Book Notices. The Land and the Book; or, Biblical Illustrations, drawn from Manners and Customs, the Scenes the and the Scenery, of the Holy Land. By WILLIAM M. THOMSON, D.D., forty-five years a Missionary in Syria and Palestine. 3 vols. 8vo, illustrated. New York: Harper & Brothers. Toronto William Briggs. Price $9.00 the set. No name Was more frequently mentioned, or with higher commendation by dragoman or guide during our tour in Palestine, than that of Rev. Dr. William Thomson. He knew the country from Beersheba to Baalbec better than any other man, and during his five and forty years of missionary life in the east, he had traversed almost every part of the country over and over again, and made an almost lifelong study of its antiquities and customs as illustrating Holy Writ. It has been well said that the best commentary on the Bible is the Land of the Bible. Hence Renan calls Palestine a fifth Gospel. A thousand side-lights are thrown upon the sacred page by the immemorial and unchanging customs of the Holy Land. This land possesses a perennial interest to every Christian mind. Of the many books on Palestine, none have met with such marked success and deserved popularity as Dr. Thomson's " The Land and the Book." Since the first appearance, over thirty years ago, it has run through many editions and has had an immense sale. But no previous editions will compare with its magnificent re-issue-in three stately octavos, sumptuously illustrated-by the Harper Brothers. This is practically a new book, re-written and with all the discoveries and researches of recent travellers and of the British and American Palestine Exploration Societies incorporated. Yet the conversational charm and direct per sonal interest of the original narraillustration of the identity of usage of tive is maintained, and its copious ancient and modern Oriental life. Dr. Thomson was for many years a missionary at Beirut, and has traversed repeatedly, as have few travellers, the region which he describes. To his keen powers of observation he adds a vividness of description and piquancy of narrative that make his books very charming and instructive reading. One of the most conspicuous features of the book is the number and variety and excellence of its engravings. These are drawn from photographs of the living object or natural scene, and strike one not so much as a representation as a reality. Of these engravings, many of them full-page, there are no less than 417, with large folding-maps. Much as we may long to visit those sacred scenes, most of us must be content with the descriptions of others. For stay-at-home travellers we know of no book which offers such a satisfactory substitute for a personal visit as Dr. Thomson's "The Land and the Book." There are few more appropriate or day-school superintendent or teacher useful presents for a pastor or Sunthan these noble volumes. They are in every respect the same as the edition sold at $6.00 per vol., except that there is a little less gilding on the binding. London. By WALTER BESANT, author of "All sorts and Conditions of Men," "Fifty Years Ago," etc., with illustrations. New York: Harper Brothers. Toronto: William Briggs. Octavo, pp. xvi.-509. Price $3.00. book, nor a story, although it com. This is not a history, nor a guide bines the best features of all three. It is a picture of the greatest city in its growth. It is founded largely the world during different periods of By a judicious exercise of the historic imagination, the author makes the dead past live again, and presents a series of kodac pictures, as it were, showing old London, its busy streets, odd buildings and eager citizens at work and at play. It is that quaint, mediæval life, with its strange costumes and customs, which is presented as in a living kaleidoscope. We see the merchant on 'Change, the chapman in Cheap side, the priests and monks and friars in church and abbey and convent, the civic festivals of Guildhall and royal pageants of Westminster, the procession of the Garter King at arms, the mace-bearer, the lord mayor and aldermen, the river with its boats and barges and peopled bridges and crowded shore, the grim tragedy of Newgate and Tyburn and the more dreadful burnings of Smithfield, the preachings at Saint Paul's cross, the fife and tabor, tumblers and dancers of Vauxhall, the many-coloured life through many centuries of the greatest city the world has ever seen. It is a fine subject, and Mr. Besant, who knows his London better perhaps than any man living, has made good use of it. He propounds the striking theory and sustains it with cogent argument, that after the Roman occupation, for four hundred years, London, which had attained a population of probably 70,000 lapsed into solitude and became a waste of crumbling walls and grass-grown ruins. The new civilization of Saxon, Roman, Plantagenet, and Tudor times was an entirely original development. To a tourist from a new country like Canada, the past of London is more interesting than its present. It is its ancient churches, monuments, and civic buildings that especially engage his attention. To such Mr. Besant's book will be well-nigh indispensable. Even old Londoners, and there are many of them in Canada, who think they know the great city well, will, we doubt not, find much that is of intense and novel interest in this volume. The engravings, of which there are about one hundred and fifty, are of exceeding delicacy, more like copper etching than xylographic work. Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. A Tale of the Roman Empire in the Days of the Emperor Aurelian. By WILLIAM WARE, author of "Rome and the Early Christians." Boston: Estes & Lauriat. Toronto: William Briggs. Price 3.00. This is a new edition of that fine tures of the noble Queen Zenobia, old story which recounts the advenwho, in the third century, reigned stately city of Palmyra-the Tadmor with true imperial sway, in the built by Solomon in the wilderness -the brave woman who defied a Roman army, and who was finally dragged as a captive at the chariot wheels of the Roman conqueror. The Rev. William Ware, who has given such vividness to his story of Rome and the Early Christians," exhibits in this volume the same fine exercise of the historic imagination, and fine skill in the delineation of character. The conflict between Christianity and paganism in the far East is well represented. The book is admirably illustrated, not with fanciful, ideal pictures, but with a score of photogravures of the stupendous architecture of that ruined city in the heart of the desert, including also some to whose fidelity Baalbec, the city of the worship of we can bear witness, of the city of the sun. Probably the world never saw a more stately temple than that at Palmyra, the ruins of which extend for a distance of 1,500 yards, nearly a mile long. The holiday binding is very attractive. The Oregon Trail. Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life. By FRANCIS PARKMAN, illustrated by Fred. Remington. Boston : Little, Brown & Co. Toronto: William Briggs. Octavo, pp. xiv.Bound in leather, full gilt. Price $4.00. 411. "The Oregon Trail" was Parkman's first book. Nearly fifty years ago he made his first acquaintance with the then wild west, with its Indian life, almost untouched by civilization and uncontaminated by the white man's fire-water, vices and diseases. That journey was Park man's initiation into his life-work. He was to devote the succeeding forty-five years to telling the story of the conflict for a continent. He has rendered to Canada a debt which never can be paid by his great historic works on that prolonged struggle for one hundred and fifty years between the French and English, for the possession of that vast area now chiefly included in our grand Dominion. We shall take occasion at an early date to present a complete review of these noble works. His publishers deem the completion of that lifetask a fitting occasion for bringing out an edition de luxe in all the glory of heavy cream-laid paper, sumptuous illustration and unique binding. It need only be said that the illustrations are by Frederick Remington, who has caught the spirit of savage life, character, costume, and incident better than any other living man, to show that the engravings are of the highest order of merit. The peculiar buff leather binding, with its quaint Indian totems and other designs in crude colours, is admirably suited to this memorial volume. Prue and I. By GEORGE WILLIAM The delicate fancies of the author remind one of the grace of Charles Lamb and Washington Irving, with a deftness of touch peculiarly his own. The fine vein of humour, and the subtle allegory which run through these sketches, is very charming. The gentle satire with which he laughs at himself in the "Castles in Spain," and the tender pathos of "Family Portraits" and "Our Cousin, the Curate," are worthy of embodiment in this elegant form. It is enough to say that it is one of the most artistic issues of the Franklin Square Press. The gray silk binding is very elegant. series of clear and cogent chapters, he discusses the following important topics: "What is Religion?" 66 Religion and natural descent, fetishism and animism, "Herbert Spencer's ghost theory." Under this head he shows that Mr. Spencer's question, and theory is really a begging of the is inadequate to account for the idea of God as a Cause and as a Moral Governor. This elegant volume is a very beautiful souvenir, by the accomplished editor, for many years, of Harper's Weekly, and the genial occupant of the "Easy Chair." It is a veritable edition de luxe. broad margins which leave room for The the wandering beyond the limits of the printed page of the very fine and delicately cut engravings, and the Our author then develops his photogravures of beautiful aquarelles, theory of the true Genesis of combine to make it one of the most religion, the subjective factor being elegant books of the season. It is the very constitution of man's seldom that author and artist SO admirably co-ordinate in their work. revelation of God. chapters treat of the development of religion, which is not inconsistent with supernaturalism and the historic facts regarding the order of religious development. He concludes with a chapter on "Shemitic Monotheism," showing the superior conceptions of the divine in the Shemitic, and especially the Hebrew writers. The book is very handsomely printed, and will be a pleasing souvenir of the pastor of St. James' Square Church, who, in the providence of God, is recalled to his important work in India, that of translating the oracles of God into the tongues of the native races. The People's Bible. Discourses upon Holy Scripture. By JOSEPH PARKER, D.D., London. Vol. xvii., Old Testament, HoseaMalachi. Octavo, 456 pp., cloth, $1.50. New York and 11 Richmond street west, Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company. Two With this book Dr. Parker completes the larger section of his great work. It comprises that very interesting division of the Old Testament, the twelve minor prophets. more books of the New Testament only are wanting to complete the series, making in all twenty-five volumes of Parker's People's Bible." To few men has it ever been granted to prepare so comprehensive a commentary on the whole Word of God. Dr. Parker says, "I have only been an instrument in the hands of God." He has preached regularly through the Bible, and his experience is that congregations are not averse to systematic and expository preaching. He counsels his juniors in the ministry to adopt the same method, and to covet to become biblical expositors. Speaking of the higher criticism, he says that biblical exposition is no longer an affair of technical grammar alone. "I am confident, that mere literalists who confine themselves to pedantic parsing, and who lock up the prophets in centuries as within cells, can never represent the whole idea of divine inspiration. Let us always look for the hidden meanings. Let us rejoice that the inspired word contains emphatically more meaning than human writers ever dreamed. This series of books will be a monument, not merely of the learning and industry, but of the spiritual insight and discernment of a great and good man. It is not merely a book for students and theologians, it is emphatically "The People's Bible." English Compound and Words Phrases. A Reference List, with Statement of Principles and Rules. By F. HORACE TEALL, author of "The Compounding of English Words," and Department Editor of Funk & Wagnall's Standard Dictionary. Cloth, 8vo, 311 pp. $2.50. New York, London, and 11 Richmond street west, Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company. This book will prove a valuable aid to writers, printers, teachers, cluding business men, corresponand in fact to all sorts of people, indents, and others who wish to write clearly and correctly in the English The book is unique, language. treating a phase of language that is a continual source of annoyance, and giving in shape for instant use the decisions of the author as to form, together with guiding rules based upon a close, careful, and scientific study of the subject. Mr. Teall is the first scholar, so far as we know, who has made a detailed comparative and inductive study of the compound forms found in our literature, and who has formulated the principles therein exemplified. His work shows extreme care throughout, and provides a ready answer, from his practical point of view, for any question as to compounding or non-compounding of words. The mere recording, in a handy collection, of forty thousand set terms, as given in this book, is of great advantage, whether or not one accepts all the compounds given. |