for. But we are not ready to admit that he sanctions any experiments which are made at the present day for the express purpose of proving that he is a faithful God. These proofs are recorded in his Word.

Mr. Muller belongs, we understand, to the body known in England as the Plymouth Brethren. The volume is a very readable one, the style being quaint and simple, while the work of the editor appears to have been judiciously done, and the publishers have manifested their usual good taste in the mechanical execution of their work.

The Crucible; or, Tests of a Regenerate State. Designed to bring to light Suppressed Hopes, expose False Ones, and confirm the True. By REV. J. A. GOODHUE, A. M. With an Introduction, by REV. EDWARD N. KIRK, D. D. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1861. pp. 352.

WE are glad to see this new edition of a most valuable treatise. Of all the religious books of an experimental character, published within the last ten years, there is no one which we have seen possessing higher claims to attention than this. Such is our judgment, after a careful perusal, from the commencement of the first chapter to the close of the last. The subject is one of paramount importance in every age of the Church, and the treatment of it in these pages is original, discriminating, sober, and eminently Scriptural. It is not, as some critics have seemed to suppose, a theory, constructed by the author in the retirement of his library, but an embodiment of the fruits of an earnest and painful pastoral experience, - a careful and elaborate induction from a great multitude of facts seen in the clear light of God's word. It is strictly Baconian. Thus when he asserts that a child already converted, but having no hope, will express himself in such and such ways, it is not because he thinks it ought to be so, or that the Bible says it, but it is that he has uniformly found it so; and that which he has found in the child's talk, the expression of his views and feelings respecting himself, and the peculiar tenor and tone of his self-exclusion from the pale of Christians, or the rejection of religious hope, admits of no Scriptural solution except on the supposition that regeneration has already taken place. So also in the case of an adult, actually converted, but destitute of a hope, our author believes he finds, not unfrequently, Scriptural evidence of regeneration partly in some things which, according to the conventional notions on the subject, would be set down on the other side. The following extract will illustrate :

"In the state of unacknowledged regeneration, this inward compunction induces a melancholy seriousness, and repeated struggles for deliverance and peace. In the other states, in some exceptional cases, the person is impelled by the same cause to an opposite course of life. He seeks for peace by striving, not to obey, but to stifle the dictates of his quickened conscience. He tries not to hearken to the utterances of God, which are constantly falling upon his ear from within and without, but to silence them. The result is, he lives a life of contention with God and the monitions of his own enlightened nature. He betakes himself to apparent opposition to religion, to immoral practices and irreligious society, not because he despises things that are good, but to quell the commotions of his troubled soul. Thus he lives on, in utter abandonment of religious things, except as he is impelled, by the disquiet of his quickened but unadjusted nature, to oppose them, until, being unable to maintain the contest longer, he is brought, by some particular providence and by the Spirit of God, to cease the strife, and yield himself to Christ in a sweet submissiveness unfelt before.

"An instance in illustration is that of a lady already mentioned as endeavoring to suppress the uprisings of the new life within, by seeking to find out inconsistencies in the Bible. When afflicted by the death of a child, her heart rose in opposition to God's dealing in the event. She declared it was unjust. He had no right to deprive her of her child. She could not and would not endure it. But her opposition, too keen to be continued long, was soon broken, and melted into the sweetness of complete submission, which resulted in a public profession of religion, her original experience being referred to a period seven years prior to these events."- p. 49, 50.

Although the Treatise is not doctrinal in form, it distinctly recognizes, throughout, the old foundations, exalting Christ as King on his throne, and making the sinner's salvation, from first to last, a matter of peculiar and sovereign grace. The style is singularly concise and clear, and the tone that of a man in earnest and who knows whereof he affirms. Any person pondering sincerely and anxiously the question of his own religious state, with a desire, above all things, to stand on the true foundation, may derive invaluable aid from the perusal of Mr. Goodhue's work. We desire also to commend it to the special attention of the pastors of our churches. They will find it helpful in the performance of some of their most important and most difficult duties, both in the pulpit and in pastoral intercourse.

It is divided into three Parts. Part I. treats of Unrecognized Regeneration; or, Faith without Hope. Part II., of Unrecognizable Regeneration; or, Hope without Faith; and Part III., of Recognized Regeneration; or, Faith and Hope. We hope, at another time, to enter somewhat fully into the discussion of this important subject, in a more extended review of Mr. Goodhue's discriminating and excellent Treatise.

The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World; from Marathon to Waterloo. By E. S. CREASY, M. A., Professor of Ancient and Modern History in University College, London; late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 12mo. pp. 364. New York: Harper & Brothers.

THE chronology of History is made out on the battle field, and civilization has worked outward from these bloody centres. Prof. Creasy has wisely seized on these facts and written one of those few books fitted for the earlier students in history. It starts on the true philosophy of beginning with outlines, and the osteology of the great body of Universal History. A large part of the earlier reading and research in this field is lost in the minuteness and indiscriminateness of the gathering, and in an inability to grade events, as great and small, and to locate them in the relations of cause and effect. The writers of this class of reading have not made the pivots prominent around which nations have revolved for good or ill. Prof. Creasy shows us fifteen of these, standing up among the centuries. They are as a line of military posts through a territory. A tolerable mastery of them gives one the mastery of the entire field, or at least makes the conquest systematic and easy. These points in history being fixed, one reckons to and from them in his reading in this department; he locates the facts he acquires, and is thus able, in his philosophy of history, to connect the development of principles, and the show of progress and decline in nations with their true causes.

In the volume before us, the battles named are not only well delineated, but they are connected by a running synopsis of events occurring between each two. Thus the reader is put in possession of a continuous history without being confused by an accumulation of unimportant items, while he is taking possession of the few great central facts and causes. The choice of these battles must have been difficult, though we think fortunate in the main. Probably no two authors would have taken these identical fifteen, no more and no less for such a volume.

Those selected are as follows: Marathon, B. C. 490; Syracuse, 413; Arbela, 331; Metaurus, 207; Armenius, A. D.; 9 Châlons, 451; Tours, 732; Hastings, 1066; Joan of Arc's, 1429; Spanish Armada, 1588; Blenheim, 1704; Pultowa, 1709; Saratoga, 1777; Valmy, 1792; and Waterloo, 1815.

The volume is worthy to be revised into a primary Text Book in Universal History.

Evenings with the Doctrines. By NEHEMIAH ADAMS, D. D. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1861. pp. 415.

THIS beautiful volume contains the substance of seventeen familiar Tuesday evening lectures. The important leading doctrines of the Gospel are clearly stated and proved in a way to render them easily understood, and in a style that is eminently practical and attractive. The discourses are exceedingly interesting, abounding in striking and original thoughts. Those who are accustomed to regard the discussion of doctrines as necessarily dry and forbidding, can here have their mistake fully corrected. We think the book a very useful and timely one. While its reading cannot fail to remove difficulties and promote the piety of Christians, it must interest the Church anew in the reëxamination of the great principles which are so essential to intelligent and steadfast piety. And what can be of more importance in these times of drifting into dangerous speculations and superficial reading and thinking?

We sincerely wish the volume could go into every Christian family.

THERE have been laid on our table, too late for careful notice in this number, books as follows:

Rawlinson's Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scripture Records. 1860. pp. 454. Gould & Lincoln.

Things not Generally Known. Edited by David A. Wells, and published by D. Appleton & Co. 1860. pp. 432.

The Pulpit of the American Revolution. Introduction, Notes, &c. by John Wingate Thornton. Gould & Lincoln. 1860. pp. 537. Vindication of New England Churches. By John Wise. Cong. Board of Publication. 1860. pp. 245.

The Benefits of Christ's Death. By Aonio Paleareo. Republished by Gould & Lincoln. 1860. pp. 160.

ARTICLE IX.

SHORT SERMONS.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor," &c. - Isaiah 61: 1; Luke 4: 18, 19.

WHAT a doctrinal, practical, and fervent sermon our Saviour must have preached from this text on his visit to his native town Nazareth! As he showed who were meant by "The Captives," "The Blind,” "The Bruised," and brought out clearly the state of the "brokenhearted," the means of "deliverance" and healing, and specially as he pressed now as "the acceptable" time, what mind could have remained uninstructed, and what heart unmoved. "And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth." It was a solemn sermon, and one to try the heart. And yet the poor, blind, captive souls were not savingly benefited. Such is the "deceitful and desperately wicked" condition of man's heart! They began to say, "Is not this Joseph's son?" And to show them to themselves, Jesus brought out the doctrine of divine sovereignty; whereupon they were filled with murderous wrath, and they could not have remained ignorant of their guilty and lost state. What food for serious reflection and deep feeling is here both for ministers and hearers!

"With whom is no variableness." - James 1: 17.

THE word rendered variableness is in the Greek, wapa\\ayǹ, from which comes the striking astronomical term parallax. The stars that are so inconceivably distant that they appear precisely in the same position from the opposite sides of the earth's orbit, are said to have no parallax, no angle of difference, and so nothing can be told of their size, place, or orbit.

Here is a striking presentation of the immutability of God. No distances of time or place cause him to vary in the least possible angle or degree. To the eye of man on the earth and of Gabriel in glory God is, and will ever be, the same; and it is but natural and right that both should fall on their faces and adore and worship. He dwells in light unapproachable and full of glory. "Praise ye the Lord; praise ye the name of the Lord; praise him, O ye servants of the Lord."