ART. VII.-NOTICES OF BOOKS.

The Union Bible Dictionary, for the Use of Schools, Bible Classes, and Families. Prepared for the American Sunday School Union, and revised by the Committee of Publication.

This work does not profess to be a guide for severe biblical criticisms in exact investigations, nor small as it is, to be a storehouse of all the information that a larger volume might contain. But it presents in a small compass, and in a concise and convenient form, a large amount of information to aid the reading and study of the Scriptures. And it is well adapted to the purpose for which it is designed.

The Preface is a clear and full statement, in a few words, of the unsectarian principles upon which the work is constructed, and of the laborious and thorough manner of its execution.

The articles are so written, that under each topic the information strictly pertaining to it is skillfully separated from that concerning kindred topics, or branches of the subject, which would be introduced under them, so that repetition is avoided. And at the same time the connection with these is so preserved by references to other parts of the book, that the reader may follow out any one, or all the branches of the subject, as his pleasure or use may require. In a chaste, perspicuous style, in a manner both concise and comprehensive, in an attractive and interesting form, the information which the book professes to give is presented to the reader of the Scriptures. And it is therefore a book of great value, not only in the hands of teachers and scholars in the Sabbath school, but of others. It is convenient for common use, and is just such an instrument as is needed for the purpose, to throw light upon the pages of Scripture, to aid the independent thought and inquiry of the reader, and to be a key in his hand, not cumbersome or unwieldy, to unlock the meaning of parts of Scripture, that would otherwise be inaccessible, and to give new interest and profit to the study of the Sacred Word.

A Geography of the Chief Places mentioned in the Bible, and the Principal Events connected with them, adapted to Parental, Sabbath School and Bible Class Instruction. Illustrated with Maps. By CHARLES A. GOODRICH. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1856. pp. 194. Price 25 cents.

The teaching of the Geography of the Scriptures, together with a portion of their history and biography, in a form adapted to the family and the school, was a happy thought; and we think Mr. Goodrich is entitled to great credit for the successful manner in which he has treated his subject. It is not easy to conceive the amount of good that may be done by interesting the minds of the young in Scriptural Geography. The mental associations connected with the time-honored names in the Bible are most delightful. We love these sacred haunts. How the serious reader of the Bible delights in thought, to visit the groves of

Olivet, to wander amid the solitudes of Mt. Carmel, to trace the fortunes of the Holy City, to converse with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in their own loved Hebrew, and to lay him down by the fountain of Siloam. These and other places revealing the scenes and events connected with them, as recorded in the sacred writings, supply us with a fund of grateful contemplation.

The plan of the work is excellent; its divisions are natural and convenient; the names extended through more than fifty lessons, are in alphabetical order, thus rendering it easy to find any given one; and its directions as to pronunciations, accent, and the like, are concise and judicious.

As a book to be learned, it is well worth the attention of those for whose use it was designed. Ministers, we think, might well encourage its introduction into the family, the Sabbath school, and the Bible class, and with great profit to the youth of their congregations, occasionally spend an evening in lecturing upon some of the important topics that the work suggests. Such an expedient would at least lead to a better acquaintance with a branch of knowledge, that has not, we think, engaged its due share of attention. An experienced teacher of the Bible, upon examination of the book, has suggested that it would be invaluable as a study in our common schools.

The great objection to the introduction of books on biblical themes into our common schools, has been their sectarian character. But as Mr. Goodrich has studiously avoided all doctrinal allusions, confining himself strictly and entirely to geographical and biographical subjects, we see not that the most fastidious on such ground would object to its use in a common school. And once there, it is easy to see that a great amount of interesting geographical knowledge might be treasured up, especially by the aid of its well executed maps.

"Prince's Protean Ink Fountain Pen,” 271 Broadway, corner of Chambers Street, New York.

We remember being counseled, by the Professor of Rhetoric, in College, never in writing to arrest a free flow of thought, in order to look out a word in the dictionary, but to write on and correct the diction afterwards. The reason assigned was that a writer should take advantage of the concentration and glow of his mind, and not suffer it to become cooled and distracted while he investigates a question of language. For the same reason we prize "Prince's Fountain Pen." It helps us to avail ourselves of the mind's best moods for composition. It is also an economist of time, soon repaying, by its saving in this respect, its original cost. A recent improvement has obviated our early objections to it, which arose from the insufficiency of the flow of ink. This difficulty no longer exists, the writer being able by means of a new, ingenious contrivance, to regulate this flow at pleasure. No clergyman, we think, who gives it, as thus improved, a fair trial, could ever be induced to relinquish it; no man, indeed, whose literary or commercial pursuits require him to write hour after hour.

The Acts and Monuments of the Church, containing the History and Sufferings of the Martyrs, wherein is set forth the whole race and course of the Church, from the primitive age to these later times. By JOHN FOXE. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1855. Royal 8vo. pp. 1082. Price $4.00.

This new edition of this valuable and instructive work has been carefully revised, corrected and condensed by Rev. M. Hobert Seymour. Some things not essential to the completeness of the history, and which rendered other editions somewhat unsuited to family perusal, have been omitted. While there has been added an Appendix, containing an account of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, of the Spanish Armada, of the Gunpowder Treason, of the great Rebellion in Ireland in 1641, written immediately after the events occurred. The work of Foxe presents a general history of the church, a more detailed account of the church in England to the year 1574, a portraiture of the rise, progress, and genius of the Church of Rome, and a full account of the examinations, and sufferings, and martyrdoms of those holy men who were the strength and ornament of the Protestant cause in England.

The publication and general circulation of a book like this, will do much to arrest the progress of Romanism and break its power. It is impossible to read the stirring events recorded on its pages, and not be filled with astonishment at the terrible and bloody persecutions which have been carried out by the Church of Rome; and with wonder also, and admiration at the faith and patience of the martyrs. A sight even of the rude pictures which, in this volume, illustrate the tortures of the inquisition, and the various methods of martyrdom, excite a healthful indignation and opposition against that mighty ecclesiastical system, which has ever arrayed itself against civil and religious liberty, and has accomplished its purposes, if necessity required, by the most fearful acts of cruelty and crime. There is much in this large volume to interest and instruct all classes of readers.

Ricord's Series of Roman History. In 2 vols. 12mo. I. The Kings of Rome. II. The Republic of Rome. III. The Empire of Rome; with Illustrations. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co.

This series is designed to connect the most important events of Roman history, from the commencement to the termination of the Roman power. The first volume, the Kings of Rome, gives in a pleasing and entertaining style, the fabulous history of Rome through a period of two hundred and fifty years, to the establishment of the Republic. The second volume, the Republic of Rome, includes that period which was occupied in the struggles between Liberty and Despotism, or the first attempts at self-government by the Roman Republic. The third volume, the Empire of Rome, is taken up with the history of the Emperors, who extended their conquests among the barbarians of the West and North, adding to the empire Germany and the British Islands. These volumes are got up with care and truthfulness, and will be read and studied with the liveliest interest, especially by the young, for whom they have been prepared.

The Progress of Religious Ideas, through successive ages. By L. MARIA CHILD. 3 vols. New York: C. S. Francis & Co. New Haven: Thomas H. Pease.

The well-known authoress of this work, speaking of the care and labor bestowed upon it, declares that she has done her best.' After reading it we would not repress the thought, that she would have done infinitely better if she had not written it at all. She seems to have apprehended that she was writing an unpopular book. She will not be disappointed in this particular; not because of the prejudice of its readers, but because it is not what it claims to be, and because of its manifest partiality and injustice.

Her design is to exhibit the various systems of religion which have been known in the world, each one in the light of its own Sacred Books; placing all on the same level, as far as the manner of representation is concerned; to quote impartially the beauties and blemishes of different systems; to state facts plainly, and leave the reader to draw his own conclusions uninfluenced by any suggestions, or any opinions on the comparative merits of Vedas, Zend-Avestas, and Testaments. Mrs. Child repeatedly declares her honest intentions to write with great care, fearless truthfulness, and perfect candor, expressing no opinion of the truth or falsity of any system, nor suggesting such conclusions to the reader. But we are constrained to say that there is what appears to us a vein of malicious skepticism respecting the divine origin and authority of the sacred scriptures, which creeps out so often in disingenuous interpretation and misstatements, in innuendos, and suggestions, that, without expressing any doubt of her sincerity, we are satisfied of her utter failure to accomplish the task according to the proposed design.

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The representation of the Hindoo religion, as it appears in the sacred Books of that people, is strangely incomplete and onesided. She finds "antique gems," episodes, beautiful in style, and spiritual in their teachings,' in their sacred Poems, while persons who have passed a life-time in India, and are well acquainted with the sanscrit in which their sacred Books are written, say those Poems are full of the most licentious images, of innumerable ideas which could become familiar to the imagination only amidst a people whose country was a brothel. If Mrs. Child had taken half the pains to present what is hideous and ignoble and irrational and immoral in the vedas and shastras, that she has to show what she calls the blemishes of the sacred Scriptures, it would have been far more creditable to her character, though it might have been less agreeable to her taste. The best authorities represent the Hindoo sacred Books as stuffed with all manner of puerilities and inconsistencies, with odds and ends of mutually opposing theories; containing no true science, no true ethics, no elevated notions of God, but giving authority and life to a system of idolatry more absurd and disgusting and demoralizing, more injurious to social liberty, to domestic purity, to private virtue and public happiness, than any other that ever existed. But no such idea of the character of those Books is given in Mrs. Child's account of the Hindoo religion.

We are still more dissatisfied with the unfair and unjust analysis of sacred Scriptures presented in these volumes. It is in fact, not so much an analysis of those Books, as an argument against their divine origin and authority. Suggestions are continually made of resemblances between the Hindoo and Hebrew religion, where the real seeker for truth would see at most only a similarity in the letter, and none in the spirit. Laws, customs, and institutions of the Hebrews, and portions of sacred history, are represented as borrowed from Hindoos or Egyptians. Miracles and prophesies are accounted for as having been exhibitions of animal magnetism and clairvoyance; and on the ground that in the childhood of the world men understood little and believed much; and De Wette is introduced to generalize for Christian readers on the unreasonableness of believing in miracles at all. There are also many instances of disingenuous interpretation; and the appearance of a systematic effort to misrepresent the Divine character and conduct as delineated in the Old Testament. Mrs. Child speaks positively of contradictions between the prophesies of the Hebrews and the facts of their history. But if, in reference to the very examples given, she will carefully read the Scriptures, and other received authorities, she will find the proof of her own ignorance rather than serious discrepances between prophesy and history. She thinks that prophets often made their communications in a state of religious frenzy, because the same word in Hebrew means to prophesy and to be mad. We might as well say that Mrs. Child's work on the Progress of Religious Ideas is stuffed with infantile babblings, because the name of the distinguished authoress means both a marriageable lady and an infant.

The teachings of the Old and New Testaments are spoken of as totally incompatible with each other, the precepts of the one as contradicted by the precepts of the other. Many statements are made, not because they are necessary to a truthful exhibition of the contents of the sacred Scriptures, but evidently because they are adapted to debase them to a level with the incoherent writings and traditions of idolatrous nations. Instead of quoting fairly from the Scriptures, and stating facts plainly, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions, as Mrs. Child perhaps intended to do, the work abounds in various forms of argument, assertion and insinuation against their divine origin and authority, in the style of modern rationalism and infidelity.

She

It is the opinion of Mrs. Child that a written revelation involves the necessity of ceasing to be adequate to the wants of society sooner or later. She speaks of Jesus as a son of God; of Hindoos, Egyptians, Persians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, who have preceded us in the school of divine ideas,-whom we ought to reverence and love. does not know when, if ever, another teacher will be sent to help us further onward. She says many commendatory things of Christianity,but what meaning she attaches to that word we cannot understand, so long as she regards Christ only as one of many wise men, who have from time to time appeared in the world, and the Bible as having no