The Age; a Poem, in six Cantos. Edinburgh: W. P. Kennedy, 1846. A well-meant, and, in some respects, well-written little volume. It contains much truth, and presents some passages pleasantly enough expressed. There is not, however, much of vigorous poetry to be found in it.

The Last Day. London: Nisbet & Co., 1846.

The external beauty of this volume will be a strong recommendation in its favour. It forms one of the most complete specimens of ornamented typography, on a small scale, that we have seen. Its title-page is somewhat singular, and rather striking; so are its other sixty-six pages, —for it has but sixty-six pages in all; and the profusion of embellishments which its pages present mark it out as something very unique, and to some, we doubt not, very attractive. Its contents are very scriptural and solemn, and its novel appearance may perhaps make it a messenger of warning to many who would have closed both eye and ear against every other.

National Proverbs in the principal Languages of Europe. By CAROLINE WARD. London: Parker.

We have here the execution of rather a clever, and at the same time useful idea. The book must have cost the authoress very considerable trouble and research. It is a curious and interesting volume as to contents, and as to externals very beautiful. The proverbs are tastefully arranged, and are given in five languages, English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, thus :

:

Nelson's British Library of Tracts for the People. Thomas Nelson. One of the very cheapest of the cheap series of publications with which the age is teeming. The tone is decidedly higher than Chambers; and the Tracts may perhaps be useful in supplanting that no-religion class of works which are obtaining so wide a circulation, and which will perhaps ultimately do more real injury to religion, and sap more widely and effectually the foundations of a people's religious principles than books or tracts directly infidel or irreligious.

Sharpe's London Magazine. Part VI., &c.

We are willing to give this Magazine all due praise for its elegance as well as for its cleverness; but as it has nothing in it of religion, we decline saying more, Augustine felt a sad want in Cicero, even when admiring his eloquence,-Nomen Christi non erat ibi; so we must say with regard to the Magazine before us, which in other respects is of a superior kind,

Vital Christianity; Essays and Discourses on the Religions of Man and the Religion of God. By Alexander VinET, D.D., Professor of Theology in Lausanne. Translated, with an Introduction, by ROBERT TURNBULL, Pastor of the Howard Street Church, Boston. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1846.

As a man of thought and a man of piety, Vinet occupies no common level among the theologians of our day. His pages are fresh with originality and eloquence, and he stands before us in all he writes, as a man who thinks and a man who prays, as a man of vigorous mind as well as of living spirituality of soul.

These are Essays and Discourses to be studied as well as read. You may gather much at the first reading, but you will gather more at the second. They are all more of the essay than of the discourse. They are not urged home upon the soul, and hence, looked upon as sermons, they are deficient: but looked upon as essays, their value and merit must rank very high. The calm philosophy that pervades them makes them most attractive and effective to the student or the inquirer, though to the common reader or hearer they may appear colder and more abstruse than he could have desired.

In several of his discourses he touches upon the office of faith, and in these we cannot help feeling as if we were laying that stress upon the act of faith which belongs only to its object. Not that he ascribes any thing like merit to it, but still he attributes to it an efficacy and virtue which properly attaches to nothing but the Saviour himself. We are the more led to notice this, because it is evident that the author lays considerable stress upon it, and because we gather from the translator's preface that on this point there has been a controversy between him and Dr M. D'Aubigné.

We give one extract. It is the first paragraph of the first discourse. "Humanity has separated itself from God. The storms of passion have broken the mysterious cable that retained the vessel in port. Shaken to its base, and feeling itself driven upon unknown seas, it seeks to rebind itself to the shore; it endeavours to renew its broken strands; it makes a desperate effort to re-establish those connections without which it cannot have either peace or security. In the midst of its greatest wanderings, humanity never loses the idea of its origin and destiny; a dim recollection of its ancient harmony pursues and agitates it, and without renouncing its passions, without ceaisng to love sin, it longs to re-attach its being, full of darkness and misery, to something luminous and peaceful, and its fleeting life to something immoveable and eternal. In a word, God has never ceased to be the want of the human race. Alas! their homage wanders from its proper object, their worship becomes depraved, their piety itself is impious; the religions which cover the earth are an insult to the unknown God who is their object. But in the midst of these monstrous aberrations a sublime instinct is revealed; and each of those false religions is a painful cry of the soul, torn from its centre and separated from its object. It is a despoiled existence, which, in seeking to clothe itself, seizes upon the first rags it finds; it is a disordered spirit, which in the ardour of its thirst, plunges, all panting, into fetid and

troubled waters; it is an exile, who in seeking the road to his native land buries himself in frightful deserts."

The Herald of the Churches, or Monthly Record of Ecclesiastical and Missionary Intelligence. Edinburgh: John Johnstone.

A work much needed, and which promises to be most useful. We doubt whether the Editor will find it possible to do any thing like justice to the proceedings of all the churches in a monthly periodical of the present size; but if he can succeed, it will be well. So far as it has gone, it is excellently compiled and digested, and we shall be glad to hear of its success. It is of vast moment that all the churches of Christ should know what each other is doing, or rather what God is doing in each, and through each; and we trust that this Journal will be truly the herald of the churches, making known throughout the earth the wonderful works of the Lord, and his mighty acts, in gathering in a people to himself out of every kindred, and nation, and tongue, and people.

Hill of Zion; or the First and Last Things illustrative of the present Dispensation. By the Rev. T. WATSON, M.A. London: J. Nisbet & Co. 1846.

The spirit of this volume is truly Christian, and throughout there is equal soundness of doctrine as spirituality of mind displayed. It is eminently scriptural and practical. It is Christ who is the Alpha and the Omega, its beginning and its end, its first and its last. It breathes the devoted earnestness of a true minister of Christ, who, laid aside for a season from active duty, longs to be useful in some way to the souls committed to his care, that he may give in his account with joy, and not with grief.

The Second Advent Introductory to the World's Jubilee; a Letter to the Rev. Dr Raffles. By a Protestant Non-Conformist Layman. London: Nisbet & Co. 1845.

Without saying more for this little work than merely that it is written. with considerable vigour and beauty, we extract a paragraph, as indicative both of the author's style and opinions.

"This is the burden of the testimony of every one of the apostolic writers. What is that of the Lord himself, as his divine sayings are recorded by the holy evangelist? Does he give the slightest intimation—the least ground for expectation, that the gospel of the kingdom, which he commanded to be published throughout all nations, should be received and obeyed by all? Just the reverse: 'many,' he says, 'are called, but few are chosen.' 'Wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.' These may seem hard sayings, and hard indeed they are to flesh and blood; but nevertheless they are the words of truth. They may grate on the ear of modern divinity, but they can neither be blotted out nor explained away. They were true in the sad

experience of those who heard them. True have they been in the experience of every age that has passed since they were spoken; and true will they be in the experience of those who are found by the Lord alive when he cometh. 'When the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ?' Find faith?' I hear a thousand voices exclaim, ' Find faith, Lord? why, thou wilt find the whole world converted to thee by the preaching of the gospel.-Thou wilt hear ten thousand voices singing the song of jubilee; earth with her long captivity broken, rejoicing through all her tribes; the theme of redeeming grace pealing, now in thunders, now in gentler tones, through the universe, the strain rising wider, and swelling louder, comprising earth's unnumbered tongues.— Thou wilt find, Lord, the bright Sabbath morning of mankind dawning to greet thee; each distant tribe and nation gladdened by the gospel; tasting the bliss designed for them by thy Father; the earth a sea of unbounded bliss, spreading from pole to pole. Thus, Lord, wilt thou find the world when thou comest.'

"And can you, my dear sir, lend the aid of your tongue and pen in the cause of such a delusion, which is enshrouding the church and the world? What was the condition of the world in the day that Noah entered the ark? What was the condition of Sodom on the day that Lot escaped from it? Was it anything like the condition of the world as you describe it shall be when the Messiah shall come? Yet such, saith the Messiah himself-such as was the condition of the antediluvian world in the days of Noah—such as was the condition of the cities of the plain in the days of Lot-such shall be its self-same condition in the day when the Son of man shall be revealed. The preaching of the truth by Noah convinced not, converted not, the ungodly world of his day. That of righteous Lot convinced not, converted not, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. Neither will the preaching of the gospel, if Christ's words be true, convince the world or convert it into paradise, the sea of bliss unbounded, that you declare in your 'jubilee hymn' shall be its condition when the Lord shall come.

"Need I remind you, or any other minister of the Gospel, of the reception which the seed of the kingdom finds, when you, the spiritual sowers, go forth to scatter it? True it is, that some falls into good ground; and when it does, it yields even a hundred fold; but how much of it falls by the wayside, and is snatched up by the fowls of the air,' those envious fiends who catch away that which is sown in the heart. How much falls upon the stony ground, and perishes for lack of moisture? How much falls among thorns, and is choked by the cares of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things, and becomes unfruitful? Need I remind you of that leaven of malice and wickedness which the woman, the great harlot, has hid in the meal, and with which she has soured the once unleavened bread of sincerity and truth? Need I remind you of the ravenous, envious, obscene birds of the air, which not only catch away the way-side seed, but have found a lodgment among the branches of the great tree into which the little mustard seed has grown? Need I remind you, that as you and your fellow-fishermen draw the gospel net through the wide sea, that though you gather of every kind, all are not fit to be put in the vessels, but that when it is

drawn to shore there are bad to be cast away? Need I remind you of the tares which the enemy sows among the wheat, and which will grow together with it until the harvest? Oh no! the word of unerring truth -Truth Himself-has forewarned us of all that shall befall his blessed gospel, from the time he first preached it, until the time of his second coming; of its reception by the few, of its rejection by the many.”

The Conversion of a Poor Half-witted Man; with some Thoughts upon them. In two parts. London: Whittaker & Co. 1845.

This short story is a striking one, and the thoughts upon it no less so. An extract may be useful.

"The form of godliness divested of its power is the concluding scene of the devil's power upon earth in this dispensation, and it is more delusive and darker than any that have preceded it during the period of his reign and power for nearly six thousand years; and God's children have been deeply dragged into it. What a mysterious and awful anomaly is it to see how acceptable is the profession of the name of Christ to those who by works deny Him, and therefore prove themselves to be still the children of the devil, by which name alone devils and unclean spirits were cast out-by which name alone sin, God's deepest and bitterest foe, can be put away-by which name alone victory can be gained over the flesh and the world. Yet has this name in the present day, by the devil's power and man's help, been so transformed and separated from the real life and living power of Him who owns it, that the profession of it is the fashion and approbation of a world that so hated His life and actions that they put Him to death. The flesh has such deep complacency and satisfaction in His mere name as to allow their bodies to be signed with the form of His cross, which was only set up for its crucifixion. Whilst the unclean spirits quietly rest in this deep midnight darkness on the branches of its professed greatness, and as for the sifting, separating power of that name it is lost or nearly so-for the world who has so extensively taken up the profession can meet but few to hate, and those but in very small measure, for it finds so little shade of difference in the profession of that precious name, so fully has the leaven of the form of godliness without its life and power every where spread itself. Oh! that God would awaken his dear children to see how very little reality and power there is in their great professions and high standing: we have, indeed, need to be deeply humbled: let us be zealous, therefore, and repent, and anoint our eyes with eye-salve that we may see.' For God's great school is adversity; and what do we know of the teachings of that school? God's life and power in Christ Jesus is adverse to the world, and therefore the world hated the manifestation of it, and killed it; and as we profess to be partakers of the life of God, and possess His power, what do we know of the like hatred of the world against us? God's life and power is adverse to the flesh, our flesh, and, therefore, does the flesh persecute the life and Spirit of God. What then do we, as partakers of the life and Spirit of God, know of the persecution of the flesh; and what do we know of the bitter painfulness and suffering of the crucifixion of our own flesh, and of the daily mortification of it in its lusts and affections?"