Send forth the sound o'er hills and valleys, LITERARY NOTICES. THE WORK CLAIMING TO BE THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE HOLY APOSTLES, INCLUDING THE CANONS-WHISTON'S VERSION REVISED FROM the Greek, WITH A PRIZE ESSAY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BONN, UPON THEIR ORIGIN AND CONTENTS: TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY IRAH CHASE, D. D. New York: D. Appleton & Co. There are few who pretend to question the fact that the "Apostolical Constitutions," as they are called, are of spurious origin. It is impossible to fix the time when, or to name the person by whom, they were written; but that they belong to a period much later than that of the apostles, admits of no reasonable question. Nevertheless, the work is one of no small importance to the student of ecclesiastical history, as putting him in possession of various forms and usages and doctrines, which gradually came in upon the church to corrupt the purity of her faith and ordinances. The prize essay is written with great learning and ability, and one would suppose that it must have cost the labour of many years to produce it. The work on the whole is a strange admixture of the true and false, the absurd and the weighty; but, as a whole, it sheds much light on one of the most obscure and doubtful periods of church history. A BIRTH-DAY GIFT; CONSISTING OF LETTERS TO A YOUNG FRIEND: BY MRS. F. L. SMITH. Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union. This little book is a gem in the class of productions to which it belongs. It bears the marks of high intelligence, and breathes the spirit of fervent piety. The style is simple, direct and yet elegant. The thoughts are pertinent, weighty and impressive. Mrs. Smith has become well known by her previous works, and this will only confirm and heighten the previously existing favorable impression. She is the daughter of Dr. Griffin, and inherits, in no small degree, his intellectual qualities. SCENES AT WASHINGTON; a STORY OF THE LAST GENERATION: BY A CITIZEN OF BALTIMORE. New York: Harper & Brothers. This is a well told story; but it derives its chief interest from the fact that it has all the appearance of a painting from actual life. Besides hitting off with good effect many of the usages of the time, it gives a good idea of some prominent characters, and hints at some important events in the political history of the country. It would seem to have been written by some one, old enough to draw from his own memory, for things that occurred half a century ago. MEMOIR OF MRS. MARY E. VAN LENNEP, ONLY DAUGHTER OF THE REV. JOEL HAWES, D. D., AND WIFE OF THE REV. HENRY J. VAN LENNEP, MISSIONARY IN TURKEY: BY HER MOTHER. Hartford: Belknap & Hamersley. Wherever there are those who delight in the contemplation of exalted christian excellence, in connection with great natural loveliness, this work will find a cordial welcome. It is the character of a daughter sketched by a mother's hand, and warm from a mother's heart. And yet the production is of a perfectly unpretending character, and will revolt nobody by its partial or exagge rated representations. It furnishes a fine model of female character, fitted alike to rebuke the gay and worldly, and to strengthen and animate those who have set out in the Christian race. The history is brief, but it most strikingly exhibits the wisdom and goodness and grace of God. Dr. Hawes' sermon at the close, is a fitting and beautiful tribute to the memory of his daughter, and is of itself worth more than the cost of the book. The cause of missions cannot fail to be served by this publication. ADVENTURES IN MEXICO AND THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS: BY GEO. F. BUXTON, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, &c. New York: Harper & Brothers. This book, just fresh from the pen of a highly respectable Englishman, is exceedingly modest in its pretensions, and yet it gives about as fair a view of Mexican life and manners as any thing that we have fallen in with. The writer just relates what occurred to him, or what came under his observation from day to day, but he does it with so graceful and graphic a pen, that one cannot help feeling a deep interest in the various incidents of his journey. He pays a handsome tribute to our own country in his preface, and concludes his book with an account of a most self-glorifying conversation which a pompous Yankee held with him, and which will cause many of his readers, as it caused him, to explode in an immoderate fit of laughter." GERMANY, ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND; OR RECOLLECTIONS OF A SWISS MINISTER: BY J. H. MERLE D'AUBIGNE, D. D. New York: Robert Carter. No one conversant with the writings of Merle D'Aubigné, could read a single page of this volume, without detecting its authorship. It bears the same striking and noble characteristics, with all his previous productions. It is made up of two parts-Travelling Recollections and Historical Recollections-for the one he draws upon his observation, for the other upon his almost boundless knowledge of history. The first part of the book is the record of what he saw and heard, on a tour through Germany and Great Britain in 1847; and his description of the existing state of things in the two countries, is exceedingly judicious and graphic. The character which he sees we see; the scenes in which he mingles seems present to us, and we feel that we have a share in them. His remarks upon Scotland are particularly interesting; and some of them are truly and deeply philosophical. The part of the work devoted to Historical Recollections, has the same freshness and point and beauty and power, that characterize his historical works previously published. The book seems to have grown up from a report of the author's travels, made at several successive times to his Genevese friends; and others besides his friends, if there are such,-certainly the inhabi tants of other nations and the generations to come, will be thankful for the train of events in which the work had its origin. GOSSIPING LETTER. MY DEAR TIMOTHEUS: How is your subscription list? Will people hang on to those mawkish "flash" magazines, in which the plot of discarded novels is divided every month into infinitesimal portions for the amusement of love-sick milliners, and sentimental inhabitants of the boudoir; neglecting in the mean time the strong thought and attic style of the American Literary? I say not these things against the lady-literature of the day: they are only forced out of me by comparison. Look at their mezzotints-from the first artists of course-spraw. lingly executed with eyes as large as the feet, legs that were never made to match, and immense backgrounds of "darkness visible." Look at their steel engravings, "engraved expressly for this magazine," after copies that were worn-out when you and I were boys. What do they consist of? "Views," dim and shadowy as the valley of the shadow of death; of cities, as the latter looked forty years ago; fine interiors of barns; representations of scraggy trees; rocks smooth as glass; and an everlasting stream of water wandering among weeds about a foot high. Did you ever read one of the prospectuses? You would think that all the literary men and women of the present age had left home, friends and reputation behind them to assist in the grand injection of fire and fury into the great "flash" enterprise. The writers are all the "best" of the age: this lie they never baulk at. One would suppose that the occupation of Washington Irving, Prescott, Sparks, and the rest of our world-known scribblers was gone, and that the fancy-writers of the day, like a swarm of locusts settling on every "greenthing," had filled the American mind with a taste as verdant as their literary efforts. Goodness! what a strong stomach the public owns. It digests humbug as easily as the gastric juice of an ostrich converts glass into nutriment. But enough of this. I will not commit you or myself wholly against fashion. able magazines, but what do they assume so much for? Do their conductors believe that true literature can only be found in connection with an inhuman fashion-plate? They ought to modestly retreat to their legitimate place, and pretend to be just what they are-a congeries of love stories nnd sentimental verses, improving not at all to the mind, and intoxicating the heart with roman. tic yearnings for the impossible. They are literary play-things; elegant trifles, pleasing to the eye, and not altogether useless companions in the leisure hours of certain people. |