in this matter. No other profession writes so much that is suited to general readers and yet prints so little of what is produced with care and labor. But it is a clear gain when the best minds in the profession are not content with the circle reached by the pulpit, and seek the larger one reached by the printed page. Mr. Robertson, of Brighton, would never have been the power for good he is, if one zealous friend had not gathered up his sermons out of all sorts of fragmentary reports; and his American counterpart, Mr. Brooks, would be doing no more than his duty if he gave the public something more than two volumes and three or four sepa

rate sermons.

Dr. Boardman's works are well calculated to do good in developing a more thoughtful spirit in those who read religious books. The first of the three here noticed is taken up with the most distinctively Christian of Christian doctrines, "Jesus and the Resurrection." It is admitted on all hands that that doctrine was the one on which the early success of Christianity hinged. The historical fact has been made the centre of discussion between modern sceptics and apologists. No other single fact holds so prominent a place in the teachings of the Apostles. And yet, while fought over and discussed in a polemic way, it has not been studied with any general recognition of its central position. Westcott's "Gospel of the Resurrection" is the only single treatise on it in English theology of recent date. Dr. Boardman studies it in its relation to the successive groups to whom our Lord appeared, aiming at a practical enforcement of the inferences which Christian theology insists upon.

The second book covers a more usual field of exposition, but one which is very far from exhaustion. The Our Father" is a miracle in words, of which, especially, we might use the language of Richard of St. Victor, in regard to the whole Bible—“ Here a lamb may wade, but here also an elephant may swim." Any child sees the sense of it, and yet no Doctor of Divinity can give you more than half an interpretation of it. The best we know of, is F. D. Maurice's Nine Sermons on the Lord's Prayer, twice reprinted in this country. But there is good in many, and in Dr. Boardman's we have found good things which we have seen nowhere else. We are not always satisfied with his exposition, especially of the two crucial passages. Of Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," he gives the right sense when he says, " Belief in God's Fatherhood is itself forgiveness," but seems to us rather to obscure than to enforce this thought in other parts of his exposition. And we are not satisfied with his or anybody's interprctation of “Lead us not into temptation," if, indeed, that be the sense original. If temptation be a good thing, why pray to be kept out of it; if an evil thing, why pray as if God, the Deliverer from evil, might lead us into it?

In his exposition of the parable which opens the sixteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel, commonly called the Parable of the Unjust Steward, Dr. Boardman says "the Shrewd Steward"-he adopts a line of thought which has been anticipated by a few of the hundreds who have tried their skill in this difficult passage. He thinks the praise given is purely intellectual, not moral. We think he should have observed more closely the connection, which is broken in our Bible by the beginning of a new chapter. The parable is the last in a series of four, which are closely connected in sense, and the Steward is simply the Elder Son in another guise. Also, the sense is obscured in the English version, which Dr. Boardman follows, by following a bad reading, and by an ambiguous rendering. Verse G should read: "Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it fails they may receive you into the everlasting habitations.”

MILTON. By Stopford A. Brooke. Pp. 168, 8vo. D. Appleton & Co.

This is the first volume of a Series on Classical Writers, edited by Mr. J. R. Green. Its author is already known as a literary critic by his Theology in the English Poets, and his Primer of the History of English Literature. The latter is a masterpiece of terse, sound criticism, and if it were just twice as large, would form a first rate text-book for instruction.

Mr. Brooke's study of Milton is equally good in its way. He must know his Milton very well indeed who can learn nothing from it, especially from its excellent analysis of the Paradise Lost. The poems are studied with close reference to the history of the man and the history of his times, and Mr. Brooke, though far from a Puritan in his opinions, does full justice to the greatness of Puritanism, especially in its Miltonic form.

Our author is especially happy in refuting the objection so often made, that Satan is the hero of Paradise Lost. He shows that Milton's Satan is not at the start an utterly fallen being, but one in the course of degradation. In the earlier scenes, something of archangelic grandeur still clings to him, but his very success as the Tempter hurls him downward, to utter moral debasement and loss of dignity.

MAID, WIFE OR WIDOW. By Mrs. Alexander. Leisure Hour Series. COUSINS. By L. B. Walford. Leisure Hour Series. New York:

Henry Holt & Co. 1879.

These two novels come to us as additions to the attractive looking Leisure Hour Series. One struggles heroically through " Cousins," and closes the book with a sense of relief and of wonderment at the misplaced energy involved in the composition of so much pointless English. If it truthfully portrays the every day exist

ence of the respectable middle class in England, that is the single merit that may be honestly claimed for it. The accuracy of the picture, uninviting as it is, must be the excuse for its existence. Likewise the author may be pardoned, not complimented, for having written it. It is a dreary, stupid, vapid thing, and the reader follows the unfolding of the commonplace narrative of the doings of the most ordinary of mortals, with the same interest, but no more, which accompanies his noting the changes in the occupants of the seats of an accommodation train upon a protracted railway journey. This, indeed, it is to be admitted, approaches to the nature of an intellectual delight with some simple souls. To such, and to no others, "Cousins" may be cordially commended.

Mrs. Alexander's clever and pleasant tale deserves more favorable mention. It is a well-told story with a sufficiently novel and romantically interesting plot. The action transpires on German soil; the scene being laid in Saxony and the Bohemian border, at the conclusion of the war of 1866. We have in it an accurate and interesting representation of German social and military life, and which is quite as true to-day as it was when the passions and prejudices incident to the Austro-Prussian struggle were still rampant. A feature of "Maid, Wife or Widow," is the vivid illustration of these sectional enmities. Such a story could not be told at second hand; and it is plainly apparent that the authoress is directly familiar with the scenes and characters so effectively reproduced.

YOUNG MAUGARS. By André Theuriet. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

1879.

If in the analysis of a book we give the first rank to the imagination of the writer, this cannot be called a work of great force, but in the naturalness of the characters, and in the grace of the composition, it has much merit to which the translation does not do justice, since even the original order of construction of the sentences is slavishly followed in the English rendering.

Young Maugars is the only child of a French mechanic, who, by knavery and industry, has become a banker and a great power in his own community. The son, destined for the law, has will for art only, out of which and his love affairs comes his father's disappointment in him and his own awakening to his father's true character. This is the best part of the book, which tells of the breaking down of early faiths in a man heartily reverencing a father kind and generous to him, but execrated by the world that knows him better as an oppressor and a knave. Misfortune overtakes the usurious banker, and sudden death saves him from judicial condemnation, while the son's sense of honor finds relief in the loss of the ill-gotten hoards. The heroine's character is very independent, for the traditional French model, and not of the order that would rather die than speak her love.

With

GREEK HERO STORIES. By Barthold George Niebuhr. Illustrations by Augustus Hoppin. Translated by Benjamin Hoppin. Pp. 120. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co.

There is nothing in the life of the great historian Niebuhr more touching than his passionate love of his son Marcus-a love all the more remarkable in a man so cold and reserved towards the rest of the world. For Marcus, he would secure all things excellent in life, not excepting the fervent Christian faith which the father valued so highly, but missed through his own years of formation falling within the era of dreary Illuminism. Although deprived by his father's premature death of the full benefit of this care, and although his own early death took him away before he had done what his abilities gave promise of, Marcus Niebuhr showed himself not unworthy of his father's deep affection. His Geschichte Assurs and Babels is a piece of honest and thorough work, which, although drawn from Greek and Hebrew sources only, has not been superseded even by the results of the cuneiform decipherments.

These "Hero Stories" are an everlasting monument of a great parental affection. They are masterpieces of graphic simplicity. Just the points to interest a child are seized with great skill, and the wondrous tales of the youth of Greece-the Argonauts, Hercules and Orestes-were never better told, not even by Charles Kingsley in his little book, The Heroes. Niebuhr holds fast to the simplicity of Greek art in his narrative, while Kingsley, who, with all his theoretical admiration of the Greeks, had no real sympathy with them, romanticizes the old stories in spite of himself, just as he romanticizes Andromeda and Hypatia.

The translation is a good one, but not, we believe, the only one in the language. Mr. Hoppin's illustrations are also excellent, and admirably adapted to the child's eye. They are neither overbur dened with details, nor slovenly in detail.

Appleton's New Handy Volume Series. "MY QUEEN." New York. D. Appleton & Co.

My Queen is an heiress, and the tale runs on her love for a poor cousin, Max, and her money, the barrier that disturbs its course till she takes a fever in nursing his wretched tenants. Then his pride gives way, the troubles are cleared up, and the very pretty and well told story comes to its happy end. One may ask why should it have been written. Cui bono? We give it a welcome, knowing how much our vigor, moral and mental, depends on association with others whose interests and pursuits are not ours, and that to many this rubbing of minds must come largely from books like this, for instance, which gives a half-hour's chat with charming people.

A THOROUGH BOHEMIENNE: Madame Charles Reybaud. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

Sketches of life in an old Breton manor-house, framed in pure and simple language, and a few characters well defined and consistently sustained, combine to make this a story of unusual merit. It will be read with interest and remembered with pleasure, whilst in refinement of touch and delicacy of execution it excels most of the current novels of the day.

MODERN FISHERS OF MEN. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

The experience of a young, untried clergyman among the "Various Sexes, Sects and Sets of Chartville Church and Community" are depicted with a lively pen, some typical characters are presented and natural incidents occur. While the book never rises above the commonplace in style or execution, the interest of the story is sustained and satisfactory.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

The Distracted Young Preacher. By Thomas Hardy. Hester. By Beatrice May Butt. One volume. (Handy Volume Series.) Pp. 179. Price 25 cents. New York: D. Appleton & Co. [Porter & Coates.

Uncle César. By Madame Charles Reybaud. (Handy Volume Series). Pp. 185. New York: D. Appleton & Co. [Porter & Coates.

German without Grammar or Dictionary. By Dr. Zur Brücke. Cloth. I2mo. Pp. 262. Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co. [Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger. History of American Politics. By Alexander Johnston, A. M. Cloth. Pp. 274. Price 75 cents. New York: Henry Holt & Co. [Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

Eyesight, and How to Care for It. Primers). 16mo. Cloth. Pp. 139.

Blakiston.

16m0.

By George Harlan, M. D. (American Health
Price 50 cents. Philadelphia: Lindsay &

Abraham Lincoln and the Abolition of Slavery in the United States. By Charles Godfrey Leland. Cloth. 16mo. Pp. 246. Price $1.00. New York: G. P. Put

nam's Sons.

The Value of Life. A Reply to W. Mallock's Essay, "Is Life Worth Living?" Cloth. 12mo Pp. 253. Price $1.50. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

All Quiet Along the Potomac, and other Poems. By Ethel Lynn Beers. Cloth. 12mo. Pp. 352. Price $1.75. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates.

The Pre-Historic World. By Flie Beithet. Translated from the French by Mary J. Safford. Cloth. 12mo. Pp. 310. Price $1.50. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates. Sarah de Berenger. A Novel. By Jean Ingelow. Cloth. 12mo. Pp. 415. Price $1.50. Boston: Roberts Bros. [Porter & Coates.

Memoir Concerning the French Settlements in the Colony of Rhode Island. By Elisha R. Potter. (Rhode Island Historical Tracts, No. 5.) Providence: Sidney J.

Rider.

Haworth's. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. Cloth. 12mo. Pp. 374. Price $1.50 New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. [Porter & Coates.

Statements and Arguments in behalf of American Industries against the Proposed Franco-American Commercial Treaty. 8vo. S'wd. Pp. 220. San Francisco: Alta California Print.