the constitution of things. His writings are a beautiful antidote to pessimism. God was to him concrete living goodness; man was a being of marvelous nobleness; and the severity in nature and the sin and misery in the world were the necessary conditions of a probation whereby the heroic is possible and perfection a future result. His individualistic views, if they did not grow out of his optimism, were admirably consistent with it. If man is a transcendently noble being it is a frightful monstrosity for him to be, either mentally or physically, a slave. His noble single nature must ever assert itself, emancipating itself from all servility to the despotism of others or the enthrallment of ignoble influences. He must be free from the influence of tradition, of sect, of party. Each single man, aspiring after the highest possibilities of his own noble nature, must think and speak in perfect independence, furnishing his own contribution to the reason of the whole race. The same individualism rendered him averse to the mysteries of a creed. The trinity he rejected, not so much as a mystery as a contradiction in terms, the very formula which expressed it being a self-contradiction, and therefore a nothing.

In his theology the three greatest words were GOD, IMMORTALITY, and PERFECTION. These were the three great primary assumptions. Under a divine goodness man is destined to an eternal progress, of which a perpetual perfecting is the result. As to future retribution the Scriptures, which he fully accepted as a revelation, were to him not clear and decisive; but it was a happy condition, he thought, for a being to be embraced in the future destinies of the race. In our perfecting progress we are aided by the Spirit of God; and Christ is our transcendent example, teacher, and thereby redeemer from sin and its consequences. Christ's character is the exhibited perfection at which we aim. It is truly and historically a miracle; and all his miracles, as narrated by the evangelists, are truly consonant with his character, and so not only credible, but required.

From his ultra individualism, Channing was "opposed to Methodism." It was too organic, too despotic. In this respect Channing was the contrast of Wesley to his own disparagement. Wesley was a great organizer, Channing a disintegrator. Wesley would marshal men into a great enginery for bringing about stupendous beneficent reforms and advancements. Channing would reduce all the race to individual elements, in hope that its noble individualities might somehow spontaneously harmonize into an ultimate general perfection. His method is not God's

method. God organizes dispensations. He formed an Old Testament Church of most organic shape. Christ founded a New Testament Church, with institutions and rulers, to be a collective agency in the world. Hence Wesley's name is now a far greater power than Channing's. It is mentioned a hundred times to Channing's once. Channing has, for instance, an influence like that of Byron, as a fascinating spell, but without actuating energy. Channing has had one centennial in honor of his birth; Wesley has had a dozen centennials commemorative of his work. Channing's influence floats like a beautiful thin vapor in the atmosphere; Wesley's is like the steam condensed into a force that moves an enginery that moves the world. Each is great in his own way, but there is little equality in the volume and vastness of the power that has gone out from them.

Liberia: Its Origin, Rise, Progress, and Results. An Address delivered before the American Colonization Society, January 20, 1880, by Hon. JOHN B. LATROBE, 12mo., paper cover, pp. 11. Washington City: Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 1880.

The Exodus: Its Effect upon the People of the South. Colored Labor not Indispensable. An Address delivered before the Board of Directors of the American Colonization Society, January 21, 1880, by Rev. C. K. MARSHALL, D.D., of Vicksburgh, Mississippi. Published by Request. Washington City: Colonization Building, 450 Pennsylvania Avenue. 1880.

The resumption of virtual existence and of operations by the Colonization Society from its paralysis under the blows of Garrison and his followers, followed by the war, calls for a new exposition of its history, purposes, and plans of operations. The history here is ably but concisely given by President Latrobe, and its origin, character, and achievements are shown to be worthy of all respect and approval. The attack by Garrison upon the society was one of his fanaticisms, followed by an equal fanaticism on the part of the spokesmen for the society in allowing it to become a stronghold of not only anti-Garrisonism, but of something very much like pro-slaveryism. It thereby gave Garrison the victory, and sunk from public confidence. From the beginning, Garrison's attacks were valid, not from the true organic purpose of the society itself as a machine for giving the negroes a chance for emigration when they desired, but from the unnecessary oppressive language of the advocates of the society against the negro. Speeches showing the incapacities of the negro, his incapability of rising to respect or position, collided against the largest liberality of our Christianity and hopes for mankind. They were seen to create the very race prejudice on which the argument was built. Even

when uttered by philanthropists, in the spirit of commiseration, their obvious effect was to intensify the spirit of color-caste, and give to the foot that trampled upon an oppressed race the sanction of piety and benevolence. Garrison and his co-operators had not the mental discrimination to see that while the sentiments were deleterious, the real organic purpose of the society was benign, and that while he protested against the former, he should have given all aid to the latter. And then he might have made the society not his foe, but his auxiliary. And now, near half a century later, Oliver Johnson, in his late history of that day, shows himself not emancipated from the same mental and moral fallacy. He repeats the folly as if the fibers of his cerebrum had become fixedly shaped to the permanent error.

Nor have the advocates of the society grown more wise. Dr. Marshall's address is vivid with his style of imaginative rhetoric. He draws many radiant pictures, and utters many noble sentiments. He descries a regal glory in the far future of Africa, and so desires the education of our negroes, especially in industrial schools. He would have the society unfold anew its plans to pub lic view, and hopes that in time Congress will give millions to its aid. In forty years he believes the negro element will have no significant existence in America.

So far we should nearly agree with him. But there are several other utterances for which the society should not make itself responsible by the publication of his address. His statement that the educated negro had "learned the multiplication table, but forgotten his prayers," is an injustice, not only to the negroes, but to the large body of self-sacrificing Christian educators, who, in the face of obloquy and sneer from men like Dr. Marshall, have been religiously educating the negroes out of the ignorant superstitions in which slavery had bound them, and bringing them to an intelligent piety. Dr. Marshall tells us "the ballot has been his bane;" but we must tell him it is not the "ballot " but the bulldoze by Caucasian hands in the form of disfranchising fraud and force which has been the "bane" of both negro and Caucasian. Dr. Marshall would not disfranchise the foreign-born, whiskeydrinking Irish papist, but he would disfranchise the home-born Protestant American negro. These and other blemishes in Dr. Marshall's address we would not consider as authorized by the society; but President Latrobe's utterances sound more authoritative. He tells us: "Colonizationists, as a rule, have believed that two distinct races, that cannot or will not amalgamate by

intermarriage, can live in the same land in but one of two relations-master and slave, or oppressor and oppressed." That maxim would "rule" out the best part of the American people. It coolly avows the policy of oppression; that is, of serfdom for the negroes, after slavery has ceased. If that is essential "colonizationism," we trample upon it. It is purely a gratuitous hypothesis, adopted not by reason, but by arbitrary will.

We support the organic operations of this society on the following basis. The negro has the same rights, and the same right to exercise his rights, on the American soil, that the Caucasian has. He has the right to stay here forever, and any declarations that he will be expatriated by 1920 are simply fools' prophecy. He has a right to such respect, and civil franchises, and position, as belong to his personal qualifications, irrespective of color. Any disposition or purpose to induce him to emigrate by oppression here is unchristian, unmanly, and devilish. But if in his own free-will he prefers to go to a land where his color and race are predominant by numbers and organic power, let all our philanthropy and wealth combine to enable him to emigrate to the land of his choice, with our blessing upon him.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By EDWARD GIBBON. With Notes by DEAN MILMAN, M. GUIZOT, and Dr. WILLIAM SMITH. In six volumes, 8vo. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

We fully indorse the opinion that Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" is the greatest work of history ever written. It traces in a style both of thought and language worthy of so great a subject the slow transit of the world from the ancient to the modern. This vast range of centuries presents events, characters and institutions requiring the hands of a master, and a master Gibbon always is. He is equally a master in discussion, narration, or description. On the great subject of Christianity it is his spirit rather than his facts that is to be impeached. In his own day critics impugned his narrations always to their own cost. The present edition presents us in the notes of Milman and Guizot, and especially in Milman's elaborate preface, an antidote to Gibbon's colorings of the origin and history of Christianity and the Church. But a greater antidote may be found in Milman's own history of the first three centuries. This present edition is one in the train of the magnificent series of standard histories, issued from the Harper press, a series which nothing but limited pecuniary requisites should prevent any scholarly man from having upon a conspicuous library shelf.

Miscellaneous.

Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. By HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM MEYER, M.D. From the German, with the sanction of the Author. The translation revised and edited by WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D.D., and WILLIAM STEWART, D.D. Part I. Second Edition. The Gospels of Mark and Luke, 8vo. Vol. I., pp. 348. Vol. II., pp. 371. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1880. Price $3 per volume.

A Model Superintendent. A Sketch of the Life, Character, and Methods of Work of Henry P. Haven, of the International Lesson Committee. By H. CLAY TRUMBULL. 12mo., pp. 188. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880. Masterpieces of English Literature. Being Typical Selections of British and American Authorship, from Shakespeare to the Present Time, Together with Defini tions, Notes, Analyses, and Glossary as an Aid to Systematic Literary Study. For use in High and Normal Schools, Academies, Seminaries, etc. By WILLIAM SWINTON. With Portraits. 8vo., pp. 638. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

A History of Classical Greek Literature. By the Rev. J. P. MAHAFFY, M.A. In Two Vols. 12mo. Vol. I., The Poets, (with an Appendix on Homer, by Prof. Sayce,) pp. 525. Vol. II., The Prose Writers, (with an Index to both volumes,) pp. 458. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe. By JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. In Two Vols. 12mo. Vol. I., pp. 394. Vol. II., pp. 388. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

POPULAR SERIES. A Series of Sermons Against the Sins of the Times. By the Rev. B. F. AUSTIN, M.A. Pp. 115. Toronto: Hunter Rose & Company. 1880. English Men of Letters. Edited by JOHN MORLEY. John Bunyan. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, pp. 178. William Couper. By GOLDIONI SMITH, pp. 128. Alexander Pope. By LESLIE STEPHEN, pp. 209. 12mo. New York: Harper &

Brothers. 1880.

Shakespeare's Tragedy of King Richard the Third. Edited, with Notes, by WILLIAM J. ROLFE, A.M. With Engravings. 16mo., pp. 254. New York: Harper

& Brothers. 1880.

Character and Work of a Gospel Minister. A Discourse Delivered before the Ordination of Deacons at the Holston Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Abingdon, Va., Sunday Morning, October 26, 1879, by the Rev. BISHOP PIERCE. Edited by T. O. SUMMERS, D.D. Paper Cover. 12mo., pp. 23. Nashville, Tenn.: Southern Methodist Publishing House. 1880. HARPER'S HALF-HOUR SERIES. Business Life in Ancient Rome. By CHARLES G. HERBERMANN, Ph.D. 32mo., paper. Pp. 74. New York: Harper & Brothers.

1880.

FRANKLIN SQUARE LIBRARY, 4to, paper. The Duke's Children. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Pp. 105. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1880.

National Repository: Devoted to General and Religious Literature, Biographies and Travels, Criticisms and Art. May, 1880. Edited by DANIEL CURRY, D.D., LL.D. Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis: Hitchcock & Walden. New York: Phillips & Hunt.

The Expositor. June, 1880. Edited by Rev. SAMUEL COX. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row.