ness.

them as thoughtful. They are recluse, meditative men, who look upon the world with the eye of a philosopher, who pry into human life with considerable insight, who have much sentimental yearning, who pride themselves upon a fastidious individuality, who sometimes go so far as to consider dirty linen or general shabbiness as the mark of genius. These men write for magazines or publish books. They often belong to the transcendental school initiated by Coleridge in England, by Emerson in this country. They affect a mysterious profundity; their writings are the faint glimmerings of truth; they talk about the laws of the soul, elective affinities, the inner life, ecstacy of vision, and all along they continually hint at what they have not clear ideas enough of to express; they do not think, but simply meditate and dream. So they never clear themselves of this misty indefiniteness of thought; and yet you will in vain try to combine the laws of cause and effect to unriddle their puzzles. They are much read by young people who are tremendously in earnest. We have had our days of transcendental suggestiveIt was several years ago in college. We used to carry Emerson's "Essays" into woody solitudes, and pore over them with fascination, imagining we were getting at the secrets of the universe; we read "Sartor Resartus," and had some ingenious speculations about the devil; we wrote essays which were continually hinting at the profounder laws, though for the life of us we could never tell exactly what they were; we borrowed Kant from the library; we got a smattering of Schelling; we read German; we read Coleridge on the "Reason and the Understanding," also on the "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit;"we were full of grand thoughts (not our own); we had the reputation of profundity in college; we read the life of every whining literary starveling as eagerly as if he had been a saint. It was curious what a jumble of suggestive thoughts was in one small head. How we, a little band, used to pity our classmates who had no such glorious visions of superior ideas! But we were graduated in process of time, and came into contact with real life; we slowly shook ourselves free from the charm of a way of thinking which had been so wanting in common sense. We packed up our transcendental books in one corner of the library, near the top shelf; the slowly

once in.

gathering dust of several years is on them now, and may it continue to accumulate. Since then we have administered to many young men cordials for the mental derangement we were But the writers who were our guides in those years have themselves changed. They are more practical; yet the animus of their former thoughts remains; they never come to any generous, broad, useful conclusions.

Now, dear reader, just think in the books you have read how general this spirit of suggestiveness is. How many writers are valued only for this one quality. Willis, Curtis, Emerson, Whipple, Tuckerman — all very suggestive, animating writers - what completeness is there in their views of life? They are wise, observing, sparkling, earnest; but they never seem to sum up their thoughts into systematic form. They cause you to think, but they seldom join thoughts to each other so that you see the law by which they are connected. They omit just what the reader has a right to demand. And this incompleteness is the chief fault with all such books as we have described in the first part of this article. They make up, however, in geniality what they lack in systematic thought. But the great danger in reading such books habitually is, that you fall into the habit of suggesting things yourself instead of thinking out clearly the ideas you have. In this way, you may fill the mind with odds and ends of things, without ever being able to think correctly or usefully on any subject. And this is the bane of popular essayists, popular reviewers, popular writers. You not merely have thinking at second-hand; the thinking itself is given only in a crude form.

But we must make a distinction even among suggestive writers, between those who, in playing with thoughts, flash out mere fancies, and those who think so intensely that while they write with power upon a given subject, their thoughts scintillate and ramify almost every other who can I who can never write without scattering with perfect naturalness a profusion of such thoughts by the way. Ruskin, and Hare, and the author of "Friends in Council" belong to this class, while not a few celebrities in the rationalizing school of authors belong most unmistakably to the other.

And especially do we except the writers of books full of

personal feeling, of individual humor, from this stigma. They do not aim to give thought, but to show themselves. You care little whether the thinking be correct or not, provided it is given in a pleasant way. The writer's aim is to be himself, and to tell just what he knows, what he thinks. He is more often writing for recreation than for party or reputation; yet a man who has thought well and lived wisely, in his recreative hours will give out the quintessence of human wisdom, because it has come to be the natural atmosphere of his mind. Hence the value of memoirs of eminent men, and of essayists who write not at the dictation of a magazine editor but to suit themselves. Hence, too, the value of the Country Parson's Recreations. They were not written apparently to order, but their subjectmatter had been collecting for years. A discriminating mind had looked on men and women as they actually lived, and had put under various heads the accidents and realities of life. It had gone through with enough of human experience to give both the bright and the dark side, and to temper the one with the other. And so you have these essays published so elegantly in this their American dress. We thought at first of presenting a dissected view of several, that the reader might with us trace out what was peculiar in them; but the framework of each essay is so slender, so delicately put together, that when exhibited by itself you can gain no just idea of the superstructure. This may weaken our former statement that the author is a genial, and, in his way, a profound philosopher. But where one is writing on life in its social and moral aspects, it seems odd to make logical divisions and abstract statements. It is more natural to state results, and to try to put them in such a light that every one will acknowledge their truthfulness. Here our author is inimitable in his subtile and delicate transitions from topic to topic, always saying just enough to impress upon us what he has in mind. The shrewdness of his insight, the discriminating acuteness of his practical mind, are manifest upon every page. All the tender and inmost thoughts you ever had thoughts which each one of us goes over and over in our solitary minds he touches upon with delicacy and happy skill. He states the truth, while he dissipates the cloud of sentimental feeling which often obscures the heart. And of great worth is

the power of speaking the truth here, without soiling virgin. freshness of feeling, without blasting sensitive emotions, which, rightly educated, are of great help in making manhood. He excels in ability to express and picture latent thoughts. He has not exactly the novelist's power in this respect, but more than the novelist's geniality. Withal there is genuine cheerfulness in the Recreations. "No matter if the world is so very bad; take it as it is, and do the best you can:" - this is the motto of the Country Parson, and of the Anglican Church to which he belongs. It gives you a cheerful, Christian view of life. A clergyman, even in his recreative hours, must dwell upon the serious as well as merry side of character. The remark holds true with the author of these essays. He is serious and mirthful.

We have all along implied that our author's forte is in the delineation of character. Off this ground he is not in his ele

He does not describe events well; he lacks the sparkle of the genuine magazinist. The essay on "Life at the WaterCure" is tame after the second page, almost worthless, no better than the common run of book reviews. "Concerning Glasgow down the Water," where incidents abound, is poor. "Concerning Churchyards" has much curious information, but the writer shuffles through it too slowly, and the subject does not give scope to his genial comments. "Concerning Man and his Dwelling-place" is good because it is personal and gives a very searching analysis of Mr. Buckle, and of a very remarkable book. "Concerning the Pulpit in Scotland" is better than any yet named; but none of these have the homely, natural humor which belongs to those which we have not named, which fill the remainder of the volumes, which are made up of personal observations; of original thoughts on the commonest topics, of pictures of mental character which we are all familiar with, of hints and consolations and mutual confessions between the reader and the writer, which often open a new world to us the world of our own hearts excited to press to solution the question, How shall we best live? All the "Concernings" which touch upon topics that come right home to us are the best of reading and very instructive. How many serious, earnest thoughts are not only started, but followed up in "Con

cerning Future Years!" What a satisfactory comment upon the works of immature persons is "Concerning Veal!" Read it thoughtfully, and you will never forget its consoling, wise counsel. "Concerning Screws!" we say not merely how suggestive, but how skilfully has the writer in his own genial way applied this thought to all that concerns us! "Concerning the Worries of Life, and How to Meet them "- there is a vein of cheerfulness in this essay which is native to the Country Parson, as also in "Concerning Giving Up and Coming Down,' in "Concerning Two Blisters of Humanity," and in “Concerning Growing Old;" while "Concerning the Art of Putting Things" informs you how to make the most of your own powers, and "Concerning the Dignity of Dulness" tells us that if we cannot make a reputation by our wits, we can make it through the very want of wits. No doubt this essay is the most popular of any; we like it. But perhaps the Country Parson writes most genially and happily "Concerning the Country Parson's Life" and "Concerning the Parson's Choice," - both essays the outcome of "a quiet and lonely life, little varied and very happy," "written as something which might afford variety of work, which often proves the most restful of all recreations." Country Parsons! do these two essays, and indeed all, depict life as you have found it? Have you found time to frame as genial a philosophy of human nature? Do you preach sermons which make men better and wiser? Do you so love your work as to write of it with purely recreative zest? Then stay in your parsonages, and thank God for the blessing of a little cure. But if you are soured in temper and in piety, if you are always complaining about your finances, and are pinched in faith as well as in pocket, be sure Providence has another call for you, which, if you are wise, you will accept forthwith and be thankful.

After having thought much and carefully, we have come to the conclusion that a chief reason why many of our parish churches are so poorly attended is the want of adaptation of so many of the clergy to the work of religious teaching, and the effect of this upon a great many hearts who are not likely to be won to Christ and right living save through the faithfulness of their parish minister. The most of people look at the ser