design and plan and general characteristics were set before our readers at that time, and it will, therefore, be only necessary to call to their attention now the fact that the second volume has been published. This volume contains the Commentaries on the Gospel of John and the Acts of the Apostles; the former by Professors Milligan and Moulton, and the latter by Dean Howson and Canon Spence. Dean Howson is, of course, very widely known in our country, and of his special fitness for writing upon the Acts all are cognizant. Professor Moulton is the translator and editor of Winer's Grammar of the New Testament, published in England. He and his associate, Professor Milligan, are members of the English Committee of Revisers of the Authorized Version of the Scriptures, and are highly esteemed as scholars in this department. The portion of the work of which they have had charge, therefore, commends itself to the public. The English reader, who is not acquainted with the Greek language, will find the results of recent scholarship brought before him in large measure and in a brief and concise form of statement. The numerous pictorial illustrations and the maps will add to the value of the book to many who make use of it. Sabbath school teachers and others who desire to read the New Testament intelligently, as well as ministers, for whom all the best helps to the understanding of the sacred writings are of such peculiar service, will find much in the present volume to repay. them for examining it.

LANGE'S COMMENTARY.-THE APOCRYPHA.*-The American Edition of this extended Commentary, under the editorship of Dr. Schaff, has added a volume to the original German work, and thereby rendered an important service to the Christian public. Whatever view may be held with respect to the propriety or desirableness of printing the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament with the Canonical books, no one can doubt that they have a special interest to the students of the Bible. A new and thoroughly good translation of them, with critical and explanatory notes, has been a want felt by many for a long time. The few, therefore, who knew that Dr. E. C. Bissell was engaged in the prepara

*The Apocrypha of the Old Testament. With Historical Introductions, a Revised Translation, and Notes Critical and Explanatory. By EDWARD CONE BISSELL, D.D. Being volume xv. of the Old Testament portion of Dr. Philip Schaff's Edition of Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1880.

tion of such a work, were impressed with the value of it and were heartily disposed to encourage him to carry it forward to its completion. It is a matter of much satisfaction that it has now been published in connection with so well-known a Commentary on the entire Scriptures, and under so favorable auspices. Dr. Bissell has been occupied with the preparation of the volume for a number of years past, and has enjoyed many advantages for the carrying out of his undertaking. The results will be received, as we cannot doubt, with much favor. The volume, which is as large as the other volumes of the American edition of Lange's work, contains an extended and general Introduction, giving an account of the Jewish history during the Persian and Grecian periods, and an account of the origin and history of the Apocryphal Books. This is followed by more special Introductions to the several books, together with critical and exegetical notes and a revision of the translation. The exegetical notes are brief, but they are scholarly, and serve to throw light upon the text, and the translation is faithfully revised and improved. That the volume will find many readers, who will be grateful to the author for what he has done, cannot be doubted. That it will contribute to promote a greater interest in studying the books which it explains and discusses, is certainly to be hoped.

JAPANESE FAIRY WORLD.*-Mr. Griffis is already favorably known as the author of the "Mikado's Empire," and those interested in Japanese history and progress have learned from it the principal points and events which mark the rapid advance of that people. In this little volume he has given us the cream of a great variety of stories from Japanese wonder-lore; legends that are so familiar to the people that they are embodied in bronze and porcelain, delineated in pictures and tableaux, tattooed on the body, and acted out on the stage. He has worked up thirtyfour of them into these readable narratives, illustrated them with twelve native drawings, and thereby introduced them to Americans, old and young. In preparing them, however, we wish he had carefully separated the native myth from his own explanations, for no one can tell just where the first begins and the other ends; even if Mr. Griffis has not taken more liberty with the originals than a Japanese story-teller, if transported from Tokio

* Japanese Fairy World. By WILLIAM E. GRIFFIS. Illustrated by OZAWA, of Tokio. Schenectady, N. Y.: James H. Barhyte. 1880. 322 pp.

to America, would. But Mr. Griffis is not a "modern story-teller of Tokio," and we would rather have the exact folk-lore of the natives to see its peculiar style, as Mr. Mitford has given us in his Tales of Old Japan.

The pith of some of these stories is found among other nations, but most of them are indigenous. The first one, The Meeting of the Star Lovers, has undoubtedly come from China, where it is observed on the 7th day of the 7th moon (about the middle of August), the same day as in Japan, by women to get skill in needle-work. The very bright stars Vega and Aquila, are, at that season, soon after sunset, conspicuous objects near the zenith, under the names of the Weaver and Herdboy, they are fabled to cross the Milky Way on a bridge made of magpies, to see each other till the morning compels them to return. The 30th story, called the Fisherman and the Moon Maiden, about a fairy who had her dress of feathers stolen as she was bathing, and therefore could not fly back to heaven, is a mere outline of the charming story of Hassan of Bussorah in the Arabian Nights. We have also met it in the Chinese accounts of Liuchew, where its source is probably Japanese. The 24th story of Smells and Jingles, where the miser Kisaburo is said to have paid the cook, whose smoking eels had satisfied his appetite, by jingling his money before his face, is found both in Chinese and Arabic folk-lore. These resemblances do not, however, at all prove their common origin, for the wit of man can as easily work out similar stories of this kind, as his wants can be met by the same inventions and tools.

In comparing the workings of the Chinese and Japanese mind, the greater fertility of the imagination among the latter people strikes everyone. The droll combinations of animal with human life and acts, as given in the 28th story of the Procession of Lord Long Legs, is only a sample of what runs through their whole. language and art, and is perhaps greater than among any other people. We can cordially recommend the book to those who wish to learn this side of their character, for they will get an idea of the meaning of many of the pictures on fans and paper napkins, which have brought Japan so much before our countrymen; and whatever helps each to appreciate the other does good service to both.

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