and has met and satisfied the deep instincts of the human heart and the hopes of the world." (pp. 8).

The author somewhat understates the force of some of his facts. His citations from the Old Testament outrun his proposition concerning that portion of the Scriptures, and by his own admission (as in Psalms xvi and xxiii) amount to a complete confidence. "Then casting himself into the everlasting arms, he knows that these should be beneath him, though flesh and heart should fail," etc. (p. 8). This is more than a dim guess." So, too, the intimations of a life after death in the Pentateuch are imperfectly given on p. 73. Mr. P. forgets the constant phrase, “gathered to his fathers," which even Knobel shows can not mean buried. And he overlooks the standing law against necromancy, which, if all other evidences were wanting, would be irrefutable.

VI.-EVENINGS WITH THE SACRED POETS: a series of quiet talks about the Singers and their Songs. By the Author of Salad for the Solitary," etc. New York. 1870. A. D. F. Randolph & Co. Chicago; Holmes. Pp. 494. 12mo.

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W. G.

Evidently a labor of leisure and of love. The author, Mr. Sanders, must have been long in gathering up these gems of sacred song, and joining them together with snatches of biography and criticism. He has made free use of previous collections, and has made the most complete and satisfactory collection of the kind that we know. If his volume had been three times as large which it ought not we should have been glad to have it fuller in some respects: to have more of the "Biblical, Greek and early Latin," less of fragmentary selections, and in many celebrated pieces the original as well as the translation. But, within a reasonable compass, this was impracticable. We should have selected in some instances a different version. Thus, the "Dies Ira," as translated by General Dix, opens in this wise:.

"Day of vengeance without morrow!

Each shall end in flame and sorrow,
As from saint and seer we borrow."

A stanza which sadly lacks the qualities of a good translation. But the volume as a whole we accept as it is-a most delightful companion for an hour of quiet musing with the great, and brave and loving hearts of the whole church, in their blossom and their fragrance. It is too full to be read but in portions.

VII.-TEXT-BOOK OF HOMEOPATHY. By Dr. V. GRAUVOGL, of Nurem berg. Translated by Geo. E. Shipman, M.D. Chicago: C. S. Halsey and Western News Co. New York: Boerike & Tofel. 1870.

To the Homœopathist, this elaborate volume of over 400 pages, large Svo will furnish invaluable instruction. The author, Von Grauvogl, is a celebrated Medical Director in the Prussian army, and fully competent to the work he has undertaken. The translator, himself a medical writer of high reputation, and for several years editor of a medical journal, has performed skillfully his difficult task. It is enough to say of the mechanical execution of the volume, that it is from the press of Church, Goodman & Donnelley.

VIII. STEPPING HEAVENWARD. By E. PRENTISS, author of the "Susy Books," etc. New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co. Chicago: W. G. Holmes. Pp. 426. 12mo. 1870.

An admirable story, well known to many, if not most of our readers. In the form of a journal commenced at the age of sixteen, it exhibits the progress and purification of an excitable, impulsive, restive, and yet highminded girl, chafing and calming down, rebelling and repenting, desponding and recovering, under the inevitable trials and human misconstructions of married life, and mellowing at length into goodness and beauty. Almost any man, and every woman, will be benefited by the perusal.

IX.-JANET'S LOVE AND SERVICE. BY MARGARET M. ROBERTSON, author of Christie, or the Way Home," etc. New York: A. D. F. Randolph & Co. Chicago: W. G. Holmes. Pp. 581. 12mo. 1870.

Another story with a use. A Scotch minister, with his motherless family, emigrates to the United States, where the children are soon bereft of the father also. The intelligent, devoted love and noble Christian service of the widowed Janet, who left all to follow them; the rare force and character developed in the eldest daughter, Graeme, and the varying but prospered fortunes of the several children, form a pleasing group. This book also bears on the great question of woman's lot, and solves it by religion.

X-THE CHRIST OF GOD; or, the Relation of Christ to Christianity. By Rev. ROBERT DAVIDSON, D.D. Philadelphia: Pres. Board of Publication. Chicago: W. G. Holmes. Pp. 72. 16mo. 1870.

This little volume is the substance of a discourse preached before the Synod of New York in 1867, aud presents the argument for the Divinity of Christ in a clear and succinct form. Is a good book for general circulation.

XI.-DAISY'S WORK. Pp. 222. 16mo.

ROSE'S TEMPTATION. Pp. 203 16mo.

PINKIE AND THE RABBITS. Pp. 212. 16mo.

New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. Chicago: W. G. Holmes.

These three charming volumes for the little ones are from the pen of Joanna H. Matthews, and are a part of a series of stories on the commandments. They happily illustrate and enforce their practical teachings to the comprehension of a child.

XII. — THE ANDES AND THE AMAZON; or, Across the Continent of South America. By JAMES ORTON, M. A., Professor of Natural History in Vassar College, etc. New York: Harper & Brothers. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1870. Pp. 356.

This book is packed with valuable information. The scientific observations are very full. And in respect to adventures and fine descriptions, the book is eminently readable. The style is admirable. And Professor Orton is a Christian traveler. Upon the whole it is one of the best books of its kind we have recently taken up.

THE ROUND TABLE.

“AS DRY AS A MINISTER," is one of the latest phrases from one of the most brilliant members of the profession. It was playful, perhaps. But perhaps, also, he plays a little too much on that string. We know several young preachers that are sappy enough, though they smoke a good cigar and drive a fast horse, or at least drive a horse fast, and lose no opportunity to deride the dullness of their brethren. "It's aye an ill bird that fouls its own nest." The secular press are not slow to join the cry. A Solomon who recently signed himself "Young Yale," in The Nation, coolly affirms that the ministry are an inferior class of men, and therefore incompetent to manage a great college which they chiefly have made what it is. The commonest form of disparagement is to cite half-a dozen picked lecturers, who shoot off one rocket a year across the country, against the average of ten thousand men who speak to the same audiences twice a week for years in succession; or to contrast the sifted articles of a great magazine-forming. it is said, three per cent. of those that are offered to Harper's-written on selected or current and exciting topics, with stated discourses on what the world would call thread-bare themes, to which the worldly man brings the interest only of aversion.

Now, to talk thus is to prate. Every profession has its peculiarities and its disadvantages. We may admit professional traits that cling more or less to the ministry: some formality, reserve, constraint, slowness, abstruseness once, some awkwardness, and occasional sanctimoniousness. But, after all these concessions, and all allowances for unworthy and unsuitable men, we submit to no such disparagement of the profession. The Protestant clergy of this country, not only in character, but in culture, taste, scholarship, social and literary influence, general intelligence, and interest as public speakers, will abide the comparison with any other considerable class of men, and abide it triumphantly.

Their relative average of success is high. When a Boston merchant once remarked to us on the small number of successful ministers, we asked him how large a proportion of the merchants around him, for forty years, had been successful. He answered, not more than 10 or 20 per cent. And we informed him that we knew no such per centage of failure in the ministry. Most of the high literary institutions of this country, for more than two centuries, have been made, moulded and managed largely by the ministers. This, perhaps, was priestcraft. But boards of trust well know the difficulty of finding competent laymen-whether lawyers, physicians, editors or

business men-to put their shoulders to the work. This, you say, is because of the pressure of their business or the value of their time. Very well. It is the palpable measure of their interest in education, and of their practical fitness. Boards of trust also know the almost impossibility of getting professors from other callings than the clerical. But this, it may be said, is because men, in other callings, have discontinued scientific and literary pursuits, or are so absorbed in the profit of their professions. Make the most of that admission.

Turn the subject in any way you please, and the result is much the same. Why are college societies compelled to look for their annual orations chiefly to the ministry? The men in other employments complain, and truly too, that they can not discuss literary themes. The eminent literary men among the lawyers in this country, like Legaré and Choate, can be counted on the fingers easily; those among the doctors still easier. We have heard a few such men as Ogden Hoffman, in his prime, but they did themselves no credit. Yet there are scores, if not hundreds, of ministers in this country who can do these things well. And for a somewhat general knowledge of literary themes, we take it that no great class of men in this country can stand a moment's comparison with the clergy. Where is the country lawyer that is tinged with literature? and where the Presbyterian or Congregational clergyman that is not?

It is idle to compare the whole profession with a few lecture celebrities. Scarcely twelve lecturers are sure to pay, and foremost among these is a minister. Gough is also sure, but he succeeds dramatically, because he can tell a story the twenty thousandth time so freshly and inimitably. Some lecturers draw by their reputation chiefly, like Agassiz, Greeley, Colfax. Grant and Sherman would fill great houses. But this is not success as public speakers. Some men draw by the puffing and blowing of the press, which they can command, like a certain editor, who proved too thin for a repetition. Many of the old stock-lecturers, with their one lecture a year, are about run out. The women draw, some of them, by reason of their sex. Put a beard or a long crooked nose, like a lawyer's or a judge's, on their blessed faces; or let them stop scolding; or make the thing common; or give them, instead of their bright eyes and blooming looks, well set off by dressing, thirty years more of wisdom, with gray hair, wrinkles, spectacles, and a parchment skin, and then see. Or make them still more dazzling and bewitching in looks, and willing also to exhibit themselves to the promiscuous public for fifty cents a head, and they would draw better yet. There are plenty of old fellows, and some young ones, who would any time ride a mile and pay a dollar to look at a beautiful woman, if she spoke like a peacock.

The true test of dryness is a comparison with any other intellectual profession. Suppose the judges and the lawyers in the pulpit. How many of the judges can make a speech that would interest any audience except an impannelled jury, backed by the sheriff? How many lawyers are good, not to say interesting, advocates? How many of them can make a speech

containing any juice, except that of the Indian weed, or attracting any considerable interest, except the pecuniary. Add the voices, the gestures, the attitudes, grimaces, hesitations, and the English of the court-rooms, and you have the elements of a comparison. How many editors can enchain an audience not of their party? In the National Congress how many speeches are listened to?

If we speak of intellectual fertility, the minister retains and for years together holds, often with unabated freshness, the same audience of every age and class. Political speakers, with rare exceptions-like Lincolnstump the county, state or country, with the same speech, down to the stories and the jokes. In the palmy days of Webster and Choate, when Massachusetts once was swarming with the best speaking talent of the nation, Webster's speeches in different places were the only ones reported; and for the reason, we were told, that the others would not bear reporting. When men sneer at the dryness of the ministry they would do well to see whose house contains most glass.

When we look at the literature and intellectual fertility of the country, the theme becomes too broad to prosecute. It would make a large hole in our literature to strike out such names as those of Channing, Everett, Bancroft, Sparks, King. The names of Holmes, Hildreth, the Beechers, and many more, show that there is no necessary drought in the children of an orthodox ministry. And were all the living men of literary culture and accomplishments among the ministry of this country to be withdrawnnames which could be reckoned by the score-we should like to see precisely from what source the breach could be filled.

INTEMPERANCE AND INTEMPERATENESS.-Which is worse, to be abusive in liquor or out of it? To talk foolishly, drunk or sober? To be intoxicated with bad spirits, or with a bad spirit? These are hard questions, and we do not care to answer them. "Be temperate in all things," says the Divine word; and that includes speech.

On the temperance question we go for total abstinence, and for what is called "a prohibitory law," whenever the moral sentiment of the community will sustain and enforce it. We think we can justify the position by sound argument, in full harmony with truth, Christian duty and legal principles. And we exceedingly recoil from all false advocacy of a good cause. We are quite sure that, when temperance reformers become intemperate in statement, disingenuous in argument, or unfair and discourteous in the treatment of those who seek the same ends, but differ only in arguments and means, it simply reacts. We formerly heard with regret some of the lecturers of the " Washingtonian" movement, who traversed New England, berating "cider drinking deacons and wine-drinking ministers," as though these formed the warp and woof of the churches. It was, perhaps, excusable in men not yet quite clear of the odor of the ditch. One very noticeable thing in Mr. Gough, is that he never abuses other true temperance men because they do not follow him.