public monuments set up by authority, and intended in perpetuam rei memoriam; the epitaphs with which we have been concerned were, like those in our own village churchyard, simple chronicles of the dead, each of which, if taken alone, is trifling enough, but when studied all together, accidentally make interesting and unlooked-for revelations . . .

'Pagan epitaphs, as we have said, looked back upon the past, and regretted its loss; Christian epitaphs, by the very earliest symbol engraved upon them, spoke the language of hope. If a Pagan mourner dared to look forward at all, it was to utter a feeble wish that he might be allowed to enjoy, as it were, a cold and gloomy repetition, a faint echo or image, of the present life; the Christian prayed for a new and everlasting life in God . . . .

Again, at the end of this volume, we have another interesting example of this admirable correspondence between the known facts of history and the phenomena presented by the monumental remains that have been preserved to us. He has just registered his last epitaph belonging to the year 589.

'And now,' he says, 'I seem to be gathering the last relics of the res epigraphica of Rome, which had been gradually dying, and, indeed, was almost dead, from about the middle of this (sixth) century. Now I have come to that point where there are no longer even scanty relics to be found; for from the year 589 to the year 600, which is the limit I have prescribed to myself, I can find no Roman epitaph bearing any certain note of its date.'

The numerous woodcuts in Dr. Northcote's book are very convenient and not badly done: they are for the most part reduced from De Rossi's work, and a large proportion of them are given in the works of Bosio and Aringhi; so that they have been known to those who have given attention to the subject for the last two hundred years. We may as well mention to our readers that photographs of them all are included in Mr. Parker's series of Historical Photographs, which can be seen in most of the public libraries. He has not only given the few that remain in the Catacombs, but the whole of those arranged by De Rossi himself on the walls of the Lateran Museum and of the Monastery of S. Paul, near Rome. These photographs only confirm the truth of these inscriptions; so that cavillers can no longer deny their authenticity. For the dates of them, which is an important part of the question, Dr. Northcote is obliged to acknowledge, in his chapter on the Chronology of the Inscriptions,' that they are very rare in the first four centuries, and that there is but one really dated example of the first century, two of the second, twentythree or twenty-four of the third, five hundred (more or less) both of the fourth and of the fifth, and the remainder belong to the sixth.

This being the case, is it not probable that the paintings originally belonged to the same periods as the inscriptions, and that after they were all seriously damaged by the Goths and the Lombards during their seizures of Rome, these paintings were restored by the Popes when the Catacombs themselves were re-made or restored by the Popes, some in the sixth century and others in the eighth or ninth, when there was a grand restoration of scores of Churches and CataVOL. VII.-NO. XIII.

Q

combs for the use of the pilgrims, especially in the time of Charlemagne (or Charles the Great, as Mr. Freeman would have us say), when it is known that pilgrimages to the Catacombs were very much the fashion, as they have been again in the nineteenth century, under Pius the IX.?

Notes of my Life, by Archdeacon Denison, tell a good deal of what is interesting in the Church history of the last thirty years from the standpoint of one who has filled a prominent place in much that has happened. It is not very usual for men to challenge the judgment of the world upon their lives, whilst they are still acting and moving in it; but the Archdeacon of Taunton is not an ordinary man, and as he writes freely of others, so we must venture to speak as freely of him. His enthusiastic temperament and warm sympathies have led him to take a leading and courageous part, and have secured for him the affection of a large number of friends, whilst his eager partisanship makes him speak in the strongest terms of all which he opposes. It is a pleasure to find, notwithstanding this, that his book is free from unkind personalities. It is illustrative of this characteristic of the man, that so soon as the suit of Ditcher v. Denison was concluded he is able to write :-'The day following I sent my servant with a note to Mr. Ditcher, at South Brent, to say that we should be thankful to resume our old friendly relations.' The offer was accepted, and the old intimacy was renewed; and when Mr. Ditcher died some years later, at the request of his widow, Archdeacon Denison preached his funeral sermon. Not less noticeable is the Archdeacon's fearless and intrepid advocacy of whatever he felt to be right. In such cases, he must say all that is in his heart, and say it in the way which will most attract notice, and possibly most wound opponents. Moreover, there is substantially throughout his career great consistency of purpose; to the cause he has once advocated he feels pledged for life, and with few exceptions he adheres to it.

But throughout the 'Notes' it is evident that Archdeacon Denison's forte is criticism, not construction; he is at home in pulling to pieces proposals which he dislikes; he rarely seems to have thought it necessary to propose a substitute, and never originates a policy which will leave a lasting mark in the Church's history. The habit of mind thus manifested is noticeable from the outset of his career. Thus of his tenure of the curacy of Cuddesden (1832-1838) he writes :

'I found a parish of some 500 souls, church-going people, with Holy Communion from time to time, and a number of communicants relatively very large with Sunday school held in the church, with hardly anything to be called a daily school, and with no school buildings: with a pretty old church, closed pews and open sittings; and I left all these things much as I found them'-(p. 67).

At Broadwinsor, of which he was vicar from 1838 to 1845, he built house and stables, and a small church and schools; but such work was evidently not to his mind, and he groans over the expense. When he was at East Brent he made harvest festivals popular in his

parish; and his example has since been generally followed. With these exceptions, and that of the ordinary duties of his offices, the Archdeacon's work has been chiefly controversial. As chaplain to the then Bishop of Bath and Wells, he was reported to have brought the doctrine of the Real Presence into undue prominence. To explain his views he preached two sermons in Wells Cathedral, which led to his prosecution. After a long and anxious period of trial and suspense, the whole proceedings were summarily brought to an end upon a technical point, of which he wisely availed himself. Besides this his name was for many years prominent as an opponent of the Government education measures; and ever since its revival he has taken a leading part in Convocation. To judge of what he did with respect to primary education, we must have the position of things clearly before us. In 1839 the first movement was made by Government to further the efforts of the National Society and the British and Foreign School Society to educate the people. The country was then indifferent to the subject, and as long as it continued so it was possible for the clergy to undertake the larger part of the responsibility. But this did not last long, for the nation soon began to feel the influence of the spread of education in Germany and elsewhere. The rapid progress of trade and manufactures raised numbers of uneducated men to great wealth, and created a feeling that it was within the reach of all to improve their social condition, and that they ought to be trained in childhood with a view to such a possibility. A further impetus was given to popular education by the exhibition of 1851, which showed that our commercial supremacy might be challenged, and that our future prosperity would depend largely upon the training given to our artisans. Whilst what happened subsequently in the political as well as in the commercial world deepened the conviction in most minds that the poorer classes must be educated. Events have shown that no efforts would have availed to hinder the natural results which flow from such a conviction. Happily, as we think, the nation was resolved that its labouring population should not remain in ignorance. It was possible for the Church to guide this movement; impossible for it to arrest it. Το do the former great pecuniary sacrifices were needed, as education is a costly work; the clergy alone could not undertake the responsibility. To help them to bear the burden, and to interest those who must find a large part of the funds, Government required that certain management clauses should be inserted in the deeds of all schools, to the building of which they contributed, which joined a number of laymen with the clergy as school managers; the religious teaching being left entirely to the clergy. We are satisfied that no better mode could have been devised for the joint action of Church and State. The alternative was a rate-supported scheme of education for the whole country from the outset. Against the clauses which delegated a share of the management to laymen, and against the whole system of Government grants, the Archdeacon bent all his energies. He had no alternative scheme to propose he could simply denounce what was done; and we think there can be little

doubt that the result of his labours has been to promote the success of the cause which he most hated. His denunciations alarmed the timid, and furnished what seemed to be a reason for doing nothing to the apathetic, and so helped to provide an excuse for the unfortunate Act of 1870, by which the religious character of the education of the country has been seriously endangered. Such an Act could never have been passed if the example set by the National Society and its earnest fellow-labourers, whom the Archdeacon most opposes, had been universally followed, and if the Bishops had shown any real appreciation of the importance of religious education for the younger members of their flock.

In Convocation, so long as the questions under discussion chiefly demanded critical skill, the Archdeacon was a prominent and successful leader. This was seen during the debates about Bishop Colenso, and Essays and Reviews. But when it was necessary to In

do more than criticise, the Archdeacon's power began to wane. the many debates on the Rubrics and Ritualism, he has never seemed able to recognise that the feelings of congregations, resting on the customs of centuries, have to be seriously considered as well as the letter of the law, and that in a country governed by the opinion of the majority it is imperative for the Church to act with wisdom as well as with determination. In the debates on such subjects he generally separated himself from his own friends and united with his opponents, in the hope of defeating that which was not so 'thorough' as he desired it to be. The complaints, therefore, of isolation and desertion by his old supporters, of which there are many, must be read in the light thrown upon his course by the chronicle of Convocation. He seems to have despaired because everything could not remain exactly as it was, or be moulded precisely as he thought it ought to be; and whilst he is conscious that great improvements have been going on around him in individuals and in parishes, he cannot see that such improvements much strengthen the institutions of which the individuals form integral portions. Those who are content to bear much which they dislike, and work on in the faith that for the evils which they lament a remedy will be eventually found, though they cannot yet decide what or when it will be, are the especial objects of the Archdeacon's invectives; he has evidently no sympathy with reforms which demand time, and possibly generations, to work And such have been the reforms which the Church has demanded. For a long dark period her children had been content to accept her formularies without attaching that definite meaning to them which they demand for their perfect understanding, or regarding them as the exponents of a system of doctrine and discipline. As life was breathed into what people had contentedly received as dead forms or unmeaning words, they shrank from its manifestations. The State not unnaturally dreaded the unpopularity which approval of the new life would bring with it. It therefore sought to control and depress the Church through its powers of patronage. It has thus laid a heavy burden upon many individual souls; it has deprived the Church at large of the services which might have been rendered to

out.

it by many of its most able clergy, had they been duly promoted; but it has preserved the movement from being corrupted by worldly success. With faith and patience what was designed for the Church's hindrance will tend to her advancement; but to obtain this it is necessary for her sons to be content to bear and forbear, and not to cry out at every arbitrary exhibition of power or one-sided judicial decision, that those who submit are traitors. Happily this is what most faithful Churchmen are content to do, and we doubt not that in a generation or two all that they have a right to ask will be secured. This seems to us a sounder and more Christ-like mode of acting than perpetually singing songs of despair, and thundering out ceaseless protests. Our good friend Archdeacon Denison has not always remembered this, and whilst he has always been ready to fight bravely for what he regarded as the right, we think he has not infrequently been mistaken about what really was the right; whilst of patient waiting for the gradual working out of great principles, and self denying efforts, he seems absolutely ignorant.

The Supernatural in Nature, a Verification by Free Use of Science. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co., 1878.

THIS book belongs to that class of scientific books of which we have recently had several specimens-books written in defence of Christianity from a scientific point of view, and called forth by reaction against the unbelieving colouring given to scientific pursuit by a distinguished but happily small section of scientific men. The author has especially in view members of the medical profession, 'men with keen unconquerable love for scientific study; who, not possessing special religious convictions, nor having any particular expectation of pecuniary advantage, devote themselves, "heart and soul," with intense unselfish devotion, to the study of their own branch of science.' For the sake of these, and other truth-loving men, in danger of being beguiled by sophisms of an imperfect science,' the author tells us, this book is written.'

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The book consists of a series of studies. The first five, the titles of which are 'Is intellect divorced from piety?' 'The supernatural,' 'The threshold of creation,' 'Rudiments of the world,'' Origin of life and theory of rule,' concern the general argument, and are to a certain extent introductory. Then we have a series of studies on the inspired narrative of creation in its relation to modern science, which perhaps forms the most valuable portion of the work. After that, we have studies on 'The invisible,' Variety in nature,' 'The follies of the wise,' in which last the writer severely criticises rash statements by distinguished men of science; and then he concludes with a study on 'The Kingdom of God.'

Our author's conception of the supernatural may be seen from the following:

'This Power, of which every phenomenon is a manifestation, acts through all bodies, animate and inanimate. If a stone is thrown into the air, or falls on the ground, it is according to definite laws; if a crystal is formed in a solution of salt, if plants grow and flower, if animals are