In his treatment of the “Odyssey” and the “Iliad,” Mr. Adler makes some good points: “My father, anxious that I should become a good man, made me learn all the poems of Homer,” Xenophon makes one of his characters say: and here we have suggestive lines as to how the great epics may be used for example of life and instruction in manners. What so inspiring as the story of Ulysses to the boy in search of adventures? and what greater stimulus to courage, prudence, presence of mind, than in the escapes of the hero? “Ulysses is the type of sagacity as well as of bravery; his mind teems with inventions.” The ethical elements of the “Odyssey” are said to be conjugal affection, filial conduct (Telemachus), presence of mind, and veneration shown to grand-parents (Laertes). Friendly relations with dependents might have been added, as illustrated by the lovely story of the nurse Eurycleia recognising Ulysses when his wife sat by with stony face. Friendship, again, in the story of Achilles’ grief for Patroclus. Mr. Adler treats the Homeric stories with more grace and sympathy, and with less ruthless violation, than he metes out to those of the Bible, but here again we trace the initial weakness of “secular” morality. The “Odyssey” and the “Iliad” are religious poems or they are nothing. The whole motive is religious, every incident is supernaturally directed. The heroic inspiration is entirely wanting, if we fail to bear in mind that the characters do and suffer with superlative courage and fortitude, only because they willed to do and suffer, in all things, the will of the gods. The acquiescence of the will with that which they guessed, however darkly, of the divine will, is the truly inspiring quality of the Homeric heroes; and here, as much as in the teaching of Bible morality, “secular” ethics are at fault. The third section of Mr. Adler’s work consists of lessons on duty. Here again we have excellent counsels and delightful illustrations. “The teacher should always take the moral habit for granted. He should never give his pupils to understand that he and they are about to examine, whether, for instance, it is wrong or not wrong to lie. The commandment against lying is assumed, and its obligation acknowledged at the outset.” This we heartily agree with, and especially we like the apparently inadvertent use of the word “commandment,” which concedes the whole question at issue--that is, that the idea of duty is a relative one, depending on an Authority supreme and intimate, which embraces the thoughts of the heart and the issues of the life.