NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

The Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson. By the Author of "The Recreations of a Country Parson," London: Longman, Green, Longman, & Co.-Clever, interesting, and amusing, these essays cannot fail to meet with a wide circulation among all classes; written so simply that a child might read them, and yet with such a depth of thought and insight into human nature, that wise men cannot fail to learn something from them, if read with a calm and unprejudiced mind.

From the commonest events of daily life-the walk by the sea-side, the pruning a tree, or mounting the hill-side-the "Country Parson has drawn deep lessons of God's providence and love, and also of sincere charity towards his fellow men. Clearly and faithfully has the author endeavoured to show us the natural failings and weaknesses of the human mind; how prone we all are to "think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think." Who can read the following extract without feeling the force and truthfulness of the description ?—

"There is one shoot which human nature keeps putting forth again, however frequently it is pruned away. It is self-conceit. That would grow into a terrible unwieldy branch, if it were not so often shred away by circumstances: that is, by God's providence. Everybody needs to be frequently taken down which means, to have his self-conceit pruned away. And what everybody needs, most people (in this case) get. Most people are very frequently taken down. I mean, even modest and sensible people. This wretched little shoot keeps growing again, however hard we try to keep it down. There is a tendency in each of us to be growing up into a higher opinion of ourself; and then, all of a sudden, that higher estimate is cut down to the very earth. You are like a sheep suddenly shorn. A thick fleece of self-complacency had developed itself; something comes, and all at once shears it off, and leaves you shivering in the frosty air. You are like a lawn, where the grass had grown some inches in length, till some dewy morning it is mown down just as close as may be. You had gradually and insensibly come to think rather well of yourself, and your doings. You had grown to think your position in life a rather respectable, or even eminent one; and to fancy that those around estimated you rather highly. But, all of a sudden, some slight, some mortification, some disappointment comes; something is said or done that shows you how far you had been deceiving yourself. Some considerable place in your profession becomes vacant, and nobody thinks of naming you for it. You are in company with two or three men who think themselves specially charged with finding a suitable person for the vacant office; they name a score of possible candidates to fill it, but not you. They never have thought of you; or possibly they refrain from naming you, with the design of mortifying you. And so you are pruned close. For the moment, it is painful. You are ready to sink down disheartened and beaten. You have no energy to do anything. You sit down blankly by the fire, and acknowledge yourself a failure in life. It is not so much that you are beaten, as that you are set in a lower place than you hoped. Yet it is all good for us, doubtless. Few men can say they are too humble with it all. And, as even after all our mowings, prunings, and shearings, we are sometimes so conceited and self-satisfied as we are, what should we have been had those things not befallen us? The elf-locks of wool would have been feet in length. The grass would have been six feet high, like that of the prairies. And the shoot of vanity would have grown and consolidated into a branch, that would have given a lop-sided aspect to the whole tree.

Happily, there is no chance of these things occurring. We seldom grow

for more than a few days without being pruned, mowed, and shorn afresh. And all this will continue to the end. It is not pleasant, but we need it all. And we are all profiting by it. Possibly no one will read this page, who does not know that he thinks more humbly of himself now than he did ten years since. And ten years hence, if we live, we shall think of ourselves more humbly still."

We have no doubt but these essays will prove useful to many who read them. If by them we are enabled to see ourselves in a truer light, and to endeavour to cut off the shoots of self-conceit and vanity; if we are enabled to think more charitably and kindly of our neighbours, then this work will not have been written in vain. But we cannot help thinking that it would have quite as much influence, if not more, had the language been more choice, and the sentences more refined. There is somewhat of affectation when a man of intellect and cultivation takes pains to use the commonest and most ordinary words in the English language to express his meaning. Our language is rich and varied, and capable of expressing every thought in the fittest manner, and we see no merit in adopting the ordinary parlance of school-boys or working men.

It is true that the sensational literature of the present day has brought a most exaggerated and foolish style of speaking and writing into fashion (a fashion which we hope will go out as rapidly as it came in); but there is equal danger, on the other hand, of leaving our language bare and unadorned, from the fear of exaggeration, or too great use of the superlative. We hope, however, that both dangers will be avoided, and that among our orators and authors the English tongue will still retain the purity and beauty for which it has been so long remarkable.

The early Scottish Church-The Ecclesiastical History of Scotland from the First to the Twelfth Century. By the Rev. Thomas McLauchlan, M.A., F.S.A.S., Edinburgh. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 38, George Street. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. Dublin: John Robertson and Co. 1865.-The fiction that ascribes the conversion of England to the monk Augustine, in the days of Gregory the Great, is effectually disposed of in this volume. Indeed, we are surprised at the amount and variety of the testimonies which Mr. McLauchlan has brought to bear upon the subject, proving that from a very early, perhaps apostolic date, Christianity, under a simple yet pure form, existed in the islands of the north, and thence made its way southward, until a great part, if not the whole, of England had received the Gospel. To these primitive Christians Augustine came as an aggressor, bringing everywhere divisions, superstition, monkery; and the celibacy of the clergy in their train.

We could have wished for his own sake, that the author of this volume had been less anxious to impress upon us the Scriptural claims of a Presbyterian Church, and the unlawfulness of prelatic government. These things have very little interest for us in England. We have no love for Presbyterianism, and never had. We remember how thoroughly it was "whipped," as our American friends would say, when it set up its proud pretensions in the Westminster Assembly, both by the House of Commons and the Independents. And as to prelacy, it suits us-we like it, and we see in Scripture nothing to

* See Essay "Concerning Old Enemies." (p. 211.)

forbid it. On the whole it works well; and while this is the case, all the arguments that come to us in rich abundance from the North will fall unheeded. But we often wonder that writers who are so anxious for the success of their works in England should take so much pains to make them unpalatable to Englishmen.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE absorbing topic while we write is the sudden, and, as it would appear, the final, overthrow of the Confederates. After several battles, monotonous as usual both in their dreadful slaughter and apparently in their want of results, the Confederates fell back, pursued by the Federals. President Davis was informed by Lee that the defence of Richmond was hopeless; his troops had been overpowered by numbers, and he had no means of recruiting them. In consequence, Richmond was evacuated, a great part of the city was fired, and multitudes of the inhabitants-all, indeed, but the rabble and a few blacks-left the burning wreck, in which their fortunes perished, rather than submit to a Federal conqueror. The next day General Grant discovered that the long-coveted prize was within his reach; and when he marched into it, he found Richmond little more than a second Moscow. Pressing on, however, the Federal armies overtook Lee still retreating, and placed him in a condition in which he was compelled to fight; but his army was now disheartened, and he fought against a greatly superior force. He lost battle, and Grant was now in a condition to demand the surrender of his army. General Lee, anxious, he said, to avoid the useless effusion of blood, surrendered upon honourable terms, and, on the 9th inst., the army was surrendered-" the officers on their parole not to take up arms against the Government until exchanged; each regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men. Each officer was allowed to retain his side-arms, private horses, and luggage; and both officers and men were allowed to return home, under a promise not to be disturbed so long as they observed their parole." In the south, Mobile is invested, and must soon give way, however severe the loss of the Federals may be; and, besides two monitors, blown up by torpedoes, they have already lost 800 men. Thus, at the end of four years of civil war, and of slaughter such as no European war affords an instance of within the same length of time, the first act closes; for it is scarcely possible that the Confederates should raise fresh armies, or meet the Federals again with any chance of success in the field. Their last hope was in arming the negroes, and giving liberty to them and their families in return; but, whether from selfishness or pride, they declined what no doubt seemed a desperate measure, and one which really may have been so. And thus slavery, in one way or other, is still their difficulty-it bears them into the dust, and will do so as long as it exists.

Four years ago, it was believed in England that the South would be subdued within the first campaign; it is, therefore, no surprise to us that it has been vanquished at last. We then thought that the real difficulties of the North would begin with the second act. It seemed

impossible either that the Federals should occupy a territory nearly as large as Continental Europe, or that the South should ever be induced to return into the Union. But we have seen much since then which leads us to mistrust our own judgment on either of these questions. Both sides seem to have a facility in accepting the most extravagant conclusions; both sides appear at once so inveterate and so fickle, that we are prepared either for the abject submission of the South, or for a sullen, murderous guerilla warfare, which may last for years-a warfare which peoples every hedge with riflemen, and converts every window into an embrasure, when an enemy is in sight. To us in England the final settlement of the question of one united or of two friendly republics seems to be of but secondary importance. are still of opinion that it would be happier for both parties that they should separate. They would certainly be more powerful. But it is their own affair; and all that England longs for is to see an end to the most bitter, the most vindictive, and the most bloody civil war that ever raged.

In Parliament, an approaching dissolution casts its shadows before it. Everything is said and done with an evident view to the hustings. The project, so dear to Convocation, and to many laymen who frequent our congresses, of an increase of bishoprics, has been brought before the House of Commons. It received from Sir George Grey an answer worthy of a statesman; and if Congresses are wise, and Convocations prudent, they will be silent upon this subject for some time to come. He said that it was impossible to treat the diocese of Exeter as an exceptional case (for the demand at present is only for an additional bishopric for Cornwall). There were six other dioceses with larger populations than Exeter; and if anything were done, their claims too must be considered. The question was felt by the Government to be a very large one; and they did not think that at present there was any such necessity, for a general revision of the boundaries of dioceses, as demanded the immediate attention of Parliament. Sir George Grey repeated the remark, which has long since appeared in our own pages, that, considering the present greatly increased facilities of communication by railway and by post, and looking at the actual state of things, he saw no sufficient ground for entertaining the general question of a readjustment of the boundaries of the dioceses of England. It is what we have often said, and we repeat, that to charge us with any dislike to Episcopacy on this ground, is just as reasonable as to charge us with a secret dislike of royalty, because we refuse to advocate a return to the heptarchy, when England rejoiced in seven kings instead of one.

But, in conclusion, Sir George Grey reminded the member for Bodmin that the good people of Cornwall have not yet pledged themselves to raise a sum sufficient for the endowment of a single bishopric without assistance; and that, if four or five new bishoprics were created, a sum of from £20,000 to £30,000 a year would have to be deducted from funds which were now being applied most usefully for the benefit of the Church and the spiritual welfare of the people-such as the augmentation of the smaller livings, and the employment of additional clergy in populous districts. He did not think it would be expedient to divert existing funds for these purposes. Expedient!-it would be insanity! Already the Ecclesiastical Commissioners have dis

covered that they have it in their power, by a rigid economy in other matters, to raise all livings under £300 a year, having a population of 8,000, to that sum as their minimum; and, in four or five years from the present time, the clergy are promised that all benefices, whatever their population may be, shall be raised to at least £300 a year. Imagine the courage, or rather, we must say, the folly, of that minister who would dash these hopes to the ground, and devote £30,000 a year to the endowment of new bishoprics.

As our number comes out, the clergy and pious laity of our Church will have assembled in London for our May Meetings. We can only pray that great grace may be upon them all; that the speakers may have the spirit of power, and love, and of a sound mind; and that the hearers may listen with a much higher purpose than that of gratifying curiosity, or feeding an appetite for excitement. A great blessing seems to have rested upon all the societies. May it rest in an equal measure on those who support them with their almsgiving, their countenance, and their prayers.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

66

AN esteemed correspondent, whose name we have, strongly censures an expression which occurs in our last number, page 269, where the writer, speaking of Jerusalem, calls it "the place where God himself died for the sin of man." We grant that the expression may be unguarded, and that, in a controversial treatise an unfair advantage might be taken of it by an infidel or a Socinian. Still we must never forget that Christ was 66 perfect God" as well as perfect man ;" and that His atonement was a divine sacrifice for sin; "For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." We are in much greater danger at present of being led to deny the in dwelling of the Godhead in Christ while He hung upon the cross and breathed out His soul even unto death, than of falling into false ideas of the possible mortality of the essential Godhead. Nor do we gain much in controversy by altering the terms and saying that Christ died for us; while in the same breath we maintain that Christ was God-" Immanuel, God with us." It is better humbly to receive this blessed truth, in which consists that mystery of the cross which excites the wonder of angels, than to speculate upon it. The meaning of the esteemed writer of the article is clear, and we may add, that his character is and has long been far too high to allow a doubt to be entertained as to the soundness of his theology. A similar expression occurs in a fragment of poetry, of which it is enough to say that it comes from the pen of a clergyman who fills a post of no little importance in one of the largest parishes in London. Still, the expression ought to be avoided.

AN OLD FRIEND thinks we should not have made the extracts from the two notorious novels of the day, which are so bad that he fears to put the Christian Observer on his drawing-room table. We cannot plead inadvertence here. General censure is not sufficient; curiosity is awake; and the brief sketches we have given of these tales-for we gave no extracts-appeared to us more likely to excite loathing and disgust than to bring a shade of impurity over the mind of any reader; and we have found this to be the case in our own circles.

A third correspondent finds fault with a paragraph which has reference to Bishop Bagot, in our review of Dr. Newman's Apologia, &c. He thinks that the paragraph reflects upon the bishop's private character as impeachable. It conveyed no such impression to our own mind; we merely inferred from it, what was perfectly well understood at the time, that if he had not been a Bagot, he would never have been a bishop; and that his previous studies and pursuits had not been such as to qualify him for the office.