from each life
is carefully selected, too, to suit the minds and tastes of children.
There are six illustrations by four of our well-known young artists.
Altogether the book is the most satisfactory addition yet made to our
children's literature in this country, and should be in every home
where there are colored children, and in every library in which they
are readers.

E. C. WILLIAMS

_Les Daimons du Culte Voudo._ By DR. ARTHUR HOLLY, Port-au
Prince, Haiti, 1919. Pp. lx-523.

The author of this unique volume declares himself "boldly, but without
vanity, or false modesty" an esoterist, that is to say, one who is an
adept at the interpretation of the occult and secret doctrines. This
book, an exposition of the secret doctrine, is not, therefore, as its
title might suggest, a scientific treatise upon the Voudo cult as it
has existed and as it still exists in Haiti. It is rather an
interpretation and defense of the primitive religion of Africa,
particularly as it is represented in the religious customs and
practices of the common people in Haiti today.

The sentiments which have inspired this undertaking are altogether
admirable. "Haitiens," he says, "have reached a point in their efforts
to conform to an alien culture where they are in danger of losing
their personality as a people as well as their native culture." But
now if ever is the moment, after the great cataclysm in Europe, to
lift the ancestral cult from the dust and make it worthy of Haiti, of
the African race.

"We are," he continues, "African-Latins. But our Latin culture is all
on the surface. The old African heritage persists in us and controls
us to such an extent that under certain circumstances we feel
ourselves moved by mysterious forces when the silence of the night,
throbs with the irregular rhythm, melancholly, passionate and magical,
of the sacred dances of _Voudo_."

Dr. Arthur Holly is evidently learning, but he draws his knowledge
from sources that are esoteric and therefore inaccessible to all
except the adepts. What he has written is, therefore, neither science
nor history. It has the character rather of revelation. It is
impressive, but not intelligible to the uninitiated.

From his introduction, however, one gathers that he intends to show
that Christianity and Voudoism are from a common source, that "the
Bible," as he says, "belongs to us," _i.e._, the black people, but
that this