Tennyson, Dickens, etc., and contains all the poetical writings of Mr. Longfellow collected together in a complete form. The poems of Longfellow are household words. American readers are certainly being put under many obligations to Messrs. Ticknor & Fields for the handsome and cheap form in which they are issuing editions of choice standard authors. HOMESPUN; OR, FIVE AND TWENTY YEARS AGO. By Thomas Lackland. 12mo. Pp. 346. $1.75. New York: Hurd & Houghton. Cincinnati: R. W. Carroll & Co.-A very readable book of home-life, such as it was a quarter of a century ago. In the hands of Mr. Lackland we can agree with him that "the history of a household is as well worth writing as that of a kingdom, any day. Household economy is the hint and germ of the science of political economy itself. We do not see why it is not as distinctive a mark of character to be born in homespun as 'in the purple;' and it is certain that more valuable men have emerged from the former than from the latter." The author also well says: "The man in whom the domestic feeling awaits development is yet to discover the other hemisphere of his being. Home-life and home-love are English-exclusive, and nowise cosmopolitan; they take bold of the soil itself, and, like ivy and roses, climb to the very roof-tree. Till a man is fairly domesticated, he has not got a footing; he has not yet become his own, but is still another's; he is locked out from the enjoyment of wealth of which he is the rightful owner, unaware all the while that he carries the key in his own hand." The book abounds in good things. NOTES ON THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE HEBREWS. By Joseph Longking. 24mo. Pp. 464. New York: Carlton & Porter. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock. QUESTIONS ON THE ABOVE. By the same Author. 24mo. Pp. 134.-The fact of an author producing a series of what we might call textbooks for the Sabbath school, which rapidly run through a sale of more than a hundred thousand copies, is ample proof that he possesses peculiar qualifications for the work. Such is the case with the admirable series of "Notes on the Gospels," "Notes on the Acts," etc., by Mr. Longking. The present volume and book of questions constitute an excellent apparatus for the study of the Epistle to the Hebrews, an epistle which we have often thought ought to be thoroughly and generally studied in our Sunday schools. THE CENTENNIAL SINGER: A Collection of Hymns and Tunes Popular during the last Hundred Years. Compiled, as Directed by the Music Committee of the General Conference and Associated Methodist Episcopal Choirs, for the Sunday School Union. 16mo. Pp. 419. $1. New York: Carlton & Porter. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock.-The history of this new book is indicated by its preface, which is as follows: "The Associated Methodist Episcopal Choirs memoralized the last General Conference, desiring the appointment of a committee for the purpose of securing a collection of tunes which might become a denominational standard. Such committee was appointed; the two sections met, and determined that it was expedient to issue first a small collection of hymns and tunes for Sunday school, class, prayer, and other social meetings. Also, that the po etry from our standard Hymn-Book chiefly should be used, and the tunes be such as had gained public favor. Prominent in this work is a purpose to induce familiarity with the poetry of our Hymn-Book, and especially that those hymns should first occupy the minds of our youth, and form the resources of memory. As the work is intended for social purposes latitude has been exercised in the selection of tunes, though nothing adopted to which even the fastidious need object, especially if regard be had to proper style of perform ance." SERMONS TO SCHOOL-GIRLS. By Rev. Joseph M'D. Mathews, D. D. 24mo. Pp. 143. JOSEPH MARTIN; or, "The Hand of the Diligent." 24mo. Pp. 119. New York: Carlton & Porter.-The author of the first of these little volumes is Principal of Oakland Female Seminary, and author of "Letters to School-Girls." Long experience and extended intercourse with schoolthings to them. Girls will learn much by reading this girls has taught him how to say good and valuable little book. "Joseph Martin" is the history of a poor boy who by diligence and integrity became a rich man. The boys will find something to learn in this little volume. FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS FAMILY. By L. Muhlbach, Author of "Joseph the Second and His Court," ete. Translated from the German. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Cincinnati: R. W. Carroll & Co.We have noticed several of these very interesting books by Mrs. Muhlbach, and pronounce them vastly superior to the mere novel-reading which is so copiously furnished to the public in our day. "By these delineations of life in European Courts, she renders her readers the service of reproducing for them, in lively tints, the real life of a period just past. The prominent use of the actual facts of history, and frequently putting the words which were actually spoken into the mouths of her characters, constitutes an important feature in her writings." THE LITTLE SUNBEAM. A Choice Collection of Sabbath School Music. By W. Howard Doane. Cincin nati: John Church, jr.-This little volume, about the size and style of "Musical Leaves," contains sixty-six pages of songs and music for the Sunday school. It is not designed to be a rival or competitor to any others, "but a friendly co-operator to all." The author says, Every song will be found a gem." PAMPHLETS.-Blackwood's Magazine for April, Westminster Review for April, and North British for March, published by the Leonard Scott Publishing Company, New York; terms $4 each, or the four Reviews and the Magazine, $15. Catalogue of Alleghany CollegeProfessors, 7; students, 153. Dickinson College-Professors, 8; students, 141. Minutes of Kansas Confer ence, 1867. Minutes of New Jersey Conference, 1867. Robert Clarke & Company's General Law Catalogue, Recent American and Imported Books, British Periodicals, Agricultural Works, Medical and Surgical Books, American and British Medical Bibliography for 1866, School and College Text-Books. This is a complete assortment of book catalogues, and bibliopoles and book-buyers will do well to supply themselves with them. irar, Brirullfir, auf Statistical irms. LITERATURE IN GERMANY.-The periodicals of Germany, including the German provinces of Austria and Switzerland, in 1866, numbered 2,957 journals; of these, 747 were political, and 2,210 non-political journals. By way of comparison, it may be stated that the total number of journals in France is 1,771, of which 336 are political, and 1,435 non-political. The total number of those in England is 2,064, of which 1,527 are newspapers, and 537 magazines, showing that in this respect Germany occupies the first rank among European nations. The greatest establishments for printing are in Saxony, in which State one-third of all German books, and nearly all the popular illustrated works, and journals, are published. SLEEPING-CARS.-The sleeping-cars on the principal railroads of the United States are a monopoly, the profits of which are enjoyed by a few patentees, who have formed themselves into a corporation and buy up all the patents, and the railroad companies are prevented from running cars of this kind themselves. The bargain made between the patentees and the railroad companies is that the patentees shall furnish the cars, and keep the upholstery and bedding in repair, while the railroad company is to furnish the motive power and keep the car in repair. A sleeping-car costs about $5,000, and its annual expense for attendants and incidentals is about $2,000. The average receipts are said to be $30 a day for each car, or $9,000 annually-a yearly profit, when the expense is deducted, of $6,100 upon the original investment of $5,000. On some of the great railroads, however, the profits frequently reach 300 per cent. per annum. AN ANCIENT DINNER.-In the excavations at Pom. peii the house of a millionaire has been brought to light. The furniture is of ivory, bronze, and marble. The dining-room couches are extremely rich. The flooring consists of immense mosaics, well preserved in parts, of which the center represents a table laid out for a grand dinner. In the middle, on a large dish, may be seen a splendid peacock; with his tail spread out, and placed back to back with another bird, also of beautiful plumage. Around them are arranged lobsters, one of which holds a blue egg in its claw, a second an oyster, which appears to be fricaseed, as it is open and closed with herbs; the third a rat farcé, and the fourth a small vase filled with fried grasshoppers. Next comes a circle of dishes of fish, interspersed with others of partridges, hares, and squirrels, all with their heads placed between their fore feet. Then comes a row of eggs, oysters, and olives, which in its turn is surrounded by a double circle of peaches, cherries, melons, and other fruits and vegetables. The walls of this trinclinium are covered with fresco paintings of birds, fruits, flowers, game, and fish of all kinds, the whole interspersed with drawings which lend a charm to the whole not easy to describe. On a table of rare wood, carved and inlaid with gold, marble agate, and lapis lazuli, were found amphoræ still containing wine, and some goblets of onyx. GROCERS-THEIR ANTIQUITY.-The spice dealers, in the year 1231, in the city of London, formed a trading fraternity, or guild, under the name of Pepperers, and continued till 1345, when they changed the name of their organization to that of the Grocers' Company. The earlier chronicles of this ancient company, in speaking of their origin, say: "The word 'grocer' was a term first distinguishing merchants of this society in opposition to inferior traders;' for that they usually sold by wholes.' To show the great honor of this upward of eighty of its members have occupied the company, we remark that from the year 1231 to 1650! Lord Mayor's chair of the city of London." Five kings, several princes, eight dukes, three earls, and twenty lords are recorded upon their books as members. Many of the present nobility of Great Britain trace their ancestry to members of this com pany. Sir John Chamberlain, grocer, was the founder of the present custom-house of London. The total duties on all foreign goods imported into the realm in 1268 gave a revenue of £75 6s. 10d. No class of citizens, from the thirteenth to the six teenth century, did more to develop a better civilization than these old grocers. If the king required| Sir John Philpot, grocer, in 1378, fitted out at his own money, they generally responded in full for their quota. expense a fleet of vessels to repress piracies; also, at his own expense, conveyed an entire army into Brittany, with ships. He was styled, while living, "the scourge of the Scots, the fright of the French, the delight of the commons, the darling of the merchants, and the hatred of envious lords; but who was at his death lamented, and afterward beloved of all." Sir John Crosby, grocer, was the founder of the fa mous Crosby House, Bishopgate-street, London-a man of vast wealth. The hospitals and charity schools built and endowed by these old grocer merchants were The motto of their guild is, "God Grant Grace."-Boston Advertiser. numerous. CLIMATE OF RUSSIAN AMERICA.-An article on meteorology, prepared by Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, for the United States Patent Office Report of 1865, contains the following paragraph illustrative of the climate of North-Western America: "In the North-Pacific Ocean, on the western side of our continent, the great circle of water passes up along the coast of Japan, recrosses the ocean in the region of the Aleutian Islands, mingles with the fitful current outward through Behring's Strait, and thence down along the north-west coast of North America. In this long circuit, the north-western portion of it is much more cooled than the similar portion of the whirl of the Atlantic. It therefore modifies the temperature of the north-western coast, and produces a remarkable uniformity along the whole extent, from Sitka to the southern extremity of California. It is an interesting fact, which we have just derived from Captain Rogers, that an offshoot from the great whirl of the Pacific, analogous to that which impinges on the coast of Norway, enters along the eastern side of Behring's Strait, while a cold current passes out on the western side, thus producing almost as marked difference in the character of the vegetation on the two shores of the strait as between that of Iceland and Labrador." DIMENSIONS OF HEAVEN.-Revelations, 21st chapter, 16th verse: "And he measured the city with a reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length, hight, and breadth of it are equal." Twelve thousand furlongs, 7,920,000 feet, which, being cubed, is 948,938,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic feet, the half of which we will reserve for the throne of God and the court of heaven, half of the balance for the streets, and the remainder divided by 496, the cubical feet in the rooms 19 feet square and 16 feet high, will be 5,743,759,000,000 rooms. We will now suppose the world always did and always will contain 900,000,000 of inhabitants, and a generation will last 33 years-2,700,000,000 every century-and that the world stands 100,000 years-2,700,000,000,000,000. Then suppose there were 11,230 such worlds, equal to this in number of inhabitants and duration of years, then there would be a room 16 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 15 feet high for each person, and yet there would be room. RHODE ISLAND.-Rhode Island, the smallest State in the Union, has the densest population per square mile of any, and in this particular exceeds any nation of continental Europe except France, which it nearly equals; and sixty per cent. of this population is located on eleven per cent. of her area. Of her inhabitants, one in every nine over fifteen years of age can not write, and more than one in thirteen can neither read nor write. The amount of capital invested in manufactures is $33,000,000, which produced since the last census $103,000,000 worth of products, and the labor of the State shows the annual production of each man, woman, and child to be $601, while in Massachusetts it is only $408. NATIONAL DEBT OF ENGLAND.-From a treasury return just printed, it appears that in 1866 the total amount of the English national debt was £802,842,949, of which £773,313,229 was funded, £8,187,700 unfunded, £21,342,020 the estimated value of terminable annuities. In the same year the terminable annuities created were £102,283, those expired £79,794, the value of those reduced £589,643. Obligations were canceled to the amount of £2,554,800, and the funded debt paid off to the amount of £2,455,066. THE RELATIVE VALUE OF DISINFECTANTS.-In Mr. Crooke's report to her Majesty's Commissioners upon the value of disinfectants, some important experiments, which bear upon general sanitary science, are recorded. One of them, showing the relative value of lime and carbolic acid as disinfectants, deserves serious attention. Some meat was hanging up in the air, and the odor of putrefaction was strong. It was then divided into two pieces; one was soaked for half an hour in chloride of lime solution, and then washed and hung up again; the offensive smell had entirely gone. The other piece of meat was soaked in a solution of carbolic acid, containing one per cent. of the acid; it was then dried and hung up. The surface of the meat was whitened, but the offensive odor was not removed, though it was masked by the carbolic acid. In two days' time the bad odor had entirely gone, and was replaced by a pure but faint smell of carbolic acid. In a few weeks' time the piece of meat was examined again. The one deodorized with chlorid of lime now smelled as offensively as it did at first, while the piece treated with carbolic acid had simply dried up, and had not that offensive odor whatever. Even after a month's exposure no change had taken place. This shows us that while chlorid of lime merely removes the smell of decomposing matter-in fact, is a deodorizer-carbolic acid actually prevents decomposition, and is, therefore, in an eminent degree, antiseptic. EMANCIPATION IN BRAZIL.-Don Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, on the 8th of April, 1867, signed an imperial decree abolishing slavery throughout the Brazilian Empire. This most important order is not to take ef fect for twenty years, so that all may be prepared and that no violence may be done to the "rights of property" in the slaves. But children of every class, born within the Empire after the 8th of April, 1867, are declared free by birth. Taking the great Russian emancipation and our own, and this of Brazil, and it will be entirely safe to say that no previous hundred years of the world's history ever witnessed the breaking of so many fetters as the decade through which we are now passing. FASHIONS IN PRINTING TYPES.-A London literary monthly, the Stationer, says: "Mr. Bell, the late proprietor of Bell's Messenger, was the person who originated the exclusive use of the round s in printed books. When this letter was first introduced it met with great opposition. As an instance of this may be noted the circumstance that Messrs. Gilbert having set up three sheets of a work for a late bishop of Durham, in which the round s was used, were obliged to recompose them, as his lordship declined to sanction the innovation." A LARGE FARM.-One of the most extensive farms in the world is that of General Urquiza, of Buenos Ayres. It is about three hundred square leagues in extent, on which there are grazing almost incalculable numbers of horses, beasts, and sheep. This farm sends 50,000 head of cattle annually to be slaughtered. The horses would be sufficient to mount the cavalry of a large army, and a good many ships are annually laden with the wool of the sheep for Europe. PEAT IN VIRGINIA.-Fifteen thousand acres of peat, from six to forty feet deep, are opened on the line of the Virginia Dismal Swamp Canal. Vessels load on the bank for northern cities. EMIGRANTS IN NEW YORK.-More than eighty thousand emigrants have arrived in New York since the first of January. The aggregate emigration of the year promises to reach 250,000. trospect of Beligions Zutelligence. CHRISTIANITY IN POLYNESIA.-Sixty years ago there was not a solitary native Christian in Polynesia; now it would be difficult to find a professed idolater in those islands of Eastern and Western Polynesia, where Christian missionaries have been established. The hideous rites of their forefathers have ceased to be practiced. Their heathen legends and war-songs have been forgotten. They are gathered together in peaceful vil school teachers; 9,822 Church members; attendants upon public worship, about 30,000. About £3,000, or near $15,000, contributed by the people for religious purposes. THE NESTORIANS.-The Shah of Persia, who formerly persecuted the Nestorians, has given them a site for a church, and $500 toward its erection. He bas also enacted a law that for the future his Christian of a Christian viceroy. lage communities. They live under the recognized subjects shall be under the immediate superintendence codes of law. They are constructing roads, cultivating their fertile lands, and engaging in commerce. On the return of the Sabbath, a very large portion of the population attend the worship of God. Such are the blessed fruits of missions to the isles of the Pacific. METHODISTS IN VERMONT.-The statistics of the Vermont Conference show 11,415 in full membership, 1,870 members on trial, making a total membership, including 78 local preachers, of 13,353. There are 148 churches, valued at $383,100, and 93 parsonages, valned at $104,175. They report 191 Sunday schools, 2,024 officers and teachers, 13,758 Sunday school scholars, and 45,709 volumes in libraries. For missions during the last year they raised $7,920.69, and reported as paid and subscribed for Centenary purposes the sum of $55,665.16. CONVENTS IN ITALY.-It is good news to hear that the work of suppressing conventual establishments is going on in Italy. They are a moral, public, national nuisance, dangerous to the social, religious, and civil interests of any people; sores, cancers, and plagues in the body and soul of society, and the best thing that the Government can do for united Italy is to remove them root and branch. The plan proposed and thus far acted on is to make suitable provision for life for the present inmates, and to convert the convents into schools, barracks, asylums, and such institutions as will be for the public benefit. Vast tracts of land are now nominally held by monasteries. These are to be leased, and the income applied to the support of the present monks, but as they are to have no successors the income will eventually revert to the State. BAPTIST MISSIONARY COMMISSION.-The Board of the Baptist Missionary Commission held a special meet ing in the city of New York in April. The organization is sixty years old. The missionaries have baptized more than twenty-five thousand persons, and there are eighteen missions under the present care of the association. In New York State the Baptists have 91,928 communicants. POLYNESIA. There has been published in London, a book of 500 pages, with the following title: "Ten Years in South Central Polynesia: Being Reminiscences of a Personal Mission to the Friendly Islands, and their Dependencies." The author is Rev. Thomas West. From this work, it appears there are in the Friendly or Tonga Islands, 169 places for Protestant worship; 24 European and native preachers; 214 day LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.-The London Mis. sionary Society, established in 1797, has received from the public in general contributions, legacies, dividends, foreign contributions, and special funds, up to this time, £3,262,346, and has expended, from 1796, in India, £1,025,188; China, £278,990; Madagascar, £79,590; South Seas, £364,485; South Africa, £359,631; West Indies, £434,145; Siberia, £21,399; Greek Islands, £15,016; North America, £22,226; students, etc., £90,196; missionary families, £202,859; publications, £64,827; Home Agency, £229,112: total, £3,190,652; leaving a balance in favor of receipts of £71,964, which is invested in stocks, and has a nominal value of £84,180. SPREAD OF TOLERATION.-The Univers Israelite mentions four facts which show the constant progress of liberal ideas on matters concerning liberty of conscience and worship. The Landgrave of Homburg bas abolished the oath more judaico. At Vienna, measures for the suppression of the Ghettos of Lemberg and Cracow are under consideration. At Warsaw, the administration council of the kingdom has resolved to grant to the Jews the right of holding all functions and offices. In Turkey, the Sultan has decided that the Catholic prelates, the Greek orthodox bishops, and the Jewish rabbis, shall sit in the courts of justice by the side of the cadis and muftis. ANCIENT HEBREW COMMUNITY.-There is a com munity of Samaritans, a fragment of the old Hebrew mixture, still at the foot of Mount Gerizim, where they had their temple and their diluted Jewish worship five hundred years before Christ. They only number about one hundred and fifty souls, and their Turkish neighbors, of Nabloos, do n't seem to like them any more than the Jews used to do. Some time ago they made the door of their synagogue five feet and a half high, instead of four feet, and repaired a portion of the pavement. The Turks declared the repairs illegal and tore the building down. DEATH OF UNITED STATES MINISTER WRIGHTThe decease of Hon. Joseph A. Wright, at Berlin, has recently been announced in this country. We copy a touching note written but a few weeks before his death to Dr. Newman, of the New Orleans Advocate: My peace is made with my God, and I am ready to fall into the arms of my blessed Redeemer, who will accept all who trust in him. I think I shall never see you, dear brother and sister, in this world. But my hope is full of immortality and of meeting you above." In the same letter Mrs. Wright wrote: " You will be most pleased to learn that amid all these sorrows, anxieties, and fears, neither of us have been left comfortless. No, the gracious, loving Master has been constantly with us, enlarging our views of his sovereign compassion and infinite love; ever whispering to our hearts, 'I am thy salvation,' 'I will never leave or forsake thee;' and his precious invitation, 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Never before have the gracious promises of the Redeemer seemed so full of meaning, and never before have we been able to grasp the richness of the fullness they embody. The great advancement in spiritual light and knowledge imparted to my precious invalid since his affliction, is worth living for many wearisome, sorrowing, and tedious years, if years could be tedious with the presence of the blessed Comforter, whispering hourly, 'Let not your heart be troubled.' Mr. Wright is the most changed person you could imagine, all serenity, calm ness, perfectly submissive to the will of God, living or dying. He can say emphatically with the great apostle, 'For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.'" A portrait and sketch of Gov. Wright was published in the Repository for July, 1859. ANNIVERSARY OF THE WESLEYAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY.-Monday, April 29th, at 11 o'clock, A. M., the annual meeting proper took place in Exeter Hall, London, the Lord Mayor presiding. The Secretary's report shows the financial doings of the Society to be It will be seen that the income of the year covers the expenditure, and leaves a small balance toward the reduction of the debt; but it must be remembered that the regular receipts have been this year supplemented by liberal donations to the amount of £7,000, and by the repayment of £3,355 advanced to chapels. Apart from these extraordinary helps, the income would have fallen at least £9,000 short of the expenditure. It is obvious that in order to maintain the new mission in Italy, Hankow, and Bengal, as well as the older missions, it will be necessary to raise the income of the Society to at least £150,000. since to view the proffers made by the Methodists there. The object of the institute is to fit young men for the ministry. The location of the seminary is not yet determined upon, but it is said that there is a strong probability that Vineland will be chosen as a site for the seminary by the committee. NON-EPISCOPAL METHODISM.-The General Conference of "The Methodist Church," as it is styled, convened in Cleveland, May 15th. The roll of the Conference-present and absent names—as now complete, contains forty-two ministers and thirty-nine laymen. They represent nineteen Annual Conferences of the Methodist Protestant Church, two Wesleyan Churches, and three Independent Churches, composed of individ uals who were formerly Wesleyan or Protestant. As at present reported, the new body represented here in all, from the Wesleyan Connection, only three ministers and about one hundred members. The statistics, as reported by committee from the best sources at hand, were afterward altered by verbal authority on the floor of the Conference so as to aggregate the following sums, which they think less than the real number: Traveling preachers, 625; local preachers, 430; communicants, 50,000; Church property, $1,150,000. The last item includes 480 houses of worship and 104 parsonages. The next session of the General Conference will be held at Adrian, May, 1871. As a union of non-Episcopal Methodists, this movement is a failure. It has given the Methodist Protestant Church a new name, and a new start in Christian labors. Methodist unity is not, however, a hopeless result. The generous impulses of the Methodist Epis copal Church will in due time become the recognized key-note of the one voice of American Methodism. EPISCOPAL CATHEDRAL.-An Episcopal Cathedral in New York city has been proposed, in which from five to ten thousand worshipers can be accommodated, and where a thousand singers and players on instruments can render the musical services in fitting style. THE UNION OF THE PRESBYTERIAN BODIES.-The report of the Joint Committee of the Old School and New School General Assemblies, having been adopted by the latter, leaves the Assemblies of 1868 at liberty to take action upon the matter. In the Old School General Assembly the matter is recommitted for report next year. In the mean time another branch of the Presbyterian family, the General Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, has passed resolutions favoring a union of the Presbyterian bodies, and, for maturing this plan, has called a General Presbyterian Convention, which is to meet this Fall. The probabil The details of the contributions to the funds of the Society, received during the year 1866, from the several auxiliaries and branch societies, at home and abroad, and of the income arising from other and mis-ity is that this large branch of the Christian Church cellaneous sources, are as follows: will erelong be united. This is a good move. It is a step forward toward the millennium. Let other Churches be moving in this respect, and pulling down the middle walls of partition. JEWISH SUNDAY SCHOOL.-The Jews have started a novel movement in Baltimore. They have adopted the Christian plan of Sunday school instruction, said schools to meet on the Christian Sabbath. The affair has been inaugurated by the three rabbis of the city, and is under the auspices of the "Hebrew Educational Society." |