BOOKS RECEIVED. Harper & Brothers, New York. The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship "Challenger." Scenes in many Lands. By W. J. J. Spry, R. N. 1877. 8vo. pp. 388. $2.00. Annual Record of Science and Industry for 1876. Voyages over many Seas; With Map and Illustrations. Edited by Spencer F. Baird, with the assistance of eminent men of science. 1877. 8vo. pp. 609. $2.00. Reconciliation of Science and Religion. By Alexander Winchell, LL. D., author of "Sketches of Creation," "The Doctrine of Evolution," etc. 1877. 12mo. pp. 403. $2.00. Scribner, Armstrong & Co., New York. Christianity and Islam. The Bible and the Koran. Four Lectures by the Rev. W. R. W. Stephens, author of "The Life of St. John Chrysostom," ""Memorials of the South Saxon See," etc. 1877. 12mo. pp. 166. $1.25. Short Studies on Great Subjects. By James Anthony Froude. Third Series. pp. 400. $2.50. 12mo. A. D. F. Randolph & Co., New York. The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield. By L. Tyerman. 2 vols., with Portraits. pp. 561, 647. $4.00. The Fulness of Blessing; or, The Gospel of Christ, as illustrated from the Book of Joshua. By Sarah F. Smiley. 12mo. pp. 336. $1.50. Our Theological Century. A Contribution to the History of Theology in the Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. The Christian Way: Whither it Leads, and How to Go on. By Washington Gladden. 1877. 16mo. pp. 142. $1.00. S. R. Wells & Co., New York. How to raise Fruits. A Hand-Book of Fruit Culture. Being a Guide to the proper Cultivation and Management of Fruit Trees, and of Grapes and Small Fruits, with condensed Descriptions of many of the best and most popular Varieties. By Thomas Gregg. Fully Illustrated. 1877. 12mo. pp. 183. $1.00. How to Teach according to Temperament and Mental Development; or, Phrenol ogy in the School-Room and the Family. By Nelson Sizer. 1877. 12mo. pp. 331. $1.50. S. M. Pettengill & Co., New York. Pettengill's Newspaper Directory and Advertisers' Hand-Book for 1877. Comprising a Complete List of the Newspapers and other Periodicals published in the United States and British America. 8vo. pp. 344. James R. Osgood & Co., Boston. Oriental Religions, and their Relation to Universal Religion. By Samuel Johnson. China. 1877. 8vo. pp. 975. $5.00. The Burning of the Convent. A Narrative of the Destruction of the Ursuline Hillside and Seaside in Poetry. A Companion to “Roadside Poems." Edited by Lucy Larcom. 1877. 32mo. pp. 303. $1.00. The Eastern Question. History of Russia, with Maps. History of Turkey, with Maps. Russia and Turkey, with Maps. Servia and Roumania, Maps and Illustrations. Modern Greece, with Map. Each 32mo. pp. 123, 176, 81, 90, 87. 50 cents, cloth. 25 cents, paper. Lockwood, Brooks & Co., Boston. The Gospel Invitation: Sermons related to the Boston Revival of 1877. 8vo. PP. 332. $1.50. D. Lothrop & Co., Boston. The Confessions of Augustine. Edited, with an Introduction, by William G. T. Shedd. New edition. 16mo. pp. 417. $1.50. Hidden Treasure. By the author of "Andy Luttrell." 16mo. pp. 301. $1.25. Roberts Brothers, Boston. The Children of Light. By Rev. Wm. W. Faris. 1877. Fletcher Prize Essay. 16m0. pp. 312. $1.50. Congregational Publishing Society, Boston. Memorials of Charles Stoddard. By his daughter, Mary Stoddard Johnson. 1876. 12mo. PP. 525. $1.00. The Angel in the Marble. By George F. Pentecost. Second Edition. 16mo. pp. 182. $1.00. Albert J. Wright, State Printer, Boston. The Census of Massachusetts: 1875. Prepared under the Direction of Carroll D. Wright, Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor. Vol. I. Population and Social Statistics. Vol. II. Manufactures and Related Occupations. Vol. III. Agricultural Products and Property. Second Edition. Royal 8vo. pp. 809, 935, 790. Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia, Pa. Witherspoon: Proceedings and Addresses at the Laying of the Corner-Stone, and at the Unveiling of the Statue of John Witherspoon, in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. Compiled by the Rev. Wm. P. Breed, D. D. 12mo. pp. 104. $1.25. "The Higher Life" Doctrine of Sanctification, tried by the Word of God. By Henry A. Boardman, D. D. 16m0. pp. 286. $1.50. S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago. Hours with Men and Books. By William Mathews, LL. D. 1877. 12mo. pp. 384. $2.00. PAMPHLETS RECEIVED. Was Bronson Alcott's School a Type of God's Moral Government? A Review of Joseph Cook's Theory of the Atonement. By Washington Gladden. Boston: Lockwood, Brooks & Co. 1877. Small 4to. pp. 64. 40 cents. Necrological Reports presented to the Alumni Association of Princeton Theological Seminary for 1876 and 1877. By a Committee of the Association. 8vo. pp. 37 and 47. Ezekiel Webster Dimond, late Professor of General and Agricultural Chemistry in the N. H. College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts. Prepared at the Request of the Board of Agriculture. By Joseph B. Walker. Concord, N. H., 1877. 8vo. pp 26. Vaticanism Unmasked; or, Romanism in the United States. By a Puritan of the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, Mass. Published by the Principia Club. P. O. Address, Box 104. 1877. 16mo. pp. 118. Heredity. Responsibility in Parentage. By Rev. S. H. Platt, A. M. New York: S. R. Wells & Co., 737 Broadway. 1877. 16mo. pp. 14. An Address on the Possibility and Probability of a Supernatural Revelation. Delivered before the Minneapolis Liberal League, April 4, 1875. By Rev. Horace Bumstead, late Pastor of the 2d Congregational Church, Minneapolis, Minn. 1875. 8vo. pp. 15. A Brief Account of the University of the South. By the Rev. David Greene Haskins, Cambridge, Mass. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 713 Broadway. 1877. 16mo. pp 47. United States Official Postal Guide. Revised and published quarterly, by Authority of the Post-Office Department. April, July, and October, 1876, and Jan. and April, 1877. Boston: H. O. Houghton & Co. New York: Hurd & Houghton. Per year, $1.50. Quarterly number, 50 cents. Giving in Hard Times: A Word to the People and their Pastors. By the Rev. John Abbott French. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1334 Chestnut Street. Family Worship at Mr. Lyman's. By J. B. T. Marsh. Chestnut Street. Philadelphia, 1334 The Day Changed and the Sabbath Preserved. By Archibald A. Hodge, D. D. Philadelphia, 1334 Chestnut St. 24m0. pp. 24. The Alpine Shepherd. By Maria Lowell. Philadelphia, 1334 Chestnut St. 32mo. pp. 4. My Grace is Sufficient for Thee. By William S. Plumer, D. D. Philadelphia, 1334 Chestnut St. 32mo. pp. 8. Wakefield Congregational Church: A Commemorative Sketch, 1644-1877. By Religion and Science: The Psychological Basis of Religion considered from the Manual of the First Congregational Church in Middletown, Orange Co., N. Y., organized in 1785. 1876. 18mo. pp. 26. EDITOR'S TABLE. Theological Students. In the table in our April number, page 309, giving "College Graduation of the Theological Students," the column respecting the New Haven Seminary is erroneous. The mistakes arose from the fact that the catalogue of that seminary is made out differently from that of any other of our similar institutions. Correcting these mistakes, the column of total is as follows: Denominational Lines. -The Congregational denomination has in the past represented doctrinal soundness, church order, and spiritual liberty. As to doctrine it has held, for substance, the old confessions, but it has not held them so rigidly as to preclude a liberal interpretation of them. Calvinists and Hopkinsians, old-school and new-school theologians, after warm and sometimes sharp discussion, have finally agreed to stand firmly together in support of a common faith. The denominational lines have been sufficiently distinct. At the organization of the National Council in 1871, a somewhat ambiguous phraseology was adopted in the doctrinal bond of union. Those who interpret this clause in the constitution as putting the council on a simply evangelical basis, have unwarrantably represented that the council in its adoption settled the doctrinal standard of the denomination. Even admitting their intepretation of the language to be correct, their conclusion is erroneous, for it is no part of the province of the triennial council to determine the doctrinal standard of the denomination. This standard is indicated by our theological seminaries, and decided by local ecclesiastical councils, by general councils called for that purpose, and by the churches themselves. Still the representation which these persons make, false though it be, shows, on their part, a disposition to put our denomination on this low grade. Some time since one of our oldest ministers published in the Christian Union a series of elaborate historical articles, to show that the rejection of the doctrine of future endless punishment does not forfeit one's standing in our denomination. Still more recently, the pastor of a large church in Massachusetts publicly declared his belief in the moral theory of the atonement, which is simply the Unitarian at-one-ment, and yet claims his right to retain his standing as a minister in our denomination. A minister has recently become the pastor of a Unitarian Church, and yet writes to us, inquiring why his name is dropped from the list of Congregational ministers in the Quarterly, asking to have it restored, and adding, “I presume there may have been some misapprehension as to the meaning of my course in coming here. Let me assure you, then, that it did not mean that I ceased to be a Congregationalist and became a Unitarian. On the contrary, I have never taken the latter name, and see no meaning in it which is any longer valuable to the world." A minister, who has long been in our denomination, not only preaches to an infidel society in Boston, but in his sermon recently extolled Theodore Parker until he was applauded by his audience, and declared that "history will pronounce Theodore Parker essentially right"; and yet he is retained in our denomination by a Connecticut Association. A pastor at the West writes to us, maintaining that "the church cannot dictate to any member, but can only counsel and help him, and must not thrust him out for peculiar views or conduct, unless he shows himself positively unchristian or schismatic. . . In short, there must be entire liberty for both church and individual." The editor of the Unitarian Review publishes to the world that "the orthodox Congregationalist body stands now, on the question of future punishment, just where the Unitarian body stood fifty years ago; large portions of it have adopted a view of the atonement substantially, though not formally, that of the early Unitarians. The new statement concerning human nature, pretty generally held by the younger theologians, is very nearly that commonly held among Unitarians. The doctrine of the Trinity is distinctly denied by a few, and ignored or explained away by an increasing number." 1 Now all this smoke indicates some fire. Have we drifted as far away from the old standards as these things indicate? Is our denomination a Western prairie with no fences? Has doctrinal belief ceased to be a test of Christian character, or of standing in the Congregational ministry? We propose these questions for the consideration of ministerial associations when called to receive members or give letters of approbation to young men as preachers. We propose them for the serious consideration of councils called to ordain or install ministers. We propose them for the prayerful consideration of the churches who would have ministers who are able to say, with the apostle, "As it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." One thing is sure if we have no denominational lines, as a denomination we are doomed. The Christian Register, of June 16th, notices the action of the Presbyterians respecting the heresy of Dr. John Miller, and the action of the Reformed Church with reference to the erroneous views of Dr. Blauvelt; and then represents Rev. Washington Gladden as "perhaps the most daring offender," and as intending, "in spite of his alleged heresy," to maintain his rights as a Congregational minister, until "advised by some competent tribunal that they have been abrogated." This "daring" spirit the editor of the Register does not seem to respect, for he says, "We cannot defend the course of Drs. Miller and Blauvelt in staying to be kicked out of denominations, some of whose leading doctrines they had ceased to believe." He taunts the Congregationalists thus, "How much longer are the Trinitarian Congregationalists to be outdone in stanch loyalty to sound doctrines 1 Unitarian Review, June, 1877, p. 673. |