permanent value, is yet marked by the struggle, and meets the want of the present.

66

Readings" in the Bible are seldom satisfactory, but an exception may be made for those Cottage Readings in Exodus. They keep to the purpose they announce in their title, and are simple without being mawkish. They have, however, the possibly inevitable defect of being apparently written down to the level of cottagers, and of suffering thereby in freshness and power. The truths that have been singled for comment

the book is also a disadvantage, since it professes to be a friendly criticism of Ecce Homo, and yet covers much of the ground that is studiously avoided in the previous work. As a survey of the relations of Christ to humanity, it will be read by students with interest; and some of the discussions, such as that under the Relation of the Cross to Practical Morals, are carried on with great ability. There is much that is noticeable also in the chapter on the Incarnation, and in Christ Adjusting Human Relations. The Atonement of Christ and the eternity of punishment are de-are judiciously chosen, and the comment does not fended; and so apparently the doctrine of inspiration, though we are bewildered by such expressions as that "God is issuing ever-enlarging editions of the New Testament," and of the appearance of an exoteric and esoteric theory. Much that is commonplace is dressed up in novel language, and there are expressions that evidently affect an effect, and degenerate into coarseness or other offence. Yet the single sentences are often admirable, truth finely uttered, and shades of thought subtly caught. But the general impression is one of haste-hot, rash haste, indeed, and the feeling that, had the author more maturely weighed his argument, and had a less easy pen, he would have written to more purpose.

A work on Christ and the Scriptures + might at first seem to belong to the same controversy; but is rather the clearest, and altogether the finest and most convincing plea we have read for the habitual study of the Old Testament. This at least arrests us in a volume that is all arrest. This small book of not two hundred pages is worth many large volumes, not more fertile of thought than it is suggestive; condensed and still lucid. The new man of the Scriptures of Jesus and the Apostles is admirably put; and the chapter on the Living and the Written Word is much more valuable than the two chapters on the same subject in Ecce Deus; whilst better than all is the longest discussion on Inspiration and Interpretation. It is a book emphatically of the living Christ, a claim that the Bible is only a book of power as the living Christ is in it. To all disciples of Jesus this work commends itself at once by its grasp of truth, its insight, its profound simplicity, the life which is in it, and its spiritual force. It is one which every Christian may use with profit, and which no Christian will be above using; and, though of a

Christ and the Scriptures. By Rev. ADOLPH SAPHIR, B.A., author of "Conversion," &c. London: Morgan & Chase. 1867.

break the flow of the story, which is almost the highest praise. The absence of any effort to realize the individual characters of the Bible, and interpret their conduct in harmony with their character, is a drawback to almost all efforts to simplify or illustrate the Bible, and from which it could not be expected that these Readings would be free. Ladies who have an hour to read with the poor, will find them pleasant and useful, earnest, and thoroughly evangelical in doctrine.

Books of devotion still accumulate, of which, let us trust, some will have a longer life than the crowd.§ Their diversity of bindings and convenient size, and the large promise of their titles, are an attraction, and likely to win for them many readers. Songs in the Night are sketches of some poor men's sorrows, and the hymns "the cross pressed out of them;" it is one of them has written it; a pleasant little volume to those who have no other acquaintance than it gives with the rich stores of hymnology. Thoughts for the Inner Life are invitations and prayers chiefly out of the life of Christ: useful and profitable, and not too long but unmarked by any special merit. It is perhaps because we are unprepared to meet Mr. Punshon as a poet that we confess to disappointment in reading his Sabbath Chimes. The transfer from one art to another is seldom happily accomplished; or Mr. Punshon's popularity as a preacher erects probably too high a standard for him as a poet. There are thoughts much better than the words that clothe them, and some words

:

Cottage Readings in Exodus. By the Author of Cottage Readings in Genesis. London: Nisbet. 1867.

"Who Giveth Songs in the Night?" Words of Comfort for the Sorrowing Children of God. By the Author of Christian Manliness. London: Religious Tract Society. 1867.

Thoughts for the Inner Life. London: Jackson, Walford, & Hodder. 1867.

Sabbath Chimes; or, Meditations in Verse for the Sundays of the Year. By W. MORLEY PUNSHON, M.A. London: Nisbet & Co. 1867.

that scarcely chime at all. An unpractised hand is traceable enough; and there is no attempt to conceal the strong influences of Keble, of whose Christian Year there are evident echoes. Here is a metre which we do not remember in the older book :

"Hand in hand, through all our ways, Joy and sorrow travel;

Making life a tangled maze

We may not unravel;

E'er at work to build or mar,
Like unsocial twins they are,
Wreathing smile, or striking scar.

Hearts which glow and hearts which bleed,
God for each one careth;
Outlet for their strongest need

He for each prepareth:
In restraint no longer pent,

Joy in bursts of song hath vent ;
Sorrow prays;—and is content."

parison, beyond which it should not be allowed to pass. With these views we have no sympathy. Finality cannot be stamped on any department of literature; and, if memoirs are now given to the world in larger numbers than formerly, so is it with works on every other department of human thought.

The sole questions then which, in our view, are legitimate when a new memoir appears, are these:Was the person, whose life constitutes the subject of the volume, remarkable enough to entitle him to such a memorial? Has the author shown himself competent for the task he has undertaken? and has he executed his work well? In the present case these queries can be answered in a manner most satisfactory. Col. Wheler was a man who stood forth prominently enough in the history of the Anglo-Indian Church, not to speak of the attention his proceedings attracted during the Indian mutinies, to render it desirable that a notice of his life should be given to the public. And perhaps there was no military friend of his better suited to become his biographer than Major Conran. With a vehement enthusiasm for his hero, and zealously affected like him towards every good work, he has thrown his whole soul into this memoir, and in consequence written with an almost scriptural energy which makes its telling We trust that it will obtain an in a high degree. extensive circulation, and cordially commend it to our readers. It will interest them more deeply than ever in the mental and moral state of the Anglo-Indian army, and of the unnumbered millions of India. As an illustration of the exciting scenes to which this volume introduces us, take the following extract, describing an evangelistic enterprise of Wheler's when in command of the Some readers are impatient when a new memoir troops designed to overawe the wild natives of appears.* They declare that we have far too Peshawur, our frontier town towards Affghanistan. "With apparent recklessness, Wheler, to the many already; and, though not very plain in stating what their desires really are, yet may be amusement of officers and the astonishment of the held as expressing the conviction that this depart-natives, went into the Plaza of Peshawur city, ment of writing has reached that measure of com

Two books on Ritualism, and a cheap and excellent translation of the Epistle of Clement, remind us of the controversy of the hour. Mr. Hebert's book is valuable as a hearty effort to solve the difficulty of the Church of England by one of her own ministers, and to solve it on broad and charitable principles; but it is also valuable for some excellent papers on Inspiration that have found their way among the rest. Mr. White's pamphlet is also charitable, the friendly counsel of one who stands without, and offered without offensiveness. Mr. Cowper's name may stand as guarantee for the translation of Clement, which has been issued by the Religious Tract Society, and is a timely publication.

amongst its motley assemblage of 60,000 Hindoos, Jews, Arabs, Cabulees, Candaharees, Cashmerees, &c. a very Pentecostal collection, except for the opposite spirit pervading them--and there, raising the banner of salvation, 'preached Christ to them.' The singularity of the thing in this place arrested attention, and the curiosity of the multitude prevailed for a time over their bigotry. He had large audiences, and was listened to most attentively; but so soon as the idea became current that he was preaching that truth, as odious to the Affghans as to the Jews of old, that Jesus is the

Son of God,' then the shout of blasphemy was
raised; and a mob in Peshawur shouting in the
cause of their faith is a sound unequalled in any
other part of the world. The roar of the ocean,
lashed by the tempest on a rock-bound coast,
comes nearest to it. Their features, too, were so
fierce that one would imagine everything would
be swept away by their fury, as they all with one
voice, for the space of two hours, cry out, Allah-
1-Allah, Mahmood vassool Allah!" (there is but
one God, and Mahomet is his prophet). There
Wheler stood, beneath the pelting, pitiless blast,
and at length his mild dignity of expression and
calm persuasion prevailed, and he obtained a
hearing. The venerable colonel was permitted
to preach again and again, though not without Mahomet."―pp. 103-105.

occasional squalls and amidst dire threats of
enemies, kindly remonstrances of friends, con-
fidentially warning him of plans to assassinate
him, and harder still, the contempt of some of the
officers and authorities. Wheler used to confess
he never passed through such an ordeal, or felt
his life hanging by such a thread; and as he re-
turned day by day to his post, he deeply revolved
the consequences and counted the cost.' No
man, however, was permitted to set on him to
hurt him, and this continued for the space of two
years, so that all they which dwelt in that region
of Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, and
that where no one before durst in public question
the divinity of the Koran or the mission of

ANNIVERSARIES IN APRIL, MAY, AND JUNE, 1867.

Rt. Hon. the Lord Mayor
Bishop of Durham

Benj. Scott, Esq., F.R.A.S.
Earl of Chichester...
Lord Ebury

Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G.
W. M'Arthur, Esq.

Willis's Rooms
St. James's Hall
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Freemasons' Hall
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Hanover-square Rooms
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165, Aldersgate-street
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Mis. House, Bloomfield-st.
Exeter Hall
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Exeter Hall (lower room)
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