We did not anticipate just such a portrait of our clever friend; but, on a second inspection, it matches very well with his shrewd, commonsense, and genial way of looking at men and animals.

TRACY'S History of the American Board of Foreign Missions.

THIS work has been out of print for some years, until lately about fifty copies were found in sheets, which have been bound, and are now for sale by Crocker & Brewster. These are the last. It is not probable that the work will ever be reprinted in full. It will either be abridged and published with a continuation, or superseded by a new work which will give the history of the first thirty years much less completely. This is, therefore, the last opportunity to obtain so complete a history of the Board and its Missions during the first generation of its existence. This narrative is thoroughly prepared, and a standard authority upon the subject which it treats. It is not known that any other history of this institution is contemplated at present.

We have received from Walker, Wise & Co., Boston, "Recent Inquiries in Theology," and "Tracts for Priests and People." Also, from Appleton & Co., New York, "Aids to Faith"; to which volumes we wish to give a more extended notice (particularly the last two) than our space will at present permit. Several other important works on our table await future attention.

ARTICLE IX.

THE ROUND TABLE.

THE WAR. What now are its omens ?

The wisest can only

Half a continent

conjecture. It looks, at times, very like a reorganization of society. It has some features that remind us of the descent of the Northern tribes upon the enfeebled and effete Roman empire, which infused a new blood and vigor into those Southern regions. Life sprung forth from that terrible dying of a worn-out nationality. underwent a reconstruction of its social institutions. Old oppressions gave place to new liberties. Thousands and myriads of people, too corrupt to be of any use whatsoever, went down before the hosts of a fresher race, making room for them to try their hand at the founding

of a better order of things. God thus sets aside those cumberers of the ground who have demonstrated their moral worthlessness in this world, and gives to others a chance to do what has been left undone. War is the usual agent of these national re-creations.

Our civil conflict seems to be assuming these proportions, to be pointing to these issues. Once more the North is moving downward upon the softer civilization of the South, not, as we begin to forecast, merely to inflict some severe and well-merited chastisement upon it for its cruelties and its crimes, but to make a permanent occupation of its soil, forfeited by secession and treason; and to repopulate at least important sections of it, as the centres of a far better and rapidly diffusive state of society. A year gone by has done much to prove what many suspected, that southern life has become too essentially vitiated in its ruling sentiments and policies to be saved from self-destruction. If this be so, it had better die soon by some external compress, than eat itself up like a cancerous body. If too far diseased for successful medication, it had better go the way of all defunct 'flesh, that a living birth and growth may come after it, to increase, and multiply, and replenish the earth in a more Christian fashion.

If this be the will of Providence, we shall be resigned to the dispensation. We regard our army not only as an immense fighting corps, but as an eventual colonization society. Young, and full of enterprise, ingenuity, intelligence, and industry as are our soldiers generally, they have just the training requisite for the resettling of that wretchedly abused, but magnificent territory. If they follow all great historic precedents, multitudes of them will find a home amidst those inviting regions. They are likely to see enough of the brutality of the slave-system, not to desire its re-installation in its former abodes. If the South had wished to disgust the entire rational creation with that caudal appendage of its domestic life, it could not have taken a more effective way to do it than its insane folly has invented. It has contrived to destroy the most of whatever sympathy used to be felt for its complaints at the North. That sympathy will never be revived in people who have even a very small modicum of common-sense. Our soldiers have a large measure of this serviceable commodity. We will trust them against the wiles of this faded, and shrunken, and foul Delilah.

We watch our struggle from month to month with more than the gratitude and triumph of a victorious and righteous crusade; with the profoundly solemn emotions of those who are witnessing one of God's sublimest restorations of national honor and integrity from amidst the overthrow of gigantic evils no longer endurable. The days of creation

have come again, with the evenings and the mornings of a new era of prospective prosperity, liberty, righteousness-so we hope, and almost dare to prophesy. If a North that is worthy this name, can stretch itself to the Gulf of Mexico, as a permanent proprietor, then we can see how slavery will soon cease to trouble the land. If it can anywhere nearly approximate this, then also the backbone of negro oppression is irreparably broken.

ARABELLA JOHNSON.

APRIL, 1630.

LILY of England, pure and fair! we bless
The charm of thy pale beauty, 'mid that band
Of stern, devoted heroes, who their land
Forsook for Freedom's shore. Thy loveliness
Gilded the shadows of that fateful hour.
Dear Puritan! with thy soft, patient smile
Still shining through the dark, thou did'st beguile
To tenderness the souls, not wont to cower
Beneath a despot's frown. Meanwhile, for thee
A martyr's crown was waiting. Yes, I know
"Tis said, thy brave compeers trod moodily
The soil of liberty. It may be so.

How could they smile and deck their brows with light,
Watching bright stars, like thine, fade from their night?

UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE. Some of the best moral essays we have ever read were on the unconscious influences of a worthy life. There are other unconscious influences that men exert, not yet, to our knowledge, woven into any essay - waiting, probably, for the pen of a devout Lamb. Some hints for the same have accumulated on our Table. We make a donation of them to any one who will give us a copy of his essay.

He is exerting an unconscious influence who, on the examination of candidates before ecclesiastical councils, makes his own questions declaratory and argumentative for his own peculiar theology, and so succeeds better in showing his own opinions and abilities than in eliciting those of the candidate.

That man who, in conventions, is always seen on the platform and near the president, though himself neither vice-president nor secretary, and when committees are to be nominated by the chair, or several rise

at the same time to address the meeting, has something important to whisper to the chair, is exerting an unconscious influence.

The pastor, who is frequently obliged, unexpectedly, to be absent on the Sabbath when one or two of his brother ministers are at liberty and can be pressed into service for him, is unconscious of the influence he is exerting, specially when it is known that he receives handsome compensation for service elsewhere on those days of unexpected ab

sence.

The man who says he is called of Providence to a wider field of ministerial labor, but confesses he made a mistake when he discovers that the change was not a good financial movement, is exerting an unconscious influence, not very creditable to him or to his office.

When a pastor frequently advertises his Sabbath services, and under quaint texts and on queer topics for a pulpit and the Lord's day, he is exerting an unconscious influence. And he will best see his own policy, and standing, and influence if he will once advertise himself thus: "The Rev. N. N. of Christ's Church, will endeavor to preach the gospel as usual to-morrow, at the usual place and times. All those who prefer the gospel to anything secular or odd are invited to attend.' When a minister advertises his regular services, the impression is that he has concluded to stay with his people another Sabbath, for we have noticed that those who practice much on this newspaper notoriety do not stop long with any one church.

HEBRAISMS. The infancy of language is always marked by an extreme simplicity and naturalness of expression. Its forms of speech take direct hold of ideas as sensible objects, and make everything a picture. This is peculiarly true of the most ancient parts of the Bible. We give a few specimens taken at random, mostly from the book of Job; setting the common version and the original phrases side by side.

These forms of language are not in harmony with our more ideal and philosophical modes of expression; but had our translators retained them generally, they would have easily vindicated their propriety to the common reader, and have made of the Scriptures the most pictorial and living book, in its merely literary dress, ever written.

A HYMN.

I HEARD, and disobeyed!

Thy judgment-hand, O God,
Uplifted, smote me to the earth
In the dark way I trod.

Low-lying in the dust,

Broken by Thy reproof,

I said, "His mercy I have lost;
Wrath holdeth Love aloof."

Humbly I wept and prayed-
No more by sin enticed;
Then, lifting up my streaming eyes,
Beheld the wounded Christ.

Lo! in His bleeding hands
Love's richest pledge I see;

And mercy's sweetest message falls
From His dear lips for me.

O just and holy God!

Thy wrath I read amiss:

The love that follows Thy rebuke-
Was ever love like this?

POUNDING THE Scriptures, and Expounding THEM.-'O, but unco gifted was Donald McGregor. We've not had the like o' him sin' the day. He was nae wi' us a twelve-month, yet he kicked twa pulpits to pieces, and danged the in'ards out o' three Bibles. He was unco gifted, and mighty in holy writ, one of the Lord's strong ones.' And the good Scotch woman spoke for many hearers when she said that of Donald. Pounding the Scriptures is a popular pulpit exercise, and many prefer it to expounding. For ourselves, we have observed