the inspired history, all to have been done within the compass of twenty-four hours. 1. Some thousands of species of terrestrial animals were created. They may have all been brought into existence in full maturity, by one divine word, in a moment of time; but the expression, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind," naturally suggests the idea of a process, analogous to generation, gradual development and birth. And as the whole work of creation was by successive acts, beginning with formless vacuity and ascending in regular gradation to the most perfect forms, it is natural to suppose that the creation of the land animals began with the less perfect, and advanced by a regular gradation to the more perfect; especially as we know that man, the most perfect of them, was created last. 2. There was a pause, a survey, and an announcement that what had been made "was good." 3. Adam was created, a male without his female. 4. Adam was placed in the garden of Eden, and instructed "to dress it and to keep it, and to live on its fruits, but to abstain from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Doubtless, he was made to understand, in some degree, what dressing and keeping the garden would need; which implies some knowledge of its various forms of vegetable life, and their liabilities to injury or deterioration when neglected. The garden was his home and field of labor, but it is not said that he was confined to it, so that he might not, when at leisure and inclined, walk beyond its limits. 5. He became acquainted with the lower animals; so acquainted as to give to each species a name, which was remembered as the name of animals of that species. The whole number of species was several thousands; and if he did not actually see and name every species, without exception, he saw so many of them, and gained such a knowledge of them, as to justify the conclusion, that there was not, among them all, such a mate for himself as he needed. 6. Eve was created, and brought to Adam. He recognized her as a creature of his own species, a "help, meet for him," such as he had not found among the lower animals. 7. Having created man, "male and female," God blessed them, and bade them "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it." He gave them dominion over all the lower animals, and assigned to them the cereals and fruits of the earth as their food. He informed them that the lower animals were to live on the grasses and other herbage. 8. God took a survey of his whole work of creation, and pronounced it "very good." 9. The work of the day was now ended. "The evening had been, and the morning had been, the sixth day." No one will question the competency of Omnipotence, if Infinite Wisdom demanded it, to bring all these things to pass in an hour, or a minute. But, if we rigidly abstain from begging the question, by assuming that " day," in this place, means just twenty-four hours, there is nothing in the inspired account which indicates haste, or even any special rapidity of action. The impression naturally made by the record is, that all was done calmly and deliberately. No act seems to have been hurried, for the sake of saving time, and getting the whole done by a pre-appointed hour. On the contrary, every act, either of God or man, seems to have occupied all the time that could be in any way desirable for its performance. The inspired history of the things done, makes on our mind the impression of a period much longer than that of a single revolution of the earth on its axis. That "day," in this passage, does not mean a single period of twenty-four hours, seems to us just as plainly taught by the context, as it does where Christ said, "Abraham rejoiced to see my day." If this is true of the sixth day, it is obviously true of each of the other days of creation. And thus, by an interpretation which Scripture itself teaches, we place "the Mosaic Cosmogony" entirely beyond the reach of any assault which geology, or any kindred science, can possibly make. The Mosaic "days," interpreted by the context, give those sciences time enough, not only for all their legitimate purposes, but for all the wild vagaries in which they may please to disport themselves. Each of those days is a period occupied by a certain connected series of events, and includes the time occupied by that series, be it longer or shorter. ARTICLE VI. MRS. STOWE'S RECENT NOVELS. Agnes of Sorrento. By Mrs. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The Minister's Wooing," &c. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862. The Pearl of Orr's Island, a Story of the Coast of Maine. By Mrs. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," "The Minister's Wooing," &c. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1862. MRS. STOWE has long since vindicated her right to a place among the most brilliant female writers of America; nay, she has given unmistakable evidence of possessing more than talent - genius; that as yet undefined and perhaps undefinable quality which stamps all its creations with its own inimitable likeness; an impalpable influence almost beyond the sphere of consciousness, that takes up the naked, new-born thought, and clothes it with beauty and grace and power. In reviewing the novels the titles of which we have given, we do not intend any comparison of them with that which is the author's acknowledged masterpiece-"Uncle Tom's Cabin." They resemble it only as a broad, quiet river resembles a flashing torrent. There may be a rainbow above the torrent, and dark, sullen depths beneath the river's placid smile. Agnes of Sorrento is a story of Italian life in the fifteenth century. Agnes, the heroine, is introduced to us as an orangeseller in the streets of Sorrento, but though her garb and occupation are those of a peasant, there is a mixture of gentle blood in her veins, which betrays itself in her delicate organization, both physical and mental. She is an unworldly, exceptional creature, such as Mrs. Stowe usually selects for a heroine; in strong contrast to her grandmother, a keen sagacious old woman whose life is devoted to guarding her fragile treasure. Agnes has been educated a strict Romanist, and has, as the Mother Theresa and her nuns at the neighboring convent are fond of saying, a "vocation" for a religious life, which she is only kept from following by the entreaties of her grandmother, who has already selected "a reputable, middle-aged blacksmith" as a husband for her darling. Each is waiting for the conversion of the other to her favorite scheme. Meantime Agnes is accosted one evening, at her orange-stand, by a cavalier who has been strongly fascinated by her beauty, whose sad and handsome face, and earnest entreaties to be remembered in her prayers, make a reciprocal impression upon the unsophisticated maiden. Taking his request in good faith, and having reason to believe that he is a wanderer from the true church, and consequently in danger of eternal perdition, she enters with the whole energy of her enthusiastic nature upon the work of saving his soul by her prayers. The cavalier, who is a banished prince of the House of Sorelli, a follower of Savonarola, and a captain of banditti, seizes every opportunity to gain a moment's conversation with Agnes, and to assure her of his honorable love. Warned against him, however, both by her watchful grandmother and her confessor, to whom as a good Romanist, she had told everything, she is tortured by doubt and anxiety, though, viewing herself as the bride of the church, she is unwilling to admit the mingling of any earthly love, with her desires for Agostino's salvation. The conflict increases she meditates long and deeply upon the sufferings of the lost, and the representations of them which are made to her drive her almost to despair. She is harassed also, on the one hand by the importunity of the cavalier, united with the pleadings of an awakening love in her own heart, and on the other by the denunciations of her confessor (who is himself madly in love with Agnes), of eternal wrath upon both their souls if she should turn aside from her "vocation" to an earthly marriage. Feeling herself condemned by every emotion of a love which she looks upon as sinful, and failing to subdue it by the common methods of penance, she undertakes a pilgrimage to Rome, accompanied by her reluctant grandmother who fears the loss of their orange crop in consequence of this "freak," and "whose ambition for position and treasure in the spiritual world is of a very moderate cast.' After various adventures, Agnes arrives at the Holy City, watched over by Agostino, who well knows the dangers to which her youth and beauty will expose her. There he rescues her from the grasp of the Borgias, to whose infernal passions she had nearly fallen a victim, and finally succeeds in convincing her, by the help of what she has seen in the Papal palace, and by the counsels of an uncle who has been her chief comforter in all her troubles, that lawful wedlock is as favorable to the development of piety as a convent life. She has previously been discovered by a noble relative, and thus reclaiming her rank and position, she marries Agostino, and lives and dies a pious princess. Some of the best delineated characters in this book are those of which, as being least essential to the plot, we have spoken most briefly in this short résumé. The Father Francesco, particularly, is drawn with a skilful and truthful hand. He has gone through that process of transformation, so common in the Romish church, from a debauchee to a friar, and though really devout, and believing himself dead to the world, the sight of the gentle Agnes, in contrast with the coarser natures with which he has chiefly to deal, awakens in him emotions of whose character he at length becomes fearfully conscious. His struggles with himself are graphically portrayed, and he is made to show with terrible distinctness, the unholiness of that rule which forbids the development of the purest and deepest social affections. We give an extract. Father Francesco has passed the day in fasting and solitude, trying to root out from his soul the earthly love which is every day becoming more deeply fastened there: "It was now golden evening, and on the square, flat roof of the convent, which, high perched on a crag, overlooked the bay, one might observe a dark figure slowly pacing backward and forward. It is Father Francesco; and as he walks up and down, one could see by his large, bright, dilated eye, by the vivid red spot on either sunken cheek, and by the nervous energy of his movements, that he is in the very height of some mental crisis in that state of placid extase in which the subject supposes himself perfectly calm, because every nerve is screwed to the highest point of tension, and can vibrate no more. "What oceans had that day rolled over him, and swept him, as one may see a little boat rocked on the capricious surges of the Mediterranean! Were, then, all his strivings and agonies in vain? Did he |