EXTRACTS FROM NEW BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6255, 3 December 1881, Page 6

EXTRACTS FROM NEW BOOKS.

THE OEEMANS, IK BUSSIA raOEE .From "Russians and Germans." By VictnrTNicholas who flattered himself that hlT"i muzzled the revolution, who thought he t the head of a new holy alliance „£ waa tended to be the father of all pre " brought Russia back into the old 'f' retrograde notion and of bureaucratic He wanted cnng.ng valets, and be f n °V them m Germans. He wanted I" d persons to perform base deeds-h* ? P ' es i them in Germans. He handed over to t'h his police, h,s political inquisition, ar. uT censorship of the Press. The Germ,,,. he cised a hidden power, the more pow^fu, 6 " 1 "; formidable as it was mysterious and inl; They crept about in the dark, pried int private life of Russian citizens and fm ,■ anes, m order to bring them into Thus the whole Empire soon felt itself the influence of Germans who m ere no " r [ with an intolerable idea of ! superiority. German servants srv,l-„ '" Gra! I fully to Russian ones. When P u . ''."I" 1 ' died, the German officials sent, t-oo' ' n hinder the people from followinn I.L f* ' grave, and, in the face of a whole na'i° mourning, the German papers insult '] ~m poet's memory. tilß CHRISTIANITY AND -DEMOCR^py [From " New Italy." By Father Cnrcl.J The Christian Church has a peculiar' 7 ability to the democratic form Lceau- •»*" Author showed in his teachin" a formal v, severity towards the rich and powerM c every sort, and willed to be a man of people and poor; he walked always a™, the poor and held himself at a distant 8 the great of the eartli; in the court of a l-i"" he never appeared, or in the'hall of a R o ™, B president, except to be derided and demned. V. e may add that, as the nat !lr3 'l and noble ofhee of the church is to defend tk. weak against the strong, the clerey W m),7 have as large a field, and more liberty n f action, in the modern democracies as in th ancient monarchies. In faci it would be a great mistake to imagine that in the dernn cratic form the rights and interests of

multitude of suffering, labourious poor a™ much better secured. That will never be till the Christian ideal prevails, in which th governed will be regarded not as dominion for the profit of the governing classes but as a ministry, a service for the profit of the "o verned, and exercised with all the more care for those who are weak by nature and disin. herited by fortune.

JEWISH ELEMENT IN RUSSIAN NIHILISM. [From "Russians and Germans." Br Victor Tissot j There are ten times more Jews than Russians, Poles, and Germans in the ranks of Nihilism. Jews are still treated in Russia as a cursed race, as pariahs. They are interfered with and illtreated in all kincs of waysthey are regarded with contempt, and forbidden to live in certain towns. Kvery evening they are compelled, like unclean animals to return to tlieir wretched ghettos. Thev are born with hatred in their heart. The Jewish women especially show in tlieir acts of rebellion a concentration of energy and a coolness of resolve that remind oue otJudith. When I visited some time since the depot ol in Moscow where the prisoners are kept who are destined to be sent to Siberia, I was shown a young woman who was placed apart in a tower. She was a Jewess of marvellous beauty, with dark hair and brilliant and piercing eyes. She looked at us with a haughty attituo.e, and then, turning to the governor of the prison, she said, iu a calm voice, ''I should like to know why I am liero." PRESBYTERIANTSM IN THE SCALES. From " A Lecture on Scotch Church History." UrDr. James AlsieGregor.J There are two eminent advantages which flow from its essentially popular character and from the large lay clement in its government. It requires, and therefore fosters as an essential element in its success, an all-prevacimg intelligence in the community. In this respect, as in many others, it was admi.ably suited to a country which could boast that it was not only the best, but the only educated nation in the world. Above al), it renders practically impossible the growth of that sacerdotalism and superstition, whose only logical resting place is Rome, and which events have proved to be the uncurable taint and defect of Episcopacy, wherever it has been held to be divinely authoritative to the exclusion of all other systems of Church government. When a Scotchman from whatever cause, breaks off from Presbyterianism in hie own land he breaks oft' from the Church of Scottish history, the Church to which we owe so much both of our civil and religious light and freedom, and witli whose fortunes and misfortunes the brightest pages of the national annals have been identified. The system, so theoretically perfect, is not without grave practical defects. There is a want of central control; a want of the unity, concentration, and cohesiveuess which diocesan Episcopacy gives. The principle of equality arrs by excess. There is no natural initiative; there is no firm and responsible executive; there is no permanent authority. While the system is free from prelatic despotism, it is by no means free from the danger of clerical and popular oppression. When democracy becomes tyrannical its tyranny is often of the worst kind.

SOME ASPECTS OF NORMiIf COXQUEST. [From " Introductions of the Study of English History." By Professor Gardiner.] In the first half of the eleventh century, the two most purely Teutonic States, Germany and England, were, beyond comparison, the strongest and the best governed States of Europe. Before the end of the century, England had been smitten to the ground, and Germany was in deadly combat with the foe before whose persistent attacks she was ultimately to fall. Up to that time it seemed to be the law of progress that in England, as on the Continent, the last comer who placed his Teutonic freshness of vigour under the restraints of Roman civilisation should rise to the mastery. As dominion passed here from the descendants of Alfred aud Athelstan to Cnut, so that it passed there from the children of Clovis to the Carolinian border family from the lands east of the Meuse, and then again to the new border family of the Saxon line of Henry and the Ottos. The second half of the eleventh century witnessed a great revulsion. It was the time rf the reaction of the south against the north. In the world of ideas a great spiritual power arose at Rome, clothing in ecclesiastical forms the claims of the old imperial city, ana baffling and driving back the Teutonic sovereign who had decked himself in the imperial mantle which the great Otto and the greater Charles had donned, as tha symbol of the heritage of Constantino and Augustus. In our own land the national kingship was struck down by a Norman host, many of whom, indeed, were of kindred blood—if the kinship was but distant—*™ the Englishmen whom they attacked, but which was nevertheless imbued with southern thought, which spoke a southern tongue, and which waged war with all the art and weapons of the south. The coincidence is too striking to have been altogether accidental. It was not without a reason that Harold at Senlac in 1066, and that in 1076, but ten years later, llsnry IV. was standing a shivering penitent on the snows before the barrel gate of Canossa. Ideas which change tae face of the world spring from nations w, 3 state of suffering, not from nations id comfortable circumstances. The political arrangements of Germany were not satisfactory when she gave birth t the reformation, nor were the socia arrangements of France satisfactory when she gave birth to the Revolution, p 1 the eleventh century, the German and the Englishman were too content with their oivn lot to strive eagerly for something new, whilst the idea of higher order a JSI er mcnt easily found room Italian priests wlio ment to look up ; vwn? aaw a Stranger lording it in the glorious cities whose verv stones proclaimed them to be the work of Italian hands in days when Italians were the foremost men of the world. So, too it tom'hv f 5 T ? f ? ra ? ce > distracted and wir S nval " e3 as 5t was, that Aorman William grasped the full power of a e r ™ j™ d the horseman as agencies of mmd With notions of organised government, which he strove to real je in his new country beyond the sea.

And where, sir, will you find sucb ThS C 3 ? n S lan <j> 5 r such men as In Scotland?' th» 5 n 5 il e Dant S-ot completely altf' 3 aspect of tha celebrated lexicographer's d;flnW'' a fivm,r D if a k Fa , sllion , tUs B =a«on has declared In favour of the oatmeal. Mr. JlcLaculan. 222, Qu«n street, has just received, ex Firth of Tav, twenty cases o£ the *ew and fashionable materials ' or summer wear. Oatmeal cloth in cardinal, cream, sky, and white, from lOd per yard. stripes in dress and millinery matcri.-.ls. Cashotf*? and beiges in the shades of fawn and creani, are likely to supersede the darker sh&des of 1 45 ' season. Best linoleum, 4s 6d. Coats and resti to match, 455, in the new worsted coatings. Tailo* s *' ner °' snperior attainments and great U*t« £10,000 worth of general drapery of as £00<i as is to be had in Auckland. J. M MeLaehlM. ' Queen-street, next to Cruickshank, Miller, and <*•' at th« oomei ol WeUc«l*f-itiwH|