During most of this period the downfall of the Federal party had left a general calm in our national politics. The Missouri Compromise, South American Independence, and the recognition of Greek nationality, were the most interesting topics of debate. V.-Educational. (31.) "First Lessons in Botany and Vegetable Physiology. Illustrated by over three hundred wood-engravings, from original drawings by Isaac Sprague. To which is added a copious Glossary or Dictionary of Botanical Terms, by ASA GRAY, Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University." (8vo., pp. 236. New-York: Ivison & Phinney. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co 1857.) (32.) "Introduction to Structural and Systematic Botany and Vegetable Physiology, being a fifth Revised Edition of the Botanical Text-Book. Illustrated with over thirteen hundred wood-cuts. By ASA GRAY, M. D., Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University." (8vo., pp. 555. NewYork: Ivison & Phinney. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1858.) (33.) "Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States. Revised Edition. Including Virginia, Kentucky, and all east of the Mississippi. Arranged according to the Natural System. By ASA GRAY, Fisher Professor of Natural History in Harvard University. (The Mosses and Liverworts, by WM. S. SULLIVANTS.) With fourteen Plates, illustrating the Genera of the Cryptogamia." (8vo., pp. 739. New-York: Ivison & Phinney. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. 1858.) The attention of professors and instructors in our colleges, academies, and seminaries, as well as of private amateurs of the floral science, may be particularly invited to this beautiful series of volumes. Professor Gray, with a professional enterprise, has herein laid before the American public a series of scientific works doing honor to Harvard, and to our country too, provided it finds itself sustained as a recompensing enterprise. We may add that Ivison and Phinney have done the exterior in a style worthy of the work. The FIRST volume is simply an elementary botany, intended for the use of beginners, and for classes in the common and higher schools. Perfect scientific simplicity is here maintained, aided by plentiful illustrations for the purpose of introduction to those works in which the plants of a country, especially our own, are described. It comprises an analysis measurably complete of the structure, organs, growth, and reproduction of plants, and of their important uses in the scheme of creation. It furnishes a sufficiently complete system for the ordinary routine of education, and a suitable preparatory for the pupil whose tastes may lead him to prosecute his path to higher attainments. The SECOND volume is a revised edition of a more extended manual, intended as a text-book for classes, higher seminaries, colleges, universities, and medical schools, in structural and physiological botany, and a convenient introduction to systematic or descriptive botany, adapted to the present condition of the science. The THIRD volume is a revised and extended edition of a compendious flora of the northern portion of our country, arranged according to the natural system. The southern boundary is so drawn as to include all which are not characteristically southern plants. The illustrations are abundant, in general fresh from nature, and completed apparently at a liberal outlay. (34.) "Ministering Children. A Tale dedicated to Childhood." (12mo., pp. 408. New-York: Carter & Brothers. 1858.) It is a rare compliment which this beautiful child's book has received to have passed through some thirty editions in England, and to have been issued by three independent publishers almost simultaneously in America. We think neither of the three will be a loser by the investment. As we have previously noticed the work, from our own Sunday-school press, we need only say that the Carters have done the thing in handsome style. (35.) "Scripture Lessons, designed for Sunday Schools and Families. Subjects: The Bible, Six Ages, Miracles, Prophecies, Jerusalem, and Characters, by CAROLINE R. DEUEL." (24mo., pp. 174. Carlton & Porter. 1858.) The publication of these Lessons was suggested by the success of the authoress in teaching them to a class in the mission school at the Five Points. They are in catechetical form and aided with illustrations. The subjects are selected and treated with skill, both in regard to interest and value., There is no good Sunday school where Lessons of this grade may not be imparted by a competent teacher to good advantage. We commend this little manual to the attention of Sabbath-school teachers as a very valuable addition to their list of class-books. 1 VI.-Periodicals. (36.) "Beauty of Holiness. Devoted to the Sanctity of the Heart, the Life, and the Sabbath. Edited by Rev. Mr. & Mrs. A. M. FRENCH.” Columbus, Ohio. May, 1858. The establishment of periodicals purely devoted to the cause of sanctity of heart and life is one of the encouraging omens of our day. Like every other consecrated thing, such a book has a sweet, quiet, tranquilizing look to it. It comes to one like the "mystic dove," a messenger of purity and peace. It seems a prophet of the day when the noise of battle, both physical and moral, shall cease; when the enemy shall be subdued; and when holiness to the Lord shall be written not only upon one or two periodicals, but upon all literature, all mind, all sublunary objects. The "Beauty" seems to be conducted with ability, with a true spirit and a positive practical purpose. It aims less at solving the metaphysic than at aiding the development of holiness. It has an attractive corps of contributors, and, as we understand, an increasing list of subscribers. The friends of righteousness have a special reason for aiding this periodical, from the fact that it has lost a share of its support by refusing to be silent in regard to the great organic sin of our day. What press would not the hand of sectional dictation silence? And yet, how can an advocate of consecration from all sin enter into compromise, tacit or express, with one sin. Our anti-slaveryism doubtless needs more sanctification; and most certainly our sanctification cannot exist without a full-orbed anti-slaveryism. What affinity, indeed, have sanctity and slavery? Says Cecil: "Were David to come from the house of Bathsheba preaching of his spiritual comforts, I should despise his speech." And we are compelled in sorrow to say, when lips that would silence resistance to unrighteousness, talk to us of holiness, their words sound hollow and light. Vainly will the same teacher try to lower the moral tone of the Church in rebuking one great sin, and raise the banner of holiness upon every other ground. The "Scriptural holiness" which we are to "spread through. out the land" is not a mere meek neutrality, nor a dodging, tortuous compromise; it is like the holiness of God himself, a stern, intense, unsparing antagonism to all sin and to every sin. VII.-Miscellaneous. (37.) "The New American Cyclopedia: a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Vol. H. Araktschaff-Beale." (8vo., pp. 776. New-York: Appleton & Co.) The Cyclopedia is fulfilling its promise as a national work. The articles are written with ability. The man who should undertake to read it through, as Dr. Clarke did an old encyclopedia, would not find it a very repulsive task. The present volume contains good articles on Francis Asbury, Bishop Baker, and Dr. Bangs. (38.) "Speech of the Rev. C. F. Deems, D.D., on the Trial of Rev. WM. A. SMITH, D.D., for Immorality, before the Virginia Conference, December, 1855." (8vo., pp. 168. Wilmington, N. C.: Fulton & Price. 1858.) A formidable pamphlet without the slightest attraction, external or internal, except the marked ability of the two gentlemen involved. Of the following works we have not room for full notices. "Flora; or, Self-Deception, and other Tales." (18mo., pp. 324.) "The Shadow on the Hearth; or, our Father's Voice in taking away our Little Ones. By a Bereaved Parent." (18mo., pp. 288.) "Passing Clouds; or, Love Conquering Evil." (18mo., pp. 292. NewYork: Carter & Brothers. 1858.) The Carters have been issuing a series of fine little volumes, of which the above are specimens, both in narrative and dissertational form, expressed in clegant language, pure in sentiment, and elevated in their moral tendency. "The Boy Travelers in the Lands of the Czar. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. With Numerous Illustrations." (18mo., pp. 315. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1858.) "The Brandy Drops; or, Charlie's Pledge. A Temperance Story. By AUNT JULIA." (18mo., pp. 103. New-York: Carlton & Porter. 1858.) "The Happy Home. By KIRWAN." (18mo., pp. 206. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1858.) "The Emigrant Boy and his Sister. Seven Illustrations." (18mo., pp. 217. New-York: Carlton & Porter. 1858.) "Glimpses of Jesus; or, Christ exalted in the Affections of his People. By W. P. BALFERN." (18mo., pp. 259. New-York: Sheldon, Blakeman, & Co. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. Richmond: Wortham & Cottrel. 1858.) "Ursula, a Tale of Country Life. By the Author of Amy Herbert,' etc. In two volumes." (12mo., pp. 311-314. New-York: Appleton & Co. 1858.) "Gilbert Harland; or, Good in Everything, being the early History of a City Boy. By Mrs. BARWELL. Four Illustrations." (Square 12mo., pp. 211. New-York: Carlton & Porter, Sunday School Union. 1858.) "Ellinor Grey; or, The Sunday-School Class at Trimble Hollow. By Mrs. H. C. GARDINER. Four Illustrations." (18mo., pp. 194. New-York: Carlton & Porter, Sunday School Union. 1858.) ART. XIII-LITERARY ITEMS. The following new publications in England are note-worthy: Oxford Essays for 1858. History of Frederick II, King of Prussia, called Frederick the Great. Poets and Poetry of Germany. Biographical and Critical Notices. By Madame De Pontes, Translator of Körner's Life and Works. Trübner & Co., London, announce : A Critical Dictionary of English Literature, and British and American Authors, Living and Deceased, from the Earliest Accounts to the Middle of the Ninteenth Century; containing thirty-one thousand Biographical and Literary Notices, with an Index of subject-matter. By S. Austin Allibone. 1 vol., pp. 1600, royal 8vo. Trübner's Bibliotheca, I. The Literature of the American Aboriginal Languages. By Herman E. Ludervig. With Additions and Corrections by Professor W. W. Turner. 8vo. The following are noted in the English periodicals: Translation of Hegel's Work on the Philosophy of History; being that philosopher's most popular and interesting work. Published by Bohn. Macknight's Life of Burke, 2 vols. John Garth Wilkinson is a Swedenborgian writer of no ordinary brilliancy and power. His style is somewhat of the Carlyle order, but bears marks of individuality which show that he is an independent, owing nothing to imitation. His last work is entitled Spirit Drawings; which the National Review says, "is a curious account of real phenomena within his own personal experience-phenom ena which he regards as normal, but which most people would think morbid." Wilkinson is a physician. A prize of one hundred guineas is offered for the best essay on the causes of the decrease and apparently approaching extinction of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. It is offered by a gentleman who believes that the Friends were powerful witnesses to important truths, and who laments that while the population of Britain has doubled in fifty years, the Society of Friends has diminished in number. Adjudicators of the prize, Professors Maurice, Nichols, and Rev. E. S. Pryce. We have received a specimen of a NEW LATIN-ENGLISH SCHOOL-LEXICON, on the basis of the Latin-German Lexicon of Dr. C. F. Ingerslev, by G. R. CROOKS, D.D., late Adjunct-Professor of Ancient Languages in Dickinson College, and A. J. Schem, A.M., Professor of Hebrew and Modern Languages. It is announced as nearly ready, in one volume, imperial octavo, consisting of nearly one thousand pages, from the press of LIPPINCOTT & Co., Philadelphia. What worthy History of the Methodists could come from Robert Southey? is a question keenly put by the last North British Review. And yet his biography of Wesley has been the standard work by which the world outside our own pale, including even the large mass of evangelical Christians, has judged the Wesleyan Reformation. We cherish the trust that this work is to be soon supplanted by the HISTORY OF METHODISM, by DR. STEVENS, the first volume of which will soon be put to press by CARLTON & PORTER. THE METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1858. ART. I.-MODERN MATERIALISM. THE Conditions of our nature incline us to materialism. There may be embodied spirits whose corporeal frame-work is so ethereal, and whose pursuits are so spiritual, that they may not be conscious of their material organs; but man, subjected to incessant calls by the wants of his decaying body, absorbed in secular pursuits, and consumed with worldly anxieties, is in danger of passing life without reflecting that he has a soul. When we consider that the tendency of our philosophy concurs with that of our nature, we can but think that materialism would be generally prevalent were it not for the counteracting influence of our religious belief. It is more general than many suppose. The gainsayers are upon us in swarms; not merely the vulgar but the refined. Dr. Lawrence, a distinguished physician of the last age, and the writer of the article Man in one of our best encyclopedias, (Rees's,) says, that the notion of an immaterial soul is opposed to the evidence of anatomy and physiology. French physiologists generally take the same view. Dr. Elliotson, a high living authority in medicine and phrenology, and a believer in the Christian Scriptures, declares that " the doctrine of mind, independently of matter, indicates a want of modern knowledge, and involves us in endless absurdity;" that God cannot create beings irrespective of matter, and that those who believe in the existence of the soul "are usually rank, malicious hypocrites and Pharisees." Many who adopt the creed of these gentlemen are restrained by prudential considerations from professing it, while thousands admit their premises without perceiving the conclusions which logically follow. It is the fashion to cast science and literature in a material mold; nor is even theology an exception. Matter is becoming the idol in the temple of modern thought. It may not be improper to FOURTH SERIES, VOL. X.-34 |