It comprises forty-three sermons, and we cannot forbear quoting what the writer says (page 11 of preface) of this form as prepared for the pulpit: "I have always felt indignant with those preachers who, when they resort to the press, seem ashamed of their vocation, and disguise, under new shapes and names, the materials originally embodied in sermons. I should as soon think of turn

ing a sonnet into an epistle, a ballad into a review, or a dirge into an obituary. It must be a bad sermon that can be made into a good treatise or even a good 'oration.""

The second volume, on "Modern Materialism," is a reprint of an admirable address before the author's "College," issued in October, 1874, and noticed in the NEW ENGLANDER for April, 1875,-which occupies the first sixty-eight pages; to which are here added the author's two papers from the Contemporary Review, in defence of his position against attacks from Professor Tyndall and others. We renew our former testimony. We know not where to find, within the same compass, a more able argument for Theism, and indeed for a spiritual philosophy as against the chief infidelity of the day. Unitarian though he is, the author must be acknowledged one of the foremost adroit champions of the truth, if not of "the whole truth."

The third," Hours of Thought,"-published in England only last autumn, is a series of twenty-five discourses, very similar in their practical and devout quality, and their literary excellences, to those in the "Endeavors after the Christian Life." They are pervaded by a thoughtful and refined spirit, high aspirations, richness and delicacy of imagery, and exquisite grace of expression. For a single specimen of the author's curiosa felicitas, we may refer to what he says (page 120 of the first volume) of "the devout elements of a nation's mind" as necessary to its growth: "If these should dry up in any Arctic chill of doubt, or be poisoned by any Epicurean rot of indulgence, it would silently decay within the soil, and leave the fairest tree of history, first with a sickening foliage and soon with a perished life.”

It is unnecessary to say that we miss, even in so excellent a writer, some of the distinctive doctrines and cogent motives of Christianity. His subjects and methods, however, in these discourses, are such that, while not concealing his convictions, he does not obtrude his dissent from the standards of orthodoxy; and his reverence and charity, as well as fine culture, in dealing with the common truths on which he prefers to dwell, cannot fail to

charm evangelical readers. The first sermon in Hours of Thought, on the Tides of the Spirit, will lead the student to a further acquaintance with a mind so gifted and devout.

Even in a literary view we might take exception to an excessive elaboration in Dr. Martineau's style, and sometimes the thought is too subtle and the language too fine for the advantage of most readers, for which reason we are not surprised if, as we have somewhere learned, his congregations were not large while he had a pastoral charge—a fact to which local causes may have contributed also. As a writer, however, he must be generally welcomed, by thoughtful readers, through these sermons and addresses, in defence of great truths and for the maintenance of Christian morals.

SELECTIONS FROM THE THOUghts of MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS.*-An elegant little volume that may be carried in one's pocket, and deserving, we need not say, such companionship by reason of its contents. The selections are from Mr. George Long's translation, "with a few verbal changes." Such a Roman emperor as Marcus Aurelius, born A. D. 121, in his unique position, illustrious for every virtue, and the ornament of the Stoic philosophy, will be ever regarded, as he has been, with thoughtful wonder, especially when we think of the degeneracy that had already brought the empire into its "decline," and which even such a sovereign could not arrest,-and of Christianity and the Church, that were then ripening for the ages to come. The time has gone by for any jealous disparagement of so splendid a character among pagans. It is one of the reliefs needed in studying the history of mankind that such men have lived in heathendom, and a blessing that Christians now may read their "thoughts."

THE ANTI-PELAGIAN WORKS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE.† Vol. III— This is the xvth volume of Augustine's writings which are now in the process of publication in English, Dr. Marcus Dods being the Editor, and the Messrs. Clark the Publishers. The portion of these writings to which the present volume belongs, presents the distinctive principles of the theological system of the great Latin

* Selections from the Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Emperor of Rome. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876. 90 pp.

The Anti-Pelagian Works of St. Augustine. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. (New York: Scribner, Welford, and Armstrong.) Price $3.00

Father-those doctrines which give to the epithet "Augustinian" its accepted meaning. Here the Pelagian conception of human nature and character, and of the import and operations of the Grace of Redemption, are opposed with arguments from Scripture and Christian experience and philosophy, with a genius and a fervor which have seldom been equaled in polemical theology.

POEMS EARLY AND LATE.-The beauty of Dr. Powers' conceptions, and the rich and often tender grace of his expressions in verse, will make this little but thoughtful volume very welcome to many who do not know the fine nature that produced it. To those of delicate and fervent sensibility, to those whom the loveliness of nature and the sorrowfulness of life in turn affect deeply, to those in whom thought has been deepened, mellowed, sweetened by wide experience, it will be specially valuable. It utters, with exquisite refinement and truth, much to which true and ripened souls will respond, much that will seem a charming echo of what has passed in the heart. It is a book to be enjoyed by one's self, rather than to be subject to the coarse test of public elocution, or even to the somewhat uncertain one of social reading. Largely it is a rarely domestic book, though there are noble strains in it on passing events, and great public interests-peals of the trumpet as well as delicious tones of the harp. Such are the pieces entitled "The New Epoch," "A Hymn for 1861," "Memorial Day;" while "A Hymn of the Mothers of the Patriot Soldiers," and the opening and closing poems,-"Saints," and "Ecclesia,"-blend somewhat both characters. The tender pathos that springs from spiritual thoughts of death marks many of Dr. Powers' verses, such as "Mosses," "A Winter Reverie," "The Forest Grave," and in "Ariss," and most of those between "The Angels' Bridge," p. 15, and "Months After," p. 31, which were evidently prompted by the loss of children. A still subtler strain of thought and sorrow runs through "A Vision," pp. 58-60. Sometimes the rhythm is very musical, as in "Peevankèe," and "A Murmur of May." One or two are defective in this respect, and through irregularity, as "The Argosy," and there are single lines which ought not to mar so fair a book, here and there. For example, the very prosaic one in one of the poems on Bryant,

and

"A Library free to all the country round," p. 38,

"A silver cascade slides down to the floor," p. 45,

which should read "Down slides a silver cascade" etc., and "Th' Errors nursed in Ignorance's dominions," p. 49,

which requires an ictus on the last syllable of "Ignorance," and "There Love folds on his bloodless breast," p. 64,

where the little word "on" has far to much laid upon it (compare "Where she saw," p. 101) and " Each cloud,” p. 63, and the two lines,

"Runs to a field of luminous em'rald,

Broidered with more 'long fringe of crimson fire," p. 68.

There are some obvious typographical errors, as on p. 42, “with sweet nectar," p. 70 "the musings sweet," and p. 94 " It is" (for Is it?). We ought not to notice the blemishes of a book of so much merit, without an instance or two of its beauties:

"From one great oak a mighty vine

Leaps to yon ledge of frosted ferns;

Below, beside a whispering pine,

A maple's scarlet turret burns." p. 115, "Autumn Picture."

"Like silvered raven-down, the dark

Kept floating through the hawthorn lane,

And still the fire-fly's lustrous spark

Fell on the dusk like amber rain." p. 92, "In the Lane."

The pure and reverent religious feeling throughout the book, cropping out in exquisite passages of description, is beyond all praise. There are allusions which indicate that the author has resided in the West as well as at the East. He has been a rector of Episcopal churches at Davenport, Iowa, and Chicago, and is now in the ministry of his denomination at Bridgeport, Conn.

THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES.*-Although profounder students of Greek tragedy recognize in the dramas of Eschylus and Sophocles, a grander, loftier character than can be claimed by those which bear the name of Euripides, so that the latter is always mentioned the last, et magno intervallo, in the great trio; yet there are respects in which the younger poet far surpasses his great rivals. The pathetic quality which distinguishes Euripides is wholly wanting in Eschylus and Sophocles, and it is this very pathos, so familiar a motive in all modern literature, which has always made Euripides a favorite. This quality brings him near to our modern

*The Medea of Euripides, with Notes and an Introduction; by FREDERIC D. ALLEN, Ph.D., Professor in the University of Cincinnati. Boston: Ginn & Heath. Printed at the Riverside Press. 1877.

world-indeed, you hardly feel at times, in reading Euripides, that you have in your hands an ancient writer-while the simplicity of his style makes his tragedies especially suitable to serve as the introduction for the young student to the study of Greek tragedy in general. Heretofore the only play of Euripides specially prepared for our students has been President Woolsey's Alcestis; hence the appearance, at this time, of the Medea, by general consent Euripides' masterpiece, is most timely. Professor Allen, the editor, is recognized by all who know him as one of the most competent Greek scholars in the country. His Introduction, Notes, and Appendices supply everything which is needed for the thorough study of this great tragedy, and the conciseness and pointedness of his work is as commendable as its learning and exactness. Nowhere is there any evading of difficult passages, but the difficulties are clearly stated, and receive, where explanation is possible, a masterly explanation. The mechanical execution of the book calls for special mention. There has been manifest in our country during the last few years a great improvement in the get-up of classical text-books, and this volume will bear comparison with the best specimens of books of a similar class sent forth from the Clarendon Press. We have never seen, in a Greek text-book, a more beautiful printed page.

VAN LAUN'S HISTORY OF FRENCH LITERATURE.*-We have not space at command to give any adequate account of this brilliant work of Mr. Van Laun. We hope to do so at some future time. For the present, we can only transfer to our pages a single paragraph, as an illustration of the graphic and forcible style which characterizes his generalizations on the different epochs of French literature. He thus introduces the period of the "Renaissance."

"Imagine that you exist upon a platform in space, supported you know not how, limited you know not where; that round about you in the firmament of heaven are whirled the sun and moon, the innumerable stars; that somewhere beneath your feet burns the malebolge of the wicked, and somewhere above your head stands the paradise of the saints.

You have taken all this for granted upon the faith of your father's words; you have had it confirmed from the pulpit, and in the lecture room; you have found its sanction in the Bible. You no more think of questioning it than of doubting

* History of French Literature. By HENRI VAN LAUN. Vol. I. From its origin to the Renaissance. Vol. II. From the Classical Renaissance until the end of the

reign of Louis XIV.

New York.

G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1877. 8vo. pp. 392.