The Alden Catalogue of Choice Books, May 30, 1889

“Good of every description prevails in this collection. You find here some fables of touching interest, others of a sweet and playful humor, others of a biting subtilty, and still others in a loftier strain without being above that of the fable. The poet understands how to vary his colors with the subjects; he can describe and converse, relate and moralize. We nowhere feel the effort and are always sensible of the metre.” —La Harpe.

“In the writings of Florian we are solely interested with the meaning of the tale, with its moral, which is always refined and delicate, and with his ingenuous and even epigrammatic style. Florian loves Horace, Virgil, La Fontaine, is delighted with Montaigne and the poetic tales of the 16th century; he notices the caprices and little irregularities of human nature, without being a biting critic or a profound moralist. Under the gentle form of fables he threw an agreeable breeze of ridicule both upon the individual and upon society, as if he hoped to reform.” —M. St. Marc Girardin.

“Few readers of French are unacquainted with the works of Florian. His style, at once elegant and easy, has universally recommended him to the teachers of language, and Telemachus is commonly succeeded or supplanted by some work of Florian. In the circulating libraries the Tales of Florian are almost as generally read as those of Voltaire and Marmontel. He possesses indeed very great attractions for the lovers of light reading. His narrative is spirited and interesting. Love, Friendship, and Heroism are his themes, and he commonly descants upon them with that genuine warmth which results from the combination of sensibility with genius.

“The feelings with him are never exalted at the expense of virtue. His women are tender without licentiousness, and his heroes daring without violating the laws of their country, or questioning the existence of their Creator. He combines the morality of Fenelon with the enthusiasm of Rousseau or St. Pierre. His writings derive an additional charm from his glowing descriptions of the beauties of nature. He seems tenaciously to uphold the poetical connection between rural life and moral purity, and loves to annex to tales of love and hardihood their appropriate scenery of rivers, woods, and mountains.” —London Quarterly Review.

The Unity of the Truth

The Unity of the Truth in Christianity and Evolution. By J. Max Hark, D.D. 12mo. 293 pages. Small Pica type, leaded, cloth, gilt top, uncut pages, 90c.

Few books of its kind recently published have aroused more discussion and called forth more varied and contradictory opinions. For example, The Andover Review gave fifteen pages to a criticism of its positions; while The Christian Union, of equal authority, declares that “The volume deserves to take rank with the works of Munger, Newman Smyth, and Prof. Drummond.” The N. Y. Independent, though granting that “in many respects the volume is instructive and suggestive,” and “its aim merits commendation,” has devoted over four columns to combatting its arguments; whereas the critical Sunday-School Times has heartily commended it in a leading review. While the Presbyterian Quarterly (S. C.) condemns it as being “of no more use than to show the antagonism of the human heart to the things of God,” the Reformed Review (Pa.) praises it as “an earnest effort towards the solution of a grave and difficult problem,” and says, “The author deserves the thanks of all who are sincerely interested in the progress of religion and in the welfare of the Church.” Such contradictions from such sources are the strongest proof of the importance of the work, and of the need of every intelligent person’s reading and judging it for himself. At the same time, however, by far the greater weight of criticism, religious and secular, is favorable to it, as will be seen by the following few

Critical Comments

“A very remarkable book, written in a nervous, brilliant style, each phrase a squarely-planted and advancing step. That it will bring peace and conviction to many restless souls cannot be doubted.” —The World, N. Y. City.

“We have seen no volume which seems to us so thorough and intelligent in its purpose to consider the relations between modern evolutionary thought and ancient Christian faith and doctrines. Does not attempt to reconcile science and religion by tearing away either the one or the other.” —The Christian Union, N. Y. City.

“A good, wholesome book, brief enough for the busiest Christian, an honest untechnical book, of plain words, and powerful. It is an admirable essay, informed with the essence of true religion, and destined to bring light to many struggling Christians.” —The Press, Philadelphia.

“He speaks with freshness and enthusiasm. We are persuaded that Dr. Hark’s purpose and spirit are such that good will be wrought by his work.” —Illus. Christian Weekly, N. Y. City.

“A candid and thoughtful discussion; expounded with much earnestness and a fine religious spirit.” —Literary World, Boston.

“It can hardly fail to help the candid reader to a wider and more satisfactory view of God, of Providence, of Prayer, and of Religion. Whatever does this for man has proved an infinite blessing to him.” —Christian Evangelist, St. Louis.

“Significant as showing very clearly the drift of the orthodox creed in the hands of its intelligent supporters.” —Sunday News, Charleston, S. C.

“A sincere and reverent endeavor to help all inquiring souls, in trouble concerning the conflict between evolution and the doctrines of Christianity.” —The Interior, Chicago.

“No writer could approach any question with a more candid spirit or more honorable motive. We wish every clergyman could read the work, and every other person indeed who is interested in the question of evolution.” —Herald of Gospel Liberty, Dayton, O.

The Spirit of Beauty

The Spirit of Beauty. Essays, Scientific and Æsthetic. By Prof. Henry W. Parker. Large 12mo, cloth, 85c.;

“I have already read a large part of the book, and I have been delighted, instructed, and morally animated. It gives rich, delicate, and robust expression to a various knowledge, as well as to fine, devout and far-reaching thought. I have not for long taken up a book which has interested me so immediately, or refreshed me so abundantly.” – Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y.

“An admirable treatment of a widely related theme. The book is none the less profound for being so pungent, and its sharp raciness of style is quite befitting its keen discrimination of thought.” – Pres. Julius H. Seelye, LL.D., Amherst College.

“I appreciate it highly. The incisive but graceful style is worthy the pure and elevating sentiments and conceptions which it inculcates. I feel a singular sympathy with its way of thinking, and shall embrace every proper opportunity to call attention to a book so brilliant and so noble in its aims.” – Prof. Alexander Winchell, LL.D., Michigan University.

“I know Prof. Parker chiefly by the articles he gave me for the North American Review. These gave me the highest regard for him as an original, sound and deep thinker. I have repeatedly characterized his article on the natural theology of art as the best paper that passed under my hands during the ten or eleven years of my editorship. My belief is that Mr. Parker’s æsthetic capacity and culture are unsurpassed among us.” – Prof. A. P. Peabody, D.D., of Harvard University.

“Prof. Parker, like the late President Hitchcock, was continually laying in rich stores of facts and principles in the several departments of natural history. At the same time he was contributing to the North American Review articles in natural and ethical philosophy unexcelled for richness and beauty by any contemporaneous productions of American periodical literature.” – Prof. W. S. Tyler, LL.D., of Amherst College.

“By personal knowledge of the manuscript I know that Prof. Parker has investigated the subjects of Animal Intelligence and Animal Æsthetics in a new and fresh way, as never has been done before, in defence of a spiritual philosophy. It is a work that was greatly needed, and is thoroughly done by Dr. Parker, as only an accomplished naturalist, a skilful literateur and a clear reasoner could do it.” – Ex-President G. F. Magoun, D.D., of Iowa College.

“The title is a gem in itself, and I have named my wife after it. I have had a copy presented to the Philosophical Society of Great Britain, and have urgently recommended the author for honorary membership, and am assured of success. These deeds are better encomiums than words like the following: – that I deem it one of the best displays of the connection between science and religion I have ever met with. A grand book.” – Ephraim Cutter, M.D., LL.D., Hon. F. S. Sc. (London), Mem. Victoria Inst., etc.

“The author is a naturalist and in quite familiar with the facts and views of Darwin, Spencer and Haeckel; and, whatever restrictions he may make upon them, he has made as a man who has studied the subject from the inside. The observation of facts in the organic and inorganic worlds is good.” —Science.

“In Prof. Henry W. Parker’s volume we have just one of those protests against the recent schools of philosophical sensationalism which are sure to be raised, sooner or later, in the name of esthetics. We welcome everything that will bring intelligent people to see that it is not dogmatic orthodoxy alone or the limited and perhaps narrow interests of sectarian religion which are assailed by this philosophy, but the whole spiritual theory of man, the basis of his esthetic ideas and of art in all its higher relations. This is the value of Professor Parker’s book. It is attractive in style and indicates an abundant familiarity with the subject, both as a naturalist and a student of esthetics. The chapter on the Divine in Art can hardly be surpassed in the literature of the subject.” —N. Y. Independent.

“The Spirit of Beauty, by Prof. Parker, is a fresh find in John B. Alden’s literary gold mine. It is a series of essays, æsthetic and scientific, inspired by a reverent passion for purity and beauty, and clothed in the language of a ripe and finished scholar. The essays are all overflowing with beauty, melody and fragrance, as well as charged with learning and profound thought.” —Southern Criterion, Atlanta, Ga.

The Talmud: What It Is

and What it Knows about Jesus and his Followers. By Rev. Bernhard Pick, Ph.D. Ideal Edition, Small Pica type, cloth, 60c.;

One of the most interesting and valuable of recent contributions to religious literature. It answers the great popular curiosity as to what the Talmud is, and gives to clergymen and theological students information of transcendant value, not heretofore accessible to many.

“That wonderful monument of human industry, human wisdom, and human folly.” – Dean Milman.

“In the history of the origin of Christianity, the Talmud has hitherto been far too much neglected.” – Ernest Renan.

“The Talmud may compete with the Constitutions of Loyola for the right to be considered the most irresistible organ ever forged for the subjugation of the human will.” —Edinburgh Review.

“The Talmud is the slow growth of several centuries. It is a chaos of Jewish learning, wisdom and folly, a continent of rubbish with hidden pearls of true maxims and poetic fables.” – Philip Schaff.

“But glimpses of profound metaphysics, stray parables of real beauty, and occasional sentiments of true spiritual breadth and elevation, are only the rare grains of wheat in mountains of chaff.” – Dr. Geikie.

“Anything more utterly unhistorical than the Talmud cannot be conceived. It is probable that no human writings ever confounded names, dates, and facts with more absolute indifference. Some excellent maxims may be quoted from the Talmud where they lie imbedded like pearls in a sea of obscurity and mud.” – Canon Farrar.

“A most curious monument, raised with astonishing labor, yet made up of puerilities. An immense heap of rubbish, at the bottom of which a few bright pearls of Eastern wisdom are to be found. The book composed by Israel without their God, in the time of their dispersion, their misery, and their degeneracy.” – Dr. Isaac Da Costa.

“Here, then, we find a prodigious mass of contradictory opinions, an infinite number of casuistical cases, a logic of scholastic theology, some recondite wisdom, and much rambling dotage; many puerile tales and oriental fancies; ethics and sophisms, reasonings and unreasonings, subtle solutions, and maxims and riddles.” – Benjamin Disraeli.

“It is a vast debating club in which there hum confusedly the myriad voices of at least five centuries. In its way, a unique code of laws, in comparison with which, in point of comprehensiveness, the law books of all other nations are but Lilliputian, and, when compared with the hum of its kaleidoscopic Babel, they resemble, indeed, calm and studious retreat.” – Prof. Delitzsch.

“It has proved a grateful task to wander through the mazes of the Talmud and cull flowers yet sparkling with the very dew of Eden. Figures in shining garments haunt its recesses. Prayers of deep devotion, sublime confidence and noble benediction, echo in its ancient tongue. Sentiments of lofty courage, of high resolve, of infantile tenderness, of far-seeing prudence, fall from the lips of venerable sages. No less practicable would it be to stray with an opposite intention, and to extract venom, instead of honey, from the flowers that seem to spring up in self-sown profusion. Fierce, intolerant, vindictive hatred for mankind; idle subtlety; pride and self conceit amounting to insanity; indelicacy pushed to a grossness that renders what it calls virtue more hateful than the vice of more modest people; all these strung together would give no more just an idea of the Talmud than would the chaplets of its lovelier flowers.” —Edinburgh Review.

A Remarkable Story

Strange Threads. A Novel. By J. Douglas. 12mo, cloth, 60c. (15c); 22 oz

This is not only a remarkable story in itself but is really wonderful in its power to interest its readers, and in the various ways in which it impresses them. A gentleman whom the Christian Leader, Cincinnati, calls “a wise and critical connossieur” pronounces this book, with the possible exception of Vanity Fair, “the most original novel I ever read. * * I should have to go back as far as ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Villette,’ to name a novel as good as ‘Strange Threads,’ and I am not at all certain that this is not as strong as either of them.” And the Leader calls the book the “creation of a master imagination” and declares it to be “evidently the product of a genius.” The burden of testimony is along this line. Still there are

A FEW CONTRARY MINDS

whose opinions we quote in connection with the favorable criticisms.

“One can conceive that with less effort the author might write a passable book. As to the present book it is fairly unreadable, and the veriest devourer of romances cannot possibly get past the opening chapters without the feeling that he is in for a bad time.” —Daily Bee, Omaha, Neb.

“The publisher has done more than the writer for this book. The type and paper are so agreeable that one is tempted to read on, long after the discovery that there is little in the matter worthy of serious consideration. The author has shown a certain shrewdness, however, in filling the vacuum produced by absence of intellect in the book by cramming it with sentiment.” —The Epoch, N. Y. City.

MAN OR WOMAN?

Another matter about which the critics are puzzled is the sex of the author. Some affirm that J. Douglas is a man, others are equally sure that it is a woman’s name, while some are content to say they do not know.

“J. Douglas is a new name in our list of novel-writers, but if ‘Strange Threads’ is his maiden effort, he is surely a phenomenon. Regarded as the first work of a new writer, it is simply wonderful; even as the product of mature experience it is still worthy of being termed remarkable. It is original without being strained or whimsical, wholesomely terse in construction, frequently bright in epigram, and the story grows stronger with every page to the close. It is not too much to say that it will bear reading along with the novels of Charlotte Bronte, and the writer succeeds even better than she in picturing his characters in life-like presence without making an elaborate study of them, while there is a more perceptible and worthier motive in his drawing.” —Paper World. Springfield, Mass.

“J. Douglas is evidently a woman. The adventures of a party of American novelists in Europe, their love-making and their heart disappointments, are the author’s stock in trade, and she has certainly succeeded in weaving a very tangled web. There are here and there a strong portraiture and a keen analysis of motives, while the descriptive portions have a picturesqueness and vigor which give old and well-traveled roads a new beauty.” —Record, Philadelphia.

“It is probable that “J.” stands for Jane, Josephine or some other name feminine, for the book is thoroughly a woman’s book. It certainly is very well written, and, if by a new aspirant for literary honors, as it seems, she is certain to make her mark.” —The Republic, St. Louis, Mo.

“A new American novelist of considerable originality and force has appeared. The name is J. Douglas, though whether it stands for man or woman must be gathered from the book. The dialogue is bright, the situations are dramatic and the book is thoroughly readable from beginning to end.” —Illus. Christian Weekly, N. Y. City.

PRE-EMINENTLY A LOVE STORY

“A love Story; a bright sketchy tale of a wayward young lady – that is, wayward in her loves. It is certainly very original; on the whole, is a novel to be liked by the public.” —Times, Kansas City, Mo.

“A most interesting work, which engrosses the attention of the reader from the first to the last chapter.” —Morning Call, San Francisco.

Lang Syne, or the Wards of Mt. Vernon

Lang Syne; or The Wards of Mount Vernon. By Mary Stuart Smith. 12mo, paper, 30c. (10c)., cloth, 60c. (20c).

In this book, which is dedicated “To the Memory of Washington and to American Womanhood,” we have an interesting love story of the revolutionary era, in which are interwoven in a skilful manner many excellent descriptions of prominent events and of the eminent men, Washington, Lee, Franklin, Cadwalader, and others, who were foremost in the great struggle for independence. It also shows the important part taken by the women of that period and the valuable service which they rendered the patriot army. About one-third of the book is specially devoted to “the Women of the Revolution.” A great deal of information regarding the character, habits, tastes, and labors of the people of that stirring period is conveyed in an entertaining manner. The author, who styles herself a “Daughter of Virginia” (and who might have stated the interesting fact that she is a direct descendant of Gen. Washington’s only sister) has done well to write this book, and its appearance at this centennial period is appropriate and timely.

Patriotic Hymns

Rankin. Hymns Pro Patria. By Rev. J. E. Rankin, D.D. Ideal Edition, cloth, 60c. (20c).

Dr. Rankin needs no introduction to the American public. As a clergyman and an author he long ago won high reputation. In this little volume will be found his more recent poems. They include some of his finest work and will certainly add to his reputation as a genuine poet. In the collection are Hymns for Forefather’s Day. National Hymns, Humanitarian Hymns, Foreign Missionary Hymns, Christian Endeavor Hymns, and several Hymns relating to Christian Experience. The book will interest many.

Jerry: A Story for Young Folks

Pratt. Jerry. By Ellen P. Pratt. 12mo, cloth, 75c. (25c).

This is a spirited story which will especially please the young people, though it will furnish no small degree of entertainment to their elders. It opens sadly with a record of intemperance and misery, but the scene soon changes and the love story opens in earnest. Various adventures, some of them quite remarkable, are narrated. The characters are numerous, events move rapidly, and the interest deepens until the closing page is reached.

The Medical Student As Pictured in Punch

Smith. The London Medical Student. By Albert Smith. 12mo, cloth, 50c. (20c).

In this book the career of a student in a London Medical College is traced in a broadly humorous manner. The appearance of the “new man” when he comes up from the country to continue his medical studies is aptly described, and the zeal with which he enters upon his new duties is delineated in a laughable manner. His subsequent course, his dodging of recitations, the letters home for money with which, ostensibly, to purchase books, his examination, and the various “Curiosities of Medical Experience,” follow in a similar strain. The work is reprinted from Punch, in which it appeared as a serial.

Dorance: A Novel

Nelson. Dorance; A Novel. By R. E. Nelson. 12mo, cloth, 75c. (25c).

This first novel by an author as yet unknown to the public will find sympathetic readers among those who still read Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

“Of Virginia blood, but of Northern birth, my earliest sympathies were aroused in behalf of the people of both races of the ‘Sunny Southland,’ and my imagination was made alive by the glowing pictures of Southern life, gleaned from my friends and from books on the subject. If I have succeeded in interesting my young friends in this phase of life, which has now passed into history, the problem of which is still unsolved in a measure, I will have fully accomplished my purpose in writing this book.” —Author’s Preface.

Bonds are issued in amounts to suit the purchaser, not less that $10.00; they are also made payable, if desired, in six months, or three months, the coupon being reduced in proportion with the time. If cash is preferred to books, the coupons will be purchased by the Company, at maturity of bond, at the price of $1.00 for a $10.00 one-year bond, and pro rata for others. The following examples of prices (full price list in Catalogue) to the Public (first price) and to Stockholders (second price) indicate value of the Bond as an investment to one wanting books:

Geikie’s Holy Land $2.75 $1.75

Wallace’s Repose in Egypt 1.00 50

Robert Elsmere 50 30

Alden’s Home Atlas 2.25 1.45

Ruskin’s Choice Works 60 40

Boswell’s Johnson $2.75 $1.50

Hallam’s Middle Ages 3.00 2.00

Drummond’s Natural Law 50 35

The Kalevala, cloth 2.25 1.50

Ideal Shakespeare, 12 vols. 6.00 3.50

Hours with the Bible 50 30

Goldsmith’s Works 3.00 1.75

Tom Brown at Rugby 25 18

Irving’s Washington 1.25 75

Interwoven Gospels 90 60

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