Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-09-27
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE Safe Side Theistic Retaliation
of the Divinity of Christ is by Rich
ard NJ. Mitchell, and published TO bis order
at GAL Stewart avenue, Chicago. Mr..
Mitchell has made as strong q case against
Christianity as can be made. His idea is
that Christ WAS simply one of the reform
ers in which the troubled times were pro-
life, and that the Christian form of religion
grew into prominence for reasons which
be explains, the progress involving the
destruction by church officials of the much
talked of Gospel of Peter and other docu.
ments among them certain OF Plutarch' s
Lives" the manufacture. nearly two
hundred years after the cruc;6xion of the
Gospel of John and the Interpolation OF
certain passages in the synoptic gospels,
etc. Yet through all the work there is
manifest the profoundest and most devoted
belief in God. His thought is that ideas
of God and of Christ are Incompatible; that
Christ puts God out of the ques-
savior Impossible. As an example
of his boldness and his style, we quote
"Laziness is an instrument TO cultivate
energy, slavery an instrument to cultivate
liberty, and an abuse of human rights an
instrument to cultivate knowledge of those
rights. However odious slavery may be 10
US now, it was the whip that drove us to
civilization from an idle, savage state Out
of the remote past we can see our approach
from a low degree-not of wicke0n ess-but
of ignorance Only from that Ignorance do
we need salvation, and our only savior is
the exercise of our own mental powers.
The Jews probably owe to Christ the con-
tinuance of their religion to the present
time. Christianity brought them into
prominence and sustained them and held
them united by the more intense feelings
opposition engendered. Persecutiorris the
seed of any church. Though not believing
in Christ they are an accompaniment of
Christian system, and are as much indebted
to him for their distinct organization in
our day as any denomination within it.
If it was necessary to send Christ here to
save the world it was equally necessary
that the acts that were to save it should be
accurately recorded for the benefit of all
time Or, if the world could be saved
without record of the acts of the one sent
to save it, then why do we have the New
Testament at ali Between the magma
ton and allegory nothing substantial has
been left in the Christian system to COM
bat II has 'withstood the test OF time
not because ii is like rock, but because it
is like a vapor" Mr.. Mitchell writes with
wonderful vigor aud fearlessness, but his
style lacks finish and 1t is cool and calcu-
lating, but it is often weak, be-
cause for lack of knowledge of the
art of composition. 1t asserts, dogmatizes
at times, and erudely so at others, the
author flashes like keen blade in the sun,
and his incisiye blows cut TO the quick.
But he does not sustain himself in that
manner. All in all it is a book that will
not be downed by denunciation and COM
mands reply. That is to say, it is not to be
put aside with a sneer, albeit it is open to
the lances of the theologians and is capable
of being responded to with crushing force.
From Robert Clarke & Co. (Cincinnati),
the publishers, we have a handsome octave
volume entitled Abraham Lincoln's Pen
and Voice, a complete compilation OF his
letters civil, political and military also his
public addresses, messages to Congress, in
aus urals and others, as well as proclama-
tions upon various public concerns, show
ing him to have been the greatest constitu-
tional student of the age and the noblest
pattern for future generations America has
ever known" By G. NJ. Van Buren,,
late Colonel of United States volunteers. A
fne steel portrait of Lincoln makes an
admirable frontSpiece to this valuable
book. Mr.. Van Buren, has done his work
well. There are il the volume 101 letters
to Generals alone. 1t was these letters, so
full of marvellous prescience, of far seeing
of admirable military treat
ment, that caused Lincoln to be styled 1.-The
greatest General of them ALL" There
are ffty-one of Lincoln's addresses in
the book. fifteen letters to Cabinet
officers, forty-one to civilians, eleven
messages to Congress, twelve Presidential
orders, five calls for Thanksgiving, two
poems, and seventeen miscellaneous papers.
1t is a collection of papers that will be
read, even at this late day, with profound
interest. They more truly reveal the no.
bility and unselihness of the character of
Lincoln than all the essays that have been
written of his life orations pronounced, or
sermons preached.
From Houghton Miff1in & Co.. Boston
and New York, we have of Riverside
Paper Series, continuing the Ticknor
Paper Series, an admirably selected cheap
library of fiction, issued in semi.monthly
parts two numbers as follows: Prudence
Palfrey," novel by Thomas Bailey AL
drich. II is one of Mr.. Aldrich's most de-
lightfui stories 1t relates to Portsmouth,
and the characters are mainly such people
as he knew Familiarity, and whom he has
described with the charm of his idealizing
memory and with that rare literary
skill which has given him so en-.
visble place in American literature.
THE Fate of Mansfield Humphreys,
with the Episode of Mr.. Washington
Adams in England" novel by Richard
Grant White. The plot of this story turns
on the distinctive traits of Americans and
Englishmen, and the story is full OF those
incisive comments and criticisms which
Mr.. White was so competent to make, and
which made whatever he wrote wonder
fully readable. 1t is, as one critic puts it,
an exceedingly vivacious and for the most
part very forcible little essay, in which
the sins of various English critics of
American manners are held up to de-
served ridicule.
The Overland Monthly" for September
APO Montgomery street, San Francisco)
has this table of contents in addition to
the regular departments: 1.-THE Boom in
Western Washington" By John S. Hittell;
THE Pious Fund of California, by John
T. Doyle; who Was the Pathfinder" by
Harry L. Wells; Fort Bridger," by Emily
S. Loud; Sunshine in Snow Prison" by
W. S. Hutchinson; John Henry, Cardinal
Newman by William H. McDougall; "a
w oman Log OF 1913, Dy Mrs. JOnn NC
Dougall; Fremont" by J. c. Davis; How
Brought NV Partner Safe Home" Fred. NJ.
Stocking; :" The Beginnings of California," y
F. l. Vassault; "a Hero from the North,
by H. Elton Smith; The Bears and the
Historians, L., by NJ. W. Shinn; "a Strange
Voyage" by Flora Haines Loughead Sci
entific Reports on Spiritualistic and Kin.
dred Phenomena.
Sitting Matrimony" is novel by the
author OF Society Rapids" 1t is novel
with the scene laid by turns in New York,
Washington and the South. The heroine
is Pauline Berneer, the daughter of Con-
gresham, and the hero, Graham CRAZE, a
cynical New Yorker, with a mystery hang
ing over his life. Both the personages are