for the critic to find both discernment and conviction in studying the accepted Christian canons side by side with it. The work is divided into sixteen short chapters, and in them we find more or less learning on all the ethical and practical teachings of Christ and His apostles. To the theology imposed by Paul on the teachings of Christ we find no allusion, nor any recognition of it even indirectly. The citations for the most part are from Matthew and Luke. Mark and John are

ignored, as are Revelation, and, as indicated above, all the important doctrinal epistles of Paul. There are more allusions to the apocryphal than to the accepted books of the Old Testament.

Special interest will be found in the light thrown by the manuscript on the opinions and practices of the early Christian Church. Those who believe in immersion as necessary to baptism will find a disagreeable rebuff in the fact that this new Christian word distinctly refers to sprinkling" as the current method, though the neophyte should stand in running water. So again there is a warning against indiscriminate almsgiving. Among the orders of the Church no elders are mentioned. The doxology is uniformly used with the Lord's Prayer, though in the revised version of the New Testament it was omitted as not properly belonging there. There are very singular rules laid down concerning the reception of apostles and prophets. For example, the faithful are inhibited from entertaining a visiting apostle for more than two days, a desire on the part of the latter to remain a third day being branded as the mark of a false prophet. We should consider such treatment inhospitable nowadays, but probably there was a good reason for it when the communistic character of Christian society made the thrifty and industrious peculiarly liable to become the prey of lazy impostors. Scattered through the brief chapters the reader will find many curious side-lights as to the feelings and habits of the early Church. There can be no question that this work is in complete accord with the spirit and character of the Gospels. Christian thinkers will receive it with the warmest curiosity, and hardly fail to find in it ample to justify their faith. The translators have given us the text of the manuscript without any of the elaborate glosses and notes of Bishop Bryennios originally published with it.

PETER THE GREAT, EMPEROR OF RUSSIA: A STUDY OF HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY. By Eugene Schuyler, Ph.D., LL.D., author of "Turkestan." In two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Dr. Schuyler, now U. S. Minister to the Court of Athens, has for many years occupied important diplomatic posts in Eastern Europe, and has therefore had singularly favorable facilities for the kind of work, so notable an example of which now lies before us. Distinguished in college for his linguistic talents and bent for historical and archæological study,

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his long residence in Russia as Consul to Moscow, naturally turned his attention to Russian history, which has in the past been so largely alloyed with tradition and misconception. Certainly, prior to the appearance of Dr. Schuyler's Peter the Great,' no adequate biography of this remarkable ruler had ever been given to the world. Our readers will remember the serial publication which ran so long through the numbers of Scribner's Magazine (now the Century), and which was afterward published in book-form. The present edition consists of the matter of the first issue thoroughly revised and for the most part rewritten, with a large amount of entirely fresh matter. The author has found occasion to modify some of the views expressed in the earlier work, and this last revision may be regarded as expressing his maturer views. He has drawn his material from original authorities in the Russian and Swedish languages, and the evidence of most thoroughgoing investigation is plain beyond all questions. However critics may object to the author's convictions, there can be but one opinion as to his profound knowledge of the field which he surveys, in this biography, which is not merely the life of one man, but a key to the whole history of Russia.

Peter the Great is one of the colossal figures of modern European history, and a fit subject for the pen of a great historian. In many respects as rude and violent a barbarian as any of the subjects whom he sought to raise from their estate to a place among the civilized nationalities of Europe, he possessed a powerful, far-seeing mind, which grasped all the conditions of the present and the possibilities of the future. His youth was passed amid turbulent and precarious surroundings, and his advent to the throne endangered by the intrigues of his own family. The social and political facts constituting the environment within whose mould his character was forged and tempered, acting on a bright and piercing intelligence, easily account for the ambition for reform on the part of one who, with all his faults, was a genuine lover of his people; they also account for the restless and reckless vigor with which that ambition was carried out. Peter was coarse, cruel, and resolute in destroying all obstacles which intervened in his path. But whatever crimes he committed in marching to his goal (and these crimes were neither few nor trivial), they were not done to further selfindulgence nor ignoble purposes, for he was one to spare himself as little as he spared

others. If any historic deduction shines out with luminous clearness, it is that the consuming motive of Peter's whole career, which fevered his soul without rest, was to uplift Russia from her grovelling degradation socially as a people, politically as a nation, to a lofty place in the European galaxy. That he fell far short of his ambition in the results achieved only sets that ambition forth in more a picturesque and vivid light. The terrible vigor of the monarch's character displayed itself early in his reign. He became convinced that the great Prætorian Guard of the Streltsi, one of the traditional institutions of Russia, made the foundations of his power unsteady. He acted with characteristic energy and cruelty. He did what Mehemet Ali afterward did with the Mamelukes. The Streltsi were taken by surprise, disarmed, and literally butchered; shot down, hanged, beheaded, tortured, annihilated, and their families treated with little less cruelty. Peter did not believe in scotching a snake. It is said that he himself and many of his highest nobles even wielded the executioner's axe in some cases. This sanguinary episode of a barbarous age, revolting as it is, was a logical outcome of its causes. The education of such a career makes us wonder but little that Peter in his later life was able so completely to stifle his natural feelings for his son Alexis, when he became convinced that that son stood in the way of the life work, which had become hardened into a fanaticism.

What Peter did for Russia is well known, at least in outline, to every school-boy. How he did it has been narrated by Dr. Schuyler with a fulness of detail, with a grasp of all the underlying as well as exterior conditions of the age, and in powerful and fascinating yet exceedingly simple style. There is no attempt at the pomp of diction which the subject might so easily justify. The main purpose has been to present a picture of the great Czar and his age in sober and truthful colors. This desire to be accurate and judicial is everywhere patent. That the author unconsciously softens the harsh and repulsive traits of his hero is probably true. But we doubt whether any great biography was ever written unless the author was thoroughly in love with his hero. Appreciative criticism in such cases comes nearer to the balance of truth than depreciative criticism. Peter's faults and crimes, gigantic, like all the traits of the man, perhaps make us better understand the forces which he was compelled to stem. The author takes no little pains in limning the rough geniality of Peter's

character, which frequently, however, degenerated into brutal aand undignified aspects, and his strong devotion to his friends, most of whom were foreigners by birth. To their advice and influence the monarch felt that he owed much, and he proved it by the sincerity of his friendship. Dr. Schuyler does full justice to his striking personality as a man and to his greatness as a ruler; and the picture he makes, though painted with studied moderation, is full of high lights and deep shadows. The two volumes are embellished with a great number of engravings, portraits, illustrations of Russian life and customs, battle-scenes, etc., and are an excellent specimen of good bookmaking.

THROP.

THE LIFE AND POEMS OF THEODORE WINEdited by his Sister. With Portrait. New York: Henry Holt & Co. When Theodore Winthrop fell at the battle of Big Bethel, at the very outset of the war, it was felt that a very valuable victim had been sacrificed. The public had not then become callous through the effects of profuse and longcontinued bloodshed. The youth and social distinction of the fallen soldier, his brilliant literary talents, whose early fruits (destined never to be ripened) foreshadowed such a splendid career, the heroic gallantry which led to his death conspired to send a thrill of grief, almost sentimental, even among those who had never known him. Theodore Winthrop was born in 1828 and graduated at Yale College in 1848. He spent three years abroad, and shortly after returning home went to Mexico and Central America, thence to California and Oregon, and returned home overland. The latter journey bore fruit afterward in more than one of his books. He did not settle down regularly to literary work (though he had practised his 'prentice hand in a great number of experiments, poetry and prose) till 1854, though even then he was nominally a law-student. He was admitted to the bar, but never seems to have practised. His time was devoted to writing, and he seems to have persevered untiringly, though publisher after publisher refused his books. It is sad to say that it was not till after his death that any of his more ambitious works were published, though his magazine articles and stories had found cordial acceptance. Cecil Dreame," the last novel he wrote, was the first published. The recent death of the author and the power of the romance in itself made it brilliantly successful, and then followed in rapid succession "John

Brent, "Edwin Brotherloft," "Love and Skates," and two volumes of out-door adventure and travel-" The Canoe and Saddle," and "Life in the Open Air." The latter two are delightfully fresh and vivid pictures by forest and lake, of prairie and mountain. The poems, which are given to the world in this volume of biography and reminiscence, are not such as will enhance Winthrop's literary reputation. They are in many respects crude and callow, and one cannot rank them as more valuable than the literary recreations in rhyme, wherewith all men of literary taste sometimes regale themselves. Though marked by feeling and imagination, the entire lack of distinctive feeling for poetic art-form is everywhere apparent. It was in his prose that Winthrop moved with a sure and certain step, the easy master of his work, though the publishing craft utterly failed to appreciate him till death lit a torch on his tomb. His novels are marked by boldness of invention, largeness and symmetery of plan, grasp of character, and a singular and felicitous union of robustness and subtlety. There is a fresh breezy air blowing through his books, even when he deals with mystery or melancholy, which should be a good tonic for a morbid reader. Had Winthrop lived and labored to the full development of his fine talents, there can be no doubt that he would have snatched the highest prizes of American authorship That he would have created a model of the story-teller's art entirely different than that which has the vogue now in the James-Howells school of finicky refinement and over-analysis it is not far away to assume. It is pleasant that such a volume as this memorial should awaken the younger generation to the merits of one whom the elders remember with singular pleasure and interest.

DARWINISM STATED BY DARWIN HIMSELF. CHARACTERISTIC PASSAGES FROM THE WRITINGS OF CHARLES DARWIN. Selected and Arranged by Nathan Sheppard, author of Shut up in Paris," etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

This is one of the few books the title of which suffices to explain perfectly its whole scope and purpose. In spite of the fact that the researches and theories of Darwin have gone far to revolutionize the whole channel of modern science, and even of philosophy, and in spite of the fact that his name is familiar in the mouth of nearly every one with any pretence of culture, it is probably true that very few have read 'The Origin of Species" and

the "Descent of Man." Like many another great thinker, his teachings are more talked about than accurately known, and so far as known, known at second-hand. This is the case with great names in literature proper -Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Goethe, Schiller, Montaigne, etc. It is even more the case with great scientific lights, where some special intellectual training and love of truth must enter to overcome the fiction of study. Mr. Sheppard's service to the reading world is that he has selected from Darwin's voluminous writings all the salient and characteristic passages which best illustrate his theories and present the researches and reasonings on which these theories are built. He succeeds in presenting these in such consecutive order as to give an intelligent presentment of Darwin's great work as a scientist, though, of course, to know the full bearings and relations of this work demands a study of the author at firsthand. For the casual reader, however, the book before us will suffice to fill his needs. will serve to correct the numerous misrepresentations of what Darwin believed and taught, and surely no one has ever been so persistently misrepresented, though in many cases innocently. Mr. Sheppard has performed his work as compiler and editor with acumen and good taste. We do not much believe, as a rule, in books of "knowledge made easy," but this is one which proves a happy exception. It is a book which ought to find a large public in a country like ours, where there are such numbers of half-educated men, who crave intellectual light, and yet lack the leisure or inclination, or perhaps both, to acquire it by the more slow and certain channels of protracted study.

It

FLOWERS AND THEIR PEDIGREES. By Grant Allen, author of "Colin Clout's Calendar," etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

What is called popular science is often full of such shallow and misleading statements, so padded with words without significance, that it is quite delightful to find a writer who is equally accurate, luminous, and picturesque in the art of presentation. Mr. Grant Allen is one of these rare interpreters of natural science. Nay, more! he sheds the glamor of a poetic imagination over the subjects which he treats, and transfigures scientific detail into something which fairly glows and palpitates with life. Science generally tends to present its material in a desiccated form, to eliminate everything but the arid fundamental truth, and

to generalize away the concrete. Mr. Allen's piquant method reverses this. He, of course, in studying the physiology and evolution of plant-life is obliged to remind his readers of the technical truths of botany and to use its nomenclature. But his use of analysis as an instrument of thought is entirely subordinate to that of synthesis. We may fancy at times, indeed, that his analogies and parallels glide into mere hypothesis. But his knowledge of the field which he is exploring is so evident, his handling of the facts so easy and masterly, that it is not easy to put one's finger on a weak link in the logic. All of the essays collected in this volume were originally printed in such English magazines as Longman's Magazine, the Cornhill, Macmillan's Magazine, the Gentleman's, Belgravia, etc. The subjects are "The Daisy's Pedigree, The Romance of a Wayside Weed," Strawberries,' Cleavers,' "The Origin of Wheat," "A Mountain Tulip," "A Family History," and Cuckoo Pint''-all of them treating of well-known plants. The author very concisely explains his plan in his brief preface, when he says, 'We know by this time pretty well what our English wild-flowers are like; we want to know next why they are just what they are, and how they came to be so." The cornerstone of his reasoning is in the law of natural selection or survival of the fittest, and applying this to his facts he tells us in a very bright and delightful way how some of the common flowers and fruits have been evolved from simple weeds seemingly widely different. We are told, for example, how the luscious strawberry was developed from the plant called

potentilla," which exists in so many varieties. Then again our author traces the origin of wheat, and shows us how it is in descent only a degenerate and degraded lily. The curious kinship between the cereal, which is the most important article of food, and the beautiful flower filled with perfume, is unfolded in a very fascinating way. So through a number of chapters Mr. Allen carries us along as much absorbed as if we were reading a romance. If science were always taught in this fashion, its study would be a labor of love not confined to the few who have distinctive aptitudes for its pursuit. Mr. Allen tells us that this is the first instalment of a work which he hopes some day to carry out more fully and to which he means to give the somewhat awkward title of a Functional Companion to the British Flora." It is to be hoped he will find a more attractive name; for the matter, judging from the first

part, is sure to be delightful and suggestive reading.

BOUND TOGETHER: A SHEAF OF PAPERS. By the author of "Wet Days at Edgewood," "Reveries of a Bachelor," etc. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

This is the latest volume in the complete collected works of Donald G. Mitchell, a writer better known to the older than to the present generation of readers, though he is not very much past the intellectual prime of life. Mr. Mitchell's reputation thirty years ago was second to that of hardly any American writer, but in some curious way he stepped out of American literature, and allowed himself to be almost forgotten, except through casual contributions to the magazines. In his books we find scholarship, geniality, refined and fastidious taste, something at times nearly akin to genius. Why he should have remained so long a dumb oracle is a matter of sorrow and wonder to many of his old admirers. In the present volume we have a collection of papers, some of which are occasional, such as the centenary oration on Irving and the lecture on Titian, delivered before the Yale Art School; and other pleasant essays on various topics originally printed in the magazines. All these papers are readable, fresh, and suggestive. We are specially pleased with the essays, based on the author's observation of nature and his

experiences of country life. These are racy and unhackneyed and full of suggestive quality, reviving the memories of his earliest and best style.

HAND-BOOK OF TREE PLANTING, OR WHY TO PLANT, WHERE TO PLANT, WHAT TO PLANT, AND HOW TO PLANT. By Nathaniel H. Egleston, Chief of Forestry Division, Department of Agriculture, Washington. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

For many years forestry has been a science in Germany, ranking among the learned professions. The needs of an old and thickly settled country make it imperative that the subject of arboriculture should be thoroughly understood. In our own great country, where enormous size and extravagant habits have conduced to make us reckless in destroying forests and indifferent in cultivating trees except for purely ornamental purposes, the time has only very recently come when we have begun to see that our crass ignorance on this subject is a national crime. The public mind has awakened, and the matter is being widely