prevent the speedy disruption of so inharmonious a combination; and many Englishmen would share his expectation. It may be, such books as this reveal who the separatists would be and what their direction. We can only say that no Catholic can ever regard with any feeling but one of profound contempt the theology or the philosophy of Mr. Martin Farquhar Tupper.

The Song of Hiawatha.

By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. THIS is decidedly a remarkable Poem. It is at all events startling (on metrical and philological grounds) to nineteenth century ears, and the prejudices of English poetry-mongers. Not that we are at all prepared to refer it (on any grounds) to any past period of Poetic art, we are inclined rather to account it unique. For though heathen poets thenselves have exhibited rough but true pictures of the natural morality, which they recognized as "a law unto themselves," and though the poetry of modern and Christian times, and of our own country in particular, has exhibited abundant sense of the power and beauty of external nature; it has been reserved for Mr. Longfellow's Muse to carry him so far out of his proper self as a Christian poet, as to invest him for the time being with the feelings proper to his ideal heathenism. The subject matter of the Poem is Indian legendary natural religion. It has been called Homeric, and the comparison is by no means inapt, if we take this singular difference into consideration, that while the old Greek Epic is a picture to the modern of a state of life and morals, from the authoritative hand of one qualified by experience and sympathy to depict it, the Christianized and civilized Indian will one day peruse with wonder as well as admiration, the noble compound of dignified fable and high morality, which has been composed for the benefit, and, as it were, in the name of his race, by a poet wholly external to it.

Mr. Longfellow professes to have derived his inspiration from actually existing Indian legends; and, whatever may have supplied the foundation of the narrative of his poem, the spirit which has actuated him in addressing himself to the subject, is beautifully expressed in the following lines:

"Ye whose hearts are pure and simple,

Who have faith in GOD and nature,
Who believe that in all ages,

Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms,

There are longings, yearnings, strivings,

For the good they comprehend not,
That the feeble hands and helpless,

Groping blindly in the darkness,

Touch GoD's right hand in that darkness,

And are lifted up and strengthened ;-
Listen to this simple story,

To this Song of Hiawatha."

The uncouthness of the names however is not a little drawback to

the reader; and there is an affectation of simplicity in parts which borders on the ludicrous.

Le Directoire du Prêtre dans sa vie privée et dans sa vie publique. Par le P. BENOIT VALUY de la Compagnie de JESUS. Quatrième edition. Lyon: J. B. Pélagaud et Cie. pp. 214.

THIS is another work on the obligations and responsibilities of the pastoral office, with which the French press is constantly teeming. Although the Directoire du Prétre is a much smaller book than the Pratique du zèle ecclésiastique recently reviewed by us, it professes to embrace quite as great a variety of subjects as the latter work, and it has moreover certain pretensions about it which the Pratique has not-being full of Latin quotations from some of the Fathers and from Roman Divines;-but of course these subjects are not treated of as fully by the Abbé Valuy as by the Abbé Dubois. Neither does that seem to have been M. Valuy's object. His aim was to give hints rather than laboured disquisitions on a pastor's duties; and his work does contain no doubt many useful hints and suggestions; but it is not so eminently practical, nor would it prove so generally unexceptionable and useful for English churchmen as the Pratique du zèle ecclésiastique. M. Valuy's work comes out with the imprimatur of the Archbishop of Lyons.

Lives of the Saints-I. to X. Oxford: Shrimpton; London: Whittaker.

THIS cheap and vigorous little series emanates, it is understood, from the friends of Mr. Aitken. As might be expected therefore there is much in the "Lives" that we can admire; they are the work of writers who sympathize with the holy men whom they commemorate and do full and ungrudging justice to their sanctity and heroism. At the same time it is easy to detect the peculiarities of the school to which they belong; and these peculiar views unfortunately fall in but too well with much of English misbelief. Thus in a very useful Life of S. Etheldreda, we read, "Oh, if men could but taste the joy of being a pardoned child of GOD!" and again; "It is a joy unspeakable to be a pardoned sinner, to have obtained and to be possessed of redemption through His Blood." Now there cannot be any parish priest of moderate experience who has not seen the evil of language of this nature as employed by Methodists; nor can we think that it will be less injurious when emanating from a church pulpit. One other example shall be given. The Life of S. Augustine (this is the keynote of the biography) is said to be "an unanswerable reply to all those who despair of their conversion." That is to say, we have here the old confounding of two things quite dissimilar, the state of the unregenerate and the regeneWe cannot conceive it possible that any good can come from such a hashing up again of Wesleyanism.

rate.

1. Objections to the Choral Service considered. The substance of a Lecture by the Rev. T. P. WRIGHT, M.A., Incumbent of S. Philip's, Dalston. Rivingtons.

2. Music in the Parish Church. A Lecture delivered at Newcastleon-Tyne. By JOHN HULLAH, Professor of Music in King's College, London. J. W. Parker.

THESE are two very useful guides to public opinion, although neither is altogether faultless. It is very satisfactory to find Mr. Hullah, for example, advocating the placing of the choir in the chancel, the use (as we understand him) of the Gregorian tones, and the absolute necessity, where there is a choir, of the prayers being intoned by the priest. Only we are much surprised that both he and Mr. Wright fall into the error of supposing that this is something different from saying" them; whereas it is, of course, precisely the same.

Mr. Wright meets some of the popular objections very successfully. Thus it is asked:-"If any one were earnestly imploring protection from impending danger, would he intone his prayer?" He admits that he would not; but then he replies, neither on deliverance would he chant his thanksgiving: although, ex hypothesi, it is admitted that music is the natural vehicle of praise. The real answer is this, that for private acts of devotion we do not require music; for those which are common, however, we do, in order that all may keep together, and that the offering may be made noble. Whether, therefore, a service should be musical, or unmusical, does not depend upon whether we are praying or praising; but upon whether it is a public or a private act in which we are engaged. Indeed so naturally is music the vehicle of prayer, that it has been found by a missionary in India, that till he intoned the prayers, his converts could not be persuaded to attend the service.

Another very interesting anecdote which Mr. Wright gives is from the annals of the Baptist Society, which for a long time set itself against all singing. The first impugner of this principle was a minister named Keach, who, after a long controversy, was permitted to sing one hymn at their "ordinance of the LORD's Supper.' After six years the rule was enlarged to take in all Thanksgiving Days, and after fourteen to all Sundays; but then only at the end of the Evening Service, so that objectors might have the opportunity of retiring. In 1790 opinion had so much changed, that another of their ministers (Dr. W. Rippon), published a collection of Hymns and Tunes, which realised the almost incredible sum of £70,000!

The Owlet of Owlstone Edge, (Masters) is a very clever and amusing tale, from the pen which has often amused us before, in "Milford Malvoisin," "S. Antholin's," and other well known stories. We have a panorama of the interior of fourteen country parsonages, obtained through the instrumentality of an "owlet," who peers down chimneys, and describes the result of his inspection in a highly graphic manner. The department of clerical domestic economy to which he mainly directs his attention, is the wife department. "Here's a trifle of wives"

is the key-note of his composition, and he harmonizes his strain of goodhumoured criticism in every conceivable "mode," and with every conceivable accompaniment. We have not space to give a detailed examination of its parts, or to make any extracts, but we can recommend it to the parsons' wives of England, as suggesting, at all events, many most important and too frequently overlooked considerations, on which they may well reflect, and which are likely to supply many an amiable lady with a principle for her daily duties, where she has hitherto had no guide but unchecked impulse or uneducated instinct. The "Owlet" is not a book which has been hastily dashed off in order to send another contribution of nonsense and fun into the book-market; it sets forth great social and moral truth, the result of much experience. We fully agree with Mr. Paget in his opinion that clergymen's wives ought to be "real sisters of charity," and thankfully acknowledge that they have as a body, in so far as country villages are concerned, fulfilled the duties of their position with considerable success. At the same time we are glad to find it here distinctly admitted, that nothing short of combined and definite organization both of men and women will suffice for the work of evangelization and charity in our great towns. And with such orders actively existing a married priest is much less able to maintain his proper relations and intercourse than an unmarried one. It is remarkable, too, that the advocate of Parsons' wives only finds occasion for praise in two out of fourteen! The want of subjection to clerical authority in Miss Sellon is strongly protested against. But we must leave the "Owlet" to our readers, not, however, without praising the engraving of the frontispiece: both in design and execution it is admirable, and completes the tout ensemble of a very finished and entertaining little book.

We have seldom read a Sermon, either of greater intrinsic value, or more suitable to the occasion when it was delivered, than one preached by Mr. SKINNER, on the Sunday after Dr. Lushington's Judgment; and now published under the title of, Why do we prize Externals in the Service of God? (Hayes.) It is just an instance of wrong and injustice drawing out the energies of men.

With this Sermon we naturally compare Five Sermons preached at Bedminster Church (Masters); and if we cannot give them the same high praise, it is owing to the fact that the Preachers were not personally interested in the wrong done, as is Mr. Skinner at S. Barnabas'. One Sermon in the volume is open to still more positive criticism, as in it the writer goes out of his way to impugn a principle as acknowledged in the Middle Ages, viz., that "Alms maketh an atonement for sin." Now is not the writer aware that this is the strong language of Holy Scripture?-We presume that he admits the Apocryphal Books to be part of Holy Scripture. And, secondly, we would ask, Is not the making "compensation" a part of repentance? And if so, what is almsgiving but one way of making compensation?

The fact is that the estimable writer has inadvertently suffered himself to be misled by a word. It by no means follows, that because Mediation and Atonement are the special work of CHRIST, that there is no other person or thing which possesses a power similar in kind

-though, of course, not in degree. Otherwise we are wrong to retain an Order of Priests, or to practise Intercessory Prayer, or to use Sacraments.

Sermons on the Lord's Day, &c., by the Rev. G. J. GOWRING, Curate of Banbury, are very much superior to the ordinary run of pulpit discourses. We note, however, in them one capital fault-an undue subordination of the dogmatical to the social view of Christianity; the objective to the subjective. And we have but too recently seen how very likely such a habit of mind is to draw persons into heresy.

The Rev. JOHN PEAT has put into verse some high and not unpoetical Thoughts on the Plurality of Worlds (Rivingtons), which he dedicates to Sir David Brewster. The controversy is happily one on which the pious mind can range itself with satisfaction on either side. The poem ends with an unfortunate bathos-comparing the universe to a clock !

We can mention with commendation two Tracts, urging an Increase in the Episcopate of the Church-one by the Rev. ALFRED T. LEE, (Masters,) and the other entitled, More Bishops: Why we want them. (Hope and Co.) This latter is the first of an intended series; of which the second undertakes to handle the rather delicate question of "How we are to pay for them."

We cannot commend the idea, however well-intentioned, of A Christmas Tree for Christ's Children. (J. H. Parker.) To give children a text of Scripture, when they are looking for sugar-plums, is to practise that kind of deceit upon them which they are well nigh sure to resent.

There is no subject, not directly religious, in which we feel greater interest, than in the improvement of Education; and among all efforts that have been made for that object, there is none which appears to us to be based on such sound principles as the colleges set on foot by Mr. Maurice. Mechanics' Institutes, and the lecture system which seems to have superseded them, alike failed, inasmuch as they did not pretend to give continuous progressive instruction. But simple failure was not their worst feature: they were morally injurious, to the classes for whom they were intended: they deceived them by making them believe that the mere cramming of facts into the mind, or the pleasurable excitement of a lecture, is Education.

Mr. Maurice has been the first to inform the working classes that all such methods are delusive, and, what is more to the point, has established a better system, which is based on the principle that Education in adults must be conducted just as in the young, viz., by imparting to men and women careful elementary instruction in the several branches of study into which knowledge is divided. At Cambridge the same views have been taken up by a Council of Members of the University, with Mr. HARVEY GOODWIN for their President, whose introductory "Address" is before us. (Deighton, Bell and Co.) We recommend it for general perusal, and hope sincerely that the movement will be taken up in other towns. Only too much must not be expected from it.