to elucidate the Scripture revelation of origins, while the evidence for the unity and antiquity of man is presented in its most modern form, and so as to contradict the wild views that are so prevalent. ed. T.C.D. James Nisbet and Co. solves the difficulty by neither seeking novelty nor avoiding commonplace, but by addressing himself in a simple manly way to the salient points of the preacher's work, and saying concerning them simply what occurs to him to say, without being careful whether New Lights upon Old Lines; or, Vexed Ques- it has been said before or not. The result is tions in Theological Controversy at the Presa volume of singular freshness, suggestiveent Day, Critically and Exegetically Discussness, and beauty. The lectures are a direct, By THOMAS MONCK MASON, B.A., cogent, and practical talk, upon a high and eloquent conversational level, about The Perils of Young Preachers,' 'The Intellect in Relation to Preaching,' 'Reading,' 'The Preparation of Sermons,' 'Extemporaneous Preaching and Style,' Evangelistic Preaching,' 'Pastoral Preaching,' and 'The Conduct of Public Worship;' in themselves wellworn topics, like many others that have to be constantly urged, but in their treatment full of intellectual strength, penetrating insight, broad and varied culture, and singularly spiritual and elevated in their aims. The great function and ideal of preaching is kept before his hearers, and it is urged with a warmth and tenderness of religious feeling, and a practical common sense, which, in their not very common combination, give a singular value to the lecture. Almost every page would furnish matter for quotation or suggestion for criticism, but to venture upon either would demand much more space than we can command. We may instance as specially valuable the Lectures on Reading and the remarks on the Ethics of Style. We do not hesitate to say, that numerous and valuable as have been the works on Homiletics, and penetrating and eloquent as were the lectures of the first incumbent of the Lyman Beecher Lectureship, Mr. Dale's volume, conceived in the light of modern requirements, and bathed in the atmosphere of modern feeling, characterized moreover by a catholicity that fits them equally for every church in which Christ is preached, will be as useful and suggestive to the young preacher as any manual that has come under our notice. It is a volume of rare richness, manliness, and eloquence. The author of this scheme grapples with fourteen of the most knotty questions in critical and ecclesiastical theology, and reveals, on the old lines of exegetical inquiry, very considerable ability and knowledge. He has the courage of his evangelical faith. and little patience with the method, now very fashionable, of seeing lines of truth in all directions and on both sides of a controversy. To him one side is wrong and the other right, and he cannot accept lame and dubious compromises. He does not hesitate to take full advantage of emendations of the text and version of the New Testament which have been suggested by competent scholars, and he displays much tact and skill in the use of them. He arranges all testimonies of Scripture that are apparently adverse to his view of the Gospel, of the Church, of Redemption, of baptismal ablution, baptismal regeneration, justification, ministerial absolution, and the like, with great fairness, and disposes of the arguments and objections in the spirit of true exegetical science. The reasoning is well knit together, and the logical coherence is remarkable. The style is free from obscurity, although the arguments are condensed. The position is that of an orthodox Evangelical Protestant, whose outspoken repudiation of Arminian compromises and High Church pretensions now and then lead him to the verge of intolerance. The volume is the very opposite of namby-pambyism, and the author knows and says what he means, and, though we differ from a few of his conclusions, we heartily thank him for his work. Nine Lectures on Preaching. Delivered at The difficulties of the Lyman Beecher Lecturer increase with the multiplication of the lectures. Although the work of the Christian preacher is manifold, and touches the religious life at almost every point of its faith and experience and work, it must be dealt with in its character as a ministry. The lecturer must discuss not so much the things as the ministry of them, and in the very nature of things all possible novelties of topic and treatment are very soon exhausted, and for the lecturer as for the religious preacher there will remain only the reassertion of well-known and well-urged truths. With the lecturer, however, as with the preacher, where there is individual thought and force, there will always be freshness of treatment. Mr. Dale, who is the fifth or sixth lecturer, History of Materialism, and Criticism of its This is the first volume of Messrs. Trübner and Co.'s new series, The English and Foreign Philosophical Library.' It seems odd to begin a series which, from its title, ought to be composed largely, though not necessarily exclusively, of independent works, with a translation. The importance of the work in this instance, however, may justify the arrangement. Lange's History of Materialism' has attained the rank in Germany of a standard book, and repeated references to it by well-known English writers of recognized authority have excited a good deal of interest in regard to it in our own country. Professor Huxley and Dr. Tyndall, in particular, have spoken of it with so much respect and admiration that its translation into English has been looked for with an unusual degree of expectancy. So far as the translator's work is concerned, we may say, in a word, that it has been admirably done. Success in translating philosophical German into English must always be a relative term, as those best know who have made the attempt to evade or overcome the difficulties of the task. It would be flattery, of which the translator in this case would probably be the first to discern the hollowness, to say that in every instance he has succeeded in either meeting or eluding these difficulties; but he has produced a thoroughly readable work, faithful to the pirit and genius of the original, as well as trustworthy and accurate in its rendering. To have accomplished this much is a creditable achievement. Regarding the merits of the work itself, it is impossible to give a satisfactory opinion from the instalment which alone we have yet obtained in English. The two volumes of the original have been distributed into three in the translation. The first deals with Materialism in antiquity, and traces the history of the opinions designated by the name onwards through the period of transition' down to the end of the seventeenth century in England. The second volume will follow the great materialistic movement of the eighteenth century, and trace out its influence and bearings upon modern philosophy. Finally, in the third volume, we shall have a criticism and an estimate fixing (we presume) the present importance of Materialism in relation to the leading problems of modern thought. We are promised much interesting discussion under the three heads of The Natural Sciences,' 'Man and the Soul,' and 'Morality and Religion.' For the present, the work in the instalment before us is purely historical. The author is distinguished by a general spirit of impartiality (free, on the whole, from party bias) which pervades the book, as well as by the fulness of his knowledge and the maturity of his reflective genius. The value of his work is not diminished but increased by the fact that it is obviously written with constant reference to the problems and questions now or recently under discussion in Germany and to the forms of speculation current there. We shall be better able to judge by and by how far the translator is right in estimating the whole work as on the one side an assertion of the materialistic standpoint against the philosophy of mere notions,' and on the other of the Kantian or Neo-Kantian standpoint against both. So far as we are yet able to judge, however, it seems to us as if Lange's impartiality did not reach so far as to hold the balance even between both. He appears to distinctly tend towards the materialistic point of view, and we shall be glad to find that this is subsequently corrected by the admission of the claims of an enlightened spiritualism, without which we hold it impossible to account for the actual facts with which philosophical thought must deal. In the mean time, it is but right to add that the 6 historical materials illustrating the course of thought in antiquity have the value which might be expected from the researches of so thorough and comprehensive an inquirer as Dr. Lange was. A biographical notice of the author is prefixed to the work by the translator. A New Testament Commentary for English Readers. By Various Writers. Edited by CHARLES JOHN ELLICOTT, D.D., Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. Vol. I. The Gospel according to St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke, by the Rev. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.; the Gospel according to St. John, by the Rev. H. W. WATKINS, M. A. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. This is a textual commentary or general readers, based upon a far more accurate and general scholarship than has hitherto been devoted to such works. In most of the popular commentaries of which that of Albert Barnes is the type, while the scholarship may have been respectable, it has not been such as to carry independent authority, but has been derived from the authority of others. It has therefore often been at fault, and especially has it been beguiled into homiletical and devotional uses, often regardless of exact meanings. This is a work by thorough scholars and careful exegetes, intended for the use of those unable to read the sacred text in its original languages, and to put them in possession of its exact sense, at the same time carefully maintaining that higher exegesis than any mere grammatical analysis can supply-the development and exhibition of the inner life and meaning of the sacred writers. The text exists for the meaning, and it is here wisely and effectively elucidated simply to bring out the meaning. The reputation as a scholarly and reverent expositor of Scripture which Dr. Plumptre has attained is a sufficient guarantee of the character of his exposition of the Synoptic Gospels. A man of thoroughly catholic and devout spirit, his elucidations are as free from bias as it is perhaps possible for any man to be. Fully acquainted with the critical difficulties which perplex intelligent minds, he shows himself a sympathetic interpreter, while avoiding the error of polemics. His expositions are given in the light of critical objection, rather than in formal reply to them. No man can expound the Gospels without adopting views from which some will dissent. A commentary to which any competent critic could not take some exception, especially as to meanings, would be a miracle. The standpoint of Dr. Plumptre as a liberal and, at the same time, a reverent scholar and interpreter, will sufficiently indicate his general views. And these are set forth succinctly, clearly, and modestly. Mr. Watkins is less known as a biblical scholar, but his very able Introduction to the Gospel of John, and the scven excursuses appended to it, in which he wisely touches various points concerning the Fourth Gospel which are just now discussed, justify his selection for this task of great difficulty and places represented to us. An Illustrated Bible for half-a-guinea is something new in publishing enterprize. It is a marvel of cheapness and beauty. The Superhuman Origin of the Bible inferred from Itself. The Congregational Lecture for 1873. By HENRY ROGERS. Fifth Edition. Hodder and Stoughton. That Professor Rogers's Lecture should have passed into a fifth edition, is very satisfactory proof of both its fitness and power. Few men were more qualified to deal with the special line of evidence which he here pursues, or to work out the intellectual and moral proof from coincidence and congruity so skilfully and eloquently as he has done here. He has gathered into this volume some of the best thinking of a lifetime, and some of his best professorial work. Books like this are not made, they grow; and when so grown, they take a permanent place in literature. ART. I.-The First Ten Years of the Ca- | countries. Governed by wholly independ nadian Dominion. On the first of July last the Dominion of Canada entered on the second decade of its existence. A natural opportunity is thus presented for reviewing its brief history, and the success of its effort to solve the political problems to the pressure of which it owed its origin. Such a review will be found to be not without interest to the student of political science, especially in England, for Canada exhibits the British Constitution under a peculiar set of circumstances, by which its operation is modified in a way that is at once interesting and important. Even before the formation of the Dominion the Canadian colonies had excited interest among British statesmen by successfully grappling with some problems, like that of a State Church, which formed a burden rather than an advantage of the inheritance received from the mother country; but since the confederation of the colonies, ten years ago, their political transactions have risen in imperial significance. The neighbourhood of Canada to the United States, and the intimate commercial and social relations which that neighbourhood entails, have already brought, and must continue to bring, the affairs of the Dominion before the Imperial Government in a way that is sometimes more important than pleasant; while, among themselves, the Canadians are now facing the storm and stress of conflicts which, even in the varied political history of England, have not been completely fought out, and may therefore be forced upon her yet. It may not be unnecessary to remind some readers that, previously to 1867, the British American provinces stood to each other practically in the relation of foreign B-11 VOL. LXVII. ent legislatures, separated by dissimilar tariffs, they were united only by the unobtrusive bond of a common dependence on the Imperial Government of Great Britain. Political thinkers who were liberal enough to be influenced by other considerations than the party questions of the hour, saw that such relations were indisputably hostile to the interest of all the provinces concerned, which could hope for a position of importance on the American continent only by such unrestricted commercial and social intercourse as might ultimately weld them into one people. It was evidently also in the interest of the Imperial Government that the colonial minister in London, instead of being obliged to deal with a number of petty states, should be able to correspond with a single government representative of them all. But the circumstances which led immediately to the confederation of the British American provinces cannot be understood without a brief reference to the previous history of Canada. When Canada was ceded to Great Britain it was all embraced under one province, extending somewhat indefinitely into the West, and known by the name of the province of Quebec. In 1791 the western section of the province, which had meanwhile been populated by English settlers, was separated into an independent province, with British institutions, while the eastern section continued to retain its original French character. These two provinces, of Upper Canada or Canada West, and Lower Canada or Canada East, remained separate till 1840, when they were united into one province, styled the Province of Canada, in the hope of allaying the political discontent which had culminated in the rebellion of 1837. In this province, fault of the deadlock between the two parties was charged by the politicians, not on themselves, but on the political arrangement by which the two Canadas were united. As a result of this, a coalition was formed for the purpose of breaking up the union of the two Canadas, and merg tion of the British American provinces. After a considerable amount of preliminary negotiation, matters were sufficiently, advanced in 1866 to admit of delegates being appointed from the different provinces to confer on the terms of confederation. The delegates met in London, and the result of their deliberations was the British North America Act, passed by the Imperial Parliament, 29th March, 1867. On the first of July in that year a proclamation of the Queen ushered the young confederacy into existence; and the waste of gunpowder, the destruction of maple branches, the display of dry goods in bunting and fashionable attire, showed it to be a festival on which the Canadians kept high holiday. Since that time the First of July-Dominion Day as it is called-has formed, among the Canadians, a rival to the great holiday of the Fourth among their American neighbours. Whether the day will hold its place or not, who can tell? The explosion of tons of gunpowder in pyrotechnic exhibitions, and feux de joie, and salvoes of artillery, will not make the baptism of fire by which a people announces that it has been born into the family of the nations. down till the period of confederation, ten | carried on. But however this may be, the years ago, politicians had been divided into two parties, one of which was distinguished by the name of Conservatives, while their opponents were known as Liberals or Reformers, though commonly dubbed, in more familiar style, Clear Grits in Upper Canada, and Rouges among the French of the Lower Province. The history of the struggle being them separately in a larger confederatween these two parties may be read still with a little more than ordinary human perseverance, but by no human intelligence can it be comprehended. Its incomprehensibility does not indeed arise from the absence of any question sufficient to call the political combatants to arms, for at times there was a measure of solid importance flaunted by one of the parties as a standard round which its forces rallied. But even in such cases it is impossible to see why the measure should have been taken under protection by its advocates rather than by its opponents. The student of the period, whose imagination cannot now be fired by the heat of its burnt out passions, fails, even after patient investigation, to discover any general principle which uniformly inspired either party, and breathed a soul into the particular measures for which it fought. The rapidly changing administrations of those years show, at this distance, a scene not unlike a well-known juvenile sport, in which boys divide themselves into two sets, for the mere enjoyment of a tug against each other's strength, and, after one set is victorious, divide themselves again and again till they get worn out. Unfortunately in contests of this kind, bloodless though they be, mere mortals, unlike the ghostly heroes of Walhalla, do at last become exhausted. This exhaustion came all the more naturally upon the combatants in the political arena of Old Canada, owing to the circumstance that for some time neither party was cheered by any decisive victory. In truth, their struggles assumed a serio-comic aspect at times, as one administration after another attempted to carry on the business of the country by a majority which occasionally reduced itself to a unit, and was likely to become a vanishing frac-ince of Manitoba. The whole of British tion or a minus quantity whenever a test question was pressed to a decision. Can we wonder that in these circumstances both parties at last laid down their arms in despair, and sought a peaceful settlement of their quarrels ? Looking from our passionless distance at those old conflicts, one may reasonably question whether the political system of the province was not less to blame for their fruit less perpetuation than the incompetence of the polemical politicians by whom they were At the formation of the confederacy it embraced only four provinces-Upper Čanada, under the new name of Ontario; Lower Canada, under that of Quebec; Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, under their old names. Since then the provinces of Prince Edward Island in the east, and of British Columbia in the west, have joined the Dominion; while the Great Lone Land' in the northwest has been acquired by buying up the rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, and already a portion of it set apart as the Prov North America is thus included in the Dominion, with the exception of Newfoundland, which thus, literally and figuratively, remains out in the cold. The political constitution of the Dominion, as well as of the seven provinces which now compose it, is in all essential respects a reproduction of the British Constitution. The only exception is in the case of Ontario and Manitoba, the former having from the first contented itself with one legislative chamber, while the latter, for economy's sake, has since followed |