time, a light is imparted which makes the shadowy lines of truth and rectitude shine clear. The great sermons in the volume are those on "Obedience to the Spirit,' ""The Psalm of Thanksgiving," "The Secret Attractions," and "Influence and Reception"; four sermons which can hardly be equalled in the whole range of parenetical literature for depth of insight, loftiness of aim, purity of sentiment, and childlike earnestness of faith. They are utterances from the whole man's mind and heart, and, the last especially, are worthy of being read and pondered by all students of spiritual things, and all lovers of genuine piety. The four sermons on the Course of Christianity, "The Mythology of the Church," "The Doctrine of the Church,' "The Ethics of the Church," and "The Politics of the Church," are distinguished for their knowledge of ecclesiastical history, their acquaintance with Christian theology, and the breadth and exactness of their independent thought. "The Word of the Reformation," defines the mission of Luther. In the discourse upon "The Prophetic Poet," Mr. Stone avails himself of the death of Wordsworth, then just announced, to speak of the nature and some of the conditions of true inspiration, using the bard as 66 one symbol of our hope, one expression of the secret spirit which we meet when we enter into our closets, and shut the door, and are alone with the Father." Let the tempted and endangered turn to the sermon entitled "The Rejection of Evil." To the contrite, feignedly or unfeignedly, we commend that upon "Repentance." The discourse on "Unrighteous Decrees" was the immediate occasion of the termination of the preacher's ministry in Salem, and should by all means be perused and digested by those who debate within themselves the vexed question of conscience and law; for never was sophistry more utterly confounded by a holy logic, that at the same time takes it to pieces and brands it with inhumanity. "The Eternal Rectitude follows, with a noble statement of the immutable morality, and an earnest protest against the substitution of expediency for principle. The last two sermons, headed "The Worship called Heresy," contain an outline of the principles of faith, so ample and yet so clear, so strong and yet so delicate, that we find it difficult to speak its praise. Here is nothing sectarian, nothing "historical" in the mean sense of the word that is common now. All is profound, simple, pristine, catholic. Mr. Stone walks by faith too firmly and too steadily for his feet to be entangled in the meshes of any dogmatism. "Faith in this," he says, (the living spirit of God,) "is the very thing which our age wants; faith in perennial inspiration; faith in the real presence of the One Spirit. Men do not believe it, much as they are shocked by appearances or imputations of atheism. Not

less do they seem shocked by any serious and thorough expression of the God within us, existing before all time, who can never grow old. . . Question in their presence either the principles which the Bible is supposed to teach, or the claims of the Bible itself to divine authority, and there is a wide shock,— I will not say deep, for the sentiment which the scepticism touches is not deep, but it is wide, and perhaps tumultuous. It rouses controversy. It opens or shuts pulpits. It rends churches and societies. It brings out Protestant priests and Christian Pharisees to hold up the threatened faith. Many sleek Sadducees, always counted half infidel before, and men who have all of Epicurus but the philosophy and the virtue, are at once out as defenders of the faith. And yet "But want of forbids space our proceeding. These two sermons ought to be read, and read "prayerfully," as the old phrase is, by every clergyman and by every layman. They should be printed by thousands for gratui tous distribution, that throughout our community men might be brought to know and to love religion, pure and undefiled. In reading this volume through a second time, as a preparation for this brief notice, we marked several characteristic passages for quotation, but they accumulated so fast towards the end, that the purpose was abandoned altogether; and as we could not extract them all, we resolved to extract none. Let the volume be purchased and seriously studied, and it will not fail to quicken every true endeavor after the Christian and divine life.

Sermons chiefly Practical. By the Senior Minister of the West Church in Boston. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1855. 12mo. pp. 362.

THE venerable author of these discourses, under the pressure of ill health and the increasing infirmities of age, has found himself compelled, for some time past, to relinquish to his junior colleague the labors of the pulpit which for nearly half a century has been identified with his name, and in which he has ministered to a devoted people with such peculiar acceptance and success. In this volume, he again addresses to them, through the printed page, those lessons of religious faith and duty, which, as they once fell from his lips, so deeply moved and charmed the souls of his hearers. A welcome and precious memorial it will be, not only to the immediate members of his flock, but to all who from time to time have had opportunities of listening, in his own or in other churches, to his peculiarly delightful ministrations of the word. For many years, no preacher in our New

England metropolis enjoyed a wider popularity than he. Simply in respect to the devotional effect, and the practical impression of his services, we doubt whether he was surpassed, if equalled, by any of his contemporaries. The secret of his power consisted not so much in the novelty, vigor, or brilliancy of his thoughts, as in the profound earnestness and the fervent unction with which they were uttered. He at once impressed his hearers with the conviction that he spoke, not as a mere functionary, but as one who bore a living message from God, and as one who felt in his own soul every word he said. His preaching was usually of the simplest, briefest character; enforcing some great Christian truth by the most familiar arguments and the most obvious illustrations, concisely expressed. He aimed at no show of learning. He indulged in no flashes of poetic fancy. He affected no special originality in his views of doctrine or of duty. His style, though lucid and forcible, was marked by no striking felicities of expression, peculiarly his own. Under the pressing demands of his pastoral cares in a numerous congregation, and in his unwearied devotion to the more private duties of his office, in which he was always singularly happy, an angel of counsel and consolation to his flock, he did not leave himself the time, nor does it ever seem to have been his ambition, to shine before the world in the profound and elegant essay, the elaborate discussion, the highly-wrought oration. He contented himself with the plain, useful sermon. He brought that, and nothing more nor less, to the pulpit. But how was it transfigured as it flashed from his luminous countenance, and went to the heart from his sweet and solemn voice! Never was the power of personal presence and of eloquent delivery more forcibly illustrated than in him. His look, his gesture, his tones, gave a tenfold emphasis to every sentence from his lips, and made it a voice from heaven to each individual soul. With what expectation and delight was he welcomed wherever he went! Among the cherished memories of the pulpit, he will always have a place.

To those who have known and heard him, and especially to his own parishioners, for whom the present publication is especially designed, as an offering of love and remembrance from their disabled pastor, the discourses which he has now printed will derive a peculiar and added interest from reminiscences of the past. They bear the well-known characteristics of the author; clear, simple, concise, condensed, dwelling only on a few points of thought, or holding up a single one in its most familiar and natural lights, and bringing it home to the conscience and the heart. They are not to be closely criticized as performances of the intellect, as exhibitions of dialectic skill, or as specimens of rhetorical art. They are to be read in the same spirit in

which they were written, and in which they were delivered. They are the affectionate and solemn counsels and exhortations of a good pastor, bringing up into the pulpit the thoughts sug gested by his daily walks among his people, and bearing on the duties, trials, temptations of every-day life. They are, according to their title, of an entirely "practical" character, and eminently devotional and evangelical in their spirit. There is little in them that is directly controversial or doctrinal, though the whole tone of sentiment and expression is in harmony with the liberal and rational views of religion. Dr. Lowell, it is well known, would never allow himself to be ranked under any distinctive sectarian name; he would call himself neither a Unitarian nor a Trinitarian, but only a Christian. We welcome these discourses from his pen as another contribution to the already rich pulpit literature of Liberal Christianity, coming from the older school of preaching, and modelled more after the oldfashioned stamp, but none the less acceptable for that. We thank their honored author for thus breaking the silence of his retreat, and letting the world hear even but the echo of his voice, if we cannot hear the voice itself, so well remembered by many who gratefully recall his words of comfort and of quickening from the sacred desk, and his not less eloquent counsels by the way-side and in the house. May the sunset of his life be brightened amid its clouds by the clear light of Christian faith, and by the sweet satisfactions of a life spent in good service to God and

to man.

Notes on Duels and Duelling, alphabetically arranged, with a Preliminary Historical Essay. By LORENZO SABINE. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co. 1855. 12mo. pp. 394.

THE subject-matter of this volume is so thoroughly treated in its pages as to exhaust the theme, alike in its historical and its moral interest. The author has dealt with it faithfully, and that is the highest praise that could be attached to any method for treating the subject. A writer might very easily be tempted away from a faithful exhibition of the whole theme of duelling into a tone of mere preaching upon it, and so might turn an intended discussion of it, in all its bearings, into simple moralizing; or, occupied by the romance, and the personal and biographical details which may readily be brought forward to invest many duels with an exciting interest, he might have lost sight of his main topic in dwelling on some of its incidents. Mr. Sabine has done ample justice to the ethical and the personal digressions concerning which, as occasion forced them upon his notice, his

readers would expect him to have a word of his own to utter, But he has steadily kept in view his main purpose, namely, to illustrate the moral bearings of that code which involves duelling, by presenting to us the long chronological series of experimental cases that have put the code to the test in all sorts of ways. His volume must have required immense research, a singly directed aim recognized for many years spent in gathering its materials, the exercise of a mature judgment and of good taste in arranging them, and a high religious conviction as the court in his own heart before which he decided the great question of right or wrong, however involved by the most specious pleas of conventional ethics. We think that he has treated his subject in the only way through which a radical change could be hoped for, as an effect to be produced upon the apologists for duelling. Had he had recourse to the dogmatic or ghostly strain in which some preachers have dealt with it, or had he lavished upon the practice a storm of ridicule, contempt, and invective, many of those whom it is most desirable to convince would have tossed his book aside, as written by an incompetent hand. The simple case of Hamilton, which is presented in a most faithful manner in this volume, furnishes all the moral, Christian, and practical suggestions needed for the utter condemnation of duelling.

INTELLIGENCE.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

New Books. Several publications of very great interest and value have recently been added to our literary stores. Unwilling to pass them by with a simple announcement of their titles, and feeling in duty bound, as the preceding pages will show, to offer to our readers some real criticism of the books which we bring to their attention, we have prepared extended notices of many of these new publications, which our crowded and contracted space compels us to defer to our next number. The essay on The Nature of Evil,” by Henry James, (D. Appleton & Co., New York,) will be discussed in our number for July.

66

The same publishing firm, to which we are indebted for so many excellent volumes, have produced, in a very captivating style, a work of marked attractions, entitled "Memoirs of Napoleon, his Court and Family, by the Duchess d'Abrantes (Madame Junot)." These two thick volumes, illustrated with numerous steel engravings, offer a feast of gossip and of lively biographical details.

We have already spoken in terms of high commendation of the