eloquence which the earnest voice and glowing face utters, type and paper cannot convey. We commmend this volume to all who would obtain one of the most profitable of books in exposition and defence of our common faith. It will always be a good companion in the family library, or study, or Sabbath school; a good missionary book, too, to go forth into solitary or waste places, proclaiming the glad tidings of the kingdom of God. J. G. A. 9. The Pedestrian in France and Switzerland. By George Barrell, Jr. Author of "Bubbles of Fiction." New York: G. P. Putnam & Co. 1853. 12mo. pp. 312. Mr. Barrell landed at Havre, April 30, 1851. Shouldering his knapsack he walked through Brittany to Nantz, thence to Paris; through Clermont to the Pyrenees; Marseilles. From Geneva through Lausanne, etc., to Martigny; Chamouni by Tète Noir, over the mountains to Aosta, Great St. Bernard; Thun, Interlachen, over the Wengern Alp, the Rhigi; Grindelwald to Hospenthal over the great Scheideck; Basel, the Rhine. The time occupied in the tour does not appear, but Mr. B. performed nearly the whole journey on foot. He took the diligence from Marseilles to Geneva. The style of this book is peculiar. So far as we remember, there is not a single "reflection" in it. The author goes straight to his task, tells what he saw and heard from day to day, and leaves the reader to theorize for himself. We have not the pleasure of the author's acquaintance, but we will venture the statement that the man who wrote this book has actually travelled over the ground which he describes, and that most of the notes which make up his work were written during the journey. A nimbler pen would have produced a more graceful story, and a much longer one, but the facts are all here, and here without having passed through the red-covered hand-books. It is hardly necessary to say that the book is well printed. W. H. R. 10. A Manual of the Gospels: being an abridgement of the author's "Harmony and Exposition of the Gospels;" for the use of Sunday Schools, Bible Classes, and Families. By James Strong, A. M. Edited by Daniel P. Kidder. New York: Carlton & Phillips. Boston: J. P. Magee. 1853. 18mo. pp. 436. The object of this Manual is to present the contents of the four Gospels in a connected history. Upon the left hand page is given the literal language of the Bible, the books, chapters and verses from which it is compiled being designated by appropriate references. Upon the right-hand page is the author's explanation. The place and time of each incident, so far as is known, are given at the head of each section. The "explanation" is the only thing about this As book which we do not like. It is pleasantly and concisely written, but tinctured with a theology which we do not find in the text. it is, we commend this Manual of the Gospels to the notice of our brethren; they will find it convenient and useful. W. H. R. 11. The Liberties of America. By H. W. Warner, of New York. New York: G. P. Putnam & Co. 1853. 12mo. pp. 280. Mr. Warner presents us, in these handsome pages, an interesting and intelligent discussion of the principle of freedom; showing what it is, and how it may be best developed and secured. The thought which underlies all his observations is, that our civil and religious liberty is not a reduced measure of what is called the state of nature, but an increased measure of it-that law and government are indispensable to set men truly free, so that they shall be prepared for the great ends of human destiny. And when they are thus liberated, civilization opens a scene of enterprize before them to the yet further advancement of their freemanly estate. Knowledge, art, business, wealth, intercourse, taste, come forward by degrees; acting like prisms on the lights of life, and for every tint of color visible before, presenting a thousand." We wish the talented author much success in this pioneer effort toward a literature of freedom. 66 W. H. R. 12. Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians. By the Rev. Thomas Laurie, Surviving Associate in that Mission. With a Portrait, Map of the Country, Illustrations, etc. Boston: Gould and Lincoln. 1853. 12mo. pp. 418. Dr. Grant was born in Marshall, N. Y.; became connected with the Board of Foreign Missions in December, 1835, and continued in their service, as physician, among the Nestorians until his death in April, 1844. He appears to have been a fearless, but faithful man, ready to extend a generous welcome to the few travellers who came into his isolated neighborhood, and to cheer them on their way with whatever advice and information he possessed. Such Christians are an honor to any sect, and useful in any place. The book is well brought out, and pleasantly written, and besides containing much valuable information in regard to the Nestorians, is ornamented by a fine map of their whole country. W. H. R. 13. The Mine Explored; or, Help to the Reading of the Bible. Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, No. 146 Chestnut street. New York: No. 147 Nassau Street. Boston: No. 9 Cornhill. Louisville: No. 103 Fourth street. 12 mo. pp. 382. This is a reprint of a work well known in England, and extensively used among the Unitarians there, under the name of Nicholl's Help to the Reading of the Bible. It was issued by the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," and is a valuable book for all biblical students, though not wholly free from theological error. The con tents are arranged under three heads :-Part I, relates to the Divine Authority of the Bible, the Method of Interpreting it, &c. Part II, discusses the Government and Public Worship of the Jews, Jewish Sects, etc. Part III, contains an Account of the Books of the Bible. The work is neatly brought out, contains five maps, besides tables, indices, etc. Those who own Horne's Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures, and other standard works of that character will hardly need this, except possibly for convenience; but for Bible-class teachers, advanced members of Sunday Schools, and students of small means, this, bating its errors of doctrine, is probably the best book of the kind which has been published in this country. W. H. R. 14. Ten Sermons of Religion. By Theodore Parker, minister of the Twenty-eighth Congregational Church in Boston. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. New York: Charles S. Francis & Co. 1853. 15. Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology. By Theodore Parker. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1853. The first of these volumes treats chiefly of religion in its four-fold relations to the Intellect, the Conscience, the Affections, and the Soul; the second, as the title indictates, discusses the value of Atheism and the popular theology considered as solutions of the speculative and practical problems of life and duty, and over their demonstrated worthlessness, erects the author's theory of Speculative Theism. The " Ten Sermons" are more positive, more calm, better constructed as works of art, and every way more valuable than the second book, both as expressions of the author's genius and as contributions to religious thought. In dealing with these volumes an honest critic, not indisposed by prejudice to do generous justice to Mr. Parker, will clearly perceive what Desdemona called " a divided duty." There are great merits to be acknowledged. The conception of the office and action of the religious sentiment in human nature and human life, which the first volume unfolds, is certainly noble and refreshing. Apart from theories and criticisms of the Christian history and records, we confess a very wide sympathy with the view of religion which Mr. Parker developes. His " Absolute Religion" is for the most part our interpretation of the religion of Jesus. And we do not see how the faith we hold of the supreme and providential relation of Christ to such a system of abstract truth as the "Ten Sermons unfold, can be regarded in any other way than as a completion of its symmetry and an immense addition to its working power. Still it is only the simplest truthfulness and justice to confess the admiration which the general sweep of the first volume awakened in our mind. After the disgust and scorn which the average religious literature excites, it is quite inspiring to find a book which makes piety seem at once the basis and crown of all manliness, and interprets the relation of God to the race, and to every function of our life, in a way that makes Atheism and all irreligiousness seem an eclipse of the soul's dignity and the heart's joy. There is in the best chapters of these volumes a freshness, a sincerity, an earnestness, a piercing penetration through all foggy evangelical shams, a brave loyalty to unpopular convictions, and devotion to insulted human rights, that make us regret deeply the errors and faults which impair their influence, and still more regret the scarcity of volumes which, without their infirmities, can take their place as interpretations of noble religious truth. It is a less welcome, but equally obligatory, office to speak of the defects of these books. In our view, Mr. Parker's conception of the relation of Jesus and the records of his ministry to civilization and the prospects of the race is feeble as well as false, insipid in philosophy as well as heretical in faith. He lacks a rich and vivifying imagination in his interpretation of historic facts. Mr. Martineau has no eminence in the churches for soundness of historic faith; but let any competent mind bring his theory of the providential connections of the advent and thought of Jesus with the world's advancement into contrast with Mr. Parker's, and the pale poverty of the latter will be apparent in the deep and gorgeous lights of the nobler interpretation of Christian history. Mr. Parker is also a very poor critic of institutions. He deals with ideas; nothing but the fairest and fullest truth is tolerable with him. If any institution embodies less than the highest truth, he is poorly qualified to discriminate the essential service it may yet render to the world, and the vital roots which make it indispensable among the forces that purify society. He suffers also from kindred incompetence to estimate the secret life and hidden truth in creeds and sects whose verbal symbols are false and repulsive. Such polemics as the sermons on the popular theology in the second volume do not, after all, reach the vitals of the prominent orthodoxy of New England. No sect could live if it did not contain some elements of nutritious and necessary truth, indispensable to the religious sentiment, underneath the hideous surface of such catechisms and platforms as the Orthodox organizations endorse. Criticism of the doctrinal absurdities does not hit the hidden vigor of the Trinitarian faith, by which it is able to hold the moral reverence, wrench the conscience, and sway the passions of the mass of Christendom. Mr. Parker is not fitted to understand this and allow for it; but we must all do so to be fair opponents of Orthodoxy, or even to comprehend it; and its barbarities of dogma will never be entirely banished from popular respect, until the liberal forms of faith show themselves equally competent to attract and feed the ground-tier of religious emotions, as well as to impart cheerfulness and justify joy. There are quite striking antitheses, not to say inconsistencies, in the views of life which Mr. Parker defends. When he talks of kid nappers and rumsellers, the American government, the Christian church, and things in general upon the planet, it should seem that he believed in the temporary victory of Ahriman,-the general riot over the earth of a most desperate and villainous devil; and yet these gusty onslaughts and lamentations, after a page or two, subside most capriciously and mysteriously into the serenest optimism. In his denunciations he holds men responsible for Satanic perversities of passion, treachery to truth, cowardice, hard-heartedness, and deliberate conspiracy against justice and charity; but when he rises into principles, presto! there is no such thing as evil; God foresaw and ordered things just as they are; sin is a temporary miscalculation and mistake; and the rhetoric of an extreme Fatalist could not treat the dark side of human experience with a more summary complacency, or more agile hope. No man can be expected, of course, to hold a perfectly symmetrical theory of human liberty and infinite rule; but we may be allowed a little astonishment when a theologian is equally savage for both sides of the great controversy;-belching volcanic indignation against the Fugitive Slave Law and its atheistic abettors, and intolerant of a religion which denies that things could be any different and any better than they are; glowing with Berserker rage against the mayor of Boston for his indifference to the execution of the Liquor Law, and contemptuous of all systems that do not hold that every step of each man's experience is an upward movement; and zealous for a theory which denies any deep depravity in man, in exact proportion to his intense and comprehensive satire of the meanness, barbarity, cowardice, and sensuality of church and State, trade and college, family and nation,-in fact, of about all that portion of the human race which lies outside the Twenty-eighth Congregational Church of Boston, and does not believe in the errors of Jesus and universal inspiration. Mr. Martineau has very happily said of Mr. Parker that "Zeno and Spinoza seem to co-exist in his mind, but have not struck up a mutual acquaintance.' The Janus attitude of his volumes upon the question of evil brings into bright prominence the author's remarkable capacity of developing a principle which fires his spirit, or lies in the line of his passions, and his slight power of careful thought, or else his utter indifference to systematic symmetry and finished proportion of faith. The roots of the question of evil are deeper and more complicated than the bland and hasty metaphysics of optimism has ever probed, or even uncovered. The "chop-logic" which settles all the mysteries of it by verbal analysis of the words "divine foreknowledge and omnipotence" is not very satisfactory, or respectable, to a conscience oppressed with deliberate guilt; and, in spite of its clear demonstrations, it never satisfies meditative religious minds. Instances of hasty, loose, and flippant assertion very frequently disturb the equanimity of Mr. Parker's more sober readers. He |