and execution. It has the additional worth of being, in a sense, a Result of Council ecclesiastical, convened to give an opinion on an actual case, where a church-member had married a person divorced for other cause than the scriptural one.

19.—Shakespeare's Delineations of Insanity, Imbecility aud Suicide. By A. O. KELLOGG, M. D., Assistant Physician, State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N. Y. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866. LIKE Jacob's well at Sychar, Shakespeare is a fountain from which successive generations draw, and constantly what is fresh and new. The study and the volumes suggested and worked up by the stimulus of this old author are a perfect wonder.

The three essays composing this neat volume originally appeared in the American Journal of Insanity, and are now a reprint improved. They are well executed by a great admirer of him of Avon, having been written by one adapted by profession and circumstances to study this class of Shakespeare's characters. For a topical reading of the great dramatist, these would be eminently serviceable, while they show how carefully and widely and in advance of the physiologists of his day, Shakespeare had observed and studied man in the three points of the Essay.

20.-The Christian's Daily Treasury. A Religious Exercise for Every Day in the Year. By EBENEZER TEMPLE, author of "The Domestic Altar," etc. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1866.

THESE four hundred and thirty two pages give a little more than one to each day of the year in the brief, suggestive, scriptural and godly passages that every Christian needs. The topics are practical and of a wide range,and the entire spirit of the book is devout, and is specially adapted to the invalid and aged Christian, and to him whom business hurries with incessant cares, and deprives of full readings and meditations.

21.-History of the Jewish Church. Part II. From Samuel to the Captivity. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1866.

THIS is the second series of Dr. Stanley's attempt to popularize biblical history. The same brilliant qualities of style, the same disregard of the literal statements of the sacred record, the same genial and liberal spirit toward extreme views, whether true or false, characterize this, as the preceding volume. We think such treatment of biblical subjects does some minds mischief, and some minds good. Which result preponderates, we hardly know. We fear, the first.

It is dangerous to shake human confidence in the exact truthfulness and trustworthiness of the Bible. And, yet, the lifelikeness of these volumes must give to the study of biblical subjects new fascination, while they certainly impart much useful information.

22.-Revolution and Reconstruction. Two Lectures delivered in the Law School of Harvard College. By JOEL PARKER, Royall Professor. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

THE eminent author, in his regular course of Lectures on Constitutional Law, here discusses the profound and agitating questions of secession and the rebellion; State sovereignty; confederation and the fundamental law of the Union; the suppression of the rebellion, and the powers exercised therein; counter revolution and reconstruction or restoration; the power of the Constitution in bringing about peace; the status of the rebel States after the war; organic changes in our government achieved, in progress or contemplated ; military necessity and law in their relations to civil law; treason and its punishment; the constitutional guaranty of a republican government in each State, etc.

To the discussion of these topics Judge Parker brings rich resources from colonial and ante-revolutionary times, the eras of the Confederation and of the adoption of the Constitution, together with its interpretation by the framers and first executors. We find here a very scholarly, dignified and genial treatment of these grave questions, the manner being worthy the chair from whence they emanate. 23.-Hope for the Hopeless. An Autobiography of JOHN VINE HALL. Edited by REV. NEWMAN HALL, LL. B., of Surrey Chapel, London. 12mo. pp. 264. New York: American Tract Society. THIS is a genuine autobiography of a most remarkable sinner and Christian. If one wishes stirring incidents, romance, narrow escapes, heroism, slavery, emancipation, sin and grace, battles, victory alternating, working, watching, triumph and glory, all in one "hero of the story," this is the book for him. It has sentiment enough for the most ardent, and what is specially to be regarded is, that all the thrilling interest of the volume grows out of facts in the life of a real man. We see little need for writing romances when such life-material may be had, or for reading them, while such books remain unread.

This is a volume for temperance men to read and study. It is full of hints, encouragement, example, and stimulus for them. Fallen mournfully himself, renewed by amazing grace, and inade an eminently useful servant of God, Mr. Hall was every way a rare

man.

The contents of the third chapter will sell the book to almost any one:

"Temptation resisted. Sermon by Dr. Adam Clark. Return to Maidstone. Relapse. Power of tenderness. The verge of despair. Alternations of success and failure. A ray of hope. Hope; help; defeat. Desperate resolve. Falling and repenting. Fallen again. Rivers of tears. Spirituous liquors abandoned. Strength and joy. Liberation. Divine grace large and free. Family worship. Porter dangerous; abandoned. The last leaven rejected. Sad remembrances."

24.—The Cross in the Cell. Boston: American Tract Society, 28 Cornhill.

DR. ADAMS Writes remarkable books. This is one of them. It is the story of his successful attempt to reach the heart of a hardened criminal, awaiting execution for murder. It is as interesting as a treatise on theology. No book could be better to put into the hands of an inquirer, whether in a cell or out of it. We are glad that copies of it have already been placed in the Charlestown State Prison, and wish that the same step might be taken with regard to all our public institutions for criminals.

25.-MISCELLANEOUS.

The Presbyterian Board is abundant in its excellent issues, some of the larger of which we notice elsewhere. We here add the following: Robert and Daisy, Dick Mason, Bob Walker, The Power of Gentleness, Grace Dermott, The Sunny Mountain, Minna Croswell, The Evil Tongue.

ARTICLE XI.

THE ROUND TABLE.

AN ORTHODOX CONGREGATIONAL QUARTERLY. Every denomination of national extent and designs needs its Quarterly. Indeed it is quite indispensable, not only for denominational growth, but for all those varied utterances of the Christian scholar, when he would affect widely the more cultivated on questions in theology and morals, civil and social life, literature and the practical topics of the day. We esteem it a favoring providence, therefore, that we had one for our own denomination, established and well under way, when our National Council gave a harmony, unity and oneness of

work to our Congregational body. We were ready and waiting for its programme, and, in truth, were already working out the two leading items in it, creed and polity. We took peculiar satisfaction in seeing that our doctrinal basis, the Westminster Assembly's Catechism, was adopted by the Council unanimously, with a single dissent. This was all we wished or hoped for, and more than many expected from that national body, in the matter of doctrine.

Instead of finding ourselves a "clique," we found that we had been, as we design always to be, the defenders of the faith of that greatest representative body of Congregationalism. We are happy to appeal to our six years' published labors to show that in no important item of faith or polity have we differed from that national platform, and they who may call us a "clique" show that themselves are not on the platform with us and the Council. They are the "clique," and we are of the Congregational nation. We can not now be partizans if we would, for we are with the great whole. Erroneous and unfortunate impressions have been made concerning us to the contrary, but our work is disproving and destroying them, and never faster than during the year past.

Our pages have always been open to the expounders and defenders of our denominational faith, and we have been happy to number not a few among our contributors, whose philosophy and terminology we would not ourselves use, but whom we welcomed as holding and defending the same great truths with us, "for substance of doctrine." And we feel like enlarging this liberty of expression among our writers, since we have seen our National Council declare our fundamental unity by accepting so cordially those ancient and wellunderstood symbols of our order.

Desires have sometimes been expressed that our editing board might be enlarged or changed to allow a fuller representation to the faithof our church. We acknowledge the tribute of respect paid in these desires, and would cordially reciprocate them, if we could discover any part of our national creed that our Prospectus does not cover. Of course we have not yet published a complete system of theology, with all its philosophies, defenses and illustrations, but we will gladly add any contributions that will farther unfold and approbate the declared faith of the Council. We would not wish to be instrumental of weakening, or even attacking that faith; and for any in or out of our denomination wishing to publish a different faith and order there are other and able Quarterlies. The very wide range allowed by the Bibliotheca Sacra and the New Englander, periodicals, in a sense, of our own, makes it unnecessary, as we think it undesirable, to extend our limits to articles not consonant

with our doctrine and order as a denomination. We are too strongly Congregational for that.

Moreover, we wish to ignore, and if possible make obsolete these questions of schools by unifying our denomination, as the work was so auspiciously begun last year. But assuming the existence of divisions, and installing them confessedly in editorial chairs at the same board, might have the effect of inaugurating a strife formally; while the veto power by either party over articles might strike out on both sides the spirit and expression that, innocently blended, could alone give worth and life to a Review.

Such a change would no doubt much increase the editorial power, were it made for either of the Quarterlies mentioned, or for our religious newspapers, but either enterprise can judge whether the change would be desirable and profitable for its own aims and ends as a publication. We know men not a few, who, were schools mentioned, would not class with us, whose coworking we could rejoice in and feel honored by it, and we would gladly help their pens to work out with us the common enterprise of our denomination. Our views and measures are catholic, not clannish, and so are our feelings and sympathies. The interests of Congregationalism are our interests, and we feel that we may justly ask and expect the good will and patronage of the brotherhood; and whoever will make the Boston Review any better as the Quarterly of our denomination, we will welcome as the friends of our Puritan faith and polity.

PROGRESSIVE CRITICISM. The latest word, in German antiChristian criticism, gives up the position of the Tübingen schoolthat the Gospels, and many of the Epistles were constructed some two hundred years after Christ, in order to harmonize the Pauline and Petrine sections of the church; also, the mythical theory of Strauss-that the supernaturalism of Christianity grew up in a later age, out of nebulous tradition, by an exaggerating superstitious tendency, but without a design to deceive. The proofs of the early date of the fourth Gospel as well as the synoptical Evangelists, are growing too clear to allow these theories of their late origin, except by the most violent ignoring of convincing evidence.

Both of the above theories might exempt our Lord and his immediate followers from the charge of perverting truth, of manufacturing facts, for a purpose; by throwing the authorship of the New Testament, for the most part, into perhaps the second and third centuries. But now that this ground is slipping away from under its occupants, and it is becoming necessary to allow the early date of these writings, nothing is left to the critics but to accuse either the apostles or