Babel and Bible: A Lecture on the Significance of Assyriological Research for Religion. By Dr. Friedrich Delitzsch. Translated from the German by Thomas J. McCormack. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago. 6x9 in. 66 pages. A good instance of the way in which conclusions of scholarly research may be put into popular and readable form without impairing their interest for scholars. In compact form is here presented much that is of value in showing the indebtedness of the Hebrew writers to Babylonian civilization and literature. Some points, however, are unquestionably pressed too far after the fashion of those writers on mythology upon whose methods Andrew Lang has so effectively cast doubt. Creation-Story of Genesis I. (The). By Dr. Hugo Radau. The Open Court Publishing Co., Chicago. 6x9 in. 70 pages.

This attempt to show how the priestly author of the first chapter of Genesis became "the first higher critic," and thus eliminated the mythical element of the Babylonian account of creation from the Hebrew story, is painstaking, but is too technical to interest the ordinary reader, who will hardly agree with the author that "especially interesting is the dingir Innanna nin-char-sag," though he may be somewhat amused to learn the distinction between gods and goddesses according to the formula," Mr. ZU is EN-ZU and Mrs. ZU is NIN-ZU." The author's conclusion that the creation-story is the description of "an evolution" sounds like one of those attempts to harmonize that story with the results of modern natural science which Dr. Delitzsch in his "Babel and Bible" justly characterizes as 'absolutely futile." Such dry and minute scholarship, very necessary as it is, and in this case of interest to students of Babylonian inscriptions, needs something more than academic exactness to be convincing-namely, a practical knowledge of human nature and the ways of men. Of such knowledge this monograph gives no evidence.

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Elementary Commercial Geography (An). By

Cyrus C. Adams. Illustrated. D. Appleton & Co., 5X3 in. 351 pages. $1.10.

An abridgment of a larger work by a man who has made a thorough study of his subject. There are many maps and apt illustrations. European and Japanese Gardens. By A. D. F. Hamlin and Others. Edited by Glenn Brown. Illustrated. Henry T. Coates & Co., Philadelphia, 62×10 in. 162 pages. $2, net.

A well-made volume, handsomely illustrated, which contains four papers read before the American Institute of Architects on Italian, English, and Japanese gardens, and edited for the Institute of Architects by Mr. Glenn Brown, who tells us in his introduction that it is only within a very recent period that American architects have appreciated the fact that the garden should be designed in connection

The

with the house, and that at its thirty-fourth annual convention the American Institute of Architects made gardens one of the principal subjects of discussion in order to emphasize their relation to domestic architecture. papers read on that occasion are reprinted in this book, the aim of which is both æsthetic and practical; to present to the eye, both by description and illustration, the most beautiful examples of gardens of different kinds, and to stimulate the treatment of gardens in connection with houses.

Folly in the Forest. By Carolyn Wells. Illustrated. Henry Altemus Co., Philadelphia. 5×71⁄2 in. 282 pages. $1.

A jolly little book in which an imagined forest is peopled with many famous animals and people of fiction and mythology-the Sphinx, Poe's Raven, Robinson Crusoe's Goat, et al.-all for the pleasure of the little child Folly.

Harmless Revolution (A). By Grace Miller White. Illustrated. The J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Co., New York. 7x5 in. 38 pages. 50c.

An attempt to teach the principles of punctuation through dialogues between the different marks, which are personified and presented in comic pictures.

Neither Bond Nor Free. (A Plea.) By G. Langhorne Pryor. The J. S. Ogilvie Publishing Co., New York. 5x7% in. 239 pages. $1. New Living Hymns (The). Compiled by John Wanamaker. (Living Hymns No. 2.) John J. Hood, Philadelphia. 548 in. 351 pages. 45c. This is one of those religious song-books that depress one with a sense of the amazing triviality which seems to satisfy hosts of Americans in the expression of their religious emotions. In fairness, it ought to be said, however, that this book prints a larger minority of dignified hymns and tunes than can be found in many hymn-books which, on the other hand, do not contain the inanities that appear here.

Practice of Immortality (The). By Washington Gladden. The Pilgrim Press, Boston. 5x7 in. 24 pages.

Urbs Beata: A Vision of the Perfect Life. By Herbert Cushing Tolman, Ph.D., D.D. The Young Churchman Co., Milwaukee. 5×8 in. 87 pages. 75c., net.

A series of five-minute addresses, thirty in all, at morning prayer in the chapel of Vanderbilt University is comprised under the above title. Profoundly spiritual thought blends here with fine simplicity, and the wisdom of an accomplished scholar with the truth as it is in Jesus. The thought that gives unity to the series is that "ideal life is ideal manhood, and ideal manhood is the Christ life "—the life that is eternal. It is just the sort of book for any busy man or woman to take up for five minutes' reading day by day, as food for the soul.