1. Our first remark, therefore, is that these relations must be as universal as the duty imposed. (a) The relations of subjects of the universal moral government of God. This refers to all primary moral obligations. (b) The relations of one common and universal brotherhood. This includes all civil, social and domestic relations.

2. The obligations that these relations impose are; (a) The duty to render perfect and permanent obedience to God. This includes the perfect service of a perfect constitution. (b) The obligation to observe all the personal rights and privileges of all mankind. These are common to the race and similar in their nature, resulting from the fact that all are alike subjects of one moral government and have a common destiny of endless existence.

Inferences.

1. The moral obligations of man are based on the moral government of God, and hence are universal and permanent.

2. The essential rights of all men are of a moral nature and equal, such as the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

3. The positive authority of civil government is of a moral nature, connected with a moral constitution, and is to be used to sustain the rights of mankind agreeably to that constitution.

4. All true moral and social reforms must recognize and rest upon the moral law of God.

5. The obligation of every man to seek the good of his fellowmen is imperative.

"A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches."-Prov. xxii. 1. A GOOD name is a good reputation or character. It is more to be desired than riches as it has more intrinsic worth, more permanency and more power. It is something "to be chosen"; its possession is a matter of election. One may have it or not at his option, since one's character is a home manufacture. In its original import character means a marking, engraving, carving, painting, imprinting, (Greek, χαρακτήρ, χάρασσω.) So we say of the man of business, pleasure, passion, or Christian activities, he is a marked man. But he has done his own marking, engraving.

1. Our first remark therefore is, that every man engraves and imprints his own character. The blank space reserved for him on the canvas of public opinion he fills with his own hand.

2. This is done by his little daily acts, like the little impressions of the pencil, crayon, or chisel of the artist.

3. Then one's real character must be known. For his own acts transfer him as truly to the engraving or pictnre, as the rays of light the face in the photograph. The engraving is by himself and of himself and so true to himself. So concealment of character for any great length of time is impossible.

4. Then the formation of our character is spontaneous, involuntary, necessary. It is but the impression made by our acts while we are quite forgetful about forming a character; as we get the best picture when he sitting for it is diverted from the process and pur

pose.

Inferences.

1. It is folly to pretend to be what we are not. For reality is stronger than pretence, and in the run of time will engrave deeper. 2. Explanation of conduct and character is of little use. Every man's life is his best interpreter. If men doubt they will read the

context.

3. There can be but little just ground for complaining of the public judgment of us. What we are is what we have done; our acts have sketched our portrait, chiselled out our statue, or impressed our photograph. If the public see warts, deficiencies and graceless lines, they are probably true to nature.

ARTICLE VIII.

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Miracles of Christ as attested by the Evangelists. By ALVAH HOVEY, D.D., Professor in the Newton Theological Institution. pp. 319. Boston: Graves & Young. 1864.

PROF. HOVEY has done well in turning attention to the study of the Miracles of Our Lord. As one of the foundation stones in evidence for our common Christianity, they can not be too often examined. A brief introduction to the volume disposes of three of the common objections to miracles: that there have been many spurious miracles; that they are inconsistent with the observed uniformity of nature; and that the laws of nature are divine, and therefore we

may not suppose God would repudiate his own institutions by disturbing them.

We think this part of the volume could have been profitably enlarged by speaking of the possibility and probability of miracles and by replying to some other popular and traditional objections. The power of the miraculous evidence for Christianity is becoming weakened among the unthinking masses by the pretentions of certain modern sciences, so called, and by the intrigues of pretenders to occult powers and the working of wonders. New investigations of the miracles should follow up these new impositions, pari passu. Answers to old objections will not meet the new phases of scepticism, and so we think the volume, already excellent, would have been more valuable if it had been cast in a more argumentative form to meet modern exigencies in the popular mind. The author most happily harmonizes the narratives of the same miracles given by the different Evangelists. His criticisms on such men as Strauss and Paulus are clear, terse and conclusive. The whole and strong impression of the work is that God has miraculously attested the divine origin of Christianity and the Christian Scriptures.

Intellectual Philosophy; Analytical, Synthetical and Practical. By HUBBARD WINSLOW, D.D., author of "Moral Philosophy," etc. Eighth edition. 12mo. pp. 442. Boston: Brewer & Tileston. 1863.

THIS work is adapted in style and general arrangement for a textbook in our higher schools; and that it has reached its eighth edition is good proof of its worth. Dr. Winslow has a clear and direct style, and as an author and teacher of repute he is well fitted to write on a topic not very attractive to youthful minds. In this volume he gives a very good outline of the history of philosophy, and notices of leading authors in it, and of their principal systems. Marking the distinction between vegetable and animal life, and between instinct and reason, he classifies and analyzes the mental powers in a happy manner.

The chapters on "Abnormal Mental States" have a peculiar interest, and partly from the new illustrations that the author has drawn from his own observations. We now refer to the chapters on Insanity, Mesmerism, Suspended Animation and Trance. The volume closes with a good summary view of the leading philosophical schools. What specially pleases us is the indirect and unobtrusive yet pertinent infusion of a proper religious thought through the book. Dr. Winslow has neither clouded nor ignored Christianity in his Philosophy.

Life of Archbishop Laud. By JOHN W. NORTON, Rector of Ascension Church, Frankfort, Ky., author of "Full Proof of the Ministry," "Short Sermons," "Life of Bishop Chase," etc. 16mo. pp. 269. E. P. Dutton & Co: Boston. 1864.

WE admire the contrast as seen in issuing the life of this Archbishop in the city of the Puritans, the first ever published in America. Thanks to puritan innovation, it can be done. The mechanical execution is in Houghton's best style. The author carries an easy, graceful pen, and from his high church point has given the Archbishop a good portrait. The one fronting the title page, after Vandyck, is very good. As Boswells and Partons are mournfully scarce we, on the whole, like a thoroughly friendly partizan Memoir. A digest of this one with Neal's outlines of the prelate in his History of the Puritans will give a fair average. Undoubtedly Archbishop Laud has been much sinned against historically. Later Puritans have judged him too much as later churchmen have judged the Puritans of his day, that is, without sufficient allowance for the times when they lived. We can both gain in truth by revising our views. Mr. Norton gives Laud due credit for his eminent learning, the great service he did to Oxford as chancellor, his integrity, zeal as a churchman, and his intense energy, repressing the innovations and excesses of the Puritans. Due regrets are also expressed for his activity in state affairs, though to us quite natural in a church and state system. Mr. Norton glides too easily over the Archbishop's spirit and bearing toward the Puritans, his high tone and overbearing in ecclesiastical courts, his energy in the Star Chamber, his papal predilections and the like. His severe terms, characterizing the Puritans and puritanism, are not in good taste, nor have they an historical accuracy where only the so devout written prayers of the Archbishop are set forth as characterizing the church party.

We have deeply enjoyed the reading of the book, partly because the cause is overdone and undone against the Puritans, and partly because the author makes it so easy for us to put in a stout historical negative occasionally against his declarations. It is no fidelity to history or aid to his one noble branch of Christ's church, to praise William Laud of Reading, by slurring the clerical founders of New England, of whom Hubbard and Higginson speak as "men of great renown in the nation from whence the Laudian persecution exiled them. Their learning, their holiness, their gravity, struck all men that knew them, with admiration. They were Timothies in their houses, Chrysostoms in their pulpits, and Augustines in their disputations." And the attempt, here and there in Mr. Norton's book, to connect modern

Puritanism with its excesses and excrescences in those early days is no more ingenuous than it would be to attempt to connect modern and New England Episcopacy with the extremes and outrages of Laudian high churchism. Here is a leading deficiency of the book. In its bearing it much ignores the lapse and the modification of two centuries in the history of Puritanism. The tone of the work savors too much of the days of Charles the First, in prelatical assumption. Such writers as Mr. Norton, issuing their publications in this puritan city, should remember the reply of the late Rev. W. M. Rogers to an Episcopal acquaintance of ours, who was somewhat assuming on his connection with the church of Laud, and presumed connection with the church of St. Peter, and so slurred our New England churches: "Sir, you forget that in this country we are the Established church and you are the dissenters."

We like the book, as having a positive and a negative side, and if indicative of the ecclesiasticism and tone of any party in this branch of the church, we wish it may be extensively read, yet for historical purposes we would suggest that at the same time the reader peruse the Lives and Times of Laud's contemporaries and counter-workers, Thomas Goodwin, John Owen, and John Howe.

Christianity the Religion of Nature. Lectures delivered before the Lowell Institute, by A. P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D. Boston: Gould & Lincoln, 59 Washington street; New York: Sheldon & Co.; Cincinnati: Geo. S. Blanchard. 1864. pp. 256.

THE able author of this attractive volume sets out with the conviction that the controversy between those who admit and those who deny a special authoritative revelation through Jesus Christ, is now to be waged on grounds of a priori probability. Hence his effort is to demonstrate that the religion of the Gospel is in all its parts, in all its apparatus, in all its history, natural religion.

From the necessary definition of religion, Dr. Peabody shows that there can be but one religion. The distinction between natural and revealed religion is defined to consist in the different methods in which religious truth becomes known to mankind; and both are regarded alike natural. Revelation is the unveiling of what previously existed. Hence revelation is a historical fact that was to be expected from the nature of God and the wants of man. Here the remarkable passage in one of Plato's dialogues, put into the mouth of one of the disciples of Socrates, is used with much power as showing the cravings of man's nature for something more sure and safe than reason, "such as some divine communication would be." Dr. Peabody contends boldly for authoritative revelation con