for the most part, a vague, unmeaning jumble of seeming predictions applicable to no special event, and without point or general interest. In 1641 a pamphlet containing a medley of this sort, chiefly in halting verse, was printed in London, and her "Life and Curious Prophecies "were given to the public in 1677.

In 1862 Mr. Charles Hindley, of Brighton, England, issued what purported to be an exact reprint of "A Chap-book version" of Mother Shipton's prophecies, from the edition of 1448." In this, for the first time, there were point and pith, and special application. All modern discoveries were plainly described, and one prophecy which began

"Carriages without horses shall go."

and set forth the railroads, telegraphs, steamers and other modern inventions, wound up with

"The world to an end shall come

In eighteen hundred and eighty-one"

This, of course, quite startled the public If all other important events of the nineteenth century had been so aptly described, why should not the last prediction be fulfilled? We copied the prophecy, and without knowing any. thing of its source, denounced it as a forgery. An English paper replied that it was an exact reprint of the old edition for nearly two hundred and fifty years on file in the British Museum. We sent our correspondent to the Museum and learned that there was a chap-book of that title bearing date 1641; another of 1642, containing what purported to be Mother Shipton's portrait; other curious prophecies dated 1648, 1662, 1667; and "Mother Shipton's Life and Curious Prophecies" complete in an octavo edition of 1797. We then purchased the reprint and sent to have them compared. This proved that a fraud had been committed. The old prophecies were a vague jumble of local predictions that might have been fulfilled at any and every decade since their date. All the pointed and interesting predictions in the new issue were not in the old book, and were either interlineations, interpolations, or entirely new fragments, evidently written after the events they were supposed to predict. We pressed the point, and the secret then came out. In the spring of 1873, Mr. Hindley wrote a letter confessing that he had fabricated the prophecy above quoted and ten others, in order to render his little book salable. He had started in good faith to reprint the old chapbook, but finding nothing in it applicable to modern times, he had set his own wits at work to supply the omission. We have given this at some length, as portions of these literary forgeries are still going the rounds of the press as veritable antiques. NEW YORK, February 13, 1880.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

We invite special attention to the first article in this number of the REVIEW, on the Ritual Law in the American Church. It is written by one who has given much study and thought to the subject, and it deserves careful consideration. The broad claim is made that all things which are not forbidden in the Liturgy are permitted. We suppose, of course, that this means only things allowed in the English Church before the Reformation. Without some such limitation the claim would be too absurd. This is the assertion taken up, examined, and we think refuted, in this article. But if it be allowed, then prayers for the dead, invocations of angels and saints, worship of images, adoration of the elements in the Eucharist and other observances of a like nature, not being positively forbidden by the Rubrics, may be introduced. As it is, great diversity in conducting the service is obtaining among us; so that the old boast that a churchman feels at home in our Churches, wherever he may be, from Maine to Texas, no longer holds good. There are those who think this uniformity to be a matter of little consequence. We, on the contrary, think it has been one great cause of the growth of the Church in this country. Among the changing sects around men have come to feel the beauty of stability they are tired of being "tossed about by every wind of Doctrine;" and they have turned to the Church because she was fixed in her faith and worship; because they knew what they had to expect; because they were protected from constant change; were not at the mercy of every shifting opinion and fancy of the minister. In a word, they sought the Church to get rid of individ ualism. But if every young priest is to be the judge of what may be introduced into the service from the old, abandoned ritual, not only is all this fixedness of character lost, but the laity are left to the whim of the minister, and the spirit of individualism, i. e., sectarianism, will prevail in the Church. The General Convention owes it to the Church to take up this matter and settle it. Let the Dioceses be careful to elect Deputies to the Convention meeting next Fall, who will not be afraid to face squarely and settle fully this question of Ritual Law.

AMONG THE BOOKS.

THE MILITARY RELIGIOUS ORDERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By F. C. Woodhouse, M.A., Rector of St. Mary's, Hulme, Manchester. LONDON: SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN Knowledge. NEW YORK: POTT, YOUNG & Co. pp. 360.

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This is one of the series of The Home Library." another of which, "Great English Churchmen," has been noticed in a previous number of this REVIEW. The Military Religious Orders took a very important part in the defence of Europe and Christianity against the invasions of the Turks and Saracens. We are apt to regard the Crusades as the outcome of a religious fanaticism; and so to a certain extent they were. Yet undoubtedly, ir God's Providence, they were the means of keeping back the hordes of Mohammedanism on the soil of Asia for several centuries; and thus they were the salvation of Europe; for it was with difficulty that even as late as the time of the great Emperor Charles V., the tide of Turkish conquest was stayed before the walls of Vienna. What then, humanly speaking, must have been the fate of Europe, if, in its weak condition in the eleventh century, there had been nothing to unite its distracted nations against the common foe. This the Crusades did. The "Religious Military Orders" were a feature, and perhaps we may say a natural outgrowth, of the combination of religion and chivalry which gave power to the Crusades. The first of them originated in the charitable desire to furnish shelter and nursing to the sick pilgrims who visited the Holy Places of Jerusalem; whence the name "Hospitallers." But many men of rank and renown in arms uniting with them, they soon added to this first design, the further purpose of resuming their arms, that they might protect helpless travelers from the Turkomans, and become soldiers of the Cross, vowed to devote their lives to fighting against the enemies of Christ. And thus arose about 1120, the order of the Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers, known in later times as The Knights of Malta;" and soon after The Knights Templars," whose organization was wholly military; uniting, however, with this, as did the others, the chief features of the monastic system, by taking the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience.

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The book before us gives a sufficiently full history of the most important of the military orders, those mentioned above, and briefer accounts of others, such as "The Teutonic Knights," the Portuguese, Spanish and English Orders. The story of the celebrated sieges of the Knights of St. John, by the Turks, first in Rhodes and afterwards in Malta, is given with some minuteness, and reads like a page of romance. This order still exists in England, under certain modifications, confining its work, however, to that for which it was first instituted, viz. the care of the sick. The Templars had a shorter career, the Order being suppressed during the fourteenth century. But traces of their existence are to be found in many places, as in the Temple in London, and in the names of towns throughout England with the word affixed, such as Templestow, Temple Cressing, etc. This book will be found both instructive from the history it contains, and interesting from the pleasant style in which that history is written.

:

THE MANLINESS OF CHRIST. By Thomas Hughes, Q.C. BOSTON : HOUGHTON, OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 1880. pp. 160, $1.00

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Any book by the author of "Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby," is sure to find a plenty of readers. This one deserves to find them. The idea underlying it, and which suggested it, was to set forth wherein true manliness consists; and then exemplify this by the history of our Lord. For as He came to be unto us an ensample of godly life," we have a right to look unto Him as a pattern of perfection in manliness, as well as in all other things. Here Mr. Hughes has done a good work by drawing clearly the distinction between mere muscular strength with brute courage, and true manliness, and this he gives as the conclusion to which he comes:

Tenacity of will, or willfulness, lies at the root of all courage, but courage can only rise into true manliness when the will is surrendered; and the more absolute the surrender of the will the more perfect will be the temper of our courage and the strength of our manliness.

This principle he then exemplifies by the life of Christ, as manifested in various ways, in His Boyhood, His Call, His Ministry under Three Acts, and His Sufferings and Death. We cannot follow him through these, but assure our readers that they will find many suggestive and profitable thoughts. One doctrine is very clearly brought out, the Human Nature of the Christ, one we, in our desire to magnify the Divine, are somewhat apt to overlook. We know that He was perfect man, as well as perfect God, but unless we fully realize this, we cannot see how "He was in all points tempted like as we are," or how He can be our "ensample." The reputation of Mr. Hughes will cause many

young men to read this, who would not read books of theology, and thus it will do good. We must say a paper and type of this American Edition; be desired.

word in praise of the they leave nothing to

CATHARINE AND CRAUFURD TAIT, Wife and Son of Archibald Campbell, Archbishop of Canterbury. A Memoir edited at the Request of the Archbishop, by the Rev. Wm. Benham, B. D. LONDON AND NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & Co.

pp. 640, $1.75. A simple memoir of two earnest Christian lives, written by loving hands, prompted by overflowing hearts. Though not professed biographies, few biographies make us so well acquainted with their subjects as does this book. No one can read it without being the better for it. The lovely picture of a consistent, working Christian, presented in the life of Catharine Tait, cannot fail to impress upon us the power of religion, the reality of the faith she professed. Placed in positions of great responsibility and trial, as wife of one who was successively Head Master of Rugby, Dean of Carlisle, Bishop of London, Archbishop of Canterbury, in every case she realized and fulfilled the duties incumbent on her. Her strong religious principles sustained her, whether visiting in the palace or in personal ministrations among the poor. Called upon in early married life to mourn the loss of five daugh ters, taken away in as many weeks, she submitted without a murmur, "as seeing Him who is invisible." Her faith in the "communion of saints" sustained her. And when, in her fifty-ninth year, her only son Craufurd, was taken away in his early manhood, just as a life of usefulness and honor was opening to him, she was able to resign him to a Father's hands with perfect confidence.

was

The bereaved mother stood for one moment alone when the burial over, and said, in a low but intensely earnest and thrilling voice, heard only, it is believed, by one young relative, I believe in the resurrection of the dead.' Such an expression of faith was in unison with the whole mode of her religious life.

The son was worthy of such a mother. The son of prayer and pious teaching and holy example could not fail to grow up a good man and earnest worker. It is one of the mysteries of God's Providence that such men are often called away just as they enter upon their career of usefulness. How often are we thrown back upon our Lord's words; "What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Craufurd Tait died in his twenty-ninth year, soon after his return from a visit to this country. Many of our readers will remember seeing him at the General Convention in Boston, in 1877, and recall the favorable impression he there made. A very interesting part of this