one who believes the Gospel narrative to be true and inspired, may justly be regarded as simply and plainly impossible." p. 179. It is refreshing to find the ripest erudition wedded to a simple, childlike faith. The lecturer comes forward to guard, in the first instance, his youthful audience, and next, his readers, against "forms of heresy more subtle than ever Ebionite propounded or Marcionite devised, forms of heresy that have clad themselves in the trappings of modern historical philosophy, and have learned to accommodate themselves to the more distinctly earthly aspects of modern speculation . . . humanitarian views. . . intruding themselves into our popular literature as well as into our popular theology . . a so-called love of truth, a bleak, barren, loveless love of truth . . . that like Agag claims to walk delicately, and to be respected, and to be spared . . gathering around itself its Epicurean audiences: these are the tides against which this volume builds up another embankment, in the spirit of a warm piety as well as with the resources of a competent criticism. The publishers have done well in giving it to the American public in so inviting a dress. Crests from the Ocean- World; or, Experiences in a Voyage to Europe, principally in France, Belgium, and England. By a Traveller and Teacher. Boston: Whittemore, Niles, and Hall. 1861. pp. 408. THIS is an instructive and genial book, lively with description and incident. Reading it is the next best thing to making the journey, but we covet the best thing. However this book is well written, and will be read. Perhaps the best thing, after all, is to read this book for suggestion and information, and then make the tour. JOHN WILEY, New York, sends us four volumes of Ruskin's Works: "The Seven Lamps of Architecture" and "The Stones of Venice." We shall give another article on Ruskin in a future number. ARTICLE IX. THE ROUND TABLE. We find in our Drawer several choice bits of poetry (we hope to find more of them) which we shall scatter over our Table as the season favors us with their fragrant bloom. In this, that singularly abnormal condition is very happily expressed in which one seems to be dead "Yet hears his burial talked of by his friends." SONNET. THEY thought that I was dead, so still I lay And pleased, I heard the pale-lipped whisperers say, O, lowering sky! and yet the dawn was gray!" - THE LOGIC OF EVENTS.- Neither Hedge nor Mill lays down the rules for this kind of logic. It is the logic of Divine Providence and cannot be systematized for any human school. The pending war is a good illustrative section of this species of reasoning, and shows how powerful God is in moral suasion when he crowds facts and events into the place of men's theories and fancies. Before this most unholy struggle opened to overthrow one of the best of human governments, the public were greatly annoyed by new principles in morals, new definitions and responsibilities for crime, new theories in criminal jurisprudence, a new adjustment of the moral attributes of God, and so a new and improved theology. Crime, we were taught, is but the natural outworking of unfortunate constitutional propensities. Sin is only a blunder against self-interest, and has no intrinsic demerit. So the prison must be placed near the asylum, and feather-beds and Christmas dinners be provided alike for the cut-throat and the lunatic. Pardons and certificates of health must be issued to the inmates of both, as meaning about the same thing, as fast as those wishing to leave say they feel better. The child may set up squatter sovereignty in the school-room, as he does at home, and if he thinks his private rights are invaded by the teacher, he may break up the government or secede. No physical resistance of evil is scriptural, and any government of force must be abandoned. We must not defend even our little ones from the bludgeon and dagger by anything more forcible than "Please, sir, that is not agreeable." No blood is so sacred as the blood of the murderer, and taking numan life for capital crime is barbarous. God's principal attribute in governing is love, his justice and other sterner qualities having become obsolete in this fast age, or exhausted and worn out in Old Testament times. Men, male and female, and women, male and female, have pressed these views for the last thirty years on the public ear. Nothing in reply could show them their folly and sin. By the opening of this war God has taken up the argument against them in the logic of events, and the result already is exceedingly comforting and refreshing. The moral suasionist is studying Hardee's "Tactics." The lecturing women and their gentle disciples of both sexes are knitting for the army. The constitutional proclivity to secession and rebellion, bridge-burning and the robbery of mints, arsenals, and treasuries, is now found to be the rankest of all crimes and beyond any atonement. Those who circulated petitions for the pardon of murderers and the repeal of the death-penalty have joined the sharp-shooters with telescopic rifles. Some who were by profession the prisoner's friends, and who pitied every villain that fell into the hands of the law, have opened recruiting offices for the army. Divines who preached so earnestly a government of God all love and no punishment, and who pleaded so eloquently against hanging men of blood, have gone as chaplains to pray that we may smite the enemy hip and thigh with a great slaughter. Men with long hair, who nauseated us with the twaddle about governing the world by love, now hang about the corners and sing, " Glory, hallelujah," as the recruits march off for the wars. 66 Verily, when masked batteries open on the government, their flashing gives new light to some men. This providential logic of events is quite convincing and converting. God has his own methods of persuasion, and the war is yielding much rich fruit for the North, before we come to the reëstablishment of the government. TRUST. To Him who hears, I whisper all; And softlier than the dews of heaven Wrapt in the peace that follows prayer Through noonday heat and dust. No more Life's mysteries vex my thought; And found the promised rest. Two or three Scotch divines have recently set to work to show, by several volumes of illustrations, that their people are not inferior to their English or Irish neighbors in mother-humor, if in mother-wit. This is capital, and it points an ethical hint, as well as stirs the risibilities. A reverend doctor was on his way to open a new house of worship. As he made his way, with official gravity, through the crowd assembled around the church, an elderly man, who wore a smooth, bright, reddish-brown wig, asked to speak a moment with the clergyman. "Well. Duncan, (says the divine,) can ye not wait till after worship?" "No, Doctor, I must speak to ye now, for it is a matter on my conscience." "Oh, since it is a matter of conscience, tell me what it is; but be brief, Duncan, for time presses." "The matter is this: Doctor, ye see the clock yonder on the face of the new church. Well, there is no clock really there - nothing but the face of a clock. There is no truth in it but only once in twelve hours. Now it is, in my mind, very wrong and quite against my conscience, that there should be a lie on the face of the house of the Lord." 66 Duncan," replied the minister, "I will consider the point. But I am glad to see you looking so well; you are not young now; I remember you for many years; and what a fine head of hair you still have!" "Eh, Doctor, you are joking now; it is long since I have had any hair." "Oh, Duncan, Duncan, are you going into the house of the Lord with a lie upon your head?" This settled the question; and the doctor heard no more of the lie on the face of the clock. THE LAST APPEAL. THE room is swept and garnished for thy sake; The fire is blazing brightly on the hearth; Faith lingers yet to give the welcome here. Daily I weave the airy web of hope Frail as the spider's, wrought with beads of dew That, like Penelope's, each night undone, Each morn in patience I begin anew. When wilt thou come? Not yet? To-morrow Faith will take her flight, TENNYSON puts into Vivian's Song in the "Idylls" the pretty but questionable refrain "O trust me not at all, or all in all : " to which a poetical correspondent of ours excepts, in these neatly turned stanzas, suggested by an intimation, thus conveyed, of a withdrawal of confidence from the one so complaining: Tell not to me, my friend, the secret sin; Nor would I have you prove your heart no tomb; |