This book of Mr. Green is prepared with special reference to this phase of teaching. It is made up of selections from the best writers of English History, eloquent and picturesque descriptions of great events and actions, well calculated to inspire the young with love of virtue, admiration for genius, loyalty to principle, and a generous ambition to be useful to country and mankind. Every teacher should possess the book, and shortening the formula of questions and answers, improve the time remaining in reading from it such passages as bear upon the lesson. In this way he will surely hold the attention, and furnish the memory of his scholars.

Cordially do we commend the book also to parents for family reading. It is precisely the thing to engage, inform and delight the home circle when the evening hours come on.

5.

All Quiet along the Potomac, and other Poems. By Ethel Lynn Beers. Porter & Coates. $1.75.

We are glad to find in this volume the authorship of many poems which years ago were floating through the newspapers with nothing to indicate their origin. One of these, "On the Shores of Tennessee," is one of the grandest and most pathetic patriotic pieces which the war produced, and which with the name of Longfellow or Whittier appended to it would have been hailed with universal applause. Another is that which gives title to the collection "All quiet along the Potomac," and which has been the country over, and beyond the sea, and assigned to a half dozen different writers. Another still is, "Which shall it be?" wherein a father and mother, having more children than food and raiment. try in vain to decide which child shall be given to a rich uncle who offers to take one as his own. Many of the other poems are full of pathos and tenderness, and will find response in thousands of hearts that have suffered in the hard struggle of life. Since writing the above, we learn with sorrow that the amiable author has departed this life, dying almost immediately after the issue of this volume.

6. The Universalism of the Lord's Prayer. Words to all Christian Churches, and to all Mankind. By J. G. Adams, D.D. Universalist Publishing House. 50cts.

Many years ago we preached a sermon on the text, "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever"; in which we endeavored to show that God being our Father, deliverance from evil, the triumph of good, universal redemption, were the logical and necessary outcome of such a statement. Dr. Adams, in this beautiful and tasty little book, shows that these truths, or this one truth of Universalism pervades the entire substance and phraseology of the Lord's Prayer; and out of the doctrine, never lost sight of, he draws, as stream from its head-springs, with admirable fitness and force abundant reasons for childlike trust, affection and gratitude toward God. Having heard one of the chapters read from manuscript, we had expectations touching the book, and they are fully realized. Indeed the

treatise is much more than we had looked for; every page is equally rich with exposition and Christian teaching for the inquiring, and with devotional sentiment eminently suited to lead the believing heart to "Our Father" as the fountain of life and light, and the source of all our blessings.

We bespeak for it a wide circulation, for it cannot fail to do good service among the people of our Church, begetting reverence and faith, and helping greatly to cultivate the religious affections, and a spirit of prayerful dependence on God. Let it be sent also among our friends of other communions, that they may understand what a saving power there is in the sublime and inspiring truth of the Divine Fatherhood.

7. Old Faiths in New Light. By Newman Smyth, author of "Religious Feeling." Charles Scribner's Sons. $1.50.

The aim of the writer is to meet the growing need of intelligent and inquiring minds by gathering the materials quarried by specialists in their own departments of Biblical study and scientific research, scattered here and there, and building them together so as to make a firm, compact foundation for a reconstruction of old faiths in their relations to the new lights and facts of modern science and philosophy. "I would read the old faiths," he says, "which I still believe, in the light of modern thought to which I cannot be blind. I would help others, if possible, to walk still in the old ways which prophets and apostles have trod, but in the light of to-day."

He appreciates the labors, and accepts all the verified discoveries of the scientist in a generous spirit, but finds in them no reason for abandoning his Christian faith. He sees no real conflict between the works and the words of the Creator, between what he has made and what he has revealed; though he finds reason to modify some of the dogmas and Biblical interpretations which he once held. But on the other hand, taking up the principles and formulas of scientists he deduces from them, in the line of most persuasive philosophy and logic, Christian conclusions which ought to compel them, if they are as honest and just as he is, to modify some of their unbeliefs and denials. Pages on pages of his statements and arguments we should gladly reproduce here if we had space; as it is we earnestly commend to the notice of our readers, both laity and clergy, what he says regarding the nature of Christ, the incarnation, spirit and matter, miracles, the natural and supernatural, the resurrection, and the unseen universe. Whether accepting or rejecting certain of the author's conclusions, they will be instructed and stimulated by communion with him.

8. The Children's Book of Poetry: carefully selected from the Best and Most Popular Writers for Chrildren. By Henry T. Coates. Illustrated with nearly Two Hundred Engravings by the Most Distinguished Artists. Porter & Coates. Philadelphia. Quarto. $3.00.

Here we have nearly six hundred poems arranged under the appropriate headings of Baby-Days, Play-Days, Lessons of Life, Animals

and Birds, Trees and Flowers, Nature, Religion, Christmas and New Year, Old Tales and Ballads, and Some Famous Poems for the Older Children, together with two hundred pictures to match, most of which are very attractive and appropriate, the whole done up in tasty and beautiful binding, making it a most charming gift-book for Christmas, New Years and Birthdays - all for three dollars!

Of course it is intended for children, but whoever opens it with the expectation of finding only baby talk, will be pleasantly disappointed, for the selection is of wide range, and is made with excellent judgment, and contains some of the sweetest poems in the language; to say nothing of such as Abou Ben Adhem, The Burial of Sir John Moore, Edgar Poe's Bells, and the fine old Euglish Ballads. The Loss of the Royal George, How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, Lochinvar, Lord Ullin's Daughter, The Mouse Tower on the Rhine, Chevy Chase, &c. Then, too, many of the selections teach sweet lessons of helpfulness, charity, kindness to animals, pity for the unfortunate, reverence for religious things; while others tend to cultivate a love of nature, a taste for the beautiful, and refinement of thought and feeling, Many a parent and many a child will thank Mr. Coates in this gift season for the good service he has done them.

9. Studies in Theism. By Borden P. Bowne, Professor of Philosophy in Boston University. New York. Phillips & Hunt. 1879.

Professor Bowne is a critic. In eleven chapters, under as many specific headings, he arraigns and labors to refute the now popular school of nominal (he does not think them real) scientists and philosophers, who, under specious forms and alluring phrases, are seeking to destroy the world's faith in other than material causes and manifestations. He opposes Theism to Atheism-identifying with this many theories which take as many names. And he charges upon the entire cohort of skeptics a grave misapprehension of the position which every Theist really holds. They seek to destroy the Theist by showing that the being of God has never been, and cannot be, "demonstrated." In fact, no intelligent Theist ever sought to give such a demonstration, or even believes such a demonstration possible! Apart from the claims of some that God is given in intuition, or out-right by the reason, all that is ever claimed as the product of reasoning, as having the quality of "demonstration," is this: A personal, intelligent sovereign Will best harmonizes with the phenomena of the universe, it is psychologically impossible to account for these phenomena without putting back of them an efficient and independent Cause. No geologist ever claims to have seen the "internal fires," but to have deduced their reality. He never claims for them demonstration: his position is the very different one, that the phenomena manifest on the earth's surface cannot be accounted for unless the internal heat be assumed. This is the method of Theism, with we do not doubt better grounds for its application. It does not pretend to demonstrate a theory, but

rather to solve a problem. Not one of the army of materialists appears to have made this discovery!

Again, the materialistic school perpetually asserts that the "how" of creation, the method of its origin, has not been explained. Of course it has not. That is a matter wholly without the range of human ability. It is indeed something which cannot be "construed to thought "it is "unthinkable." But this is asserted and proved: there is reality and we know certain of its attributes. Any use of the word knowledge which would take it from the Theist, is simply to change its meaning- rather to eviscerate it of every possible meaning. And of things knowable, mind or spirit comes within the range of perception and confirmation, with at least as much of clearness and conclusiveness as (the Theist believes with more of clearness and conclusiveness than) matter or its phenomena. Brof. Bowne thinks that skeptics have quite enough to do in verifying their own foundations, without stopping to make "grimaces" at the foundations of other beliefs.

In no particular has our author done better service than in his luminous and conclusive showing that science itself has not simply better proofs, but no other proofs, than those on which Theistic philosophy rests. The distinction that physical science is assured knowledge, while Theistic conclusions are nothing but conclusions that is, beliefs is utterly false.

E.

10. The Shorter Epistles; viz. of Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus and Philemon; also of James, Peter and Jude. By Henry Cowles, D.D. D. Appleton & Co. $2.

Dr. Cowles does not write for the sake of making a book. Whoever opens his volumes will at once see that he puts diligent study, thorough and honest work into his commentaries; and as expositions of the text in every case where his favorite doctrines do not come in, he is very helpful and suggestive. And where he rejects the popular interpretations, which he often does, his arguments and criticisms are worthy of all attention. His essay on Christ's preaching to the Spirits in Prison, in which he adopts our views, is a good example of the labor bestowed on his explanations of difficult passages. His comments on Michael and the devil disputing about the body of Moses, and on the quotation from the Book of Enoch, exhibit both his frankness, and the fact that he is not afraid to confess that there are some things he does not know.

In his reply to Canon Farrar's "Eternal Hope" he repeats the same old arguments on Aionios, Gehenna, &c., which have been answered times without number; but when he comes to his " "Theodicy," he has one thing at least touching the reasons for endless punishment, which seems to us new, and to which we shall give attention in the General Review of our next issue.

11.

Sermons Preached on Various Occasions by James De Koven, D.D., Late Warden of Racine College. With an Introduction by Morgan Dix, S.T.D., Pastor of Trinity Church, N. Y. D. Appleton & Co.

The preface to this volume shows that the author was a man thoroughly in earnest, sincere, conscientious, and sacrificing his life wrongfully, unnecesarily, as we think, to an overstrained, morbid sense of duty. Had he obeyed God's laws of health, of work and rest, of physical endurance, he might have lived many years longer. And yet who can help admiring and loving a man who stands at the post of duty, or what he thinks such, till death relieves him? The sermons are not remarkable in any way. As memorials of a devoted preacher and teacher they will be welcome to his students and personal friends. It seems rather late in the day, however, for an intelligent and thoughtful man to talk of "the powers of the priesthood," as if a Catholic or an Episcopal priest possessed divine powers not bestowed on other Christian preachers; of the depravity of infants consequent upon "original sin," and of this depravity removed, and a new nature" given, by baptism, &c., &c.

12. A Critical and Doctrinal Commentary upon the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. By William G. T. Shedd, D.D., Professor of Systematic Theology in Union Theological Seminary, New York. Charles Scribner's Sons. $3.

ment.

The object of this volume is to encourage and assist the critical and doctrinal study of one of the most important books of the New TestaAs a help to a critical examination of the text, it is of great value. It gives the Greek at the top of the page, in fair and inviting type, and in the notes furnishes the latest information regarding the different readings of the manuscripts, the corrections and emendations of the ablest scholars, and their efforts to establish a genuine and reliable original text. As respects the dogmatic exegesis, it must be remembered that it is a foregone conclusion with Dr. Shedd that the Epistle to the Romans, as well as all the rest of the New Testament, is irrevocably committed to the Orthodox creed. But in his exegetical comments, within the limits of strict Orthodoxy, he gives freely the opinions of commentators and critics differing from his special conclusions, and states his reasons for dissent, leaving the student and inquirer to decide for themselves. In this respect the volume will prove useful and time-saving to such as wish to get at the weight of scholarly authority regarding disputed interpretations of certain important passages in this epistle.

Of course we naturally turn to chapters v., viii. and xi., to see how he manages to eliminate the outspoken Universalism of Paul, and put him on the side of the Westminster Catechism; and the student will find it profitable to examine the labors of Dr. Shedd on these chapters, and learn how far a creed can warp the judgment in such case. When we remember that in his "History of Christian Doctrine," he could find a trace of Universalism in only one of the early Christian schools of thought and belief, and only one or two teachers of it at that; we