"The_hubbub of concourse, or exterior distinction, are requisite to engage them. If a coup de religion' could be effected with sufficient notoriety in any part of France, the excitement of a spirit might possibly spread; or if Protestant temples' could be reared like the stately prototype of Charenton, they could, no doubt, be speedily filled. But these very considerations are arguments for increased missionary efforts; and happily they are now in operation in several parts of France.”—p. 206.

"The History of the Huguenots" is a work of great value and importance. It extends from 1598 to 1838, and is a continuation of the "History of the Huguenots" during the sixteenth century, by the same author.

Fine writing was evidently not the aim of the historian, (indeed, the style is often stiff and lame, especially in the earlier part of the book,) but he has manifested great industry and research in the collection of his facts, and equal impartiality in relating them. This volume is consequently a treasure of instructive and affecting narrative. Extending, as it does, from the reign of Henry IV. down to the present time, it embodies the most interesting periods in the history of suffering in France for conscience sake. The reader is "led through many scenes of violence. Even where controversy assumed its mildest forms," it was "rarely exempt from acrimony." "The vanity and pride of resistance," (says the concluding paragraph,) "have been frequently found in company with the martyr's firmness; and reprisals, recriminations, and angry feeling, have in turn tarnished the character of both parties. Yet the conflict of three centuries has produced much benefit to society, by teaching the necessity of mutual forbearance. At the outset it was a struggle of numerical strength; in the following age, controversy had become systematised, and the writers and orators who withstood the encroachments of Louis XIV. have left abundant stores for enlightening their successors. The eighteenth century found an unexpected auxiliary for religious freedom in the antipathy to Romanism manifested by the philosophical school. Religious persecution was then reduced to its most pitiful character; and an ungenerous warfare was waged against widows and orphans." (p. 404.)

The latter part of the volume, detailing the persecutions endured in our time is highly important, and we would especially refer our readers to the seventeenth chapter, recording the cruelties and injustice prac

tised at Nismes in 1815.

"The Religious Wars of France," (alas! what a theme for sceptical reproach is included in the very title,) is perhaps best adapted to give the general reader, and especially the young, a compendious view of that deeply interesting period of ecclesiastical history, which for almost forty years "spread ruin and desolation throughout France, spilling its best blood, and vitiating the moral character of its people."

Mr. Duncan properly remarks, that" in the present state of religious excitement, when the Roman Catholics are straining every nerve to make converts, and a section of the Church of England claims for itself the apostolical succession, it seems desirable that the Huguenots of France should be made known to the nonconformists of England.

Our object, therefore, has been to condense into as small a compass as possible all the facts which illustrate the rise, progress, and fall of the Protestant party in France, from the accession of Henry II. to the peace of Vervens, avoiding all long details of battles, but carefully explaining their causes and results."

The voluminous writings of De Thou and Davila have been Mr. Duncan's leading guides, but he has freely availed himself of the remains, biographies, letters, and other documents which are extant, illustrative of his subject. He writes with the warmth of a sincere friend of religious liberty, and urges with impressive earnestness the lesson which men are so slow to learn from the pages of church history, that it is alike sinful and useless to persecute for religious opinion.

"The Papal Persecution in France," is an affecting illustration of the sufferings of the Protestants on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685, in the history of two justly venerable confessors, Louis de Marolles and Isaac Lefevre, and is well adapted to impress the reader with the enormous crime of persecution for conscience sake. "The Voice from the Alps," will not be sounded in vain in England. It furnishes much interesting information respecting the School of Theology at Geneva, and the Geneva and Paris Evangelical Societies. It is to us a strong recommendation of these efforts that they are "supported, under God, by the free and voluntary affection of the friends of the gospel." And we feel much satisfaction in referring our readers to the illustration which the "Voice from the Alps," edited by a clergyman of the establishment, affords of the value of the "voluntary principle." The reader of this little volume will behold the remarkable spectacle of the established clergymen of one country employing voluntary efforts to do that work which the established clergymen of another country leave undone. The Evangelical Societies of Paris and Geneva differ only in their localities, and are most deserving the support of all who are anxious for the spread of pure and undefiled religion through France. The ministers are spiritually-minded and devoted men, of whom Felix Neff and Henri Pitt were pleasing specimens, and in their different stations they are surrounded by little groups of faithful followers of the Lord Jesus. We should rejoice to see the agency of these societies increased a thousand fold, and therefore state, that "the Continental Sermons" of the Rev. J. Hartley, of Nice, have been published in aid of its funds, a fact which we are sure will supply an additional motive to the purchase of a volume from the elegant pen of that amiable and devoted minister of our Lord.

We have had great pleasure in reading the "Cursory Views," by "John Sheppard," and when we say they are worthy of the author of "Thoughts on Devotion," we give them no small recommendation.

The eighth letter, containing hints to travellers, deserves careful consideration. We are anxious that the great amount of christian influence which passes over to France every year should not remain unemployed. Let our friends who go in search of health, and to view the beauties of nature and art in that land, take with them the impres sions which these letters are fitted to make, as to the moral condition of the country, the possibility of usefulness, and the means of effecting it, and the moral" wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for

them." Let it not be said in reference to Christians going to France, that "all seek their own, none the things that are Jesus Christ's."

Calvary. By Mortlock Daniel. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 12mo. pp. 257.

Golgotha. By Thomas Hare, B. A. London: Gardiner. 12mo. pp. 110.

We can assure the author of “ Calvary" that he appears to much greater advantage as a practical and illustrative writer, than as a polemic. He is not equal to grapple with the arguments of the illustrious author of "Terms of Communion." At some future day, when a few more years have rolled over Mr. Daniel's head, and the grey hairs appear here and there, he may be qualified to discern the force and to fathom the depth of arguments which, from a lack of ability to comprehend, he has treated as of no more worth than the chaff of the summer threshing floor." Days should speak, and the multitude of years should teach wisdom." The saying is true: for though there may be here and there, once or twice in some eight or ten generations, a very young man, who, like the remarkable interlocutor, whose words we have just quoted, may exceed in wisdom many men much more aged than himself, we do not think that the mantle of Elihu has fallen on the shoulders of Mr. Mortlock Daniel.

We are probably mistaken in picturing to our imagination the author of "Calvary" as a very young man. We may not have made sufficient allowance for the propensity to flattery incident to all portrait painters. The only apology for our error, (if it be an error,) for we have not set eyes, that we are aware of, on Mr. Daniel, must be found in the EFFIGIES, vera, or falsa, which, with its fine open brow, graceful locks, and beautiful nose, (for this, as all portrait painters know, is an important. feature,) to say nothing of the admirable manner in which the workmanship of the tailor is exhibited-it is these things, we say, which have led us into error.

If we were disposed, after the manner of the most approved moderns, to pen a digression here, it should relate to the propriety of having the portraits of authors facing the title-pages of their works. A very handsome and popular writer, the author of some works of romantic fiction, has a very dandy-like portrait of his elegant person, dressed in the very pink of the fashion, prefixed to one of his most splendid performances; but we do not think this an example after which a grave, or even a young and lively divine would do well to copy. We have opened several quartos and folios of our nonconformist forefathers, and we have found portraits in the front of some of their tomes. On reading carefully, however, the title-pages of all we have opened, we find these volumes were published by friends after their author's decease. In no one instance have we met with a portrait which was evidently prefixed to a volume, written by one of these old worthies, with the cognizance of the author. But, though some puritans, and even some nonconformists, had permitted, or even given

* In a work entitled, " Revelation the sole Basis of Church Discipline."

their sanction to it, it is a practice of which we cannot approve. For though it be adopted at the urgent request of a very numerous circle of attached, of old, and of tried friends; and though there may not be in the author the least particle of pride, or the minutest modicum of vanity, and though his known character for retiring modesty may afford a pledge that this cannot by any possibility be the case-yet the very" appearance" is unfavourable. It may not be evil, but it has the " appearance of evil.”

As one of the works at the head of this article is written by a clergyman and the other by a dissenting minister, we may expect a difference in the style and the general character of the two volumes. Clergymen are not dissenting ministers, nor are dissenting ministers clergymen. Their education, the society into which they are thrown, and consequently many of their habits of thought, and even modes of expression, are different. Generally speaking, therefore, when we open a volume written by the one we expect something different, in manner at least, from that which we find on perusing the pages of the other. An early and well-grounded classical training, though far from being the endowment of all, is yet the privilege of not a few clergymen. They enjoy, moreover, the best society; the society, we mean, of the genteel and aristocratic classes, which, in worldly phrase, is termed the best. Most of them have an extensive circle of clerical acquaintance, and are buoyed up with the hopes of preferment in the richly-endowed establishment of the land. All these things concur to give a degree of polish, of refinement, and of intellectual confidence to the cleric. We are quite aware that these advantages are in innumerable instances either most shamefully abused, or most culpably neglected; and that vast numbers of the clergy are exceedingly ignorant of all that it is most desirable to know; and that not a few, who appear truly pious, are, for want of application, very superficially informed on biblical and theological subjects. Yet, with these abatements, where attention is moderate, excellence sought after, and circumstances favourable, the cleric has an advantage over the dissenting minister. These observations are not applicable to the two writers whose works are now before us. We should have supposed, had we read the books without being aware of the distinctions of their authors, that Mr. Hare was the dissenting minister, and Mr. Daniel the youthful cleric. But then we must have read them under that very impression to which we have alluded above. But there are other considerations to be taken into the account. Dissenting ministers of any education are well instructed in divinity. They are taught to study the lively oracles for themselves. They are not men of a school. They do not follow any great rabbi, through truth and error, and through right and wrong. "Golgotha," is the production of a clergyman who occupies the pulpit which Dr. Hawker once filled, and his doctrine closely resembles the doctor's; even his phraseology is in many respects similar. That Mr. H. would pour contempt on all the graces of style, we have no doubt. His book is as plainly written as it well can be; and is so loosely and carelessly put together, that the repetitions of thought and reiterations of the same modes of expression render it very unimportant where we open the volume. A few pages, commencing at the fifth, the fiftieth,

or the hundredth page, will indicate the character, and, indeed, give almost the substance of the whole. A few points of doctrine, involving some five or six ideas, is all that the most careful perusal will elicit from the volume. There are, indeed, many quotations from the sacred Scriptures, and these, in spite of the author's confined system, add to the numbers; but, like the use made of God's word by all men of Mr. Hare's school, these are, many of them, merely verbal, many inapplicable, and not a few most sadly perverted. To instance only one, the cry of our Lord on the cross, My God, my God," &c. is compared to that of the rich man in hell for a drop of water to cool his tongue.

Mr. Daniel's book is, in style and composition, the reverse of Mr. Hare's. It is laboured, ornate, and exhibits a great solicitude to be very striking, very sentious, and very impressive. There are, however, many passages of great simplicity and beauty. Some of these remind us of the devotional writers of the Church of Rome, or of Mrs. Rowe's Devout Meditations. There is, however, a frequent failure in the effort to be striking, or fine, and this mars the beauty and destroys the effect produced by the simplicity of other passages. There is every here and there a strange, unclassical, and very inaccurate use of many words, which affords an almost ludicrous contrast with the euphonious and alliterative passages in which they are employed. Accuracy is before ornament, and purity (of style, we mean,) before finery. He who would be really impressive, must write with clearness, simplicity, and purity, and without the least appearance of art. To write for effect, is deservedly visited with the same punishment which follows preaching for effect. It is more likely to be discovered than concealed; and as certainly as it is discovered, it will disgust. And yet we scruple not to say, with all these abatements, that we prefer the work of Mr. Daniel to that of Mr. Hare. Both are Calvinistic; but the Calvinism of the latter is bold and harsh, when compared with the Calvinism of the former. Mr. Daniel insists more on the inseparable connection between a correct creed and a holy life than Mr. Hare. The latter leaves the practical part of religion to feeling, to sentiment, to the grateful emotions of the renewed heart-but the former is more clear, more scriptural, and more practical in his observations on this subject. One of the primary duties of a christian pastor is to give to his congregation the most correct exposition of the inspired word; to convey plainly and fully to the minds of his people the character and spirit of this holy book. Infinitely important as this task is, it is by no means easy. To fulfil it aright is very different from preaching sermons exclusively to those whom the minister may deem the elect; very different from illustrating, with finely-spun metaphors, or touching illustrations, some one or more of the interesting facts or narratives of the sacred writers. The rhetorician, and the lecturer on oratory, may in such exercises excel the most profound, the most practical, and the most useful divine. Nor will a mere exhibition of the consolatory portions of divine truth avail. Fragrant cordials and aromatic spices may have their use in the skilful hands of the medical professor; but they are not the staff of life; and woe to that patient who, neglecting more substantial nutriment, betakes himself exclu