held at the other end by a man, whether is the hog carried to market by the rope or the man?

Mrs. Beecher Stowe's name went up like a sky-rocket with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," but her next essay was a Dred "-ful fall, nor has she produced any thing that has materially mended the matter since. Our American reading community has been considerably interested by the series of papers which the Rev. Mr. Boyd, of Edinburgh, has been sending forth, "Concerning" a great variety of matters. There is genuine merit in these essays, but Mr. Boyd has fallen into the common error of popular essayists, that of continuing to write after his stock was used up. The mind is not like the sea, whose riches can not be exhausted, but rather a dark cavern in which stalactites slowly form. When a man has brought out the last of these, then is the time for him to leave off. It is a great pity if he goes on, honestly thinking that he is still producing stalactites, while his friends see that it is only rough pieces of stone, plucked with some violence from the walls of the cavern. friends ought to tell him of it, and he ought to stop, and in due time, other crystals may form as perfect and as beautiful as any that he has already found, and that without any conscious effort of his. Or if not, then he had better remain forever quiet, -a dignified Doctor in Divinity-rather than weary himself and others also with these same rough fragments from the rock.

His

Everybody will remember newspaper serials, tolerable at the outset, which have been spun out till they have become like withered and decaying vegetables, producing nausea, so that every friend of the unfortunate writer has longed to have him leave off.

Now and then we notice a premature leaving off, a thing even more to be regretted than the other, because something is lost, whereas in the other case nothing is gained merely, except rough pieces of rock. Allston's unfinished pictures are painful instances of this. We never look at them but with feelings of real sorrow. When Robert Hall came suddenly to a dead pause in the middle of an eloquent sermon a second time, and could not proceed, and exclaimed in relation to it, "If this does not cure me [of my pride,] the devil must have me!" we are disposed to conclude that any immediate mortification and loss to

himself and the congregation were more than compensated by his subsequently increased humility, unction and power. When the venerable Lord Brougham was compelled to stop short in the midst of an eloquent oration in the house of peers, by the dropping out of his teeth, and could in no wise arrange matters so as to proceed, the catastrophe would seem to have been of questionable benefit, at least, to his lordship's temper, as he is related to have stalked out of the assembly in a towering passion. Doubtless it must have been a severe affliction for one whose normal condition would seem to be talking and his abnormal silence. Yet assuredly the great orator, who is so much a man of science, should have remembered that the little dental incident was the direct result of the operation of law as exact and beautiful as that which regulates the revolutions of Jupiter's satellites, or the ebbing and flowing of the tides at his villa of LouiseEleonore, and that a great philosopher and illustrious savant ought not to march out of the British house of lords in a towering passion, because of a simple operation of natural law.

We confess a sincere regret at the sudden and unexpected leaving off of our contemporary and in part namesake, the New York Round Table. We could name half a score, yea a whole score, of pretty good things which we think might have been better spared than that. It exhibited marked ability well directed. It was exceedingly valuable for its honest and fearless criticism. It made some mistakes, of course, but its aim was uniformly right, and, for the term of its labors, it gave rich promise of valuable service in literature and art and morals. Suddenly cut off in the infancy of its days, and its Minerva-like maturity, requiescat in pace, until, peradventure, when hoped for happier days shall come, we may be permitted to greet its return from the shades.

Enough, we trust, has been said, to convince our readers that this subject is of very grave moment. Has it received the attention it deserves in the current discussions of the day? Might not some portion of time be properly devoted to its illustration and enforcement in all institutions designed to prepare men for the practical business of human life? And should not all our theological seminaries add to the course of pastoral lectures, at least, one which should be especially concerning leaving off?

ARTICLE VII.

SHORT SERMONS.

"By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land."-Ex. xxiii. 30.

To give Israel possession of Canaan had been promised for more than four hundred years. In bringing it about many nations had been disturbed, and when accomplished its results were of such vast magnitude as to recast the face of the world. Yet when to man all seems ready to finish promptly the work, God proposes to complete it "by little and little." This fact unfolds a principle in the administration of God. He performs many of his great and good works slowly, as :

1. In creation. The purpose is eternal and the execution runs through untold ages in those six geological days.

2. In the present productions of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. As the gardens are deltas that the rivers are ages in preparing, the flowers and fruits and forests are often hundreds of years in maturing. So coals, the metals and precious stones are the slow growth of thousands of years.

3. In the changes of the seasons and day and night. Gradually, beautifully, sublimely, God works these out. Nothing is abrupt and hurried in the blushing dawn, the evening shadows and the floral processions of the spring months, and the cereal ones of autumn.

4. In the reformation of nations. At the Exodus he began to reform Israel from idolatry, and completed it in the close of the Babylonish captivity, nine hundred and fifty-five years.

5. In the work of redemption. A little light falls on our first parents through the first shadows of the apostasy; yet it is four thousand years before the star that shed it, the star of Bethlehem, rises above the horizon.

Then in many of our great and good works, we may well be patient in our industry in doing good. Working, waiting, expecting, this is Godlike.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."-Ps. li. 10.

A SHORT but great petition. No work is so original, organic, radical and great as that set forth by the word "create." Is it acci

,dental or of design that this word is chosen in the New Testament to express the supernatural act that constitutes one a Christian, to express the desire for it in the Old Testament, and to declare the work of God in bringing the universe into order, beauty and glory? Such is the fact, and so the text suggests the analogy or parallelism between the creation of the new heart in regeneration, and the creation of the world.

1. The creating act of God in both cases had chaotic material on which to work. The earth was in wild, tumultuous disorder. It was but a mob of particles of matter. So the unregenerate soul, the moral of the man, which sin has ruined in apostacy and total depravity. The moral elements are in anarchy.

2. The creating act of God in both cases is the practical assertion of sovereignty. God makes his presence and power felt in each as one to whom obedience is due and must be yielded, so that the earth and soul alike say: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

3. The creating act of God in both cases is, in part, the introduction of law. This is one of the steps in physical and moral creation. The coming of a sovereign is followed by a code. In the new heart are enacted the laws of heaven, as natural laws take possession of the new earth.

4. A separation is made between light and darkness. God divides between the two in both cases, so that what before was confused and blended is now two kingdoms, and we have the regions and the subjects of both.

5. The creating act separates between earth and heaven. As in the material chaos, so in the unregenerate heart, there is no clear and appreciated distinction between the two. The creating is in one of its forms, a dividing process.

6. The creating act makes the earth and the heart fruitful. The lawn, forest, flowers, fruits, appear in one, and the "fruits of the Spirit" in the other.

From all which

(a) We see the import of many New Testament phrases, as a new creature," "his workmanship," "which were born not of blood," etc.

(b) We see how deeply and totally the apostasy affected the nature as well as life of man.

(c) We see why the Lord Jesus and his apostles insisted so strenuously on regeneration as a necessity.

(d) We see who is the agent in regeneration.

ARTICLE VIII.

LITERARY NOTICES.

1.-Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, [Eng.] By the late Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Fifth Series. 12mo. pp. 283. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864.

MR.. ROBERTSON's works, as now given to the American public, consist of six 12mo. volumes, four of which are sermons; one, a series of lectures on the first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians ; and one, addresses on literary and miscellaneous subjects before working men's and other associations. These volumes are a valua

ble and permanently productive contribution to our religious and general literature. The first two contain sermons of more careful elaboration than the others; the later series are not much more oftentimes than rough outlines of discourses, the beams and timbers standing out in Doric nakedness and strength. We will indicate, in a few particulars, our estimate of these productions.

(a) Directness. They are farthest removed from the essay-like style of sermons. Spoken extemporaneously and reported as spoken, they are the personal address of one man to others before him, with whom, and not with an imaginary reading public, he is dealing. None of these discourses were produced as chapters for a forthcoming book-a poor way of sermonizing.

(b) Freshness. Mr. Robertson had a true genius of his own for originating thought. He borrows from no one, reflects no one's light, echoes no one's voice. His ideas are his own even when they are the same as others'. He grasps with quick perception the spirit of his text, and most neatly dissects it out from related truth. He carries the knife of a practised surgeon in thus dividing one truth from another for special use.

(c) Variety. The topics of his sermons are very various, ranging the fields of theology and ethics with a fine freedom, while noue of them are irrelevant to the purposes of the Sabbath pulpit.

(d) Suggestiveness. This subtle attribute of the best mental organizations is diffused throughout these pages. They start the reader's mind on a thousand tracts of independent thought, which is one of the most valuable features of authorship, and one of the rarest.

While we thus express, in a fragmentary way, our sense of the worth of these volumes, we add that some of their author's views are defective, and some in our judgment positively wrong. Of the latter,