Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church. Part I. Abraham to Samuel. 8vo., pp. 588. Part II. From Samuel. Pp. 656. With Maps and Plans. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster.

Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church. With an Introduction on the Study of Ecclesiastical History. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D. 12mo., pp. 550. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

ance.

A call for the issue by Mr. Scribner of a new edition of these brilliant works is no matter of wonder. We expressed our high admiration for the genius of Dean Stanley on their first appearNo one can read his touches of Old Testament history (notwithstanding their tinge of neology) without feeling a fresh interest in those wonderful and venerable records. To the preacher and expositor they are both suggestive and inspiring. His review of the Eastern Church furnishes what we Occidentals need, and rejoice to know.

History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin. By J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D.D. Vol. V. Endland Geueva Ferrara. 12mo., pp. 470. New York: Carter & Brothers. 1869.

D'Aubigne's great work is in two series of volumes; one covering the history to the Augsburgh Confession, the other closing with the permanent success of the Reformation in various nations. This is the fifth volume of the second series, and the tenth of the whole. It embraces the zenith of Henry VIII. and the period of the appearance of Calvin on the stage. The eloquent, pictorial, evangelical character of this work has made it a great favorite with American Christians.

History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. Vol. II. 12mo., pp. 501. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1870.

This is to be a popular edition of the history of this eminent writer. The author, as our readers well know, is an enthusiast on the side of freedom and advancement, not to say of doubt and moral daring. The style is remarkable for directness, polish, and point. Its great excellence consists of power in depicting not merely great characters, but an age, an age pregnant with coming ages. The great story will bear rewriting, and it is here performed by the hand of a master.

The Black Man; or, Haytien Independence. Deduced from Historical Notes, and Dedicated to the Government and People of Hayti. By M. B. BIRD. 12mo., pp. 461. New York: Published by the Author. Trade supplied by the American News Co.

Mr. Bird's book is a valuable and standard manual for all who take interest in Hayti, or would investigate an important, but not

wholly encouraging, chapter in negro history. It embraces thrilling details and some striking historical characters. Mr. Bird's style is rather diffuse; a more compact statement would reduce the size and increase the value of the volume.

The Life of Joseph Addison Alexander, D.D., Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary. By HENRY CARRINGTON ALEXANDER. 2 vols. 12mo., pp. 917. New York: Scribner & Co. 1870.

A new edition of a valuable biography, noticed by us in a former number, and reviewed in a full article by Rev. Dr. Crane.

Politics, Law, and General Morals.

Popular Amusements. By J. T. CRANE, D.D., of the Newark Conference. With an Introduction, by Bishop E. S. JANES. Large 16mo., pp. 209. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. 1869.

We remember hearing Jacob Gruber say, in a sermon at a Maryland camp-meeting, that "when Father Asbury saw the first piano in a Methodist family he cried like a child; next," he said, "would be dancing, and then the world and the devil and all." A curious comment on this speech met us a year or two ago in a picture of Harper's Weekly, exhibiting the blessed contrast between the young man in the parlor with the young ladies at the piano, and the young man lounging in the liquor and billiard saloon. How truly and rightly to make the home attractive without its including those exhilarations which become the avenue and steppingstones to extravagances and dissipations, is a serious problem. We doubt if the line can be more wisely drawn than is here done both by Bishop Janes and Dr. Crane. Dr. Crane's work is done in his best style. There are logic, rhetoric, philosophy, and now and then some lively amusement " in it. It is written in no ascetic style.

Against the theater, the horse-race, and the base-ball, and against cards, chess, aud billiards, for good grounds, as assigned by Dr. Crane, the Church has taken a very unanimous position. Very rightly and forcibly he subjoins against novel-reading a vigorous protest, of which a share of our ministry, we fear, has need. And to this might be added, so far as too many of our young ministry are concerned, an enfeebling amount of mental dissipation and a waste of valuable time in pouring over the trashy periodical literature of the day, to the neglect of standard biblical and theological acquirements, and especially to the unpardonable neglect of taking and reading our Quarterly.

There are two classes for whom active recreations-we might say vacation and play—are needed, but who have in earlier days been the most specially excluded classes, namely, ministers and students. We doubt whether the inventory of recreations laid down by Bishop Janes is quite sufficient for the drudged pastor. We remember Brother Janes himself in the days of his routine pastorship, and while we remember that, mentally and spiritually, he was a very "live man," yet corporeally, facially, and locomotively, he made a very corpse-like impress upon a spectator's retina. The episcopate has broken the routine, and given him, by sea and land, a broad variety and a healthy physique. But numbers of us will not be successful as candidates for the episcopate; and some, perchance, may even not be candidates at all! If any body has a right to the ball and the bowl and the bat, it is not the fast young gentry who monopolize them, but those who preach and resolve themselves, and are bishoped and conferenced, into exclusion from them.

Very properly, Dr. Crane's book is esoteric; that is, addressed to the Church solely, and stating the case on religious and ecclesiastical grounds. To the class of pure ethicists, who are earnestly elaborating a universal and fundamental morale, based on eternal principles, he addresses no argument. To them much of the argument would possess no validity. Especially the common argument, drawn from what the world thinks, is held to be a vicious circle; inasmuch as the world thinks just what the Church has taught it, and it is only holding the Church to its own standard. Had Asbury succeeded in banning the piano, Dr. C. might have said, "You see what the world thinks of a piano-playing Christian." And, in fact, there is a class of moral thinkers who decline the Church's teaching, and assert that “ a minister ought to play croquet," and who maintain that the antagonism put by the Church between amusement and spiritual-mindedness is a factitious one. They charge the Church with a made morality, and a manufactured sin. They believe that there is not the slightest incongruity in a family dance before evening prayers. We have seen a Methodist prayer-meeting held regularly in a bowling-room; and, singular to say, not the slightest incongruity was felt in passing from one exercise to the other! Into this extra-religious and ethical department of the subject Dr. Crane, wisely, does not enter. It needs no controversy. If the Church has hereafter occasion to change her position it will be by imperceptible degrees. One century hence a Methodist Bishop may be as far from Bishop Janes as he from Bishop Asbury. For the

present she has enough to do in resisting the incoming and almost overwhelming tide of frivolity that threatens to submerge the

age.

And, with Coleridge, we may rightly say that there is not only an absolute but a prudential morality. Practical prudence may require us to draw the prohibitory line not at the precise bound ary between right and wrong, but just where the line which excludes the wrong (and perhaps a little more) may be most clearly drawn, and, in practice, most successfully maintained. Total abstinence may not be in itself absolutely obligatory; but it is the clearest, most incisive, and most maintainable excluder of intemperance attainable. What better ground the future may attain we know not.

Dr. Crane jealously conditions and barely allows " social gatherings;" we should recommend them. We think that a Church should provide for them and control them. We know few better safeguards for our young men than social recreation established by the Church and kept within bounds. Little improprieties, doubtless, may occur at them; but nothing in comparison with the ruin that ensues by driving our young men for recreation to questionable resorts.

The Southern Methodist Press.

Periodicals.

Our readers are well aware that from the close of the late civil war until the present time our Quarterly has advocated the cause of conciliation, of churchly recognition, and of possible ultimate union on the basis of freedom, and on terms of perfect equality, of the two Methodisms. To the Southern Church this would afford the special advantage of acquiring for its annual Conferences an undivided jurisdiction over the Southern territory, the ample aids of Northern Methodism, and an open way into fraternity with universal Methodism. To the entire united Church it would present the means of a free national circulation, affording an interchange of ministers between the entire North and South. Such an interchange would give a new zest and unity both to Church and nation. Save in transient incidentals-transient, if we are wise the two Churches are one. We are one in our blessed old Arminian theology, and one in our methods of earnest evangelism. Unless adverse political convulsions break us up, we are one on the future great questions of the day. That is, we are one against the menaces of Romanism; one against the still more threatening inva

sion of Rationalism and Infidelity; one against the assaults upon the existance of the Christian Sabbath; against every form of intemperence and demoralization. Our forces concentrated upon these great questions would blessedly affect our national destinies.

Judging, however, from the tone of the Southern Methodist press, the Church, South, is rather increasing than diminishing in the spirit of separation. The leading organ, the Nashville Advocate, a few months after the late Episcopal correspondence, published, with hearty encomiums, an article from a writer abroad reviewing the correspondence in a sarcastic tone, showing how finely on every point the Northern Bishops were rebuffed, and predicting that this would be the last attempt at reunion ever to be made. In a notice of Dr. Wakeley's life of the Southern Abolitionist, Cravens, the Editor flouts at the idea of "dead issues," strongly averring that the publication of severe condemnation of slavery at our Northern Book Rooms constitutes a living issue, inasmuch as it disparages the reputation of deceased virtuous slaveholders. This forms a curious contradiction of the assertion of the Southern Bishops that slavery ever was an issue between the two Methodisms-an assertion preposterously at war with the history of the last forty years. We said, in our last discussion of this subject, that while we were ready to withhold all references to slavery in the animus of reproach upon a Southern Church in union with us, we would never accept a padlock on our lips, precluding the treatment of slavery with full historical and ethical condemnation. This condemnation may reflect upon individuals, both living and dead, North as well as South, whom we profoundly revere; but we revere them too purely to sacrifice truth and righteousness to their reputation. We lived years of Church-union with, we accepted the sacramental cup, nay, our ministerial appointments from, men whose course on this subject we most deeply condemned. In spite of their great wrong-doing on this subject, we revere the names of Capers and Winans and Soule and Bangs. But if any man or Church require us to sacrifice truth to that reverence upon penalty of disunion, then be it, while the world stands, irrevocable disunion.

The editor of the Southern Christian Advocate rehearses in bitter spirit and language the misdeeds of our Church, and points out the only road to not union, but-even fraternization. The Methodist Episcopal Church, forsooth, adopting the policy of "disintegration and absorption," has sent her paid missionaries into the South, who have made no attempt to convert the wicked world, but have solely