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this work a worthy addition to the class to which it belongs. And such it is, equally valuable for its learning, and interesting in its treatment. It is written professedly for the young, and it will be found especially useful to Bible-class and Sabbath-school teachers. We may add, that it is very fully embellished with pictorial illustrations, and we believe its price to be moderate.

The Progress of Religious Sentiment, &c. By Joseph Adshead, Manchester. London: Houlston and Stoneman. Pp. 311.

THIS is a denominational work, but one that will be somewhat interesting to most of our readers. Its principal object is to trace the 'Progress of Religious Sentiment' among the Baptists, from the earliest times to the present day,' taking as a text the Confession of Faith of 1689,-a document, by the bye, of which, whatever may be its great historical value, the reader gets more than tired before he is half through the volume. As a popular historical sketch, this part of the work has a value; but it is slovenlily written, and disgracefully printed. The other contents of the volume are multifarious enough, comprising, according to the title-page, The Advancement of the Principles of Civil and Religious Freedom; the Affinity of Romanism, Tractarianism, and Baptismal Regeneration; also, Diversities of Creeds, Modes of Christian Communion, and Evangelical Statistics. Thirty-two Articles of Christian Faith and Practice, Baptist Catechism, &c.'

PAMPHLETS.

Secular Free Schools a Nation's Policy. By Edward Swaine. London: Jackson and Walford. This is a reprint of a lecture delivered at Crosby Hall, in reply to an article in the Electic Review.' Differing, as we do, from the writer on first principles, we cannot be expected to give it a very hearty commendation; but we can say of it, that it argues the question at issue fairly and candidly;-we may add, in a much more candid spirit than is commonly evinced by the advocates of the National School Association. Those who wish a clear and able statement of the grounds taken by that Association, with a general summary of the arguments that can be brought in their support by a 'religious voluntary,' could hardly get a better than that furnished in the present publication.

State Education; what is its Principle? By D. M. Evans. Manchester: A. Ireland and Co. This also is a reprint of a lecture; Mr. Evans's object being to prove that it is not right for Government to educate the people. This position is defended in course of a strictly philosophical argument, in which the abstract question at issue is very ably reasoned; but, as a whole, the pamphlet is too heavy' for the warfare.

A Letter to Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P., on the Impolicy and Tyranny of any System of State Education. By Benj. Parsons, of Ebley. London: J. Snow. Mr. Parsons's efforts on behalf of education are well enough known not to need the very minute recapitulation of them given by himself in pages 2, 3, of this pamphlet. In the subsequent pages he discusses the impolicy and tyranny involved in State education. The work is characterised by great vigour of thought and style, and is full of pointed and racy illustration; but has an unhappy vein of coarse flippancy, not either witty or effective.

Ancient Puritanism and Modern Politics. By Jas. Matheson, B.A. London: W. Kent and Co. The occasion of this sermon, we are told, was the refusal by the present mayor of Oswestry to fall in with the time-dishonoured custom of attending the 'parish church.' Mr. Matheson takes advantage of the occurrence to draw attention principally to 'some of the grounds and fulfilments of public duties generally, and to one or two false and half-true impressions with regard to political and social subjects.' The discourse is eminently earnest, thoughtful, and suggestive. If its style were occasionally less vague and generalizing, we should like it all the better.

Things for all Lands and all Times. By the Rev. David Thomas (Ward and Co.), is a New Year's address on rectitude and salvation, as the things for man in all lands and all ages. It is somewhat rhetorical, but abounds in thoughts of living truth and beauty.

Romish Miracles. By the Rev. J. Cumming, D.D. (A. Hall, Virtue, and Co.), is a searching analysis and withering exposure of the pretended miracles of the Roman Catholic Church.' The lecture (which is a reply to Dr. Newman's) certainly evinces 'long and laborious research,' and pretty well exhausts the subject.

The Bible: Our Stumbling-block and our Strength: A Tract for the Times (J. Chapman), is an attempt to prove the mythic character of the Bible-rather not to prove it, but take it for granted, and then abuse the book. It contains nothing that has not already been said by Strauss and others, and a hundred times refuted.

Absolution and the Lord Bishop of Exeter, by Laicus (J. Chapman), is an attempt to prove the identity of absolution in the Roman and Anglican Churches; its 'presumption, impiety, and hypocrisy.' So far we believe the argument successful, while the writer's powerful denunciations of sacerdotalism meet, from us, with a hearty response.

Is Salvation by Water Baptism the Doctrine of the Church of England? by Biblicus (J. F. Shaw), is a misnomer to a pamphlet, written to prove that such is the doctrine taught in the Prayer-book of that Church what is the doctrine of the Church of England" on the subject, it would be difficult to say. This ground has been frequently gone over, and the present writer adds nothing to what has already been advanced, except in pointing out the particular inconsistencies of the Rev. Dr. M'Neile.

Man's Purposes crossed by God's Providences. By the Rev. J. W.Wyld. Southampton: Forbes and Marshall. This sermon is intended as an 'improvement' of the loss of the Amazon. So far as it is calculated, as it appears to be, to support the doctrine that such calamities are brought about in the Providence of God, for the very and sole purpose of teaching mankind a lesson on the uncertainty of human affairs, we must protest against it as a doctrine, as inhuman as it is irreligious, and a slander on the character and purposes of God. Apart from this, the discourse is unexceptionable.

The Influence of Christianity on the Condition of Woman (Hamilton, Adams, and Co.), is the first of a series of sermons to young women, by the Rev. J. Angell James, which we very heartily recommend to our readers.

Lessons for Truth-lovers-103, 1077-are theological tracts on the doctrine of a future life, and a resurrection. They are intended to prove that the soul and the body equally die at death, and that both are re-created at the resurrection. We cannot give our assent to this proposition; Scripture and Philosophy, at least to our mind, both disproving it.

Tracts of the Weekly Tract Society (195-210), are both too heavy and didactic for general circulation. Tracts' should not be sermons.

PERIODICALS.

The Leisure Hour. Nos. 1-10 (Religious Tract Society). We have as little desire to see the religious periodical literature of this country, as we have to see its population or manufactures, in a state of stagnation. A political economist would rightly infer, from the one case, that there must be something radically wrong in the condition of that country of which such evils could be predicated, and we think there would be something as essentially defective in the state of the Church if its literature did not increase in at least an equal ratio to the increase of intelligence and population. We were glad, therefore, to see the announcement of the Leisure Hour.' That there is room for such a periodical we have not the least doubt, any more than we have of its entire success if it

should be properly conducted. It is intended chiefly to circulate amongst the working classes; the object of its publication being to supply them with a cheap and attractive literature, pervaded generally by a spirit of sound morality and evangelical religion. As far as we can judge from the numbers before us, this has been accomplished. Its publication by the Religious Tract Society will necessarily preclude it from discussing a number of questions of deep interest to the working classes; but this, to a certain extent, is atoned for by the insertion of attractive tales and plenty of illustrations; the latter, however, not being always of the highest order of merit. On reading the first numbers of the work, it struck us that it was deficient in life; but there is considerable improvement in this respect in the second part.

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The Homilist (Ward and Co.), also a new periodical, is started as an organ of spoken thought on Biblical subjects-the voice of the pulpit in the open field of the literary world.' In other words, its contents are to be sermons on the wants, necessities, duties, and relationships of the Church. The first number indicates undoubted talent; but we question whether, as a separate publication, the work has much chance of success in this age of 'cheapness and variety.'

The British Controvertialist (Houlston and Co.) is a publication conducted apparently by young men, and having for its object the discussion, in a controversial form, of the leading questions of the age. The design is a novel one; and it is well and judiciously carried out.

The Messenger of Mercy (Aylott and Jones) is addressed exclusively to the unconverted.

The Dictionary of Domestic Medicine, by Spencer Thomson, M.D. (Groombridge and Sons), is well and cheaply got up, written in a clear and intelligible style, and altogether devoid of the technicalities of science. It is calculated to be extremely useful as a book of reference, and family manual of health, disease, and sanatory reform.

Monthly Retrospect.

'I WOULD rather see a French army in London than six weeks of a Protectionist Government,' said Colonel Thompson, some time last session, with his usual quaintness and hyperbole. The heads of the Protectionist party have been nearly that time in office, but nothing analogous to a state of siege or sack has evolved. All the ingredients of a political tempest are in juxta-position, but the moment of exploding collision has not come. Ministers declare that their opinion of free-trade, as unjust and disastrous, is unaltered, and that they will, if permitted, carry out that opinion the Anti-corn-law League starts instantaneously into formidable re-organization—a powerful combination of parliamentary parties is formed, for the defence of free-trade-a general election is known to be impending -yet the equanimity of the country is little disturbed. The political classes are active enough, but the vast, inert public maintains that stolid indifference from which it is only awakened into panic, or by the rarer impulse of a generous emotion. Not that the public is ignorant that its present prosperity is attributable to Sir Robert Peel's legislation, or careless of its maintenance-nearly every commercial and every intelligent

labouring man shudders at the mention of its violation. The fact is-and it is a melancholy one that the political history of the last twenty years has inspired a contemptuous distrust of the professions of public men; and no one believes that the men who have been elevated to power by a Protectionist Opposition, do not desire above all things to forget the means of their elevation.

The first fact of the past month-first in order, probably in importance is the reconstitution of the Anti-corn-law League. So soon as the acceptance of office by Lord Derby was announced, a committee was appointed in Manchester to consider the propriety of that step. On Tuesday, the 2nd, a meeting convened by that committee was held in Newall's Buildings, Manchester; presided over by the old League chairman, Mr. George Wilson; addressed by Messrs. Cobden and Bright; resolved upon reviving the League, and memorializing the Queen for an early dissolution; and subscribed 27,000l. as a provisional agitation fund. A great meeting in Leeds ratified the act; the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and the leading merchants of Liverpool and Glasgow, have adopted similar resolutions to those of the League; the old local Anti-corn-law Associations are reviving in all parts of the country; and the fund has swelled to between sixty and seventy thousand pounds.

At the first meeting of Parliament after his appointment, the Earl of Derby avowed the sentiments and intentions attributed to him above, on the subject of our commercial policy-declared his desire to preserve peace with the European powers by a conciliatory demeanour, while upholding the right of peaceful exiles to the enjoyment of English hospitality-pronounced against an extension of the suffrage-and besides expressing, in stock phraseology, a determination to uphold our Protestant institutions in all their integrity,' intimated that he attached no value to education that was not religious; and implied that that species of education could be entrusted to the parochial clergy alone. Parliament then adjourned to the 12th. Twenty Ministers and officials, being members of the Commons, had to be re-elected. Their written and spoken addresses were for the most part modelled with scrupulous care upon that of the Premier; and, with one exception (Lord Naas, who was thrown out of Kildare, but returned for Coleraine), were all re-elected.--On Thursday, the 10th, Lord John Russell met, at his house in Chesham-place, 168 members of the Opposition, to deliberate on the course to be pursued. In conformity with the previously obtained opinion of Sir James Graham and Mr. Cobden, his lordship recommended that all questions should be made subservient to that of free-trade, and that an immediate dissolution should be forced. The meeting concurred, after an expression, by Mr. Hume and Mr. T. Duncombe, of dissatisfaction with the composition of the late Ministry, and the abandonment of reform— which was appeased by an indistinct promise by Lord John that his next cabinet should be on a broader basis, and his third Reform Bill contain an amended schedule.-Monday, the 15th, was a day to be remembered in the history of debates. Lord Beaumont in the one house, and Mr.Villiers in the other, drew out the Premier and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Lord Derby's speech was an enlargement of that which we have already sketched

a splendid specimen of his declamatory powers; reminding one of Macaulay's remark,* that with Mr. Stanley alone, of all modern orators, the debating power seems an instinct rather than an acquirement. The peroration of this speech, unlike perorations in general, was the most significant as well as effective parts of the oration. Rightly enough, his lordship declared he would not go to the country on the question of a fixed duty alone he would extend his appeal to the general character of the two Governments; and among the characteristics of his Administration, he enunciated resistance to the 'encroaching current of democratic influence.' In the Commons, Mr. Disraeli adapted himself, with considerable success, to his new and very different position, as leader, not of a large and elated Opposition, but of a Ministerial minority. Limiting himself to the declaration, that he would not attempt to disturb the existing fiscal system until a general election had pronounced upon the question, he remarked with great severity upon the factious conduct of Lord John Russell in recommending to the Queen Earl Derby as his successor, and forthwith caballing against him; declining the responsibility of a dissolution under the existing circumstances of the country, and yet attempting to force that measure upon the new Ministry. Lord John Russell replied in that high spirited tone which he can very effectively assume on emergencies. But the speech of the evening was that of Sir James Graham, who reminded the House that he had foreseen and predicted, last session, the policy of the Protectionists— 'first, to change the administration; next, to dissolve Parliament; then to impose duties on corn and other imports.' He accumulated facts and citations in proof that they were bound, as men of honour, to complete their programme; showed, by irrefragable evidence that free-trade had worked well even for the landowners; and declared, in impressive terms, his resolution to stand by those principles which Sir Robert Peel had established, and which that great statesman had assured him, in their last conversation, he would spare no effort to maintain, as indispensable to the peace and happiness of this country. On the following Friday, on going into committee of supply, the debate was resumed; but the Opposition declined to refuse the estimates presented-and Lord Derby having given an assurance that he would dissolve in time for the assembling of a new Parliament in the autumn, Lord John Russell formally undertook to expedite instead of obstructing the despatch of public business. The voting of supplies was therefore proceeded with, an increase of 80,000l. on the army charges, and a naval reserve of 5,000 men, passing without objection; a Militia Bill is before the House while we write; the bills for the disfranchisement of St. Albans, and the prevention of bribery, have been made Government measures; Lord St. Leonards (Sir E. Sugden) has made a good beginning with legal reform by introducing a bill for amending the law of wills; and Lord Brougham undertakes, with the consent of the Government, to abridge the time necessary to elapse between the dissolution of one and the assembling of another Parliament from fifty to thirty-five days.

* Edinburgh Review,' article on Thackeray's Chatham.

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