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on the Excess of Adult Females in the Population of Great Britain, with Reference to its Causes and Consequences,' I endeavored to show that women in Christian countries are probably designed for duties more in number and in importance than have yet been assigned them.” Again : “I own that I cannot but regard the population of our large towns as in a very unsatisfactory state ; and feel persuaded that the wisest, the best-devised regulations enforced by the police alone, as is the case at present, will not succeed ; but I think that a body of educated ladies for each ward, acting in concert with the legal authorities, would be found of wonderful service in detecting radical evils, especially the sources of preventable poverty ; or, what is much the same, the various temptations which beset the laborer's family, from bad laws and defective arrangements of different kinds, – owing to which the amount

of sickness, poverty, immorality, and unhappiness is at all times appallingly great.”

Legouvé is also quoted by Mrs. Dall, in her book, as asking, 6 Why should not the immense variety of bureaucratic and administrative employments be given up to women?” Why not, indeed? And if such suggestions are made, and questions asked, in Europe, how much more are they applicable in America ? Never, certainly, until these sovereign democratic republics existed, was there such a demand upon the thoughtful to purify and save society from its own dark side, as just here and now. Look at the cities of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and see what they are ; and think for a moment of what would probably be the effect of calling a convention of their women to deliberate and take into consideration the various municipal questions which relate to their moral welfare? Suppose them, in the first place, to deliberate in independent assemblies, so that the wisest and best among them might have their natural chance to rise to the leading positions, and give some form and expression to their sense of what part women should take, and to learn an orderly way of doing business. In the Middle States there are Quaker women, taught by their church organization how to do business, who could teach them the way of proceeding, in a quiet and effective way, in municipal meetings; while in all the States there

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are fine original minds, whose more vigorous and generous culture could elevate and make practical the last results of human thought.

The counsels and suggestions of these meetings might at first take the form of resolutions, to be submitted to the municipal meetings of men. A generation would hardly pass away before the effect of such a council in each of our great cities would sensibly ameliorate the manners, if not the morals, of the whole country.

ART. VII. – REVIEW OF CURRENT LITERATURE.

THEOLOGY. PERSONAL religion has been so real a thing in the better English culture, and has so blended itself with the good sense and the intellectual habit of that people, that we cannot expect their conscience to rest easy, till every effort is exhausted to reconcile the prevailing philosophy — whatever it may chance to be — with the tone of the established faith. We have already recorded a very remarkable essay to this end, the argument of Miss Hennell, to effect it by converting the theses of materialism and necessity into the pabulum of the religious life. We have before us now an essay equally remarkable, of equal ability and sincerity, which aims at the same general result in the exactly opposite direction, — by proving materialism impossible, and sublimating the facts of natural science in the fervor of an intense and glowing piety.*

Of Mr. Poynting we know absolutely nothing but what we gather from his book. Like all religious men who have thought and felt for themselves, he craves some intellectual vision, some theoria, which shall bring the hemispheres of truth into harmonious adjustment. He says, very strikingly, “I inquired anxiously with myself why the faith of modern days seemed so weak, puny, and unreal, compared to the faith of earlier times, and I found it was that God has made it the law of the human mind that it shall not be able to have any belief, deep, real, earnest, unless that belief is in harmony with the rest of the mind's convictions and feelings; and I saw that in modern times such a flood of new ideas had been poured upon the mind, that the work of harmonizing our faith with knowledge had become gigantic.” (pp. 349, 350.)

After setting forth his craving for a higher intellectual, poetic, moral and religious life, he proceeds — often in strains of great beauty and elo

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* Glimpses of the Heaven that lies about us. By T. E. Poynting. London: E. T. Whitfield.

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quence — to set forth the results he has attained, in a twofold way, under the two titles, “Seeing with the Imagination ” (pp. 3 – 345), and “ Verifying by the Reason” (pp. 349 – 432). Under the first, a sort of “hierarchy of the sciences,” or view of the highest generalizations of natural fact and human history, is presented in the guise of a vision, and instructions imparted to a disembodied spirit by angelic ministers. A hasty glance at this portion might remind one of a good deal of the recent literature of “Spiritualism," — a style of writing which makes

. an experiment of this sort rather hazardous. Even a careless reader, however, can see that the underlying truths have been faithfully studied out, and are presented in all earnestness and candor.

Even a novice in the sciences can find pleasure in the extremely ingenious and suggestive illustrations which are given of the “ circles of organic forms” (p. 82), and the advance through their eleven gradations to their culmination in the human soul,- that " central miracle of this world,” which “expresses most directly the central love and goodness of God, which all his plan refers.” And even one who questions the literary form cannot but own the pious fervor, the poetic beauty and life, and the sustained elevation of the tone of thought. Certainly, the attempt is as rare as it is arduous, a vision of the universe revealed by the wealth of modern science, in all its intricate blendings and subtlest indications of universal law, seen from the point of view of Christian piety, and apprehended as the immediate act and manifestation of the living God. Speaking in his own name, the au“There are times when

my soul is sufficiently alive to realize all this truth that seem to me to bring back the very faith of old. · Again God seems to me to walk the earth amid the trees of the garden. He appears again in flaming fire in every tree.

His burning footsteps and awful voice are on every mountain. Again he seems to speak directly to the soul as he did to the ancient prophets." In these and similar words he records an experience which we must suppose to be genuine and real. And taking it so, we find a value in it, as testimony, wholly independent of the vision or system of truth on which it rests.

In the systematic or logical portion of his volume, Mr. Poynting lays much stress on his disproof of matter and of so-called material forces. As nearly as we understand his argument, he substitutes (in common with most metaphysicians) for the “ atoms of the physicist, centres of force, the amount of force in each being represented by its chemical equivalent.” He also holds that the converging rays of force acquire a vortical motion about such imaginary centres, and so become repelling forces; moreover, that what we are in the habit of regarding as distinct agencies fluids, or vibrations as magnetism, electricity, heat, &c., are only modifications of the one original force, at once centripetal and centrifugal ; which, again, he regards as the immediate forth-putting of the personal will of God. The difficulty is

. not with his argument.

Substantially, it is that which most minds find themselves compelled upon, as soon as they undertake to define metaphysically their ideas of matter and of physical powers. The difficulty

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is partly with the imagination, which can but rarely and by moments grasp this view as a reality, so as to stand as the actual interpretation of the phenomena of nature ; partly with common sense, which clings vigorously to qualitative differences ; and partly with the moral sense, which refuses to regard all forces and acts, indiscriminately, as proceeding from the immediate will of a holy Being. It is only in the tensest strain of a poetic, a devout, or a dogmatizing temper, that such a thought of omnipresent divine agency can supplant in our thought the rude grasp of facts and phenomena. And, whatever it may be in strict logical metaphysics, or in the vision of a devout imagination, it would seem as if the normal healthy average mind were compelled to take a less ethereal view. Nay, we question the possibility, to the human intellect, of comprehending the data from which a large part of our author's reasoning proceeds.

This doubt, however, does not impair the value or the delight we are sensible of in so earnest, so devout, and so Christian a contemplation of the science of nature and the facts of human history. The spirit of grateful reverence, of poetic insight, and of spiritual aspiration in which the book is written, gives it a value above and aside from all theoretic argument. And even if we should confess the writer's conception of the immanent personal perpetual agency of the Creator to be beyond the grasp of our limited imagination, or our wavering belief, we yet

him our thanks for the consistent, firm, and eloquent vindication he has given of the truth that “the powers that work in the objects of creation, and express His thought, are not powers separate from God;” and that, through all diversities of operations, it is “one God that worketh all in all.” (Introd., p. xiii.)

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We hope, as early as in the next number of the Examiner, to express our welcome and record our judgment of Mr. Alger's longexpected work on the Future Life,* one of the few works of original investigation and complete scholarship in its department which our American theology has to show. Its appearance has been delayed hitherto by the length of time required to complete a classified bibliography of the subject, prepared by another hand, - a thing unique in books of this class, we believe, and in the author's judgment an essential feature of the plan. To students in the same direction it will no doubt be of invaluable service, well worth the waiting for. But to the general reader, or scholar, nothing is more apparent, at first view, than the exhaustive treatment of the subject in the book itself, and the selfsufficiency of the author's own work. The several departments of his treatise - viz. “ Introductory Views,” historical and critical, followed by Ethnic Thoughts," “ New Testament Teachings,” “ Christian Thoughts,” and “ Historical and Critical Dissertations” concerning à Future Life — leave little to be demanded, except the assurance that the vast bulk of material, thus suggested, has been faithfully dealt with.

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* A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. With a complete Bibliography of the Subject. By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. Philadelphia : Childs and Peterson. 8vo.

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And of this, a single glance at the volume, with its six hundred and sixty closely printed and amply annotated pages, is enough to remove all doubt. Twelve years of leisurely patient and fond application to a topic so fascinating in its large, dim outline, and the resources of a scholarship wide and accurate enough to avail itself, at first or second hand, of the wealth of all known literatures, have their full proof in this crowded volume. Incidental studies and essays — particularly the dissertation prefixed to Mr. Alger's volume of select “Poetry of the East” — had already proved his competency to deal with some of the more remote and less familiar portions of his design. And perhaps no feature is more striking, in the completed work, than the patient industry with which every shred of legend, or hint of philosophy or barbaric dream, touching the vast and unknown realm of Death, has been gathered and wrought into the fabric. We are especially pleased with the clearness and simplicity in statements of facts. In the immense number of them, there was danger of obscurity from mere crowding ; but singly, they are made very clear and palpable.

But our purpose now is not to speak of the substance or quality of the work, which we reserve till it shall have been placed fairly before the public eye,

but to express our great satisfaction that it is brought so near its final issue, and to draw attention, in advance, to the breadth of treatment, and the encyclopedic fulness of detail, which are so essential elements in estimating its value and importance. It is so rare a thing now to be able to refer to a publication that much enlarges our range of knowledge and deepens our thought on topics of theological speculation, that we gladly embrace the promise of its speedy appearing as the occasion of these few preliminary words.

PROFESSOR HACKETT has availed himself of the interest drawn towards a revised version of the Scriptures, to present a very pleasing monograph upon one of the shortest books of the canon,- - Paul's Epistle to Philemon.* On so small a scale it is very pleasant to see exhibited something of the elaborate method and minute detail which are rather depressing when carried out over the whole field of the sacred text. The handsome Greek type of the original deserves special mention, as well as the unobtrusive good sense and taste of the emendations in the rendering of it, and the genial and agreeable tone in the expository portions. No serious question of textual or doctrinal criticism occurs, to prevent it, with any reader, from being what its author meant it, a model of scholarly and Christian exposition. A series of similar monographs would make a very beautiful and valuable feature in our collections of Biblical literature.

The old suit, “ Geology versus Genesis comes up again in an essay,t in which the attempt is again made to reconcile the two records ;

* Notes on the Greek Text of the Epistle to Philemon; and a Revised Version, with Notes. New York: American Bible Union.

† The Debate between the Church and Science; or, The Ancient Hebraic Idea of the Six Days of Creation. With an Essay on the Literary Character of Tayler Lewis. Andover : Warren F. Draper.

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