men are climbing from the ranks to the major generalship, and where a battle may come with any sunrise? Given a genuine boy as the spectator and the army as his arena of observation, and the conditions justify the expectation of an unusual volume of personal description. Nor are we, in the present instance, disappointed. The writer's own account of his sight-seeing is in the following words: "A stripling, in the stormy days of '61, heard the blast of a bugle and the beat of a drum— signals that the great war had opened. The sounds made his blood tingle and stirred his soul as they lured him to the front. He was then in the plastic period of boyhood, and the things which he saw and heard and felt took hold of him, biting into the quick-like the acid used in etchingand impressing upon his memory indelible pictures, in which terror and fun, privation and frolic, sorrow and joy, heroism and pathos vie with each other for mastery." And so the "boy" must write what he saw. "These pictures have haunted him for years, until he has at last transferred them to paper in so far as he has been able, in the effort to portray some of the scenes, experiences, and surroundings amid which the boys who wore the blue and followed the starry flag lived, moved, and had their being." It is enough to say, in a word, that the "boy's" descriptions are most captivating. In his company the willing reader finds himself in turn at Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and on the heights of Fredericksburg; with the Army of the Potomac in its winter quarters; at bloody Chancellorsville; and in the struggle of the Wilderness. But the picture which he paints with most vivid coloring is that of Gettysburg. So startlingly realistic is his portrayal that one gets a new conception of the topography of the famous Pennsylvania town, the intensity of the fight, and its crucial character. In the concluding pages of the volume the reader is attracted by the mention of Bishop Simpson's sermon, before the national officials, in the House of Representatives, and by the story of the celebrated parade of the returning army up Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. And so "the pageant fades," before the "boy" has realized his commission as lieutenant colonel at the head of a black regiment. We enthusiastically commend this latest war story. It is a charming book for the boys who have come on the stage since the war drums of the Rebellion ceased; and many an older boy who turns its pages will read with moistened eyes and quickened heart the narrative of things he saw and of which he was a part.

The Footprints of the Jesuits. By Hon. R. W. THOMPSON, Ex-Secretary of the Navy, and Author of The Papacy and the Civil Power. 8vo, pp. 509. Cincinnati: Cranton & Curts. New York: Hunt & Eaton. Price, cloth, $1.75.

That Jesuitism is hostile to free institutions, that it has worked great harm in whatever country it has invaded, having been expelled at one time or another from nearly all lands, and that it would certainly overthrow our republican government and our most cherished liberties should it become dominant here Mr. Thompson very fully proves. He traces the history of the Society of Jesus from its establishment by Loyola in the sixteenth century to the present time, showing its relations to the

papacy and secular governments, its doings in various parts of the world, and its maleficent influence everywhere. He finds no difficulty in making out a very conclusive case against it, and, in view of the well-established facts of history, calls loudly upon the American people to be vigilantly on guard against these insidious and persistent foes of freedom. It can hardly be questioned, we think, that there is some danger to our beloved land from the encroachments and machinations of this wily foe, and that our common schools especially need to be watchfully defended against their attacks. We are not of those who consider that there is any occasion for panic. We are quite sure that the peril can be averted by the quiet, resolute use of just and honorable Christian measures. Some things that have been issued from the press in the supposed interests of Protestantism are a disgrace to the cause they assume to serve. But books like this, written in a good style and with as near an approach to judicial impartiality as can, perhaps, reasonably be expected from one whose whole purpose is to discredit a hated enemy, containing withal a large mass of well-digested information, must certainly do good.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Where Is My Dog? or, Is Man Alone Immortal?

66

By the Rev. CHARLES JOSIAH ADAMS. Lecturer upon The Cæsars and Christianity," etc. 12mo, pp. 202. New York: Fowler & Wells Co. Price, cloth, $1.

Is the dead dog with his master in the spirit world? This question, which the scholars of the past have asked and have not answered, a scholar of the present again discusses. His line of argument may be stated in a word. Showing more or less clearly that the beast and man have common physical faculties, and that in a degree the animal has the intellectual, moral, and spiritual faculties of man, the writer finds in this an evidence that the beast also has immortality. The argument, in other words, is inferential, and has only the value of an inference. The author's division of the work into paragraphic, rather than formal, chapters might be criticised were it worth the while. But the reader is attracted by the abundant and entertaining illustrations of animal intelligence which Mr. Adams cites, and finds himself in tender sympathy with the theory which is set forth. Though the book be only a speculation, it is instructive, reverent, and wholesome.

Children of Colonial Days. By ELIZABETH S. TUCKER. Quarto, pp. 100. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. Price, $2.50.

This is one of the brilliantly illustrated gift books of which the Stokes Company makes a specialty. It has numerous full-page color plates, after paintings in water colors by E. Percy Moran, with decorated borders and other designs, making a book, rich to the eye, about the little men and women of one hundred years ago-how they learned to spin, and took lessons on the harpsichord, and played battledore and shuttlecock when our great-grandmothers were young.

METHODIST REVIEW.

SEPTEMBER, 1895.

ART. I.-THE SPECULATIVE SIGNIFICANCE OF
FREEDOM.

By freedom I mean the power of self-control and self-direction in an intelligent being. More specifically, it is the power to form plans, purposes, ideals and to work for their realization. Or it is the power to choose between competing or conflicting possibilities and to realize the one chosen. Wherever this power is present we call the agent free. To unsophisticated thought men are manifestly free in this sense. Their freedom

is, indeed, not unlimited and lawless, for it exists only on the basis of fixity provided by human nature and the nature of things. But, within the limits set by our constitution and the physical environment, men have a power of self-direction. They are able to form plans, purposes, ideals and to devote themselves to their realization. Moreover, this power seems to be involved in the very thought of a personal and rational life. A life of the Punch and Judy type, in which there is a deal of lively chattering and the appearance of strenuous action, without, however, any real thought and effort, is not a personal or rational life at all. A life, also, in which consciousness is merely the stage on which underlying mechanical impulses masquerade is, likewise, no proper rational life. The person counts for nothing. He. is not cause, but effect. He has no initiative, but is through and through resultant.

But, as I have said, this is not the impression which life makes upon the unsophisticated mind. It is only at a later stage, when reflection begins, that such a view becomes even intelligi45-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XI.

ble. Meanwhile, life seems to be carried on by freedom or under the form of freedom. The underlying necessity, if there be any, at least mimics freedom, and that to such an extent that any description of personal life in terms of mechanical necessity would break down from sheer excess of absurdity. We see, then, in life, not merely a mechanical movement, but a personal and free movement. Within the bounds of law, free inen are forming and realizing purposes and ideals, whether good or bad. It is this fact which makes history other than a branch of physics. Such is the appearance of life, and such our spontaneous faith.

But on the development of reflection this view is often discredited. The idea of law and of necessary causation is developed, and the doctrine of freedom becomes a speculative offense. Then it is shrewdly surmised that the belief in freedom is an illusion born of ignorance and thoughtlessness. Men do, indeed, imagine themselves free; but if we knew all we should find the reign of law as absolute in human action as in the movements of the planets. This surmise quickly passes into affirmation; and then it is given out that freedom is no longer admissible, even in idea, and, of course, not admissible in fact. Science or some other homemade divinity has pronounced against it, and nothing more is to be said. This sort of thing is sadly familiar to us all, and it has a certain plausibility with the critically illiterate. Have we any more certain intuition than the law of causation? Is not the reign of law a universal postulate of science, and does not every day confirm it? How, then, can we fail to see that the limiting result of mental progress must be to include all events, mental and physical alike, in one inviolable system of law and necessity?

The debate, as thus presented, is manifestly a speculative and transcendental one. It will be admitted by all that if we were really free we could hardly have a clearer sense of freedom than we actually possess. This, however, is set aside as illusory; for the difficulty in accepting freedom lies, it is said, in the very nature of reason itself. The argument, then, must be somewhat apagogical; that is, it must consist, not so much in direct appeal to consciousness, as in showing that freedom is involved in facts which all admit. The customary argument for freedom consists in appealing to the sense of responsibility

and in pointing out that freedom is a manifest implication of this and other facts of our moral nature. I pass this argument, however, with inere mention, and seek to show that freedom is as much an implication of the rational life as it is of the moral life. Hence the title of this paper-"The Specu lative Significance of Freedom."

There is a very general conviction in speculative circles that the notion of freedom is an offense to reason. If we hold it at all it must be out of deference to moral interests and at a very considerable sacrifice of our intellectual peace. I believe, on the contrary, that freedom is involved in reason itself, and that the denial of freedom must lead to the collapse of reason. In giving the grounds of this belief I consider first the problem of error. That problem lies in this fact: First, it is plain that, unless our faculties are essentially truthful, there is an end to all trustworthy thinking. But, secondly, it is equally plain that a large part of thought and belief is erroneous. Hence the question arises, as a matter of life or death for rational thought, how to reconcile the existence of error with faith in the essential truthfulness of our faculties. Freedom, we shall see, is the only solution which does not wreck reason itself.

We may get an introduction to the problem, and also a good illustration of the ease with which men overlook the bearings of necessitarianism, by considering a passage from Mr. Herbert Spencer's First Principles. In the last paragraphs of Part I of that work he raises the question why an advanced and progressive thinker should oppose traditional beliefs after he has outgrown them, seeing that those beliefs may well be better adapted to those who hold them than his own broader views. To this Mr. Spencer gives this answer:

He must remember that, while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future, and that his thoughts are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die. He, like every other man, may properly consider himself as one of the myriad agencies through whom works the Unknown Cause; and when the Unknown Cause produces in him a certain belief he is thereby authorized to profess and act out that belief.

There is something attractive and inspiring in this utterance as long as we gaze upon the well-behaved and enlightened apostle of advanced thought who thus nobly represents the future and the Unknown Cause. But when we remember that Mr.