Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death of Christ, and its relation to the Principles and Practices of Christianity. By WILLIAM STROUD, M. D. Second Edition; with Appendix, containing a Letter on the subject by Sir James Y. Simpson, Bart. M.D.

London: Hamilton and Co.

THIS is the work of an accomplished physician, who passed away from our midst rather more than twelve years ago -a work on which he expended not only more than the quarter of a century of time, but the most vital energies of his highly-cultured mind. In the words of the Introductory Notice,-"It is, in its own place, a master-piece, and must continue to be a standard work on theology for many years to come. It could have been composed only by a man characterized by a combination of singular endowments. It required, on the one hand, a profound acquaintance with medical subjects and medical literature; it required, on the other, an equally profound acquaintance with the Bible and with theology in general; it required, too, in addition, a profound veneration for Christ, and a devoted attachment to Christianity." All these qualities Dr. Stroud possessed in an eminent degree.

The author's firm belief was, that, speaking after the manner of man, or speaking medically, Christ died from rupture or breaking of the heart. Sir James Simpson gave it as his opinion, that, while there can be no absolute certainty on the point, there is yet a very high amount of circumstantial probability in favour of it. Dr. Stroud believed that this probability amounted to certainty; and certainly there is very much in his work to inspire our faith in his doctrine. He does not, however, confine himself to what he considers to be a "demonstration of the immediate cause of the death of Christ," but, starting from this point, he proceeds to elucidate some of the most profound doctrines of our Christian Faith,

and this he does with remarkable skill and power.

The work is replete with knowledge, not only to the theologian and medical student, but to readers in general, to whom we recommend it for its enlightened thought, Christian sentiment, and practical bearing.

A History of Wesleyan Missions in all Parts of the World, from their commencement to the present time. By the REV. WILLIAM MOIRSTON. With an Introduction by the REV. ELIJAH HOOLE, D.D. Second and Revised Edition; with Illustrations.

London Elliot Stock. THE Missionary Enterprise of modern times is one of the riper fruits of the Reformation. With that great organic change, the Christian Church became animated with new life, and this life revealed itself in a wider and more philanthropic activity. Awakening to a sense of her solemn obligations, and with the commission of her Lord pressing upon her conscience and heart, her sympathies embraced the race, and her efforts were directed to the proclamation of the glorious Gospel of the grace of God among the far-off nations of the earth. As the revival of true religion was confined to no one section of the Church, so each section looked on Foreign Missions, in connexion with home operations, as her appropriate work. Hence our various Missionary Societies—each independent of the other, and yet all aiming at the same sublime end-the salvation of a lost world.

Among these institutions, the Wesleyan Missionary Society occupies no common place. Commenced in 1784, with an income of less than 70%. it has gone on increasing and extending till it now includes every quarter of the globe within its field of labour, with an income of more than 100,000l. per annum. The History of these Missions is given in the volume now lying before us, and is from the pen of a man who has himself oc

cupied some of the high places of the field. With great resources at his command, and with knowledge guiding his pen, he has produced a work of great interest and value, first to the denomination to which he belongs, and then to the friends and supporters of Christian Missions in general.

We are glad to find the author advocating the training and employment of native agency as a sine quâ non to the success of the work of evangelization among the heathen, and should have been pleased to find a more direct reference to the labours of other kindred institutions. The glory of Christ and the salvation of man should throw all denominationalism into the dim, dim shade.

A Sermon on the Nature of Theism: Showing the duty of avoiding fellowship with unbelievers, and protesting against the reception of ВАВОО KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. Preached by JOHN THOMSON, in the Presbyterian Chapel, Liverpool, on July 3, 1870. To which is added, An Essay on Sincerity, in reply to the assertion, that "If a man be sincere, it makes no matter what he believes."

Liverpool Edward Howell; London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. HERE we have the clear ring of the true coin. In these days, when men are relaxing their hold of the most sublime verities of the Christian Faith, or so explaining them away as to take from them their very life and soul, it is refreshing to come into contact and communion with a man who stands by the grand, rich theology of the seventeenth century. Our preachers and public teachers have, as a body, too little philosophy to grapple with the subtleties and the infidelities of this

inquiring but sadly sceptical age. In proof of this, we have but to refer to the reception given in this country to the professedly Indian Reformer who so recently appeared among us. It was this fact which awakened the fears of Mr. Thomson, and which led him to lift up his voice, and from the sacred desk proest against it. Regarding the creed of

CHUNDER SEN as in direct antagonism to the very genius of the Gospel of Christ, and as fraught with incalculable moral mischief to the commonwealth, he says:

"If leading men in the Churches receive a professed unbeliever, the people will, many of them, say, there can be no great difference between one religious system and another, when our leading men make no difference. In all truth, au impression like that has no need to be made; there is too much of it already. The people, rich and poor, living most of them in contempt of eternal interests, have the notion that every man may believe as he likes. Suppose Mr. SEN be received by ministers of the Gospel in other places as he has been received in Liverpool, Unitarianism will clap her hands, infidelity will reap a harvest of young men, the mouths of ten thousand scoffers will be opened against living godli. ness, our practical despisers of the Gospel will secretly rejoice at the blow given to it, and fall again to business and pleasure with easier minds-consequences which none would deplore more than our leading There are tides, and currents, and great seas, now running, which tell that we are opening into such an ocean as man has not yet sailed upon. The curtain is rising on the fifth and last act in human history previous to the end of time. Of what importance it is that the present and the rising generations should have a right set in these critical and eventful times!"

men.

He conceives, and not without reason, that the people have imbibed a good deal of CHUNDER SEN's spirit and sentiment from much of the popular literature of our day. Hence his observations on Dickens and others of the same school: "The place which has been given to Charles Dickens' novels among evangelical professors is one wholly inconsistent with an evangelical profession. They have been praised, laughed over, quoted, put into the hands of the young as if there was no harm in them. 'What harm is in them?' This great harm, that they are Deistical, and Deistical to better purpose than Francis Newman or even Theodore

Parker. Where Theodore Parker has unsettled one mind, Charles Dickens has breathed the spirit of unbelief on fifty, I suppose. It could easily be proved, by quotations, that these novels ridicule evangelical doctrine, and teach natural religion—a service of God and a faith in God apart from the doctrine of Christ.' Astonishing it is that any professor of the Gospel should read these novels, and not be made aware of that fact; and it is humiliating that, while Protestant bishops, deans, and professors, desecrate the pulpit by their filthy hero-worship-lauding Mr. Dickens to the echo-the Tablet should almost alone stand up for the truth, and declare that his best characters are no more than 'virtuous heathens.' The Church Review, it seems, has replied to the Tablet, 'that it was never more true of a writer of fiction, that he portrayed characters which supernatural grace alone could produce.' That reminds one of the text-'I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.' Is that all that the Church Review knows of supernatural grace? And if Mr. Dickens made such good characters, the worse for the Church Review's argument; for these characters are by the author made to flourish apart from Christ."

Mr. Thomson knows of no compromise. He speaks what he believes to be God's living truth, with all boldness. Though there be nothing new in his views, nor even in the mode of their presentation, and though he be lacking in the suaviter in modo, his Sermon and Essay have in them a fine manly, healthy tone, and are entitled to serious thought and reflection.

Lights and Shadows in the Life of King

David. By CHARLES VANCE.
London: Elliot Stock.

It is a lesson which cannot be too frequently reiterated in this age of restless activity, that "the more the Histories of Scripture are read, the more it will be seen how true they are to human life and experience, how full they are of revelations of God and man, and how rich

they are in lessons of wisdom for all generations." Impressed with this fact, the aim of our author throughout is, "to show that there is some lesson for to-day in every recorded fact in the life of him who, in such far-off time, "served his generation, by the will of God, fell asleep, and was laid with his father's."

Mr. Vance has well performed his task. The contents of his volume are fresh and vigorous. His style is simple and chaste, and his treatment of his subject never fails to engage the attention. The incidents in the Patriarch's life are well chosen, the salient points are seized by the hand of a master, and the lessons are pressed home with a directness and an earnestness which speak to every heart. The work is sure to obtain a wide circulation.

Memorials of the Rev. William Bull, of

Newport Pagnell. Compiled chiefly from his own Letters, and those of his Friends, Newton, Cowper, and Thornton, 1738-1814. By his Grandson, the Rev. JOSIAH BULL, M. A. Author of the "Life of the Rev. John Newton," etc. Cheap Edition.

London Elliot Stock.

THIS work has been written in memoriam of a good man and an enlightened divine. Mr. Bull lived in that grand transition period in English society, which marked the close of the past and the beginning of the present century, and yet we seek in vain for any reference to

it. The volume abounds with personal and domestic incidents, and with letters expressive of the best and most kindly feelings; but there is no handling of great public questions, nor anything approaching to a calm, enlightened, and philosophic view of the changes which were coming over European thought and sentiment. This is still a desideratum in all our modern biographies. Even that religious movement which began to reveal itself in those higher circles in which Wilberforce, Hannah More, and others were wont to move, is not so much as touched upon in these

“Memorials;” but while they lack that interest which belongs to a wider and more comprehensive view of men and things, they strongly appeal to our Christian consciousness and experience. We see in Mr. Bull what a bright and beautiful thing the Christian life is-that it is the truest thing and the loveliest thing on this earth of ours. . He was a Christian man; his faith was embodied in his life, and his life and his faith gave weight and worth to his character. His piety was simple and unaffected, and was the living spirit which animated all his correspondence with his family and his friends.

His grandson, the compiler of these “Memorials,” tells us, that his “grandfather's external appearance was very striking;" that he "was possessed of great intellectual powers," and that he 66 was most assiduous in their cultivation;" that his "conversational powers were very remarkable," and that his "vivacity and humour scarcely ever forsook him to the last;" that he " was notable for his punctuality;" that, though he "partook of the eccentricities of the time in which he lived," his "preaching was characterized by most of those elements which give power to a sermon ;" that he "excelled very much in exposition; that he "was exceedingly popular as a preacher;" that there was in his manner in the pulpit "a solemnity and impressiveness that could not fail to arrest attention." He tells us, moreover, that "much religious thought, much reading of a devotional character, and much prayer, with the subduing influence of almost constant affliction," contributed largely to his perfection of character. As might be expected, he was universally held in great affection and esteem. The record of such a man in his life and labours cannot fail to be both interesting and instructive, and therefore we commend it to every Christian reader.

We find on our Editorial Table, Parts 11-13, of the Food Journal (Johnson and

Sons,) which, like all the former numbers, are replete with the most practical information, and well worthy of perusal.

Colonial Questions pressing for Im mediate Solution, by R. A. MACFIE, M.P. (Longman and Co.) are questions connected with the relation between the United Kingdom and the Colonies, and the solution points to emigration as a grand remedial measure for the relief of the Mother-Country, and such a welding of our Colonial possessions as to insure one mighty empire, whose influence should be felt in all nations.-The Signs of the Times, and where are we? By JAMES JOHNSTONE (J. How, Edinburgh.) After reading this pamphlet, we are comknow not where the author is. Falling pelled to ask, "Where are we?" for we back on the symbolic language of the Book of Revelation, he would have us believe that we, as a nation, in common with the whole of the European Continent, have been guilty of putting to death the two witnesses of Christ, the two principles involved in His headship over the Church, and His headship over the nations, and that, as the punishment of our crime, we shall be subjected to all the horrors and desolations of war! Where are we?-Providence; or the Visiting Justices. A Golden Moment: a Tale of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. By MARIAN FRANCES FERNANDO, Author of "A Die to Make a Mint of Money" (W. Mackintosh.) The striking incidents which make up these two little brochures are said to be founded on facts; the facts are no less notable than are the lessons founded on them both sound and practical.-Mr. Gladstone and the Birming ham Protestant Association. Mr. Gladstone has been severely called to account for his letter to Mr. Dease, on the attitude which the English Government were prepared to take up in regard to the Pope and Italian revolution. But Mr. Gladstone and any other Minister would be powerless to advance Popery, or damage Protestantism, if the Protestants of the realm were not so indifferent on the subject.