Rises yet in grand fulfilling Of that prelude touched by angels, An eternal music thrilling Space and time with sweet evangels, Raising, tuning, new-directing Human loving and electing, Where Christ is born. For each cold, forsaken altar, Lo a spirit-worship solely, God's great universe embracing, Now Christ is born. Oswestry. O God! hold our souls from cleaving Bread else multiplied in using! Joy-Christ is born! JAMES MATHESON. Latices of Books. Extracts from the Reports of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools. Intended chiefly for the use of the Managers and Teachers of such Elementary Schools as are receiving Government aid. London: Longmans. THE bulkiness and expense of the Annual Minutes of the Privy Council Committee on Education, and the accompanying Inspectors' Reports, are the very sufficient apologies of the editor of this volume for presenting it before the public. It is likely to be more extensively useful than any of the blue books from which it has been compiled. These, as are most blue books, are of very considerable value, but the light they give is verily hid under a bushel.' Hardly one in a hundred, even of the literary class, is aware of the publication of any Government or Parliamentary Report till it has been dissected in the daily papers; and very few of these documents are judged by the journalists to be worth such notice. In the present case, much of interesting statement and pregnant suggestion has been rescued from the oblivion of Messrs. Hansard's office. Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools' have hitherto been gentlemen of education, talent, and experience; their reports, though differing - rather perhaps because differing-sometimes even in fundamental principles, must have been felt to be peculiarly valuable to every person interested in either the management or support of schools. The editor has, therefore, carefully gone through them, and selected from the last six or seven volumes the Extracts' given in this work. These are classified under the following heads :-Qualifications of Teachers-Religious Instruction-Discipline-Industrial Occupation-Organization and Monitorial Teaching-Arrangement and Division of the School-General Teaching-Infant Schools-Sunday and Evening SchoolsSchool Buildings and their Appurtenances-Ragged and Pauper Schools. From this enumeration of subjects it will be seen that the work may be serviceable to every Sunday and day school teacher; and we may add, that it would not be valueless to the parent who is instructing his child at home. We regret to be obliged to express our apprehensions, that the editor will not be able to compile so useful a manual from the reports of the next few years. Lord Derby, with characteristic bad taste and illiberality, has just appointed a fresh body of Inspectors of Government Schools, selected wholly from the Puseyite clergy of the Established sect. They are gentlemen of whom, with the exception of their party, the public know literally nothing. May the appointment tend to the overthrow of the system of which they are now made part and parcel! ་ The Journal of Sacred Literature. New Series, No. V., opens with a paper on Romanism in France.' It contains much information that is new and interesting, but is written in too declamatory a style both for the subject and the journal in which it is treated. Hades and Heaven,' which 6 follows, is a calmly speculative article on the intermediate state of the soul, in which the writer labours to disprove the growing notion of a Hades full of sentient but incorporeal beings. The Greek Vulgate' is a learned and very satisfactory paper on the real superiority of the Stephanic and Elziver text-the 'received' Greek version to any of the corrected texts of Griesbach, Lechmann, or Tischendorf. The writer, although more than once making use of Scholz's name and the results of his researches, to confirm and illustrate the accuracy of his own remarks, does not discuss the value of his Revised Text. By many students of the Greek Testament, Scholz's labours are more highly appreciated than those of either Griesbach or Tischendorf, and much more highly than Lechmann's. In labour he is not more diligent, but in judgment and discrimination he certainly excels. Clemens Alexandrinus' is the subject of the sixth paper-a well-compressed and competently-written biography of one of the most eminent and able of the presidents of the Alexandrine school. The paper is founded on the recent work of Reinkens, the general results of whose researches and opinions are mostly adopted by the writer. Both Dr. Reinkens and the writer of the article labour to prove, that as a philosopher Clement was an Aristotelian. Others have laboured to prove him a Stoic, others a Pythagorean, others a Neo-Platonist. But, to our mind, the very fact that there is something in his writings to establish the truth of each of these hypotheses, is sufficient proof that neither is true as a whole. If Clement's own words are to be believed, he belonged to neither school, but was strictly an Eclectic. The Popular Educator. Vol. I. J. Cassell.-Of all the cheap weekly publications which crowd the windows of booksellers, this is the one which we can recommend as the most practical in aim and the most useful in design. With the exception of Messrs. Chambers' 'Educational Course,' it is the best of all clementary educational works yet published, and it excels any and every publication of its kind for popularity of style and cheapness of price. In the present volume, the learner is carried partly through ten or twelve courses of study, including, among the sciences, Architecture, Arithmetic, Botany, Geology, Geometry, and Music; among the languages, English, French, Latin, and German. There are, also, some miscellaneous papers. The work is conducted with great aptitude and much ability, and will be invaluable to those in whom deficiency in early education and straitened pecuniary resources have hitherto contracted the limits of knowledge and study. The Protestant Dissenters' Almanack, in addition to the usual denominational information, is increased in attractiveness this year by the introduction of several well-designed, pictorial illustrations of important events in the history of Nonconformity. The explanatory letter-press is hardly so well executed. The religious statistics are carefully compiled, and contain much interesting information. The list of metropolitan chapels will be found extremely useful to visitors to London. The work is beautifully printed. Uncle Tom's Cabin Almanack, from the same press as the above, and the last of Uncle Tom's Companions' in England, is a boldly-conceived and well-executed manual of anti-slavery feeling. Twenty illustrations, by four of the first artists, Mr. Cruikshank, Mr. H. K. Brown, Mr. Harvey, and Mr. Gilbert, present a series of very graphic events in American slave life. The three by Mr. Cruikshank-the Apprehension of the Fugative,' the 'Sale of Henson,' and 'The Slave pursued by Slave-hunters and Bloodhounds,' are characterised by an extraordinary vividness and power. The letter-press contains an outline sketch of the principal features of slavery in America, and of the fugitive slave bill; narratives of celebrated escapes; an article on the 'influence of the American Church upon the abolition movement;' a sketch of the fugitive settlements in Canada; a paper on the negro race and their capabilities;' and some interesting intelligence concerning the king of Daho mey and his subjects. There are, besides, two or three anti-slavery hymns, and one of which is set to music by Mr. Perry. We very heartily commend this Abolitionist memento to our readers. If any of them have been sceptical of the truth of Mrs. Stowe's narrative, they will find here evidence damning enough, we should hope, to convince even an American clergyman of the sin and horror of the system which the majority of his class prostitute their profession by gilding and defending without shame or remorse. The Soul's Arena; or, Views of Man's Great Contest. By William Bathgate. London: Ward and Co. Pp. 183. 'MAN'S Great Contest' has seldom been more vividly pictured than by the powerful pen of the writer of this work. Its aim is to exhibit the vital importance of the moral conflict between the great antagonistic principles of the universe-Good, its Author and his willing subjects; Evil, its abettor and his slaves. Its nature, reality, and consequence, are therefore first set forth, and followed by a statement and definition of the 'stand-points of vision' of the conflict-conscience, the written law, and a revealed gospel. In succession, the writer then treats of the Unchristian Aspects of the Contest; Favourable though not Christian Aspects; the Closing Struggle; and Britain's Attitude in the Contest. We do not remember recently to have met with more vigorous, earnest, or thoughtful writing, on any of these themes, than in Mr. Bathgate's book. It is, characteristically, the production of one who has felt what he has said, and who is capable of giving to his thoughts an unusual and remarkable intensity of expression. The fervour of the author's feelings has, however, occasionally betrayed him into a too theatrical style of writing, which, while it detracts from the dignity of the work, adds nothing to its weight or force. This is a fault into which an enthusiastic writer is very apt to fall, but it is one not less easy to correct than well altogether to avoid. Isabella Hamilton. A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. London: J. F. Shaw. Pp. 95. THIS is a brief and well-conceived tale of religious persecution in Scotland, about a century before the time of the Covenanters. The courage, heroism, piety, and faith of the few who then dared to avow their dissent from Romanism, are especially illustrated in the narrative of Isabella Hamilton. Archbishop Hamilton, her uncle and executioner, is a historical portrait, painted with the colours supplied by M'Crie's Life of Knox. What is known of this man perfectly justifies the author in placing him in the position he here occupies. One lesson we learn from this position is, that more devilry and inhumanity has been practised by hypocrites and traitors in the name of religion, than all heathenism will have to answer for. The Voice in Rama Hushed. By the Rev. A. E. Pearce. J. Snow. Pp. 60. THIS is a second edition of a sweet and touching little book. It is the voice of Christian hope and consolation in reply to the Voice in Rama:' a leaf from the tree of life as a salve for the wounds of death. May it administer much consolation to 'bereaved parents!' The Age and the Church; or, the Church called to Exertion. London: Ward & Co. Pp. 107. THIS is, confessedly, a 'juvenile production,' and such its fervid and rhetorical pages indicate it to be. It contains, notwithstanding, matter that may awaken much introspective thought and fresh impetus to exertion. It also shows marks of careful reading, and is well constructed and arranged, but it leaves the half unsaid. The Religion of Good Sense. By Edward Richer. London: J. Simms and J. Chapman. Pp. 248. THIS attractive title to a not less attractive-looking book, will tempt many an unfortunate book-buyer into investing eighteen-pence in trash. It is Platitude explaining to Praise the fundamental theory of religion. What this fundamental theory is our readers may gather from the following advertisement of the Object of the Scriptural Library,' of which the 'Religion of Common Sense,' in Vol. I., or rather a short and familiar' preface to Vol. I. : 'The object of the Scriptural Library is to lead man back to God, and the scriptural state from which he has fallen; to prove that communication with the spiritual world, or CLAIRVOYANCE, is as possible and practicable now as it was (!) when Abraham talked with angels before his tent; and that spiritual medicine, or MESMERISM, is as potent a means of cure now as it was when practised by our Lord and his apostles, &c.' We once thought that credulity could no further go than Mormonism, but it is evident that there is an Ultima thule of absurdity beyond even that. 1. Wellington and War. By Newman Hall, B.A. 2. Wellington and Victory. By A. Morton Brown, LL.D. London: John Snow. We look upon it that not the least important function of the Christian pulpit is to turn to a moral or spiritual use the great events of actual life. Perhaps no occurrence of recent date has been so largely fruitful of observation as the death of the 'Great Duke.' Mr. Newman Hall has judiciously spoken of it. He would condemn war, as every sane man must; but because a hero and a great man is a warrior, he would not, therefore, ignore his greatness or bespatter his glory. In the course of a brief illustrative summary of some of the worst results of war, he says, 'It was because the Duke himself was fully alive to this, because though a warrior he hated war-that we chiefly honour him. This is his great and illustrious characteristic. War with him was a means, and not an end; and was prosecuted as being the only method of securing a permanent and honourable peace.' Dr. Brown, we think, has erred in his estimate of Wellington. We read with some surprise, that Wellington the statesman had become even more endeared than Wellington the soldier ;' a statement, as far as our own knowledge of the people and of history extends, without a shadow of foundation. Both these sermons have one object-to expose the horrors of war, and to illustrate the character of the Christian life as a warfare, and the vanity of human honours, compared with the honour of those who are more than conquerors through Christ.' WE have received, almost too late for notice, the first series of the cheap reissue of the Congregational Lectures, Jackson and Walford, Publishers. It consists of the following works : 1. Christian Ethics. By Dr. Wardlaw. 2. Causes of the Corruption of Christianity. By Dr. Vaughan. 4. Divine Inspiration. By Dr. Henderson. The 'Lectures,' of which these were the commencement, include some of the ablest doctrinal and ecclesiastical treatises of any age or denomination. For varied talent, sound scholarship, clear thinking, and masterly presentation of their themes, though necessarily of unequal merit in each of these respects, they are surpassed by no similar series. With the treatment of some of the subjects allotted to the Lecturers, we may at once state we cannot altogether concur; and of one or two of the works in the series, we are precluded, by our prescribed limits, from speaking; but as a whole, they command our high admiration and approval. We readily call attention to this excellent and timely reprint of them, and trust that the enterprise which has produced it will receive such encouragement as to justify the speedy issue of the remaining volumes. |