BOOK NOTICES

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 29, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 38.

"TEACHING SEX HYGIENE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS," by Dr. E. B. Lowry. Forbes & Company, Chicago. 94 pages. Price 50 cents.

This little volume is a contribution toward helping to a correct view of "the wave of awakening to social evils," the need of which view was suggested in the recent International Congress on School Hygiene. The author thinks that parents should give instruction to their children in sex matters, but that in view of the failure of parents in these matters, it may be the duty of public schools to take up the subject. She offers words of caution, however, in regard to the promiscuous teaching of this subject to boys and girls in classes. She recommends strongly the cooperation of the church, the school, and the home, in order that the blindness of parents to the conditions of these times may be removed.

"BREAKERS! METHODISM ADRIFT," by the Rev. L. W. Munhall, M. A., D. D. New York, Charles C. Cook. Crown octavo, 215 pages, price $1.00 net.

This book, as its title would indicate, expresses the belief of the author that Methodism is adrift, and that breakers are ahead of that great and strongly evangelistic body.

Dr. Munhall has a well-known record as an evangelist. He is in the afternoon of life, and has had a very successful career. In his "personal foreword," he incidentally mentions the fact that his membership is with the Gethsemane Methodist Church of Philadelphia, and that as an ordained preacher. "More than fifty thousand members," he writes, "have been added to the Methodist Episcopal Church, from meetings I have personally conducted during the forty years I have been doing the work of an evangelist."

After making further mention, in his foreword, of his loyalty to the Methodist Church, he says, "Consequently, when I take notice of the secular, un-Methodistic, and revolutionary influences at work in the church, and conspicuously dominant, I must offer my protest and sound an alarm."

Dr. Munhall believes that the great body of his fellow ministers, and the majority of the church-members, believe the Bible to be the word of God. "But," to use his own words, "a coterie of men, mostly in our educational institutions and among General Conference officials, have formulated and are promulgating a propaganda that denies the integrity, infallibility, and authority of the Bible, and thereby nullifies the doctrines of the church.

Our church periodicals are, with two and possibly three exceptions, edited by men in sympathy with this propaganda; and though we claim, as a church, to be a very democratic ecclesiastical body, it is entirely impossible to bring to the attention of the church at large the radical and revolutionary character of this propaganda."

His book tells of the "genesis of Methodism," and that its strength rested on the solid foundation of belief in the entire Bible as the inspired word of God. Then he tells of the "present-day Methodism," and shows, by strong proof, that the educational institutions of his denomination, its publishing houses, and its Sunday-school literature, are all under the dominant influence of "higher criticism."

One very striking thing in chapter seven, on "The Book Concern" of the Methodist Church, is some quotations that he takes from books written by doctors of divinity in his church, authoritatively published, and sent out as Christian literature, which are practically identical with the sayings of Paine and Voltaire. We quote samples of these utterances, from pages 115, 116.

"Paine also said, 'The book of Genesis, instead of being the oldest book in the world, as the bishop called it, has become the last written book in the Bible, and that the cosmogony it contains has been manufactured.'" (Reply to the bishop of Llandaff, pages 256, 257.)

"Dr. Mains says, 'It is now indubitably proven that many of the stories which appear in the earlier records of the Old Testament were simply taken over and adopted from older mythical or legendary sources, and that they are not to be taken at face value as sober and measured history.'" (Page 98.)

"Paine said, 'Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was its author, on which only the strange belief that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing in Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or downright lies.'" (Page 86.)

"Voltaire also said, 'Is it not plain that Genesis was taken from the ancient fables of their (the Jewish) neighbors?'" (Ex. of Lord Bolingbroke.)

"Dr. Mains says, 'It is clear, say our modern authorities, that he (Moses) could not have been the author of this book (Deuteronomy). For reasons equally convincing it is evident that the book must be the product of a period or periods far later than that of Moses.'" (Page 118.) "'The date of its origin is probably not far from the middle of the sixth century B. C.'" (Page 120.)

In the concluding chapters, Dr. Munhall speaks of amusements in the church, and the demoralizing effect they are having. He also speaks of the power of rich men in the church, of how they are in evidence on its leading boards, and of the influence they are having on the forms, institutions, and policies of the church.

On the whole, the book is a strikingly important one, for the reason that it deals in facts that are characteristic of the time. The breakers that he finds confronting the Methodist Church are no different from the breakers in general that are threatening to shatter the faith of men everywhere in the authority of the Bible. He makes perfectly clear the fact that the infidelity of the doctors of divinity is in no sense different from that of Voltaire, Hume, Paine, and all the rest of the noted infidels who had so strong an influence in the generations that immediately preceded ours, the only difference being that Voltaire and his associates openly avowed their infidelity, while the modern infidel doctor of divinity seeks to cover his under a profession of faith in the Lord, whose book he denies.

Any minister who really comes to know the valuable matter contained in this volume will surely desire to possess a copy of it.

"MODERN CITIES," by Horatio M. Pollock, Ph. D., Leipzig, and William S. Morgan, Ph. D., Yale. New York and London, Funk & Wagnalls. 418 pages, octavo.

The object of the author of this volume is to offer suggestions in regard to planning and governing the city properly so as to assist in eradicating the social evils that exist there. They do not minimize the fact that there are crying evils in city life everywhere; but if the cities were properly beautified, so as to eliminate the slums, that would greatly help, according to the view of these authors, to lessen the evils. Numerous photographic illustrations are given of scenes in various cities of importance, showing what has been done to beautify some of them with parks, boulevards, buildings, etc.