of manhood and womanhood at any cost."

As a historical novelist then, Mr. Allen has taken his rank with the
few men of whom Nathaniel Hawthorne is perhaps the most famous; and for
the same reason. Both have given us pictures of the lives of our
forefathers, whose faithfulness has assured them a position as classics
in American literature. True to the instinct of his genius Mr. Allen
has again chosen a stirring period in our history as a background for
his new novel "_The Reign of Law_" which THE MACMILLAN COMPANY publish.
Both the hero and heroine are products of a Revolution, and the scene
of the plot is situated in the Kentucky hemp fields. The Revolution on
the one hand was the social upheaval that our Civil War caused in the
South. While on the other hand it was the moral and intellectual
Revolution which followed the great discoveries in physical and social
science in the middle of this Century.

The two chief characters of the story are a young man and a young
woman. The young man sprung from the lowest stratum of Southern
society, and the young woman from the highest. The story of the
intermingling of their lives must be left for the reader to discover.

As was so often the case during the political reconstruction of the
South, the heroine passed from the sphere of the high social
organization which existed at her birth to the humblest and most
obscure hard manual work, while the hero rose from the lowest social
condition to the highest intellectual plane, finding his development
along the lines of religious and scientific thought. When they finally
meet, the latter half of the story shows their influences on each
other.

The involved social and political conditions, the play and interaction
of phases of life, so utterly different as those which form the
experiences of these two people, have allowed Mr. Allen a wide scope
for the subtle analysis of character of which in his exquisitely
delicate art he is such a master.

The trend of the book, and the religious crisis through which its hero
passes, give the story its title; while an important part in the
development of the hero's character is played by his passionate love
story.

A well known critic affirms that the story contains by far the finest
and noblest work Mr. Allen has yet done, both in respect of that human
passion and interest which characterizes his former work, and also in
the tender reverential feeling with which he dwells on the simple rur