all religion, is the chapter on "Prayer and its Answer." Contrary to what might have been supposed from the nature of the book, the author avows his belief in the material efficacy of prayer, but goes on to prove that this is a matter of little moment to a truly devout mind. He starts by expanding the definition, taken from a theological dictionary, of prayer; "a petition for spiritual or physical benefits which [we believe] we cannot obtain without divine coöperation." Primitive faiths confine prayer to physical advantages, while the followers of the higher forms of religion discriminate between a direct and indirect fulfillment of the wish. In either case, prayer is dependent for success upon earnestness and continuity. They are capable of producing great subjective effects, as is shown by the lives of martyrs and religious wars. "But whether prayer can influence the working of the material forces external to the individual, is a disputed point. If it cannot do this, prayers for rain, for harvests, for safety at sea, for restoration to health, for delivery from grasshoppers and pestilence, whether for our own benefit or others, are hardly worth reciting." Tyndall has said, "Assuming the efficacy of free prayer to produce changes in external nature, it necessarily follows that natural laws are more or less at the mercy of man's volition." Here the author differs from him. By a subtle and logical argument, based on the principles of physics as well as the voluntary emotions, he boldly asserts that it is rash for scientific men to deny "that the chemicovital forces set loose by an earnest prayer may affect the operations of nature outside the body as they confessedly do within." But having gained this ground, he proceeds to deny its importance. Effects produced in this way would not depend on God, but on physical forces. Faithprayer alone could calmly accept whatever seemed by the will of God to be best. But this must not be satisfied with simple acceptance, for, universally, spiritual enlightenment is claimed as its reward; so that the problem is still unsolved. It is shown to hinge directly on Inspiration-the very essence of prayer, as prayer itself is of religion.

The deductions and philosophy of the work are ably set forth under the title of "Momenta of Religious Thought." Analyzing many ideas in religious history, the author has found that three are remarkable, and have appeared in the rites and prayers of nearly all religions. I. The Idea of the Perfected Individual.

II. The Idea of the Perfected Commonwealth. III. The Idea of Personal Survival.

When a higher ideal than that of brute strength dawned upon the religious mind, it was in the guise of Form. This is seen in the unison of strength and grace of the Greek Sun-god, Apollo; and the beauty of Aphrodite. The philosophers, too, saw a "permanent" in the Form, "by which the race has being." The old gods fell, and art fell with them. Not until its revival in Germany was it coupled with æsthetics. Of this brilliant but transient school were Goethe and Schiller. But the highest conception of Individual Perfection, was a character blending fully trained physical and mental powers; set forth most ably by Wilhelm Von Humboldt. Each of these systems failed; the first because it preferred might over right; the second because it neglected the reasoning power; the last because it appealed only to the cultivated few. The idea of Perfected Commonwealth, to be accomplished by one of two ways-the highest development of the individual peculiarities, or the subordination of personal existence to the social relations-ably advocated on the one hand by Humboldt, by Comte on the other, did not rightly interpret the meaning of the religious sentiment, and has passed away. There remains the last idea, that of Personal Survival, the main dogma in the leading religions of to-day. Here the author makes the same daring, yet carefully supported innovations as in his chapter on prayer. "While the immortality of the soul retains its interest as a speculative inquiry, I venture to believe that as an idea in religious history it is nigh inoperative; that as an element in devotional life it is of not much weight; and that it will become less so." The reasons are four. (1) Recognition of the ground of ethics. (2) Recognition of the cosmical relations. (3) The clearer

defining of life. (4) Growing immateriality of religious thought. The first of these recognizes, briefly, that morality is separate from religion; that it is "dangerous to rest morality on the doctrines of a future life; for apart from the small effect the terrors of a hereafter have on sinners, as that doctrine is frequently rejected, social interests suffer." Second, the progress in geology and astronomy tends to prove that the final catastrophe will not be the destruction of the world. “To assert that at the end of a few or a few thousand years, on account of events transpiring on the surface of this planet, the whole relationship of the universe will be altered, a new earth be formed, and all therein be made subservient to the joys of man, becomes an act of individual arrogance, which deserves to be called a symptom of insanity." The clearer defining of life strips the common notion of the immortality of the soul of many of its phantasms. Sensation and voluntary motion are common to the fetus, the brute, and the plant, as well as to man. They are not part of his "soul." Intellect and consciousness exclude sensation, and in these, if anywhere, man must look for his immortal part. Lastly, the selfishness of a doctrine of Personal Survivaladmitted by its most able defenders-is at war with true religious spirit. As it idolizes self, so it rejects God. It is lower in meaning and effect than simple and tranquil quest for the truth.

Such, in the main, are the conclusions of this wonderful book; a book which while it deals with the highest and most difficult question which can perplex the human mind, has all the freshness and interest of an absorbing novel; and which if it fearlessly makes statements which may be called "unorthodox," does so in no cavilling and cynical spirit. The questions which it brings are new, significant, vital. Their import is what intelligent men universally must ask themselves. Time alone will show whether this demonstration, which seems to formulate so completely the sources and aims of religion is final, or whether it is bound to yield in turn to a yet more bold and brilliant philosophy.

J. A. P.

WE

POE AND HAWTHORNE.

E judge of an author's character by his books, and pronounce him peculiar or otherwise, according to the nature of his productions. Many are the abnormal phases of human nature, and many the peculiar books. They are as numerous and varied as men themselves, and some of them almost as difficult to understand. Neither stand alone in their originality. We may group them, for both have points of resemblance.

In comparing the stories of Poe and Hawthorne we are struck with a certain resemblance between them, not in style, neither in subject matter, but in their weird, unnatural character and singular treatment. We should say at once in reading them that their authors were men whose views of human nature were received through a medium different from our own; that they delighted in dwelling upon whatever was strange and abnormal. Their imaginations must have been filled with wild, fantastic images, and the world in which they lived have been an ideal one, peopled with dark, mysterious shapes of their own creation. Their tales are alike in their unreality, but Poe delights in the horrible and repulsive, while Hawthorne's stories, though wild enough, are not so exciting. What a strange imagination Poe must have possessed! He could not have been unlike the gifted German writer, Hoffmann, mentioned in "Hyperion," who, when at midnight he composed his unearthly tales, was sometimes so terrified at the awful shapes which he had invoked that solitude became unbearable, and he rushed forth to seek companionship. All the mystery which Poe throws around his poems is present in his prose. His stories are nearly all tragic. He delights in leading us from one stage of excitement to another, gradually working upon our imaginations by a succession of horrors, until he reaches a grand culmination, which often leaves us unsatisfied and still in suspense. There is a certain fearful

pleasure in reading one of his tales late at night, and, when you have closed the book, looking into the shadows without the circle of your lamp-light and seeing in their depths the strange unearthly pictures which he has painted. Poe is no common sensational writer. His stories are artfully constructed, with a care and attention to detail reminding us of Jules Verne, while in absorbing interest, if not in length and variety of incident, they vie with the works of that author. They arouse our attention at once and hold it throughout. We are kept constantly in anticipation of some new development in the plot. As one horror is added to another, we sometimes feel as if we could not possibly bear any more.

Poe himself, says in a criticism, that, in a short prose tale, "the soul of the reader is at the writer's disposal. There are no external or extrinsic influences, resulting from weariness or interruption." He seems to regard this style of composition as the one in which the highest art can be displayed. He has certainly given proof of his own skill. "A good writer," he elsewhere says, “having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique effect to be wrought out, should invent such incidents and combine such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect." This he seems to have done; but if Poe, how much more Hawthorne! In analyzing the latter's character, as shown by his works, we note several points in which he resembles the former. He too loves the mysterious, he too inspires us with a mixed feeling of attraction and aversion, yet he does not call up hideous and repulsive images, to awaken vulgar fear. His characters are gloomy, mystic. We meet them in human experiences, but more often we are compelled to acknowledge that they partake less of the corporeal than spiritual. Hawthorne's stories do not so much excite, as fill us with a sort of gentle melancholy. There are but few bright touches in his sombre Rembrandt-like pictures. He described his own peculiar cast of imagination when he sorrowfully uttered the wish that he could write "sunshiny books." He seems to throw in the dark shading involun