l that we are told of the great apostle to the
Gentiles. He calls him both Jew and Greek--Jew by parentage, nurture,
training, and genius, Greek by birthplace, residence, and association,
an enthusiast, even to fanaticism, by temperament, and yet freed from
extreme narrowness of mind by intercourse with the people and the
literature of other nations. He was a Jew whose feeling upon the Christ
question was always intense, so much so that he worried and tormented
the people who did not believe as he did. He was a Messianic believer of
the school of the Pharisees, or strict Jews; but all at once, as such
things do happen to such men, another aspect of the Messianic
expectation burst upon him with the splendor of a revelation, and
determined his career. To the conception of the Messias and of Jesus's
conformity to it which suddenly took possession of Paul, Mr. Frothingham
assigns the origin of the Christian religion as it was known in the
second century. With a cool and almost humorous adaptation of a
political phrase of the day, he calls this Paul's "new departure." That
Mr. Frothingham's book is clear in thought, interesting in substance,
agreeable and good in style every one acquainted with his writings will
readily believe. As to the points that he has undertaken to establish,
we are pretty sure that after reading his book few will think with him
who were not ready to do so before they began it.

[10] "_The Cradle of the Christ_: A Study of Primitive
Christianity." By OCTAVIUS BROOKS FROTHINGHAM 12mo, pp. 233.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

* * * * *

Dr. Watson F. Quinby of Wilmington has written an odd pamphlet on
mongrelism in races. His belief is that population tends to become
homogeneous, but this is not an averaging process. When two races mingle
and intermarry, the mongrel product does not exhibit the balanced
characteristics of both, but the traits of the higher race are absorbed
and hid in those of the lower. Asia, he says, "was formerly powerful,
with white peoples all along its northern and eastern borders, and far
into the interior. But they first enslaved the black race, then mingled
their blood, and have finally become merged in them." The resulting
mongrel people always lacks the intellectual force necessary to maintain
the civilization of the higher. Arts decline and national decay sets in.
In this way is explained the existence of noble ruin