REVIEWS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 8557, 27 July 1889, Page 5 (Supplement)

REVIEWS.

Bishop Selm/n of New Zealand and Lichfild, A Skatch of his Life and Work. By G. H. Cubteis, Mi, Canon of Lichfield Cathedral. Ksgaa Paul, Trench, and Co. 1889. Thw new life of Bishop Selwyn, by Canon Curteis, is an expansion of a brief "Sketch" published soon after the bishop's death by Mrs Curteis, who had known him intimately at Lichfieid. The fresh matter relates almost exclusively to Selwyn's English episcopate. For his 26 years of life and work in New Zealand, Tucker's two ample volumes are still the best authority, although Canon Curteis has succeeded in presenting this portion of the great bishop's career, from every point of view the most interesting portion, in a very lively and picturesque way. Selwyn landed at Auckland, in 1842, the bearer of a commission, in the form of " royal letters patent," empowering him to exercise episcopal jurisdiction over not only. New Zealand, but the whole Pacific from the 34th parallel ol North latitude downwards. Someone had blundered, of course—probably a cletk in the Colonial Office, who should have written " South " instead of "North." Selwyn sent in a formal protest, as a Churchman, against a clause in his commission which set forth that the Queen " had given him power to ordain," but he seems to have accepted with equanimity the additional G8 degrees of latitude. The official blunder had consequences; "it was this mere slip of a clerk's pen that sent him forth in after years on his perilous but successful mission to the islands of Melanesia." At Eton Selwyn bad been a famouß athlete; when at Cambridge he pulled an oar m the first inter-university boat race, and occasionally performed the feat of walking from Cambridge to Loudon in 13 hours without stopping ihese exploits may not have had anything to do with his being selected when a curate at Windsor as pioneer bishop of the South Sfcas and the Cannibal Elands, but they certainly helped to fit him for the post. Governor Hobson in Auckland had been disposed to receive him coldly. "What is the use of a bishop in a country where there are no roads for his lordship's carriage to drive on?" he asked It turned out, however, that" his lordship "had not brought arty carriage, but was prepared to get about in much simpler fashion. His first diocesan visitation was a pedestrian tour of 330 miles, and in subsequent years he traversed on foot evj-ry part of the North Islsud. Iv 1844 he C pm|n S°. Uth in ,the Ri<*mond, a schooner of 20 tons, calling at the coast settlements, amongst others at Tiraaru —" a deserted whaling station, exhibiting the usual decorations of such places, broken boilers decayed oil barrels, and ruinous cabin?, far worse than the generality of Native dwellings •" aleo at Otago, "a small harbour, but good" Hero he " pitched a tent at a small Nativo settlement about a niilo from the English, and theuce visited most of the inhabitants, distributing books and baptising their children." Still puahiiig South, he took the Richmond to Stewart's Island," and made the circuit of all the inhabited places in Foveaux Strait." After a visit to Tonga and other groups to the northward in H M.S. Dido, he set, out from Aucklaud on a similar voyage in his " college yacht" the Undine, 22 tons, navigated by himself. Ah officer of H.M.S. Havannah writes in 1848:—"At the Island of Tanna we met the Bishop of New Zealand cruising about among the islands in the Umline—a small schooner yecht of about 25 tons; without a single weapon of any description on boardthe people consisting of himself, three men, and a boy." On one of his many voyages In the same diminutive craft he carried down from Auckland to the New Hebrides the frame of a house for a Presbyterian missionary, a neighbourly act which did not escape the animadversion of bigots ia England. In the Undine, also, he visited the Chatham Islands, and evi-n tho Aucklands—" to see the Antarctic Prince of Whales (Mr Euderby), who," he writes, "is now almost alone in bis glory, but still with a sufficient number of English and New Zealaoders to require a visit." The little Uudine, in which he had sailed 24,000 miles, was rxcuangml in 1851 for *b« Border F,t,uri, <>! 100 ton?,» gift frora a Mi.-sioimry Society in Syrtnuy, mid in 1855 the, fiohoonfr Southern Cross was built; for him in England. On one occasion when entering Port de Franco in New Catalonia, tba bishop "nonning" from the. fori'.yi>rii, the "Cro<s" grounded on a sunken coral patch, a mishap due to the sun-glare

Essays on Sacred' Subjects ; for general readers. By the Rev. W. Russell, M.A.—Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1889. Many Infallible Proofs. By Arthur T.* Piekson, D.D., Bethany Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia.—London: Morgan and Scott. Criticism of purely theological books hardly falls within onr function. In the caae of these two volumes, sent to us " with the publishers' compliments," it must suffice, therefore, if we merely indicate their character and purpose. They are attempts to restate the evidences of Christianity for orthodox believers who have heard of Darwin and Huxley, Kenan and Strauss. The writers' standpoint h that of evangelical Calvinism; their system of doctrine includes, therefore, the verbal inspiration of the Bible, the literal accuracy of the Mosaic cosmogony, the geologically recent origin of the human race, the Fall, the typical character of the Jewish sacrifices, and the substitutionary Atonement. Both writers are aware, doubtless, that these doctrines are not universally accepted even amongst devout Christians. Thus, for example, the Bishop of London, in his Bampton Lecture of 1885, speaks of "the allegory of the Garden of Eden," and affirms that" many great Christian thinkers from the earliest age of the church downwards have pronounced it an allegory." The same authority sees nothing but advantage to theology in the doctrine of evolution, which doctrine, h« says, "leaves the argument for an intelligent Creator and Governor of the world stronger than it was before." Then, also, Professor Robertson Smith declares it proved that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses, I and that the Levitical code first appeared at a date between Ezokiel and Ezra, yet holds, nevertheless, that essential Christianity remains intact. Those, however, who desire to see what can still be said in defence of the doctrines generally reckoned orthodox may consult the volumes at the head of this notice. That by Dr Pierson, who is a preacher in Philadelphia, appears to be a collection of sermons in thn rough and ready style of oratory which we have been accustomed to think distinctively American. But did not an eminent North British divine, discoursing the other day in Knox Church, remark on the difference between ihe death of the Saviour of the world and the death of "Dick, Tom. and Harry"! Dr Pieraon's style of talk may be learned from the following criticism on Colonel Ingersoll: " The trouble with Ingersoll is this: he has j selected the excrescences of human life, as it is grown in churches, and has represented the excrescences as the essence of religion. Suppose a physician, wishing to get up a museum, representing the human body in all ages and conditions, should collect idiots and lunatics, with wens and warts all over them. Suppose the physician should gather them into a museum and say: There's humanity for you; what do you think of that ? That is what Ingersoll is doing in the religious world. He snys nmrm rf true things, that have been said before, but he doesn't know it. He is not widely read in theology. I'm afraid h« doesn't read his Bible very much. What does ho read it for? I'll toil you. The doves, flying over the landscape, pee all that is sweet and peaceful; but when tho buzzard and the vulture fly abroad, the firet thing they see' is a loathsome carcase, and, if it is anywhere in sight, they don't fail to see it. Ingersoll s«s what ho is looking after. He is a turkey buzzard!" Besides Colonel lugersoll there are a good many other writers and lecturers against Christianity to whom the samo criticism might be appliedi