with notes, glossaries and other aids to study.

"The Dickens Year Book" compiled by Lois E. Prentiss and Gertrude C. Spaulding, with illustrations by Dan Sayre Groesbeck (A. C. McClurg & Co.) will make an instant appeal to all true Dickensians. It contains a Dickens quotation for every day in the year. The selections are widely representative and are made with discrimination; and Mr. Groesbeck's clever full page drawings of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Micawber, Sam Weller, the Fat Boy, Uriah Heep and other Dickens characters are delightful. The book is attractively printed.

To popularize science without degrading it, to bring its facts and theories within the comprehension of "the man in the street" and to interest him in them is an art possessed by few writers who essay the venture. They prove to be either dull or flippant, and sometimes they are both. But Sir Ray Lankester possesses this rare art in a singular degree, and the second series of the papers to which he gives the title "Science from an Easy Chair" is easy and agreeable reading and at the same time authoritative. The papers, thirty or more in number, which constitute it, are upon a wide variety of subjects and were originally contributed to the London Telegraph. Numerous figures and full-page plates illustrate the volume. Henry Holt & Co.

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan's "The Teaching of Christ" (Fleming H. Revell Co.) is a thoughtful and reverent study of the words of Christ, with a view to determining precisely what He said with reference to His own claims, concerning God, Himself and the Spirit, concerning angels, demons and man, concerning sin and salvation,

and concerning the Kingdom of God. In an earlier volume "The Crises of Christ" Dr. Morgan outlined the leading incidents in the life of Christ; in the present volume, assuming His Divine authority, he groups and analyzes His teachings. The book is written in a style which appeals to the lay reader quite as much as to the theologian. Its tone is not controversial, but devout; and its suggestions helpful.

With a triangular setting of an old mission town in California, a Massachusetts North Shore summer resort, and a rose covered Georgia cottage, "The Woman in the Twilight" by Marah Ellis Ryan unfolds a soul struggle. It is the conflict between social codes and what a noble woman in the story feels is right for her alone. When the realization of the tremendous wrong done to future generations and the shadow cast forever upon their lives is brought home to this woman, Monica Wayne, she bends her will to the decrees of civilization. The "woman in the twilight" is the symbol of all people who suffer a stigma for the wrong doing of other people. Presented with less nobility of purpose and seriousness the story might have been sordid, but the emphasis is so correct that every situation is saved from such a fate. The story is well told and the descriptions of nature particularly good. A. C. McClurg &

Co.

"What is New Thought?" by Charles Brodie Patterson is intended to answer a question which many, both inside the cult and outside, are asking. It is as much a book for the informed as for those who are seeking knowledge of the subject. More concisely than has been done before it states the tenets which have been expounded in a score of different volumes. The central thought is re

peated and emphasized that in man himself lies the power, either latent or developed, to make himself master of his fate, intellectually, physically and spiritually. The different chapters give statements of principles, define terms and show how health, poise and spirituality may be acquired and kept. Dr. Patterson's style is terse and epigrammatic. In the paragraphs which develop his thoughts single sentences stand out which in themselves are good to remember and ponder on, and form starting places for original deductions. There is no attempt made to dazzle or impress the reader, but the entire book is simple, straightforward and sincere. Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

"On Board the Beatic," by Anna Chapin Ray, is essentially a love story. Its heroine, Aileen Warburton, is a cultivated, self sufficient woman of thirty-two, and Carl Clode, her lover. has achieved at the opening of the book worldly success and a fine record. On board an outward bound ocean liner, the Beatic, their acquaintance grows, in Belgium and London it ripens, and on the return trip to New York Miss Warburton accepts the fact that her nature, hitherto independent and self-centered, has at last been mastered by the character and personality of Carl Clode. So finished and leisurely is the author's style, and so lucid her character drawing that the reader does not stop to analyze the power which holds him in a quiet absorption. After the close of the book the impression lingers of having passed an hour or so in a company of well-bred, thoroughly interesting people and under conditions most agreeable, for the ocean voyage and the visit to London and Belgium are described with skill. The book possesses charm and distinction. Little, Brown and Co.

Under the title "The Great Acceptance," Guy Thorne, a well-known English novelist, has told a true story which is quite as thrilling and a good deal more inspiring than the average novel of the period,-the story of an Englishman, F. N. Charrington, who, thirty years or more ago, as a young man, gave up an inheritance of more than six million dollars, because the money had been made from a brewery, and consecrated his life to helping the poor and the fallen. Mr. Thorne describes in vivid language the work which Mr. Charrington has since done in the East End of London, in making war upon saloons and dance halls, in reforming drunkards and prostitutes, and in preaching the religion of Christ to men and women without hope. Mr. Charrington is a man of unfaltering courage, who has dared and suffered much in the career which he deliberately chose for himself when he made his great renunciation; and this story of his life work is intensely interesting and full of encouragement. George H. Doran Co.

Winston Churchill, in his last book "The Inside of the Cup," has done more than write an exceptionally interesting novel. He has done this, but first of all he has drawn a struggle which took place on the battle ground of a man's soul, and has made a religious question so vital and fascinating that it seems more absorbing than any romance. St. John's was a wealthy church in a prosperous city of the middle West. To its pulpit a young man, the Rev. John Hodder, was called from a small parish, chosen because the wealthy and conservative parishioners of St John's wanted some one "safe," some one not likely to be affected by socialistic views. But Hodder was too large a man to stand still and as time passed he felt himself more and more unable to preach the old be

liefs with conviction. There followed a period when he saw his ideals totter and fall. By chance he came intimately in touch with some of the outcasts of the neighborhood who found in St. John's and its organized charities nothing to solve their problems. Hodder caught their point of view and began to see that only by the personal touch, by an actual brotherhood of man, could humanity be bettered. His fallen faith revived in a new form, and his soul emerged fearless to tell his shocked and astonished parishioners of his new convictions. They withdrew his salary and threatened to have him tried for heresy. The blow fell hardest upon Eldon Parr, a multimillionaire who practically supported St. John's and made great gifts to the city with money which he had gained from the poor by clever schemes. Daughter and son had left the hard old financier, who took a fancy to Hodder until the latter told him of the evil for which he was morally responsible. There is an absorbing love story and finely drawn pictures of typical men and women in a typical modern city among problems which are vital everywhere. The book has an intensity which never loses force by becoming mere emotionalism. The Macmillan Company.

Superfluously careful colloquialism continues to be the favorite rhetorical grace of Mr. W. D. Howells, as it has been ever since the days when he forsook the unforced humor of "Their Wedding Journey" and the real passion of "A Foregone Conclusion," and determined to adapt his style to the multitude; but in his latest story, "New Leaf Mills," his countless faithful readers will find many a reminder of his earlier self. Its time is the years following the Mexican war, the period when North South, and West began to be aware that the enemies of slav

ery were in earnest, and also to be conscious that new theories of religion and of politics were springing up almost daily. The conservative jumbled the "Comeouters," Mormons, the believers in community life, Universalists, advocates of women's rights, teetotallers, promoters of higher education and wearers of extraordinary garments in a general condemnation, mildly despising them, one and all. Occasionally mob rule asserted itself in the cities, and the rustic was almost as excitable as the town dweller and few were they who rightly interpreted the signs of the times. Mr. Howells has skilfully devised a family group perfectly illustrating the mood of the era. The hero firmly believes in himself and in his ability to do anything which he de-. sires, from teaching himself to play on a harp of his own construction to winning success in professions and trades of which he has neither knowledge nor experience, and organizing a community on plans peculiar to himself. Nothing shakes his placidity, and, in consequence, he is the scorn of his neighbors, and the lifelong killjoy of his sensible, energetic wife, and the evil genius of a young girl under his guardianship; but his good intentions are unwavering. Having failed utterly, both in the city and in the country, he goes back to the city, and for a second time becomes a tradesman, indulging in occasional dalliance with the "underground railroad," and arguing that, if the entire State could be brought to accept the community system, a higher state of civilization would be produced. Without a word of condemnation Mr. Howells makes the essential mischievousness of such a person evident. Goethe's savage summary "Nothing is so terrible as a fool in motion," is a more thoroughly satisfying utterance, but "New Leaf Mills" will be more effective with those who prefer a parable. Harper & Brothers.