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Rothe's system of theology is an event which every journal that deals at all with theology, is bound to record. His ingenuity and originality have been equalled by few; and in the particulars in which he departs from received opinions, he knows how to clothe his own views in the most attractive form and to support them by impressive argumentation. Of all the German writers on the different problems of theology, Rothe, as we think, is foremost in the power of lucid, facile exposition. His style is fluent without being diffuse. He is a master in scientific method. The first part of the work relates to the doctrine of Sin, in which the peculiar theory of the Author as to the origin of sin and the fall-the theory of a gradual development of the soul into a purely spiritual form of being, by overcoming the sensuous side of our being-is fully unfolded. The readers of Müller's great work will remember how earnestly, and yet how courteously, this theory is there contested. The second part is on Redemption, and covers the various topics appropriate to this head, as far as the topic of the Church. Rothe does not adopt the Athanasian conception of the Trinity, although he holds firmly to the truth of the divinity of Jesus. He regards the death of Christ as a part of the necessary preparation of Him for His work upon the souls of men by the Spirit, necessary in the divine order, which requires that the Deliverer shall successfully pass through experiences, which as far as sinners are concerned, have a retributive element, in order that He may be inwardly qualified to act upon men with renovating power. He is the head and representative of mankind.

HUNT'S HISTORY OF ENGLISH THEOLOGY.* This work is a History of Doctrine under another title. The Author is of the Broad Church school. He writes with candor and with a fair, but not uncommon, degree of discrimination. He has read the works which he undertakes to sketch, and his citations are numerous and apposite. A history of English theology has long been needed, and although we cannot be certain that the present work will fill the vacant place, the first volume gives promise of a meritorious performance. The Baptists, the Quakers, the Independents, and other religious bodies outside of the Anglican Church, are fully con.

*Religious Thought in England, from the Reformation until the end of the last century. A contribution to the History of Theology. By REV. John Hunt, M. A., Author of an Essay on Pantheism. London: Strahan & Co. 1870. Vol. I.

sidered and their peculiar tenets described. Students of historical theology will find in the work useful and agreeable reading.

LECTURE ROOM TALKS.*-This book is really a volume of "table-talk," or talk around the domestic board of the household by the head of the ecclesiastical family, in easy and familiar ad. dress, often apparently in answer to questions asked on the spot and therefore purely extemporaneous; very much, in truth, in the style of "homilies" in the Christian assemblies when they come together to hear and talk about Jesus.

It would not be well for every pastor to imitate this style of off-hand discourse since his experiences might not be so rich and edifying as those of the pastor of the Plymouth church.

The same marked characteristics that are found in all the productions of this distinguished divine are seen in these briefer "homilies," though criticism is disarmed by their spontaneous genial nature. They are overflowings of a running spring. Among the most readable pieces are those entitled "Experiences Abroad," in which some account is given of the orator's subjective preparation for those well known speeches made in England during the war"The unwritten words and deeds of Jesus "-" Praise and Prayer" "Experimental Religion"-" Assurance of Salvation "—" Methods of conversion."

Christian experience, communion, prayer, social intercourse, conversation, work, the need and fullness of Christ, are touched with accustomed vigor and personality. Like this preacher's sermons, which are examples, not of the most philosophic quality of preaching, but the quality of skillful and powerful popular presentation of truth to the human heart and consciousness, these addresses are good food for all minds.

A TREATISE OF THE PREPARATION AND DELIVERY OF SERMONS. There is a fashion in books as in other things. The call for a particular class of books soon creates a supply of them.

* Lecture Room Talks. A series of familiar discourses on themes of general Christian experience. By HENRY WARD BEECHER. Phonographically reported by T. J. ELLINWOOD. New York: J. B. Ford & Co., 39 Park Row. 1870.

A Treatise of the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. By JOHN A. BROADUS, D. D., LL. D., Professor in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminarv, Greenville, S. C. Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co., No. 28 North Sixth street. New York; Sheldon & Co., 500 Broadway.

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The strong interest awakened a few years since in the study of English Philology, produced almost simultaneously a number of works on the English language. There seems to have been of late a similar working up of interest in the department of homiletical studies, attested by such works as those of Kidder, Shedd, and Hoppin, and others of a more popular character.

The work which we notice is one of the last we have seen of the fruits of this homiletical revival, and, to judge of it by a brief examination, good but not the best; we do not see that it adds very much to the literature of the subject. It shows a diligent reading of the works, and especially of the most recent works, on Rhetoric and Homiletics, but it contains nothing novel. It is written in a popular style, and its remarks are generally judicious, and made in a commendable spirit. The treatment of the subject of Delivery is appreciative and useful; its value however is not enhanced by an illustration like the following: "A really good man, in preaching at a University, once said, You shut your eyes to the beauty of piety; you stop your ears to the calls of the gospel: you turn your back,' &c., and in saying it shut his eyes, stopped his ears with his fingers, and whirled his broad back into view. Alas! for the good done to the students by his well-meant sermon. In suiting the action to the word,' he 'o'erstepped the mod. esty of nature.'”

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Periods are sometimes carelessly ended with an "&c.," or "etc.;" and the parts of a sentence which belong together, as the subject and its predicate, the substantive and its qualificative, are often separated unnecessarily, which blemishes of style should not occur in a work that specially treats of the methods of good writing and speaking.

HISTORY AND LITERATURE.

FIRST STEPS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.*- We took up this book with the expectation and desire of saying a good deal in its favor, partly, because we had seen it spoken of in high terms by journals in whose criticisms we ordinarily place confidence, and partly, because we are disposed to mention approvingly any textbook treating of this subject. Not that we have a lofty idea of

* First Steps in English Literature. Hurd & Houghton. 1870. 8vo. pp. 231.

By ARTHUR GILMAN, New York:

Manuals of English Literature, or of the benefit that is to be derived from them. But in regard to this particular study, it seems to us that the public mind is passing through what for want of a better name may be called the Early English period, during which men will talk and act as if a knowledge of our literature could be gained by reading histories of it, and not by reading the literature itself. As the study of such histories is the quickest way of dispelling this delusion, we are disposed to welcome any addition to their number; and we accordingly hoped to find this work, though not of a good kind, yet so good in its kind as to prepare the way for better methods. But after a somewhat extensive acquaintance with manuals of English Literature, we are reluctantly compelled to say that this is the most thoroughly worthless one that has ever fallen under our observation. The student who uses it will take some steps in English Literature, it is true, but they will be steps backward and not forward.

This is harsh criticism, but it is unfortunately just. The book, as regards its contents, is nothing but a compilation of the ideas and facts contained in other manuals, the facts, in addition, being ill-arranged, and the ideas ill-expressed. The blunders of previous text-books are, in all cases where the space admits of it, carefully retained, and a legion of new ones inserted. There can not be found on a single page the least evidence of original investigation. Not only are the facts picked up at second-hand, but the criticisms are also, and generally they are taken from men whose critical opinions are in themselves worthless. Indeed, if there is anywhere anything peculiarly absurd that anybody has ever uttered, it is wonderful to see how successful the compiler of this manual has been in ferreting it out, and how careful he has been to incorporate it in his text.

The division of the language is probably original; the titles given to the subdivisions, and, to some extent, the subdivisions themselves, must certainly be so; for it required more ignorance than ordinarily can be brought to bear upon this subject to produce the ones here given. The language is divided into two great periods. "Immature English," extending from an indefinite time in the past to the year 1558, and "Mature English" extending from that year to the present day. The names given to the subdivisions of the former period are worth preserving as a curiosity. What most men are content to call Anglo-Saxon, our author, following a few late writers in Great Britain, calls Original 47

VOL. XXIX.

English; though the same style of reasoning would lead us to call Latin and Italian by the same name. Semi-Saxon appears here as Broken English, Old English as Dead English, and Middle English as Reviving English. The subdivisions of the second period are in the main as misleading and incorrect as the titles applied to the first are absurd.

But vicious as is the plan of the work, the execution of it is far worse. The writer has no idea whatever of perspective, and in the confused jumble here presented no student could form an idea of the relative literary importance of any author, or of any period. Tried by a mathematical measurement, the account of Donne takes up more space than that of Shakespeare, and Isaac Watts has three times as much room as is assigned to Pope, though the latter here gives his name to a separate age. The book, moreover, swarms with the grossest errors; hardly a page is free from them. Confining ourselves mainly to the more celebrated authors, the story of Chaucer's imprisonment and flight, always suspicious and now exploded, is here set down as a fact, and we have the additional information, not hitherto known to the world, that in religious matters the poet was much influenced by Wycliffe, and promoted his doctrines. In Spenser, it is stated that in the first book of his great poem we are introduced to the court of the Fairy Queen, though it would probably puzzle the author to mention the canto or verse where an account of this introduction is given. In Shakespeare, a fanciful idea of the Rev. Charles Wordsworth, that the Bible exerted the greatest formative and guiding influence upon the mind of the dramatist, is here laid down as an undoubted fact. In Milton, his two sonnets entitled, The Nightingale and On the Late Massacre in Piedmont, are spoken of as odes, while his noblest prose work, Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, is represented as being two separate works, and in addition, Areopagitica appears, as Areopagita. In Dryden, The Conques of Grenada is classed among his prose works, though there is not a single line of prose in both parts of the play, which are not only written in verse but in rhyme. In a similar manner his Spanish Friar and Marriage a-la-Mode are spoken of as prose, though they are prose in the same sense that the Merchant of Venice is that is, poetry with prose conversations occasionally introduced. On the other hand, it may be well to state that the Pericles and Aspasia of Walter Savage Landor, which used to be

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