When the British Army entered Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, they entered the largest town in the colonies. But Philadelphians of today might be amused by the extent of the great metropolis, Philadelphia proper extended from Vine Street to South Street and westward to Fifth. “There were few houses west of Sixth street and most of these were on Chestnut and Market streets…”1 Fifth Street was really the western boundary of the town as we may see from the number of cemeteries along its entire length, For example, at Cherry Street there were two Lutheran graveyards; (diagonally opposite at the northwest corner of Arch was the Presbyterian yard. At the southeast corner of this same street was the Episcopal yard; farther down, just below Market Street, was the graveyard of the Baptists. On the east side of Fifth below Walnut was the Romanists' cemetery and on the west side was that of the Free Quakers. Phjladelphians at least had the grace to remove their graveyards to the extreme limits of the town. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why colonial Philadelphia missed some of the worst epidemics.

The causes of the American Revolution were many and varied; not least among these was the legal position of the Church of England as established by law in Maryland as well as in some of the other colonies. Under this system men were taxed for the support of the Church and the ministry but were denied any part in the appointment of ministers or relief from priests who failed to fulfill their office to the satisfaction of the taxed. At least some of the cases of supposed neglect of duty may be considered from the standpoint of the legal aspects of the case entirely apart from the character of the individuals involved.

Edited by SAMUEL CLYDE MCCULLOCH. Philadelphia: The Church Historical Society, 1950. $4.00. The XVIIIth Century is usually characterized as the Age of Reason, by which is meant the rise of deism and rationalism; yet two great religious movements were also products of that century. The rise of Methodism has been well publicized; the rise of two great Church of England societies has been less widely known. The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts were instrumental in extending Anglicanism beyond the shores of the British Isles. More than three thousand missionaries have been listed as having been sent to continental America between 1700 and 1789, to say nothing of the many missionaries sent to the Caribbeans and to other distant British possessions. The semi-annual reports of these missionaries, the letters of the bishops of London to the Society, the letters of the several governors and others to the Society, form a treasure trove of source material for the religious history of XVIIIth Century America and England. In recent years a number of scholars have been exploiting this material, among whom none has been more indefatigable than Dr. Frank J. Klingberg. This volume of essays, based on S.P.G. sources in large measure, is a well merited tribute to an eminent scholar by his former students who have worked with him through the same sources. The volume is varied in scope, depending upon the interests of the writers, and covers such topics as slavery, work with convicts, factory legislation, individual biographical sketches of missionaries, and work with children through hymn writing and hymn writers. On the nonreligious side it is a well-rounded representation of the work of this great religious Society. No one volume can, of course, present the work of the Venerable Society in its entirety, but if there be a fault in the book it is the apparent assumption that the endeavors of the Society and its employees were primarily humanitarian and only incidentally religious; the truth lies in exactly the opposite direction. The directions of the Society to its missionaries emphasize the fact that the making of practicing Christians (and by that they meant practicing Anglicans) was of primary importance. If schools were to be founded, they were to be governed and taught by Anglicans; if reading was included, the ability to read the Scriptures and the Book of Common Prayer was the touch-stone of success. The propagation of the Gospel, not humanitarian!sm as such, was the basis of the work. Perhaps it is just as well that this non-religious side of the S.P.G. has been presented, for the clerics who have dealt with the sources tend to overemphasize the other side of the picture. British Humanitarianism will balance the other works which have been and are being published from these sources.

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Eighteenth century Delaware has one example of interchurch co-operation which is of interest to those engaged in such movements in our own day. Although the field of activity between the Church of Sweden and the Church of England extends beyond the borders of northern Delaware, yet in this limited area all the essential characteristics of the movement are to be found and can be examined in some detail. Beginning as two separate and distinct national churches, by means of friendly co-operation they became one church within less than a century.