Pre - Reformation Worthies. By the Rev. W. Cowan. (Elliot Stock.)—The worthies
of whom Mr. Cowan writes are Grossetete, Bishop of Lincoln, Thomas a Kempis, Henry Suso, and Rays- brosek, Mystics of the fourteenth century, the first born at Con- stance, the second in Flanders ; Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, the determined enemy of the Mendicant Orders; Reuchlin, the Humanist ; and Staupitz, who may be regarded as the spiritual progenitor of Luther. The estimates of the character and woik of these men are made with candour and sympathy. Mr. Cowan is not of the Milner school of Church historians, men who cannot see the true Church anywhere but in sects, often obscure and even of doubtful character, that set themselves in open opposition to authority. Grossetete was a determined opponent of Papal autocracy, but he was strictly orthodox after the orthodoxy of his day. The same may be said of Thomas a Kempis, and even of the Mystics, though they probably differed from the theologians of their time in their view of the relative im- portance of dogma. Reuchlin and Staupitz were more directly precursors of the Reformation movement. This is an interesting and instructive volume.
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