the subject. Indeed, we think it is, in many respects, in advance of all others in the same field. But, however valuable in certain particulars, it is quite unsatisfactory as a whole. Thinking and Christian men will hesitate to adopt an hypothesis, which, if it explodes the modern mysteries, seems equally applicable to the ancient. They will fear that if these manifestations, in all their strangeness and diversity, may thus easily be resolved into a mundane force, a similar solution may be applied to the apparently analogous facts on which the Christian founds his faith in a divine revelation, and his hopes for the future life. It is here, we conceive, that many, who have attempted to overthrow Spiritualism, have committed a serious error. Consulting their fears, or prejudices, they have adopted a line of argument, which, if carried out, would run the plowshare of materialism, or of a worse than German rationalism, through the entire Bible.

While, then, we would encourage every honest effort to solve the knotty problem, we would have it treated without prejudice, and on its own merits, like any other question of science. If philosophers, instead of ignoring the whole matter, or treating it with contempt, had entered the field themselves and aimed only to arrive at truth, we cannot but think they might not only have elicited the true theory of the phenomena, but saved, perhaps, multitudes of their fellow-men from the consummate folly of attempting to build for themselves, upon these manifestations, a new religion, and thus resting their faith and hopes for eternity on such self-contradictory, unauthenticated, and even mischievous communications, as often purport to come from departed spirits. Even granting all the facts of Spiritualism, and indeed, that they are the work of such spirits, it is a most monstrous leap of logic to conclude that they are a revelation from God, and to make them a substitute for Christianity and the Bible. But such an unwarrantable use of such phenomena by the multitude, is no more than might be expected, when the learned and the good stand aloof, and leave the terra incognita of philosophy to be discovered and explored by the inexperienced and the unenlightened. Were it not for this inexplicable conservatism of educated minds, we believe that not only might the mischief now so prevalent have, in the main, been arrested, but the law, or principle, whatever it may be, which unquestionably lies at the basis of all forms of the "manifestations," been secured as an adjunct of legitimate sci

ence.

The Child of the Covenant: or How Christian Parents should train up their Households. By Rev. J. R. WATERBURY, D. D. Boston: T. R. Marvin. PP. 181.

This work, which has lain upon our table for several weeks, deserved an earlier notice; but then, it is one of the books which can afford to wait. The subject of it is so important, and the style is so interesting, that it will, as we hope, take a prominent place in our Christian Literature. Our room for literary notices is so limited, however, that we can do little more than give the list of Contents. The work is divided into twelve chapters, which treat of the following topics :-Children God's Heritage; In what Principles should Children be Educated? Children born in Sin; Duty of Parents to their Unconverted Children; The Relation of Children to God as Sinners; Children led to Christ; The Abrahamic Covenant; Infant Baptism as related to the Abrahamic Covenant; Relation of Baptized Children to the Church; Practical Questions; Household Baptism-a Question in connection with it; and Practical Duties.

This book is timely, where so many Christian parents are neglecting the duties, and undervaluing the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. In our view, it is well adapted to promote the object for which it was written. In recommending it, we are not understood, of course, as endorsing every peculiarity of the author's theology; but we do, nevertheless express most sincerely and earnestly, our hope, that it may have a wide circulation. It should be placed not only in the libraries of Ministers and Sabbath Scools, but in that of every pious family. It has long been our conviction, that the prevailing indifference with respect to infant dedication, is owing to the neglect of pastors to present the subject to their people, in private, as well as in public. We believe it to be no very difficult thing for one who understands the subject, to present the utility of the ordinance, so as to convince the judgment; and to make such an appeal to the hearts of parents that they will delight to offer up their children publicly to God. Dr. Waterbury has demonstrated this, and we have no doubt that if his brethren in the pastoral office would follow his example, there would soon be a great improvement in the matter of infant baptism, not in our churches only; but that our Baptist brethren, in large numbers, would be constrained to bring their little ones to the sanctuary, and there offer them up to a covenant-keeping God and Saviour.

A Translation of the Gospels. With Notes. By ANDREWS NORTON. 2 vols. 8vo. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

1855.

Internal Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels. Part I. Remarks on Christianity and the Gospels, with particular reference to Strauss' "Life of Jesus." Part II. Portions of an unfinished work. By ANDREWS NORTON. 8vo. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1855.

Both these works are posthumous and have been carefully edited from the MSS. of their author. They are just what we should expect from the author of "True and False Religions," "The Statement of Reasons," "The Latest Form of Infidelity," and the "Genuineness of the Gospels." Indeed, Mr. Norton could not be otherwise than true to himself. He was always clear in his statements, and as he believed, clear in his thoughts. He was decided and earnest in his convictions as well as severe and out-spoken in respect to those who differed from him, whether they belonged to his own sect or to another. He did not express greater asperity or contempt for the socalled "Orthodox," than for Ralph Waldo Emerson, George Ripley and Theodore Parker. He was equally offended by those who deviated from his version of Liberal Christianity, whether to the extreme Right or the extreme Left.

The student will find in the Translation of the Gospels and the accompanying Notes, an interesting exhibition of what the by-gone type of Liberal Christianity could accomplish. He will see the forced interpretations to which it was compelled to resort, and the unsatisfying expedient by which it extricated itself from the pressure of texts, difficult to be disposed of. In this respect, these volumes are most useful and instructive. No student or preacher can be said to have mastered the ground of his own interpretations and beliefs, who has not confronted them with those of an able opponent.

Upon points of historical and general criticism, these volumes are valuable. For they exhibit the results of the patient study of years. They are supplementary to the very able treatise on the Genuineness of the Gospel. But even on points of this kind they are not always to be trusted. The mind which could interpret John and Paul, as Mr. Norton has done, must be expected to interpret the Old Testament prophets and the Greek Philosophers in a way of its own. Much, therefore, which seems to be plausible is so because it is superficial, or in other words, because the mind of the critic is accustomed to modes of thinking which are below the minds of the writers whom he seeks to explain. We do not intend to charge the author with intentional perversion, but he certainly seems to labor under the necessity imposed by a most unhappy bias from foregone con

clusions. With these words of caution, we can most heartily commend these volumes to the preacher and Theological student.

The volume on the Internal Evidences, &c we have read with very great interest. It presents a singular combination of strength and weakness. In dealing with single portions of the argument of Strauss, it is able and triumphant. In appreciating Strauss' work as a whole, it is weak and infelicitous. Mr. Norton was, from his character, his studies, and his prejudices, least of all, fitted to account to himself or to other men, for such an intellectual and moral product, as the Leben Jesu. So too, in his arguments for the necessity of a Revelation he fails, as every man must, who hold views so indefinite and inadequate in respect to the character and condition of man. With such views he cannot present, for he has it not to give, the grand and decisive argument, which is to be found in just views of man's need and God's provision. It is instructive, if it is painful, to see such a mind as Mr. Norton fail to discover and to assent to the views of such a mind as Paul-to be reminded again and again of how much the one falls below the other in the attempt to reach the height of this "great argument." We know not whether the work is more valuable, from what it does, or from what it fails to do. Viewed in either or in both of these lights, it is worth a careful study.

THE CHURCH REVIEW (for October) thus speaks of the August No. of the New Englander: "Its former comatose condition has so far yielded under a new régime that it has woke up sufficiently to let off a feeble volley against the Church; but yet in sad contrast with its once vigorous tone. What the cause of its inefficiency is, we have not inquired. Whether it be in the quality or the quantity of its ammunition-in the caliber of its guns-in the rickety condition of its platform-in the presence of some fatal epidemic-or the disheartened state of the garrison-whether it be one, or all of these, that has caused the feeble and ineffectual fire of late, is, of course, but conjecture. But somebody has, at last, wasted a little powder in firing at poor old ex-Bishop Ives-evidently intending, however, to hit the Church over the ex-Bishop's shoulders. His ostensible object is, to show that High-Church-by which he means sound Church-principles naturally tend to lead their disciples to Rome."

We cannot forbear to say, that it gives us an entirely new pleasure to find the Church Review in a cheerful mood. On all former occasions, when we have been led to speak of the

Church-of-England in America, the Review has had an "ill turn," and continued a sort of lachrymose snuffling for months together, because of our severity. But now it becomes merry, because we have been gentle towards its faults, and characterizes our gentleness as "a feeble volley against the Church." The Review should remember, however, that it was not against the whole of that small body, which, standing on tip-toe, tumidly proclaims itself "the church," that the "feeble volley" was directed; but only against that significant fragment of it, which has recently (to use a veterinary term) "blown" itself, by a furious discussion of the unapostolic use of fans, in houses of worship. The principles (?) of that fragment may be demolished by a "feeble volley"-anything short of an absolute fizzle. The Review should remember, also, that if only a "feeble volley" should be discharged at every deserter from its ranks to Rome, some one would be continually occupied in that unpleasant service. Four clergymen in the last six months, and probably sixty in the last eight years, have been graduated from the Episcopal to the Papal church. These all are illustrations of the truth which we endeavored to set forth, that Highchurchism had its natural fruit in Romanism. If all that fragment of the Church-of-England in America, represented by the New York Churchman, should act as consistently as Doane, and Wheaton, and Markoe, and Ives, and carry out their Highchurch principles to their legitimate results, we think that Episcopalians would have cause for gratitude, rather than grief. It is better to get rid of the infectious element at once, before Romanism becomes epidemic in the whole sect.

The Review doubtless understands that it is far easier to call an argument "a feeble volley," and give utterance to a few disconnected military phrases, (is it the method of "the church" militant?) to call it a "stale rigmarole," and deal in personalities, than to meet that argument in the light of reason and revelation. Even with this method of replying to sound arguments, the Review ought to be correct in its statements. The author of the review of Bishop Ives never attended the Episcopal church, after he was thirteen years old, except occasionally. There is no meaning, therefore, and no truth, in calling such a boy as he then was, who never belonged to that church, a "Congregational deserter from our ranks." Brought up as he was in the use of the church and the Assembly's Catechism, if he preferred the latter, when humbly desiring the bread of life, who shall blame him? If, at that age, when one readily discerns good from evil, he left an Episcopal for a Congregational place of worship, who shall reproach him?