DE CIVITATE DEI I; by Dr. D.K. Wielenga. Published by J.H. Kok, N.V., Kampen the Netherlands. Price f.3.50.

This book has nothing to do with the well-known work by Augustine under the same title, except that the author treats somewhat the same kind of material as Augustine in his “City of God.” It is designed as a textbook for high schools, and for this it is admirably adapted.

It is difficult to characterize the contents of this work. It is partly doctrinal, partly history of dogma, partly church his­tory. This first volume treats, apart from a doctrinal part, the history of the church up to the time of the Reformation.

This is a very interesting book, worthy of a translation for our own Christian High Schools, and I gladly recommend it to the average reader who is able to read Dutch.

Two remarks. I do not believe that the question of the age of the earth can be left to the scientist; and whether Thomas a Kempis wrote Be Imitations Christi is, to say the least doubtful.

GODS WOORD IN MENS ELI JK SOHRIFT, by Dr. H.J. Westerink. J.H. Kok, N.V. Kampen, the Netherlands. Price f.5.75.

Also this book (The Word of God in Human Script) is some­what difficult to summarize as to its contents. Partly, it moves in the field of what we would call the Introduction to the Old and New Testament; partly, it is a textual criticism; partly, it deals with various translations of the Bible: the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the various Dutch translations.

Dr. Westerink is a conservative theologian who proceeds from the principle of faith that the Bible is the Word of God.

He writes lucidly and the book may be recommended to the average intelligent reader. The treatment of the different subjects is brief as might be expected in a book of 111 pages. For the theologian there is very little new information in the book, except, perhaps, in the history of the different Dutch translations. Nevertheless, for the average Bible student, it is both interesting and valuable.

HET PARADIJS, by Jan Overduin; J.H. Kok, N.V., Kampen, the Netherlands. Price f.5.40.

This book (Paradise) is a Christian novel. Its main charac­ter is a morbid introvert, shy and inclined to live by himself, who as a boy and young man did not enjoy a Christian bring­ing up or attend church. In school he once idolized a certain girl but became thoroughly disappointed when she proved not to measure up to his paradisiacal ideal of her. Later, he fell in love with and married a co-student at the university, a Christian young woman. When, after a few years, his wife died, he cursed God, and in an insane rage became the cause of the death of his little girl. Later, he became interested in a little girl from an orphanage, who had a good influence upon him. He contracted an incurable disease, wrote his own life’s history (the present novel), and through the instrumentality of the minister of his former wife, became converted.

Interesting,—though I do not like the main character of the book.

Read it, and see how you like it.

—H.H.