a country, however, where the natural tendency is to the sensual, and to a disregard of the spiritual, imperial power has historically introduced a foreign domination, which has inflicted, by the most cruel despotism, the most thorough and scorching fanaticism in the world, thereby reducing the nation, in spite of all its noble heritage of climate, position, and honorable history, to the lowest rank of Christian nations. Scotland, on the other hand, one of the poorest countries, naturally, of Christendom, where, to a late period, a scanty population rescued itself from want or barbarism by a determined and intelligent industry, resisting and expelling the control of a foreign religious domination, and establishing a religious democracy where the ministry, being denied the claims of a priesthood, spring from and are ruled by the popular mass, has, by her own energies, spread education and a high moral culture through all her population, and given to the world a splendid array of brilliant names in every kind of intellectual supremacy. The theology of Scotland has stood, at least, upon a par with any other department. Undoubtedly, Mr. Buckle can show that the bleak Calvinism of Scotland has given a hard, we might say a relentless tone to much of her religious emotion. Terrible denunciations of a dark decree of reprobation, pictorial and protracted delineations of hell and its endless torments, no doubt formed a dreary staple of some parts of her pulpit "deliverances.” With several half pages of extracts of this kind from Scotch sermons has he stocked his book. Most of us would wish, we suppose, that there were no misery in the world, no Nemesis in history, no sin, and consequently no retribution, in the universe. We could wish that there were no drunkenness with its terrene abysms of guilt and misery; no dark dens of lust and cruelty, which rest not day nor night, and which need only endless perpetuation and immortality to realize hell in our own metropolis. But the man who should, like Mr. Buckle, collect a body of extracts from our temperance lectures, which describe with uncouth impressiveness the depravity and remediless misery of drunkenness; or from the speeches of our zealous philanthropists, all the terrific descriptions of the depths of debauchery and brutality of the Five Points, and treat them, not as efforts to save, but as luxurious indulgences of an imagination that loves the woes it describes, would be a fair rival in honesty and good sense to foolish Mr. Buckle.

We can scarcely recommend to our noble American publishers to continue the issue of this pile of folly and fiction. Mr. Buckle's performances deserve no place in literature. We venture the pre

diction, that if the Introduction sees a state of completion in the world, the book, or rather library, will prove an early abortion. The unfortunate and foolhardy projector will doubtless modestly doubt whether he is not too far in advance of the age; and we shall still more diffidently question whether any age will ever overtake him.

The Uprising of a Great People. The United States in 1861. From the French of Count Agenor de Gasparin. By MARY L. BOOTH. 12mo., pp. 263. New York: Charles Scribner.

America, the Northern States at least, may well accept the views and counsels of so genuine a friend and so pure and noble a spirit as Gasparin. A French Protestant, a friend of civil and religious liberty, a devotee to the cause of humanity and progress, he loves our country as a great depository of all his noblest hopes. To show that we are worthy of this trust, as well as to aid us in its high discharge, is this work addressed to the civilized world.

The drift of the work will best appear from a presentation of the topics in the table of contents:

1. American Slavery; 2. Where the Nation was drifting before the Election of Mr. Lincoln; 3. What the Election of Mr. Lincoln signifies; 4. What we are to think of the United States; 5. The Churches and Slavery; 6. The Gospel and Slavery; 7. The Present Crisis; 8. Probable Consequences of the Crisis; 9. Coexistence of the two Races after Emancipation; 10. The Present Crisis will Regenerate the Institutions of the United States-Conclusion.

In the introduction Gasparin states the elements that go to make up American slavery, and furnishes an ample reply to those who consider Uncle Tom's Cabin a calumny. We recommend it to those Northern Christians who reiterate the same parrot note in this country.

In the chapter portraying "where the United States were drifting before the election of Lincoln," Gasparin shows, what we have maintained in this Review, that there could have been no stop, had another pro-slavery president been elected, short of the complete nationalization of slavery. That the slave-gang would have become naturalized in Broadway, that the slave-ships would yet have ridden proudly with their manacled cargoes into New York Bay, that Churches, ministers, and Methodist ministers too, in plenty, would have been ready to cry Silence! to all opposition, and bless the consummation of the infernal plot, who doubts?

Thank God, that worst of ruins has been escaped. It is, indeed, a subject of sorrowful mortification to note how little the result is owing to the high moral tone of our national feeling. Slavery would have conquered politically; but she chose to divide her own forces, and labor

to be beaten in order that she might make that defeat a pretext for disunion. The oligarchy after all rather cast us off than we it. The real arrest to the career of proslavery triumph was produced, not by the free spirit of the entire North, but by the select band who interposed an effectual estopment to its progress on the plains of Kansas, in spite of all the efforts of the administration of the imbecile Buchanan. Rendering all honor to the noble thousands who have toiled through years of trial for the consummation, there are, we regret to confess, abundant proofs that the nation, the free North, never so rose to the moral elevation of resisting the progress of slavery, but that the dark power would have triumphed at last had not events from other quarters compelled the better result.

Gasparin maintains that Lincoln's election "signifies" not immediate emancipation, but the non-extension of slavery, the cessation of fillibuster, the gradual return to right principle, and the ultimate reign of freedom. He says:

Emancipation is by no means decreed; it will not be for a long time, perhaps: yet the principle of emancipation is established, irrevocably established in the sight of all. Irrevocability has prodigious power over our minds: without being conscious of it we make way for it; we arrange in view of it our conduct, our plans, and even our doctrines. Once fully convinced that its propagandism is checked, that the future of which it dreamed has no longer any chances of success, the South itself will become accustomed to consider its destiny under a wholly new aspect. The Border States, in which emancipation is easy, will range themselves one after another on the side of liberty. Thus the extent of the evil will become reduced of itself, and instead of advancing, as during some years past, toward a colossal development of servitude, it will proceed in the direction of its gradual attenuation.-P. 37.

The following words are for the "let it alone" party :

It would be difficult to cite any social iniquities that have reformed of themselves; and, since the existence of the world, the method which consists in attacking evil has been the one sanctioned by success. In America itself the progress made by the Border States does not seem to confirm what is told us of the reaction caused by the aggressions of abolitionism. In Virginia, in Kentucky, in Missouri, in Delaware, etc., the liberty party has been continually gaining ground; and the votes received in the slave states by Mr. Lincoln prove it a very great mistake to suppose letting alone to be the condition of progress. Would to God that slavery had not been let alone when the republic of the United States was founded! Then abolition was easy, the slaves were few in number, and no really formidable antago nism was in play. Unhappily, false prudence made itself heard; it was resolved to keep silence, and not to deprive the South of the honor of a voluntary emancipation-in fine, to reserve the question for the future. The future has bent under the weight of a task which has continued to increase with years, thanks to letting it alone.

A little more letting alone, and the weight would have crushed America; it was time to act. The Abolition party, or rather the party opposed to the extension of slavery, has acted with a resolution which should excite our sympathies. The future of the United States was at stake; it knew it, and it struggled in consequence.

The indignation against slavery, the love of country and of its compromised honor, the just susceptibilities of the North, the liberal instincts so long repressed, the desire of elevating the debased and corrupt institutions of the land, the need of

escaping insane projects, the powerful impulse of the Christian faith, all these sentiments contributed, without doubt, to swell the resistance against which the supremacy of the South has just been broken. This, then, is a legal victory, one of the most glorious spectacles that the friends of liberty can contemplate on earth. It was the more glorious, the more efforts and sacrifices it demanded. The Lincoln party had opposed to it the Puseyistic and financial aristocracy of New York; the maneuvers of President Buchanan were united against it with those of the Southern States. Many of the Northern journals accused it of treading under foot the interests of the seaports, and of compromising the sacred cause of the Union.Pp. 41-43.

The following is a rebuke upon the sordid men who find sordid motives for magnanimous deeds:

To admire nothing is most deplorable, and, I hasten to add, most absurd. Without wandering from the subject of slavery, I can cite the great Emancipation Act, wrested from Parliament by Christian public opinion in England. Have not means been found to prove, or at least to insinuate, that this act, the most glorious of our century, was at the bottom nothing but a Machiavellian combination of interests? Doubtless, those who have taken the trouble to look over the debates of the times know what we are to think of this fine explanation; they know what resistance was opposed by interests to the emancipation, both in the colonies and in the heart of the metropolis; they know with how much obstinacy the Tories, representing the traditions of English politics, combated the proposed plans; they know in what terms the certain ruin of the planters, the manufacturers, and the seaports, was described; they know by how many petitions the Churches, the religious societies, the women, and even the children, succeeded in wresting from Parliament a measure refused by so many statesmen. But the mass of the people do not go back to the beginning; they take for granted the summary judgment that English emancipation was a masterpiece of perfidy.-Pp. 45, 46.

We rejoice that our last General Conference furnished for Count Gasparin the following item for his defense of orthodox Churches against the charge of pro-slaveryism:

This said, I wish to prove by some too well-known facts what has been this forbearance, or even this pretended hesitation of orthodox Christianity. On regarding the Churches, I see two, and the most considerable, which have openly declared themselves: the Congregationalists and the Methodists. About six months since, the General Conference of Methodists resolutely plunged into the current without suffering itself to be trammeled by the protests which came to it from the South. I read in a report presented to one of the great divisions of this Church: "We believe that to sell or to hold in bondage human beings under the name of chattels, is in contradiction to the divine laws and to humanity; and that it conflicts with the golden rule and with the rule of our Discipline."-Pp. 79, 80.

Here is a word to the compromisers:

The time will come when the extreme South, incapable of enduring the life that it has just created for itself, will demand to return to the bosom of the Union. It will then insist on dictating its conditions; it will propose the election of a general convention charged with reconstructing the Constitution of the United States; it will appeal to the selfishness of some, and to the ambition or even the patriotism of others, presenting to their sight the re-establishment of the common greatness which separation had compromised. What a motive to vail principles for a moment! what a temptation to return to the fatal path so lately forsaken !—P. 254.

Most heartily do we recommend to the attention of the American people the thoughtful and hopeful utterances of this their noble friend.

Seasons with the Sea-horses; or, Sporting Adventures in the Northern Seas. By JAMES LAMONT, Esq., F. G. S. 8vo., pp. 282. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1861.

We have found this a very refreshing book for hot weather. The very fancies raised by the graphic pen of Mr. Lamont of icebergs, northern fogs, walrusses, polar bears, seals, and reindeers, have a cooling power in them. The work is a narrative of the author's tour of adventure in seal and walrus hunting in the year 1859 about Spitzbergen. Its unique tales and descriptions are both entertaining and instructive. The volume is well stocked with illustrations to match. There is one engraving of walrusses assembled on the ice, like gentry upon a parlor floor, furnishing a favorable idea of the social qualities of those amphibious Northerners.

Educational.

Christian Nurture. By HORACE BUSHNELL. 12mo., pp. 407. New York: Charles Scribner. 1861.

This is an admirable book on a vitally important subject, and the author is perfectly at home in the treatment of it. Dr. Bushnell is a pioneer in the modern revival of the doctrine of Christian nurture in the Church. The present volume is wonderfully suggestive, and the temptation is strong to overstep the limits of an ordinary book notice. There are many things in it to commend, and a few things upon which we hesitate. Yet, if our recommendation would do it, we would place this volume on the center table of every Christian family in the land. We fear that Christian experience, as here presented, is pared down to too low a standard, not only in its beginnings in children, but in adults also. The radical change which is necessary for the author holds the doctrine of depravity-is so taught as to be scarcely perceptible. Teaching children the good old orthodox doctrine, that they must have a "new heart," is, in the author's estimation, a cruel mistake. He believes that the elements of regeneration exist in the children of Christian parents from their birth, (how it is with those of nonChristian parents he saith not,) and all that is necessary in such cases is to develop these elements into a Christian character. It is not taught that actual regeneration is transmitted by natural descent; "the regeneration is not actual, but only presumptive." In establishing this point he relies principally on the argument of organic unity in the family.

According to the view I am here maintaining [the aim] is not their conversion in the sense commonly given to that term. That is a notion which belongs to the