complete specific characters. With very rare exceptions, also, varietal forms are contemporaneous with the normal form of their specific type, and occur in the same localities. Only in a very few cases do they survive it. This and the previous results, as well as the fact that parallel changes go in groups having no direct reaction on each other, prove that variation is not a progressive influence, and that specific distinctions are not dependent on it, but on the sovereign action of one and the same creative cause,' as Barrande expresses it. These conclusions, it may be observed, are not arrived at by that slap-dash method of mere assertion so often followed on the other side of these questions, but by the most severe and painstaking induction, and with careful elaboration of a few apparent exceptions and doubtful cases.

His second heading relates to the distribution in time of the genera and species of brachiopods. This he illustrates with a series of elaborate tables, accompanied by explanation. He then proceeds to consider the animal population of each formation in so far as brachiopods, cephalopods, and trilobites are concerned with reference to the following questions: (1) How many species are continued from the previous formation unchanged? (2) How many may be regarded as modifications of previous species? (3) How many are migrants from other regions where they have been known to exist previously? (4) How many are absolutely new species? These questions are applied to each of fourteen successive formations included in the Silurian of Bohemia. The total number of species of brachiopods in these formations is 640, giving an average of 4571 to each, and the results of accurate study of each species in its characters, its varieties, its geographical and geological range are expressed in the following short statement, which should somewhat astonish those gentlemen who are so fond of asserting that derivation is 'demonstrated' by geological facts:

He shows that the same or very similar proportions hold with respect to the cephalopods and trilobites, and, in fact, that the proportion, of species in the successive Silurian faunæ which can be attributed to descent with modification is absolutely nil. He may well remark that in the face of such facts the origin of species is not explained by what he terms 'les élans poétiques de l'imagination.'

The third part of Barrande's memoir, relating to the comparison of the Silurian brachiopods of Bohemia with those of other countries, though of great scientific interest and important in extending the conclusions of his previous chapters, does not concern so nearly our present subject.

I have thought it well to direct attention to these memoirs of Barrande because they form a specimen of conscientious work, with the view of ascertaining if there is any basis in nature for the doctrine of spontaneous evolution of species, and, I am sorry to say, a striking contrast to the mixture of fact and fancy on this subject which too often passes current for science in England, America, and Germany. Barrande's studies are also well deserving the attention of our younger men of science, as they have before them, more especially in the widelyspread Paleozoic formations of America, an admirable field for similar work. In an appendix to his first chapter, Barrande mentions that the three men who in their respective conntries are the highest authorities on Paleozoic brachiopods, Hall, Davidson and De Koninck, agree with him in the main in his conclusions, and he refers to an able memoir by D'Archiac in the same sense on the cretaceous brachiopods.

It should be especially satisfactory to those naturalists who, like the writer, have failed to see in the paleontological record any good evidence for the production of species by those simple and ready methods in vogue with most evolutionists, to note the extension of actual facts with respect to the geological dates and precise conditions of the introduction of new forms, and to find that these are more and more tending to prove the existence of highly complex creative laws in connection with the great plan of the Creator as carried out in geological time. These new facts should also warn the ordinary reader of the danger of receiving without due caution those general and often boastful assertions respecting these great and intricate questions made by persons not acquainted with their actual difficulty, or by enthusiastic specu lators disposed to overlook everything not in accordance with their pre conceived idea.

J. W. DAWSON, LL.D., in Princeton Review

VII.-THE TRUE THEORY OF CHRISTIAN

HOLINESS:

AN EXPOSITION AND A DEFENCE.

No one who is much conversant with the doings of the Methodist Churches of our land can have failed to notice the increased attention which is now being given to the subject of personal holiness in its various relations. You have only to take up the weekly newspaper which bears our denominational name to see that we, as a community, have participated in this revived interest. In its columns are to be found every now and again reports of conventions for the promotion of holiness which have been held in various parts of the Connexion, as well as frequent correspondence, on the subject. All this points to a stirring of the public mind.

success.

Now, it is a question of a very interesting kind, though one which admits of no easy or certain answer-What has turned the mind of our churches in this direction? The labours of Messrs. Inskip, Wood, and Macdonald, in fulfilment of their Holiness Mission round the world, have certainly helped on the movement, but are not wholly or even mainly responsible for it. Others, beside them, have been prosecuting a similar mission for some years past, and have met with but indifferent The visit of the American evangelists was opportune. They found men's minds in an electric condition. There is reason to believe that the periods of trial through which our churches were called to pass served to prepare many to listen more readily to such views, and finally to embrace them with avidity. In the midst of financial embarrasments and of numerical declension, with the hearts of many failing them for fear,' and others prognosticating disaster, it was borne in upon the minds of the thoughtful with irresistible force that denominational strength and the guarantee of its perpetuity do not lie in numbers, or wealth, or organization, but in spiritual life, and in that alone. The old platitude now had its metamorphosis and stood out a painfully distinct truth. Men said, 'Yes, we see it now; a church where members are not all devoted to one will, and that the will of the Supreme, is nothing after all but a worldly association under another name. It lacks the very principle of cohesion, and is but a rope of sand. It is a 'congeries of heterogeneous elements' where all will 'seek their own,

not the things which are Jesus Christ's.' In such a church there cannot be any deep general spiritual enthusiasm. Nothing can absolve the church from the obligations of holiness; that enjoyed, it is independent of factitious aid.' In this case sweet have been the uses of adversity.' The humbling and depressing lessons of the period of trial drive many to seek unto God. It was a new reading of the old story; Israel trusts in Egypt until her staff is broken, and then she leans upon God.

It is but just to say that a reason of a very different and far more recondite kind has been given to account for the pronounced views winning their way to such general acceptance. A writer who wields. a vigorous and able pen, and of whom and of whose opinions we would now, as always, think and write with the utmost respect, has just lately developed the idea that we have already entered upon a period of reaction and rebound from the predominance of a sensational and materialistic philosophy. Of late years the pendulum swung sadly too far in the direction of Rationalism; now it is in danger of reaching in its oscillation the other extreme of superstition. Already the golden mean is passed. The supernatural, having been too much ignored, has now its innings, and is in its turn threatening to dominate the natural. Even now the mischievous tendency is at work, for the church has fallen into the error of overlooking or minimising the point which the individual must sustain in the work of emancipation' from sin. The doctrine of sanctification by faith is specially singled out as affording a capital instance of this dangerous 'overlooking and minimising' of the personal element. We are led to infer that the degree of vogue this and correlate doctrines are meeting with registers the growing tendency towards an extravagant supernaturalism. The able writer aforesaid adds his opinion that at this juncture the church needs men who can keep their heads.'

Now, we cannot but think that the instance selected is not the most happy one that could be chosen for the writer's purpose, since sanctification by faith has from the beginning been an article in the creed of Methodism. Extremes, we know, beget extremes. Luther, in his own homely way, has told us that human nature is like a drunken man on horseback; if you prop him up on one side, he tumbles back on the other side. Very possibly, therefore, there may be at the present time the beginning of a recoil from a materialistic philosophy-a recoil which even the church may feel the effects of. What is not so obvious is, that the growing vogue of the doctrine of sanctification by faith proves, or is the result of, any such recoil. In point of fact, if there

be a change at all, it is of the nature of a reversion to the old rather than a deviation into the new. Since we do not accept the theory of the Development of Doctrine, what is new in theology is presumably not true; but in this subject the new, and therefore the presumably untrue, is not the belief that sanctification is accomplished by a single exercise of Divine power,' but the obscuration or denial of such belief. It is needless to cumber our pages with the citing of authorities. Let Wesley, Fletcher, Clarke, and the rest stay undisturbed on their shelves. Our connexional hymn-book cannot very well be shelved; and in its pages-in the hymns we have been singing for years, we find stated, in no equivocal fashion, the very views that are deprecated as tending to a dangerous extreme.

''Tis done; Thou dost this moment save,

With full salvation bless;

Redemption through Thy blood I have,
And spotless love and peace.'

So sings the poet of Methodism, and the pendulum will have to swing much further than it yet has done ere it gets beyond such teaching. Of Of course, it may be argued that the old view thus enshrined in the hymn was an accretion, perhaps itself the result of a recoil from the Deism of the time, and that theology would have been well rid of such an accretion. Until lately, indeed, in spite of the hymn-book and the standards, theology seemed in a fair way for shaking itself free from this extreme view and regaining the juste miliev, had it not been for this unfortunate lurch backwards!' This position is understandable, but has not, as far as we know, been taken up by any one. This much is clear: recoil, or no recoil, this connection between the quickened interest in the doctrine of sanctification by faith and that recoil remains not proven.

Here, then, are posed in clear light two estimates of this Holiness movement' of our time which are entirely at variance with each other. Some say the movement is healthy, and they wish it God-speed. Others, represented by our anonymous journalist, regard it with sus picion, if not dislike, as a movement tending in the wrong direction and fraught with danger. It is well to take our bearings and know where we are; to be anxious only to follow where Truth leads. Our journalist is right, the Church does need men who can keep their heads, and use them too, men who have understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do.'

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By the courtesy of the editor, we are allowed to write on these debateable matters; but in doing so we commit nobody except ourselves