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HE two professions that come into the most intimate relations with us all are, of course, the medical and the clerical, the body and the soul cure completing our lives, in ordinary. Notwithstanding the dreary triteness of remarks upon the gift for story-telling among clergymen, the truth remains that as a class they excel in this field, sometimes to the discomfiture of their hearers, but more often to their profit and entertainment. We know, having had it well drilled into our minds, that the proper study of mankind is man, and so we turn with pleasant anticipations to two volumes recording from widely separated view-points the impressions that "human warious" have made upon two Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Bishop Potter, in his "Reminiscences of Bishops and Archbishops," confines himself to men known more or less widely in England and America. He is able to indicate character by a stroke here or there, and the man stands before us, recalled by a good memory. As Secretary of the House of Bishops he had unusual advantages, and became intimately acquainted with men much his seniors, observing and narrating incidents in their lives. Ten portraits hang in the American room, and three English Archbishops are added. Bishop Whittingham, "precise and unimpeachable," exact in his knowledge and somewhat destitute of humor, is vividly described. He was tenacious of his episcopal rights, and once contended sharply with a certain rector as to his right to pronounce the Absolution. Curiously, after thought, both rector and Bishop reached the conclusion at the same time that the question was immaterial. "You may say the Absolution, Bishop, if you want to," said the rector, in the vestry-room. "But I don't want to!" exclaimed the Bishopquick to acknowledge the change in his convictions and generous in the acknowledgment. Bishop Williams, of Con

Reminiscences of Bishops and Archbishops. By the Rt. Rev. Henry Codman Potter. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

My People of the Plains. By the Rt. Rev. Ethelbert Talbot. Harper & Brothers, New York.

necticut, had an influence and an affectionate following not bounded by the limits of his Church. To him are credited two witticisms that have been attached to other names. "The Puritans first fell on their own knees, then on the aborigines," he said. When some one was inquiring too inquisitively about the affairs of one of his clergy, and asked, "Has the Rev. Mr. - said anything

to you about ?” _the_quick reply came, "Nothing to speak of, sir," and the gossip was silenced. A good story is told of Bishop Eastburn, whose style of preaching was ponderous. In describing the prayer of the rich man to Lazarus in Abraham's bosom and his request for a drop of cooling water, the Bishop added, "To this wholly inadmissible request the patriarch returned a negative reply." Upon the consecration of Bishop Huntington, of Central New York, in the presence of six bishops at dinner, the host, Bishop Eastburn, proposed the health of the new Bishop, saying, “I am the only man at this table who has the right to do it, for," running his eye around the table until it had included every bishop present--"I am the only born. Churchman among you "-which was right. In the startled pause the fact was recognized that a Congregationalist, two Presbyterians, a Baptist, a Quaker, and a Unitarian had been transformed into. Episcopal bishops. Bishop Clark, of Rhode Island, had a ready wit, an example of which is given. A presiding bishop, whose Christian name was Benjamin, became terribly involved when trying to explain a matter of discipline, and Bishop Clark, in passing the secretary's desk, threw a small roll of paper across the page. Upon it was written, to Dr. Potter's amusement, "But Benjamin's mess was five times as much as any of theirs."

Bishop Clark went abroad for six months, and wrote remunerative articles for the old New York Ledger. Dr. Potter asked what they were to be about. "On the moral uses of hairpins, and subjects of that character," said the Bishop. He was childlike and yet saw large

questions in a large light. Many stories could be related of Bishop Coxe, whose sensitiveness and dignity united to a fine frenzy often brought him into singular situations. A beautiful and pathetic scene in the life of Bishop Wilmer took place in New York City soon after the war. In his devotion to his high calling and forgetfulness of himself he entered the office of a great merchant, whom he had never met, and seriously spoke of the personal responsibility involved in great possessions. It was done in the spirit of his Master, and the merchant said later, "In all my life no one ever spoke to me like that!" The result was a large gift for the endowment of a cathedral-a result perhaps not so closely in the line of Christ's teachings as might have been expected. Bishop Potter supplements his personal recollections by many delightful sketches contributed by friends. A particularly pleasant reflection of Bishop Dudley is offered by the Rev. R. Grattan Nolan, who knew him all his life. He relates amusing tales of the negroes and their love and admiration for the Bishop. One awed waitress asked him, "King Dudley, will you have some cakes?" while another stood stiffly back, and, in reply to his mistress's whispered orders for more waffles, responded, "Huh! They ain't no mo'; he done had ten already."

Archbishop Temple has long been a fruitful source of stories; some, both new and old, appear in this volume. An old one is so good that it must be repeated. After the Archbishop's eyesight had failed, he was greeting his guests at a garden party at Lambeth. He said to one who approached him, "How do you do? How is your father?" The guest looked somewhat surprised and said, "My father is dead, your Grace." "And the widow, your mother, how is she?" said the Archbishop. "Thank you, she is quite well," somewhat stiffly. Afterwards the Archbishop asked some one, "By the way, who was that?" "That, your Grace," was the reply, with a spice of mischief, was the Duke of Connaught."

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Bishop Talbot for twelve years was associated with a different sort of men whom he calls "My People of the

Plains "-rough, honest or dishonest, English or American, sturdy folk of our frontier. Among his friends he counted several Indians, and of one, Washakie, a Shoshone chief, he tells some excellent tales. General Grant sent Washakie a gift, which he received in silent emotion. Upon being urged to say some word of appreciation of the kindness of the Great Father, the old Indian said, "Well, Colonel, it is very hard for an Indian to say thank you like a white man. When you do a kindness for a white man, the white man feels it in his head, and his tongue talks; but when you do a kindness for a red man, the red man feels it in his heart. The heart has no tongue."

There are many diverting stories told of the way the sympathies of the cowboys and men of mining camps were enlisted in church work, and in several instances money was pledged to build a church, each man being "charged up according to his pile." The palmy days of the Rocky Mountain stage-coaches have passed away, disappearing before the advancing railway. In Bishop Talbot's time, in Wyoming and Idaho there were many thrilling adventures in stage travel. He recalls an epitaph which he says was found on an old gravestone: "Weep, stranger, for a father spilled

From a stage-coach and thereby killed. His name, Jay Sykes, a maker of sassengers,

Slain with three other outside passengers."

At one time Bishop Kemper was held up on a coach by a "road agent," who, on being informed that his victim was an Episcopal bishop, let him go, saying, "Why, that's the church I belong to 1 Driver, you may pass on."

In the Cœur d'Alene country, in the early days, Bishop Talbot's arrival was advertised in the following fashion on a green circular: "The Bishop is coming. Let all turn out and hear the Bishop. Services in George and Human's Hall to-morrow, Sunday, at 11 A.M. and 8 P.M. Please leave your guns with the usher." The charm was potent, the hall was packed, and a thousand dollars was raised to build a church. The men who went out as missionaries were of heroic character, and did much to preserve high ideals and insure the successful future of

the new country. The Bishop often found well-educated Englishmen and Americans who had deliberately lost themselves in the West after throwing away opportunities at home. He declares he never met a professional gambler who defended his manner of life, yet, as a vice, gambling was the most hopeless to reform. There were not many colored people in the new country, but as a Missourian Bishop Talbot was interested in such of them as he met. At a meeting he attended Uncle Billy prayed that the good Lord would send down on the Bishop his "sanctum sanctorum." He afterwards explained, "I means dat I want de good Lord to send down on you jest de very best he's got on hand.”

During the Western episcopate the Bishop went to England to attend mis

sionary gatherings, and he tells some incidents that occurred during his visits. He stopped with several of the noted men of the Church of England, Archbishop Benson and Canon Farrar among others. In an address before a parish school he asked what a diocese was. A small boy, to the amusement of all, replied, "A diocese, my lord, is a district of land with the bishop on top and the clergy underneath." It is certainly true that even an American boy could not equal that. A strong plea is made for broad-minded treatment of the Mormons, and the Church is urged to provide churches and schools in every town and turn on light among these ignorant people. The Indians, too, are stoutly championed, and the story of our Nation's shame is told once more.

Comment on Current Books

"Joujou" is a piquant The Adventures little heroine, and her love of Joujou story is delightful-just as the pictures are-in a dainty, whimsical way. The hero is a marquis, and there are pretty scenes in the garden of an old French château. The volume is thoroughly attractive. (The Adventures of Joujou. By Edith Macvane. J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. $2.)

Another Book in Archaic Style

A romance of love, Andrew Goodfellow heartless desertion, and the sea life of Nelson's time. The story is told in a frank, open-hearted way, with no subtlety and without much literary art. (Andrew Goodfellow. By Helen H. Watson. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50.) Mr. Maurice Hewlett may have to look to his laurels. He is not the only author who understands how to write in cunningly archaic style. Mr. Edward Hutton is appar ently running him a close second. If the incredulous Hewlett admirer does not believe it, he has but to look at the well printed and illustrated study of a fifteenth-century Italian despot just published by Mr. Hutton, namely, the interesting description of Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini. Lovers of Italy, of Italian history, art, and literature, will welcome this volume. They will compare it, not so much with Mr. Hewlett's "The Road in Tuscany " or with any other

description of Italian scenery, as with such books as Mrs. Cartwright's" Beatrice d'Este" and" Isabella d'Este." Mr. Hutton professes to translate a contemporary chronicle written by a humanist, who was interested in art, namely, by one Pietro Sanseverino, with a sketch of the latter's life and an account of his meeting with Leon Battista Alberti. Let it be added that, despite this supposed translation, we find a number of very modern reflections and judgments. In the opinion of the fastidious, these, if not the narrative itself, might perhaps have been as well expressed with slightly less evident straining after effect. But this may be hypercriticism. (Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, Lord of Rimini. By Edward Hutton. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York. $4, net.)

It is doubtful whether many Carolopolis people have taken time to find out from whom the Carolinas took their names, and it is quite probable that most of us would say from Charles II. of England, who granted to the "Lord Proprietors" a large section of the territory known now as South Carolina. But the engaging writer of the history of Charleston reminds us that, a hundred years before this English grant was made, the French Huguenots sent out by Admiral Coligny claimed and named the new country for their king, Charles IX. of France. Beginning in 1679, this delightful chronicle of place and people leads us down

to the close of the Civil War-in the saddened thoughts of her citizens, the period when the real Charleston ended. Mrs. Ravenel writes with loyalty, deep interest, and great care for important detail. She infuses into otherwise dry history the elusive charm of a vivacious and discriminating mind. Her magnetic quality collects exactly the items most interesting to the reader, and she often causes them to center about some piquant opinion of her own, or of some bygone character, with vivifying effect. Some

of the most delightful glimpses are given of old Charleston society. For instance, a gentleman, being straitened in piazza room, always took his tea in summer on the broad sidewalk in front of his house. His friends would stop for a cup and a chat. "How did he manage with the people going by?" asked a modern son. "You surely do not suppose," said the astonished father, "that any one would intrude upon the old gentleman! Of course, when people saw him, if they were not his friends, they crossed the street and walked on the other side, not to annoy him!" Just this childlike unconventionality and delicate consideration for others were the dominant characteristics of old Charleston. Many in other parts of the country think it still exists, but to the real citizens of the old town it has long passed away. This criticism of Mr. Wister's "Lady Baltimore," exemplifying the old spirit, came with the delicious Southern accent from the lips of a Charleston man: "Well, I read the beginnin'--far enough to find two men sittin' on a tombstone discussin' whether they were gentlemen or not-and that was enough. I didn't read any mo'." No real Charleston man or woman has any doubt upon such a subject. The illustrations by Vernon Howe Bailey are in full sympathy with the text. (Charleston, the Place and the People. By Mrs. St. Julien Ravenel. The Macmillan Company. $2.50.)

The Colorado Desert

In two elaborately illustrated and finely printed volumes Mr. George Wharton James tells in detail of the picturesque features, natural characteristics, and history of that part of the Colorado desert which belongs to Southern California. The narrative includes a readable account of a journey by water along the overflow of the Colorado River which has resulted in the much-talked-of Salton Sea. This Sea, as our readers will remember from the story as told in The Outlook, threatened to become of such a size as to be injurious to the country in which it unexpectedly appeared; enormous sums have been spent in attempting to check this over

flow and make the river return to its original channel, but newspaper despatches lately printed say that the elusive stream has once more foiled these efforts and that the Sea is again increasing in size. It need not be pointed out that Mr. James has in the general subject of his work a topic full of varied interest; and he is able to bring to its treatment knowledge of much that is absolutely unknown and strange to the average American reader, although it has to do with a part of his own country. Occasionally the reader feels that the author is giving a little too much detail, and is even inclined to question whether the material might not to advantage have been presented in a single volume. The same thing may be said of the three hundred pen-and-ink sketches made by Mr. Karl Eitel, who knows the desert in its pictorial aspects thoroughly; that is to say, while the pictures are capital in themselves, the work would not have suffered if there had not been quite so many. (The Wonders of the Colorado Desert. By George Wharton James. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $5, net. Postage, 45 cents extra.)

Christianity in

the Modern World

It is refreshing to light upon a book of broad views, lifting one above the conflicting and eddying currents of the streets into the steady breeze above the housetops. Modern science, philosophy, and criticism have made havoc of the theology that fitted well the comparative ignorance of past centuries. Many either rejoice or fear that the primitive faith is thereby doomed. As the lobster which has cast its old shell to put on a larger one is for the time more vulnerable to its foes, so is the case with religion in a time of transit from form to form of knowledge. But Mr. Cairns rightly sees in such a case "the modern præparatio evangelica" for a victorious advance of creative power. Whatever has become of the ancient dogmas fabricated to cope with the Hellenism of the classic and the barbarism of the mediæval age, the net result of the past century of historic research has been to lift into glorious pre-eminence the person of the Founder of Christianity, as the heavenly leader of human progress in all that tends to ideal manhood. A new manifestation of divine power unquestionably appeared in him. The impression he produced on his disciples, as reflected in their writings, can only be explained by a larger indwelling of God in him than in any other member of our race. Herein lies his moral authority for the conscience of mankind. How this is related to the twentieth century appears in the fact that this supreme author

ity is brought to bear upon the great powers of the world at a time when they have come into the closest relations of influence with all the backward and weaker peoples-at a time also when these great powers themselves are menaced by social tension and trouble within themselves, growing out of economic evils that are also moral wrongs. Thus has Christianity come through a century of preparation to face a task perhaps greater than any before, and religion, as in many previous crises both before and since the Christian era, may be confidently expected to bring to birth the new and better order of the future. The line of its hope lies in its power to moralize the selfishness of the individual by transforming private interest into the ideal of a common good. Precisely this is what Jesus effected in the apostolic age by his ideal of the kingdom of heaven. Rarely, if ever, has the subject of the book been better treated. (Christianity in the Modern World. By the Rev. D. S. Cairns, M.A. A. C. Armstrong & Son, New York. $1.50.)

Mr. Foster's competent pen has Diplomacy in successive publications performed good public service in popularizing knowledge of an important subject-the intercourse of our own with other Gov. ernments. He has already shown the beneficent influence of American diplomacy upon international law. He now describes the character, methods, and duties of our diplomatic service from its beginning until now, and records what it has attempted, together with its achievements, failures, and mistakes-all with sufficient detail to make the narrative historically valuable, as well as interesting to the general reader. Of instances humorous and serious, illustrating good form and bad, tact and indiscretion, there is no lack, and foreign diplomats come in for their share. The mooted points of practice in foreign relations, and also between the President and the Senate in regard to these, are clearly stated-some of them now settled, others still open. Treaties and other compacts, arbitration, and international claims, are amply and instructively treated. In the simplification and the moralization of international diplomacy the United States has evidently taken a leading part. It may be doubted whether any branch of the public service has so honorable a record, and yet it has been singularly starved by the parsimony of Congress from the beginning. On Congress also it still depends whether the character of our consular service shall be made as generally creditable to us as the higher grades have become. Such books as Mr. Foster's help toward this so far as they pro

mote that compelling public opinion which Congress respects. (The Practice of Diplomacy. By John W. Foster. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston. $3, net.)

The illustrator of this little The Dogs of War yarn, as well as its author, knows dog nature, and the characterizations are decidedly entertaining. The collaboration is quite perfect, and it is almost impossible to consider the story apart from the pictures. Possibly the drawings there is much amusing matter in the dog are a bit cleverer than the text, although biography and the account of "the greatest dogs' club in the world." (The Dogs of War. By Walter Emanuel. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.25.)

Eight Secrets

We unhesitatingly pronounce this one of the best boys' books of the season, and note that it is particularly well adapted for boys who have an interest in invention and possess some share of the ingenuity which is often considered an all but universal American attribute. Apart from this, however, the tale has decided story interest and a capital plot idea in the house with its "eight secrets," which suggests the curiosity-stimulating title. Mr. Ingersoll is always to be depended upon for faithfulness to nature, and whether he deals with animals or with boys he gives us the genuine thing. The boy in this book is, to be sure, rather out of the common in his capacity for getting himself out of scrapes and for doing things in a wonderfully effective way; but while exceptional, he is by means impossible. (Eight Secrets. By Ernest Ingersoll. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50, net.)

The Fair Hills of Ireland

"This book is written," explains its author, Mr. Stephen Gwynn, "in praise of Ireland." It is, in fact, obviously intended to play a part in promoting the "Irish revival," that literary and linguistic movement which aims to develop in the contemporary Irishman a greater interest in his native tongue and in his country's past glories, and thereby stimulate him to earnest endeavor to make the present more worthy of the past. What Mr. Gwynn has done is to write a topographical history of Ireland. He describes its ancient ruins, monuments, and relics, its famous rivers and towns, and its "fair hills," associating each with the period or event for which it is best known. In this way he contrives to incorporate in his pages an amazing variety of information-information historical, traditional, archæological, architectural, social, economic, and literaryand thus to appeal to a far wider audience than that composed of his fellow-Irishmen.

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