more importance than might at first sight be supposed. Lamartine has somewhere said that the time is coming when the only book possible will be the newspaper. The poet mind, seeing the restless activity of the race, fancied it would not have the patience to pore over ponderous volumes. However that may be, it seems certain that a concise and cystematic arrangement of human knowledge in plain and popular form, is that which is insisted on, and will be more and more insisted on by the great bulk of the hurrying, overworked, and inquiring men of the day, who have not leisure, opportunity, or means, to consult learned authorities and recondite treatises, and to extract from their recesses the short and plain statements of facts they require. To all classes "The National Encyclopædia" will be truly valuable, and we again heartily recommend it, in the perfect confidence that it will disappoint no reasonable hope, and will more than satisfy every reasonable subscriber.

SERMONS. BY JOHN KELLY, Liverpool. London: John Snow and Co. 2, Ivy-lane, Paternoster-row.

HERE are fifteen sermons on important subjects, and they are logically thoughtful and stiffly Calvinistic. Those who look for originality of thought, streaks of imagination, gushings of sympathy that overflow all propositions, will not be pleased with this volume; but those, however,—and they are numerous-who like religious thinking kept within orthodox limits, and Scripture expounded by Calvinian light, and all expressed in good clear vigorous language, will appreciate these dis

courses.

THE ANCIENT PSALMS IN APPROPRIATE METRES. A strictly Literal Translation from the Hebrew, with Explanatory Notes. By DALMAN HAPSTONE, M.A. Edinburgh: William Oliphant & Co. THE author of this work thinks that no amount of learning expended on the mere words of the Psalms will ever suffice to extract the true meaning. The key must be furnished by a knowledge of the circumstances in which they were penned. We very much agree with this. The Psalms, for the most part, are lyric poetry, and the very essence of this poetry consists not in sketching idealities, but in delineating living actualities. David wrote about existing men; and the author of this book says that he has endeavoured to trace out the parties who sat for the portraits while the pencil was in David's hand, and to make the Psalms as intelligible to the English reader as they were to the Psalmist's own contemporaries. The plan of the author is to give the circumstances under which each Psalm was written, and then present the Psalm itself in rhythmic verse, inserting in the margin words that seem more true to the original. We consider it the best book on the Psalms, and most heartily recommend it.

TREASURE BOOK OF DEVOTIONAL READING.

Edited by BENJAMIN

ORME, M.A. Alexander Strahan, Ludgate-hill.

THIS volume is made up of extracts from various religious authors, ancient and modern. It belongs to a class of works that must increase. The books of the world are so numerous now, and so rapidly multiplying, that it is impossible for any one to read a hundredth part. Extracts from the best of them are all that we can hope for, in order either to keep us in any measure acquainted with the growing world of authors, or to derive any value from their services. These extracts are purely religious, and of the Calvinian theology.

THE BOOK OF PSALMS: being the Book of Psalms according to the Authorized Version. By WILLIAM HENRY ALEXANDER. London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 27, Paternoster-row, E.C. THIS is the work of an excellent man, a man who had been engaged in a large mercantile enterprise, but who at the same time was a Christian philanthropist, an accomplished scholar, and a devout biblical student. We regard this work as a valuable contribution to the cause to which it is rendered.

and Poems.

THE WORKS OF HENRY SMITH; including Sermons, Treatises, Prayers, With Life of the Author by THOMAS FULLER, B.D. Vol. II. Edinburgh: James Nichol.

HERE is the second volume of a work we have already noticed: the work of one of the ablest preachers of the sixteenth century. This volume contains á large number of sermons. All are short, and some strikingly good.

By

A COMMENTARY ON THE WHOLE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. WILLIAM GOUGE, D.D.; with a Narrative of his Life and Deaths Edinburgh: James Nichol.

THIS is the third volume of a work which we have noticed and recommended more than once. It concludes an exposition of the Hebrews, which is homiletic and remarkably suggestive.

THE CROSS THE CHRISTIAN'S GREATEST GLORY. BY JOHN DUNLOP RINGWOOD. Printed by W. A. Wheatson.

THIS is a good sermon, full of good thought, and charges with exciting force upon the most momentous of subjects, the Cross of Christ. It is sad to see a sermon of this kind so printed-in a wretched way, on wretched paper.

A HOMILY

ON

A Going and a Coming; or, Angelic

Companionship.

"Then the devil leaveth him, and behold, angels came and ministered unto him."-Matt. iv. 11.

HE prolonged and severe attack which the devil made upon Jesus in the wilderness was moral throughout; and we make this statement

because it is highly important that we should

note and remember the fact. The arch-enemy did not bring force to bear on the object of his cunning and malicious assault. He did not so much as touch the person of Christ. Smiting him to the earth would have been no proper triumph, and would not have served to advance his cause a single inch. To all this Satan was keenly alive. The weapons with which he assailed the Son of Man were moral in their nature; and, as might have been expected, the weapons with which Jesus defended Himself were of the same character. By the exercise of his omnipotence Christ could easily have annihilated his adversary; but in that case the victory achieved would have been unspeakably less glorious than it was. It would simply have been an instance of power

VOL. XX.

1

crushing weakness. There are no victories comparable to victories on the moral arena. Physical and intellectual victories alike grow pale in their presence; and herein lies the peculiar excellence of the triumph of Jesus over the devilthat it was purely moral. The "prince of the devils" tested Him as a moral being with all the skill he could command; but Jesus took no undue advantage of his antagonist. He met him on his own ground, and signally and honourably vanquished him.

That the devil was anxious to lead Jesus into sin there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. The onset originated with himself; and in the efforts which he put forth to pierce Christ, and cause his fall, he was in dead earnest. On neither side was the combat recorded in this chapter a mock one. An awful earnestness characterized both the combatants. We are impressed with the ardent desire which possessed Satan to seduce the Son of God from his allegiance to his Father, when we consider the time selected to put him to the proof. The craft of the wicked one is something wonderful. In some respects he is stupid; in other respects he is amazingly clever. The influence of the body upon the mind is universally acknowledged. Some bodily states are favourable to the resistance of temptation, and some are not, Now what was Christ's bodily condition when the devil, with his accustomed artfulness, spread his nets before Him? The pangs of hunger were on Him, inasmuch as He had not tasted food for forty days and forty nights previous to the encounter with the devil. He took Jesus when, so far as the body was concerned, He was at the weakest; and it is the more to the honor of Christ that, though unfortunately circumstanced when the tempter threw himself across his path, He drove him from the field. We are further impressed with the anxiety of the devil to get Jesus to stain his holiness when we pass in review the temptations with which he plied Him. It is not wise in us to underrate Satan's power as a tempter He has quite a genius for tempting intelligent creatures, and that genius has been developed by ages of practice. Men are

clumsy tempters in comparison with him. As a tempter, he has neither equal nor superior. How admirably he adapted himself to mother Eve! She listened to him, and was ruined in consequence. Praise is due to all who successfully resist him, and a world of praise is due to Jesus for the manner in which He foiled him. Had we been sent to tempt Christ, could we have done it better? The more that we reflect on the temptations which were brought before Jesus, the more shall we be struck with their strength and subtlety. As if to render them the more powerful, he put a scriptural face on them. There was no grossness about them. For the occasion he transformed himself into an "angel of light;" and his doing so shows that his heart was set on deceiving "the man Christ Jesus," if he possibly could. But for once he was over-matched; Jesus completely baffled him. If the devil approached Him in a hopeful spirit, we may be sure that he left Him miserably crest-fallen. "Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him." We can imagine him half regretting that he had come to close quarters with Jesus. Those who are in the habit of winning can ill brook to lose a battle, and the greater the battle the more vexatious is defeat. We are not to suppose that when the devil left Jesus, he left Him for good and all. Luke tells us that he left Him "for a season. Satan has the virtue of perseverance; but the pity is that his perseverance is perseverance in evil. He would, doubtless, return, and try Christ again and again. Toward the close of his life, Jesus made this remark to his disciples, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you, for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." These words prove that the devil kept his eye on Jesus, and never grew weary of assailing Him. As one who had mastered him, there would be a fascination about Christ which the devil would have difficulty in resisting. When the devil does not succeed, it is never for the want of trying. What mainly led to his departure, after three distinct attempts to drag Jesus from his moral altitude, was probably the hearing of his name. In his third reply,