woman who lived near." Evidently, the worthy pair thought this to be
the sort of charity that covers a multitude of sins; and to a question
whether their intents, as a whole, were wicked or charitable, they
might properly have answered "Both." The "charities that soothe and
heal and bless" are not the only ones that pass current under the
general form of almsgiving.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

Literature and Dogma: An Essay toward a Better Apprehension of the
Bible. By Matthew Arnold. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co.

This is a tract issued in the author's apprehension that our popular
view of Christianity is false, our conception of the Hebrew and Greek
Bible altogether hidebound and deadening, our notion of the Deity a
picture that is doomed to destruction in the face of science. As it
is a sincere scheme of individual opinion (though not of original
opinion, being largely made up of graftings from a certain
recognizable class of modern scholars), it could only be finally
disposed of by following it up root and branch in nearly all its
details, at the cost of writing a much larger book. No opponent will
be likely to give it so much importance. For our part, we are quite
content to exhibit a little tableau of the main theory advanced, and
let this tableau speak for itself.

We should perhaps begin with Mr. Arnold's matter, but it is hard to
represent him at all without doing some preliminary justice to
his manner--his attitude toward the Christian public, his dogma of
urbanity, and the value of his way of putting things as a likelihood
of making converts. This is the more appropriate as he thinks the
Founder of Christianity, and its chief promulgators, such as Peter
and Paul, gained most of their successes through manner. "Mildness and
sweet reasonableness" he believes to be the characteristic of Christ's
teaching--a presentment of truths long afloat in the Jewish mind
so winningly and persuasively that they became new and profound
convictions in all minds; and he believes that when these
characteristics were withdrawn or veiled the teaching was so far
ineffectual; that when Christ, addressing the Pharisees, abandoned
"the mild, uncontentious, winning, inward mode of working," there was
no chance at all of His gaining the persons at whom His sayings were
launched; and that Saint Paul certainly had no chance of convincing
those whom he calls "dogs." Now, it is inevitable for us to ask
ourselves what chance Mr.