The English reader is here presented with a translation of the ninth edition of a work which first appeared in1849, and has obtained a most distinguished place, it might be said almost a monopoly, as a text-book of Church History in the German Universities. Since 1850, when the second edition was issued, an English translation of which has been widely used in Britain and America, Dr.Kurtz has given great attention to the improvement of his book. The increase of size has not been caused by wordy amplification, but by an urgent necessity felt by the author as he used the vast materials that recent years have spread out before the historical student. In1870 Dr.Kurtz retired from his professorship, and has conscientiously devoted himself to bring up each successive edition of his text-book to the point reached by the very latest scholarship of his own and other lands. In his Preface to the ninth edition of 1885 he claims to have made very special improvements on the presentation of the history of the first three centuries, where ample use is made of the brilliant researches of Harnack and other distinguished scholars of the day.

In the exercise of that discretion which has been allowed him, the translator has ventured upon an innovation, which he trusts will be generally recognised as a very important improvement. The German edition has frequently pages devoted to the literature of the larger divisions, and a considerable space is thus occupied at the beginning of most of the ordinary sections, as well as at the close of many of the sub-sections. The books named in these lists are almost exclusively German works and articles that have appeared in German periodicals. Experience has shown that the reproduction of such lists in an English edition is utterly useless to the ordinary student and extremely repulsive to the reader, as it seriously interferes with the continuity of the text. The translator has therefore ventured wholly to cancel these lists, substituting carefully selected standard English works known to himself from which detailed information on the subjects treated of in the several paragraphs may be obtained. These he has named in footnotes at the places where such references seemed to be necessary and most likely to be useful. Those students who know German so thoroughly as to be able to refer to books and articles by German specialists will find no difficulty in using the German edition of Kurtz, in which copious lists of such literature are given.

The first English volume is a reproduction without retrenchment of the original; but in the second volume an endeavour has been made to render the text-book more convenient and serviceable to British and American students by slightly abridging some of those paragraphs which give minute details of the Reformation work in various German provinces. But even there care has been taken not to omit any fact of interest or importance. No pains have been spared to give the English edition a form that may entitle it to occupy that front rank among students’ text-books of Church History which the original undoubtedly holds in Germany.

JOHN MACPHERSON.

Findhorn, July, 1888.