a decision, an earnestness which even youth might envy. There is something heroic in the courage with which he puts himself in the fore-front of the battle, as though determined to die with his armour on. There is nothing in this book which tells of three-score years and ten, except the mellowness which age only can impart. There is considerable freshness in the treatment of a subject which has been so often discussed, that it might at first sight have appeared as though there was nothing new to be said. We should hope that there are thoughtful and candid men in the Establishment who will not be insensible to this very calm, but most demonstrative statement of the Scriptural objections to their favourite institution. The fallacy of some of their stock arguments is very clearly exhibited, and the direct as well as indirect argument from Scripture against their system brought out with remarkable fulness and effect. A better manual could not be put in the hands of intelligent young persons, desirous of thoroughly mastering the subject of which it treats.

A Chip of the Old Block. A Novel. By GEORGE GRETTON. In Two Volumes. London: Chapman and Hall.

THIS novel, intended to demonstrate the immense superiority of the Roman Catholic Church, both as regards the authority of its doctrine and the character of its members, has yielded us no little consolation. We had begun to fear that the Protestant Electoral Union and some other "No Popery" associations had a monopoly of fierceness, narrowness, uncharitableness, and bad taste; but this book has relieved us from the apprehension, and shows us that if such faults are only too often developed on one side, they are just as conspicuous on the other. We are also glad to find the sort of arguments which earnest and able Roman Catholics deem unanswerable. They exhibit to us more than ever the weakness of their system, especially when brought into conflict with those who abjure the vulgar claptrap of the controversy, and instead of retailing a number of stale and often untenable objections to gross excesses, address themselves to a vigorous assault of the great principles of the Church, and do not provoke defeat by first conceding the authority of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. Ŏtherwise the book is simply grotesque. To suppose that any rational people would conduct themselves in the way here attributed to the poor Protestants, is a mere piece of extravagant absurdity.

The Family Pen; Memorials Biographical and Literary of the Taylor Family, of Ongar. Edited by the Rev. ISAAC TAYLOR, M.A. In Two Volumes. London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder. THOSE who open these volumes expecting to find new and interesting details relative to the Taylor family must be prepared for a serious disappointment. The greater part of the contents has appeared in some form or other before, and that which is fresh-a short sketch, extending to about sixteen pages, of the late Isaac Taylor, by his son, the Editor of the present work-is not more than an introduction to the fuller biographies on which he is engaged. But if these Memorial

volumes have not the attraction of novelty, there is quite sufficient of interest and value about them to make them generally acceptable. They consist of miscellanies, some of them biographical, and others of a more general character, from the pens of different members of the circle, developing some features of their training and character, and illustrating the genius of some of the group, who are less known to fame than the distinguished author of the "Natural History of Enthusiasm," "Ancient Christianity," and the "Restoration of Belief." Isaac Taylor had unquestionably the most acute and perhaps the most cultured intellect of the whole, and he has taken a recognized place in the literature of the day. Of Taylor and his sister less is known, and we are, therefore, the more glad to have some of their writings collected and preserved in this permanent form, in which they are sure to interest and instruct a large class of readers.

Dissenting influences created the Taylors and made them what they were. A more interesting spectacle cannot be conceived than that of the humble, hard-working Dissenting minister, engaged in that extraordinarily minute and painstaking education of his children, which was destined to produce results so much greater than even in his most sanguine moments he could have ventured to anticipate. It is somewhat painful, however, to see how cultured minds of the class to which Isaac Taylor belonged gravitate, almost as a matter of course, to the Established Church. They are offended by the thousand and one things in Dissent which jar upon their æsthetic sympathies; they dislike the violence of religious controversy, and in their recoil from it lapse into a kind of eclecticism which sooner or later drifts them into that Establishment, whither also all the strong attractions of literary associations and prestige have been drawing them. They forget how many of the faults in Dissent may be traced to the injustice under which its professors have suffered in their exclusion from the refining and elevating influences of the national seats of learning, and by the course they themselves pursue, do much to perpetuate the evils which they might have been able by a more decided line of action to repress. We greatly regret the position that Isaac Taylor took; though, looking at his character and tastes, it is impossible to be surprised at it. But, while feeling how much Nonconformity loses by the fact that it does not retain such men among its ranks, we must be content to lose them rather than compromise, in the slightest degree, the testimony which we have to bear against what we believe to be inconsistent with the whole spirit and genius of Christianity. We have work to do from. which men of excessive fastidiousness, who are anxious that every one should preserve that "calm, judicial tone," for which Mr. Taylor gives his father special credit, and who are themselves so afraid of saying a word too much that they maintain absolute silence, are sure to shrink. But the work must be done, and done firmly and manfully, whatever the defections from our ranks, or the secret grumblings among those who yet hesitate absolutely to forsake us. We are not insensible to the value of the class of whom Isaac Taylor was a type, and certainly are not so ungrateful, despite the quiet hits at Dissent which he could sometimes deal out, as not fully to recognize the

service he did both against Tractarianism and Rationalism, but we are fallen on a time when in the strifes that are raging around us, we must have men made of sterner stuff to fight the battles not only of Nonconformity, but of Christianity itself.

The Ancien Regime. Three Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution by the REV. C. KINGSLEY, M.A. London: Macmillan & Co.

The REV. C. KINGSLEY is certainly not a model Professor of History, but he takes a higher position and does a far nobler work than the ideal Professor, for whom some of his censors would admire, could ever accomplish. The whole bent of his mind unfits him for that laborious research into mere minutiæ and that careful estimate of the exact force and significance of every record in which some men find their principal delight; he is often carried away by the fervour of his own enthusiasm ; he is too hasty in his generalization and altogether too pure to disdain the conventionalisms to please a certain class of critics, who, therefore, find the task of turning him and his work into ridicule equally easy and congenial. We are not indiscriminate admirers, but there is that about him which always commands our sympathy, and even when most disposed to break a lance with him about some of his notions, there is a frank outspokenness and a geniality of spirit which we heartily respect. Few men are more apt to be misled, for few have stronger and more generous impulses; and when he errs, it is generally by them that he is led astray. His championship of Ex-Governor Eyre, both in itself and in the special form which it assumed, was one of his most questionable public acts, but it is easy to see that even there he was influenced by a chivalrous spirit, in opposing himself to a popular cry, and without at all justifying his position and still less the extraordinary speech in which he asserted his views, we must maintain that he was led away by the perversion of noble instincts, and not by any sympathy with the cause of oppression.

Of his hatred to tyranny in every form, of his desire to see the establishment of equal political rights, of his confidence in the people and his sympathy with them in their resistance either to monarchical or aristocratic despotism, these four lectures on the "Ancien Regime” afford sufficient proof. They do not give any facts that are particularly new, but they present some very vivid and characteristic sketches of those abuses which brought about that terrible uprising of humanity which we describe as the French Revolution, and prove, if not more conclusively than has been done before, at least in a more impressive and telling manner, that the crimes of the people were only the natural result of the previous crimes of the princes and nobles. Seldom, if ever, has the direct connection between the atrocities of the Revolution and the previous excesses of the aristocracy been traced in a more masterly, eloquent, and convincing manner. "The wickedness (he says with great truth) of certain of its leaders was part of the retribution itself. For the noblesse existed surely to make men better. It did, by certain classes, the very opposite. Therefore it was destroyed

by wicked men whom itself had made wicked. For over and above all political, economical, social wrongs, these were wrongs personal, human, dramatic, which stirred not merely the springs of covetousness or envy, or even of a just demand for the freedom of labour and enterprize, but the very deepest springs of rage, contempt, and hate; wrongs which caused, as I believe, the horrors of the Revolution." Nothing is more admirable in Mr. Kingsley than the earnestness with which he thus brings out the great principles of the moral government of the world, never obtruding them, never sinking into religious cant from which no man is more free-often suggesting rather than stating very distinctly, yet always bringing out the grand lesson which history thus teaches. We wish we could direct attention to the contrast between France of 1789 and the England of to-day, by which he combats the fears of those who dread the advent of a similar Revolution now, but we must for this refer our readers to the brief but most suggestive and interesting volume before us.

David the King of Israel. By F. W. KRUMMACHER, D.D. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

DR. KRUMMACHER needs no introduction to English readers, and those who are familiar with the graphic pictures, the rich spiritual meditations, the forcible earnest appeals of his former books, will be very glad to have this new one, of which it is almost sufficient to say that it is cast in the same mould and well sustains the reputation of its predecessors. The author referring to the neglect and misapprehension which the Old Testament suffers "on the part of many of the faithful in the church of my Fatherland," adds, "I feel myself at liberty from personal experience, to congratulate the brethren in England and Scotland that they are not open to any such reproval." We wish we could accept the congratulation to the full extent, but there is ample room for improvement in this respect, and Dr. Krummacher will do good service if he does no more than show the homiletic value of the Old Testament narratives. The whole story of David is here discussed in a wise, discriminating and practical style. The translator has done his work well, and the book is well worthy to find a place in every Christian family.

The Starling. 2 Vols., by NORMAN MACLEOD, D.D. London:

Alexander Strahan.

THE STARLING is not only the title of this capital tale, but the poor birdie is actually its theme. The incident on which the story is founded, the struggle of a poor man to preserve his starling from the death to which it had been doomed by an over-scrupulous Scotch minister for the atrocious sin of whistling on a Sunday, seems at first unnatural, but we have reason to know that it is strictly true. A melancholy illustration it affords certainly of the fierceness and extravagance of Scotch Sabbatarianism, extreme no doubt but not incredible to those who are at all familiar with the notions prevalent in many parts of Scotland. All honour to Dr. Macleod, who has stood up manfully and earnestly

to point out a more excellent way. Even those who may think that he has pushed his conclusions too far must reverence and admire the courage which led him to face the storm of popular obloquy which the bold utterance of his opinion was certain to provoke. It would be wrong, however, to regard this book merely as a story bearing on the Sabbath question. Even its moral purpose lies deeper than this, being evidently intended to depict the struggle between mere logic and strong spiritual instincts, and to show how the force of the latter will ultimately triumph over the former, however able its arguments may be. As a work of art, too, it has distinctive merit and is the best book the author has given us. The interest centred in the poor dumb bird, the disdain of the help to be derived from any love story ingeniously interwoven with the main plot, the richness of the dialogue, and the racy delineations of the Scotch character, unite to make this book as attractive as it is certainly healthful in its influence.

The Diamond Rose. A Tale of Love and Duty. By SARAH TYTLER. London: Alexander Strahan.

To those who desire to find in fiction the delineation of high-toned character, the influence of religious truth and feeling in moulding it, who care more for the inculcation of pure and lofty principle than for the excitement of stirring incident, this tale of Miss Tytler's will be attractive. It is simple, and some would say cold, but it is pure and truthful, it very ingeniously interweaves historic facts into its plots, and thus interests alike in the early history of one of those great charitable foundations for which Edinburgh is famous, and in the struggle arising out of the Jacobite insurrection in 1715. There is nothing very stirring in the plot, but it is one of those quiet earnest stories of human life and its struggles from which all may draw some lessons of profit.

Essays and Discourses.

By T. W. TOZER. London: Elliot Stock.

A VOLUME of sermons of more than average merit. We know not how the author distinguishes between "Essays and Discourses," but they all seem to us of the same order-sermons sought out with care, clothed in clear and suitable language, devout in tone, and well fitted for usefulness.