But if the effigies are to be regarded as symbols of a totemic animal-worship, it may be thought that they cannot be taken as evidence of the existence of nature-worship. Mr. Peet remarks, however, that the symbolism of Ohio was that of sun-worship, and the existence of this phase of nature-worship among the American aborigines is an important fact. It connects their religious ideas with those which were at one time almost universally prevalent in the Old World. The Sun as the source of life and energy was from an early date the object round which centered the religious ideas of the ancient world, and the serpent occupied a chief place as symbolical of the most important of those ideas. The veneration for deceased ancestors represented similar ideas with those embodied in sun-worship, and the animal totemism of which the effigy mounds are symbolic was connected with the latter superstition through ancestral worship, the mythical ancestor being identified with the totem. If this is so, the study of the mythology of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country may be expected to throw light on the origin of Old World superstitions, and Mr. Peet may be congratulated on having done so much to make known the symbolical and other works which will soon be the only relics of an ancient and wide-spread race. Ω. LIFE. By _M. J. Savage_. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis. In this volume of sermons we have a most interesting series of studies on a subject which is probably attracting at the present time more intelligent interest than at any past epoch. The views entertained by Mr. Savage are so well known that it is not necessary to give any elaborate review of the present work. Among other themes he treats of the Nature and Origin of Life, Goodness and Moral Evil, Life's Meaning, Nationalism and other social dreams, Morality and Religion. Everywhere we find much material for thought, and, although from the very nature of the case many of Mr. Savage's conclusions will not be generally accepted, his words will be read with more than a passing interest. His statement that right and wrong "are to be understood by studying the progress, the development, of the race, just as we find out any other truth," cannot well be contested by the advocate of any ethical theory. When he affirms this life "to be only manifestations as the years go by, out-blossomings everywhere of that life which is God,—the mystery and yet the explanation of all things," he expresses an opinion that most men who have given the subject serious thought will accept—subject only to the reservation that they are allowed to understand "God" in their own way.