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(it would be foolish to hope that it has done for all time) to the production of the amateurish story- telling which passed for drama during the last few years. It is to be hoped that those who inflicted such pain on their compatriots in the years of peace have found in these trying times some means of compensating them by performing some real service to the community, for merely to abstain from their ill-advised attempts at play-writing is not compensa- tion. These three little plays, though not to be compared with the realistic social criticisms of Mr. W J. Gruffydd or the light, airy comedies of Mr. Berry, are never- theless interesting and perfectly innocuous essays in play-writing, written in a style which gives their plots a certain naturalness and plausibility and are, if not very clever, at least inoffensive. The dialogue is easy and unambitious, and the stories, if somewhat hackneyed are treated with a measure of dramatic instinct. The plays would interest a village dramatic company and would not give them many misconcep- tions of the true nature and function of real drama- which is more than can be said of many so-called dramas. "TirlarU." By Frederic Evans, A.C.P. (Welsh County Series Educational Publishing Co. Pp. 190). The author of this very curious book has expended much time and energy on its preparation. Thereby to have read and consulted all the books and manu- scripts mentioned in the bibliographical note at the end has meant great labour and a praiseworthy effort to get at the data for a trustworthy history of this very interesting part of Wales. But whether from inaptitude for this kind of work or from bias and pre- conceptions (which are the same thing as inaptitude) the effort has not been successful, and Tir I aril has still to wait for a history that will do justice to its wealth of historical associations, and a historian that will interpret those associations with proper regard for scientific truth. For this is what our present author has not done. To repeat the mytholo- gies which found their origin in the fertile brain of lolo Morganwg without attempting in any way to bring those dreams into relation with facts is not history, and to ignore the recent tremendous advances made in the scientific study of Welsh philology is no qualification for a historian, however much favour such ignorance may still find in certain circles. In spite, however, of these great defects the book is not altogether destitute of value. When the author leaves philology and the remote past, he can Ll. G. W. be both instructive and interesting, and his chapters on the industrial history of Tir Iarll and on the customs and folklore which are being banished by the industrial revolution and the changes it brings into the habits and life of the people are quite good. YDeyrnasarAU^dyfodiad. R. S. Rogers. B.A. (C. Grier, Publisher, Mountain Ash. Pp. 87. Pris Is.). This unassuming little book is a careful and scholarly study of the two New Testament concep- tions about which the most fierce theological con- troversies have been waged during recent years; the idea of the kingdom of God and the Second Coming of Christ. The author has acquainted himself with all the most important works on the subject and gives in this slender book the conclusions he has formed as to the meanings of these ideas. Whether the reader can accept those conclusions or no (and the present writer finds himself in com- plete accord with the author) no one who will bestow half the care on the reading of the book that the author has spent on writing it can fail to derive from it great assistance in the understanding of the Idea of the Kingdom and New Testament problems generally. Even those who are more or less expert cannot fail to be interested by the clear style and the epigrammatic terseness with which the author deals with his great theme. Broadly speaking, the average Christian and the Eschatologist have been at one in giving the Idea of the Kingdom a millenial and apocalyptic content- the one from mixed feelings of the impossibility of realizing the kingdom on earth, in spite of the use he makes of the petition in the Lord's prayer about its coming, and the other from the difficulty of harmonizing idea of the Kingdom with some preconceptions of the limitations of Christ's person. Both these positions have had to be re-examined because of the recent attempts of a modern school of German theologians to interpret the ethics of Christ merely as Interimsethik—thal is, as a scheme of morals based by Christ on the assumption that the Paronsia was imminent and that the first Chris- tians were to order their lives accordingly. This led to a more careful study of the sayings of Jesus, and (though that time is not yet) it will lead to a more universal and more clear understanding of the meaning of His life and words. Mr. Rogers interprets the Second Coming as meaning the Coming of the Spirit of Jesus into the life of the world, and with this gradual entering into the life of humanity the vision of the Kingdom will be realized. In pro-