volumes, of a size similar to the publishers' FOREIGN THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY, and will be issued at the remarkably low price of one guinea for four volumes. We heartily rejoice in this enterprise. It will give to all ministers an intellectual platform, hitherto occupied only by a few, and thus promote a spirit of ministerial equality. It will also put all in possession of those sources from which much of the historic evidence in favour of Christianity is derived. There are, we venture to hope, but few of the clergy of any denomination who will not strive to make themselves possessors of the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, and thus bless themselves and encourage the publishers in this magnificent undertaking.

THE CLERGY AND THE PULPIT IN THEIR RELATIONS TO THE PEOPLE. By M. L'ABBE ISIDORE MULLOIS, Chaplain to the Emperor Napoleon III., and Missionary Apostolic. Translated by GEORGE PERCY BADGER, late Chaplain in the Diocese of Bombay, author of "The Nestorians and their Rituals," &c., &c. London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 65, Cornhill.

THE series of ideas set forth in this volume, we are told, is for the guidance of the clergy in their pastoral ministrations, especially in the pulpit. The author's object is to direct the attention of his brethren in the ministry to "the lower orders," whose apathy for religion he attribates to the estrangement which took place between the clergy and the nation at the period of the great Revolution-" Our age," he says, "is a great prodigal son, let us help it to repent, and return to the paternal home." As the people of England as well as France are indifferent to religion, and stand aloof from pulpit ministrations, many, though not all, of the suggestions contained in this treatise are worthy of the adoption of the clergy of England. The author thinks that the preacher who is to meet the exigencies of his age should not only have the ordinary clerical education, but should have that spirit of love that would vitally identify him with the sorrows and joys of the people. He should be deeply read in the science of the heart, capable of appreciating all the springs which set society in motion, and diverting them from those channels where they only serve to fertilise the soil of vice, to the fields where virtue grows. This book is valuable; it breathes a noble spirit. It records many striking incidents. It is fraught with excellent counsels, and it has many striking philosophical remarks and specimens of pulpit eloquence. It has much in it to challenge remark, but our space is too limited to attempt an encounter. We may recur to it again. The author's advice concerning the brevity of sermons is worth the notice of those prosy brothers under whose somnific influence congregations sleep. The length of a sermon, our author says, should be from five to ten minutes. "Believe me-and I speak from experience-the more you say the less will the hearers re

tain, the less you say the more they will profit; by dint of burdening their memory you will overwhelm it, just as a lamp is extinguished by feeding it with too much oil, and plants are choked by immoderate irrigation. When a sermon is too long, the end erases the middle from the memory, and the middle the beginning."

THE NATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA. Volumes V. to VIII. inclusive. London and Glasgow: Mackenzie.

In a recent number of the HOMILIST we directed attention to the many attractions and to the solid worth of this Encyclopædia. We especially noticed the ability and accuracy of its articles, the clearness of its illustrations and designs, and the wide range of subjects it included, as amongst its many claims to a hearty appreciation. We added our hope that the volumes which we then noticed would be followed by others as good. We have now the satisfaction of being able to say that our hope, which we knew to be well founded, has been entirely realized. The four volumes now before us, which commence with Cor, and include MET, are in every way worthy their predecessors. This is bestowing on them high praise, for it will be remembered that we indicated that they left nothing to be desired but the money wherewith to purchase them. Butler has said that "there is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will as well know what to expect from the one as from the other." The title of this Encyclopædia illustrates forcibly the truth of this remark. We can tell at once, and truly, what it is. It is veritably a "National Encyclopædia"-not only worthy of, but a credit to, the name. To say that a work is popular is not always to praise it, because the word has come to convey a meaning with which intellectual power is not necessarily associated. When, therefore, we say that this undertaking is essentially a popular one, we must be understood to use that term in the sense in which Coleridge used it when he defined it to refer to one "which adapted the results of studious meditation, or scientific research, to the capacity of the people." It is a dictionary of information, and in its circle it embraces every subject. It is arranged on the simple alphabetical principle, and we certainly prefer this to the more logical plan of the " Encyclopædia Metropolitana." Chiefly for this reason, that of all the methods which have been adopted, since Spensippus, the disciple of Plato, originated the first work of this genus, this is the plan which experience has proved to be better adapted than any other for quick and easy reference. An encyclopædia should combine learning, accuracy, and skill, with perspicuity of language, and an arrangement of its matter in a form which makes consultation easy, plain, and rapid. In these days of pressing engagements and new books, the last is of

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 systematic 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 authoritics 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.

THE WORKS OF HENRY SMITH; including Sermons, Treatises, Prayers, and Poems. 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 a large number of sermons. All are short, and some strikingly good.

A COMMENTARY ON THE WHOLE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS, By WILLIAM GOUGE, D.D.; with a Narrative of his Life and Death, 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, en 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.