Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/133

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REVIEWS
119
Social Duties from the Christian Point of View. By Charles Richmond Henderson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1909. $1.25.

This small but comprehensive volume in the "Advanced and Supplementary Series of Constructive Bible Studies" is a textbook for the study of social problems in Sunday schools and churches. It is addressed to those who feel the need of guidance in this wide field, when it is surveyed from the religious point of view. Professor Henderson has labored so fruitfully in various portions of this whole social territory that he is well qualified to give advice in a general textbook. His sixteen chapters cover the ground of the family, working-men, city and country life, charities and correction, corporations, the business class, the leisure class, government and international relations. The proof of such a work is of course the actual use of it in a class; but the first impression of it is distinctly favorable. My attention has chanced to be attracted particularly to such matters as the "frank speech" about "the Christian Science movement" (to the effect "that much of what goes under the name of 'healing' is mere quackery and should be brought under legal control"); the remarks on the leisure class and the "enervating influence of wealth" on the children of the rich; and the treatment of the duties of the legal profession. These may serve as good samples of a very wholesome and trustworthy discussion, in a necessarily very limited space, of the chief topics of social duties in a Christian land. Professor Henderson is one of those who wisely believe that the two great commandments of Jesus have equal binding force upon the believer, and that a true social gospel for our time needs to be studied by all professed Christians. This volume seems to be excellently well adapted to meet such a need.

Nicholas P. Gilman

Following the Color Line. An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracy. By Ray Stannard Baker. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908. Pp. xii+314. $2.00.

This is a study of the negro problem remarkable for its objectivity and psychological insight. While a product of the higher type of modern journalism, it approaches the character of a scien-