tures, prayer, watchfulness and diligence. The motive and design are thus set forth in the preface:

"At this time of intense outward activity, we need to be especially careful not to neglect the hidden Christian life. It is the design of the following pages to exhibit the origin, progress, aud termination of that life on earth which is hid with Christ in God,' in a purely scriptural view, and so divested of theological technicalities as to render the subject plain to every reader."

We notice one or two slight inaccuracies in composition, the result of inadvertency, as Dr. Winslow is a very accomplished writer. One of these is, commencing a sentence or paragraph with the conjunction "And" or "But." We do not forget that we have ourselves occasionally done the same thing, and we are aware that the authority of the North American Review, Macaulay, and Milton can be pleaded for the usage. It should occur but seldom,

however.

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In quotations from the Scriptures we observe that there is not always an exact conformity to the received version. On p. 165, our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us," &c., 2 Cor. iv. 17, is altered to "our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work out for us." The 6th verse of the 25th Psalm is given as follows on the 166th page: "Remember thy tender mercies and thy loving kindness, for they have been ever of old.”

Tales and Sketches. By HUGH MILLER. Edited, with a Preface, by Mrs. MILLER. 12mo. pp. 385. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1863.

TEN biographical and imaginative papers, some of them of considerable elaboration, are gathered into this tasteful volume. They were among the earlier literary efforts of their eminent author. Among them, the sketches of Ferguson and Burns, two of the most unhappy of the poetic brotherhood, are full of pathetic, tragic interest. Mr. Miller was perhaps in danger, from a dash of morbid intenseness in his own nature, of coloring these sombre pictures too darkly—the naked facts were painful enough. He grasps his subjects throughout with great power, and always shows the deep, pure manliness of his own uncramped heart. There is an easy story-telling flow to his narrative which is very alluring; and now and then a jet of native humor which only makes us wish for more of its wholesome efferA good preface puts the reader in fair position to understand and enjoy this miscellany.

vescence.

Woman and her Saviour in Persia. By a Returned Missionary. 12mo. pp. 303. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1863.

A SKILFUL hand has grouped a variety of aspects and hues of missionary life in these pages, from the rich field of Nestorian labors and successes. The educational department of that work is largely represented here. The compiler lets us clearly into the interior of the methods and spirit by which our brethren are so happily rekindling the fires of an intelligent consecration to Christ on those ancient altars. The book glows with the revival fervor which has so often blessed the Persian stations. Its special interest lies in the line indicated in its title-what pure Christianity can effect in saving both temporally and eternally the females of the lands which lie in darkness. Several good engravings and a map add value to this volume. National Gallery of Eminent Americans, from Original Paintings by Alonzo Chappel, with Biographies by E. A. Duyckinck. 4to. New York: Johnson, Fry & Co. 1863.

MORE than seventy of the one hundred engravings promised in this publication have been issued with biographical sketches. These are outlined with sufficient fulness to answer the purpose of a work that derives its chief interest from the pictorial art which it displays. This exhibits great variety and excellence. The subjects are gathered from our revolutionary and more recent annals, including many living notabilities. The full lengths, and the costumes and back ground in keeping, which the artist has adopted, give a fine effect to many of these portraits. One can study here the history of personal fashions to advantage, from the ball-room exquisiteness of the old commodores on their quarter-decks, to the picturesque hunting shirt of Daniel Boone and the polar bear-skins of Dr. Kane. The work is one of universal national value, honorable alike to the genius of its authors and the enterprise of its publishers.

ARTICLE IX.

THE ROUND TABLE.

WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE ELEPHANT? A grave inquiry; and has caused greater perplexity many times in the world theological than in that of zoology. We shall express no opinion of our own at present, content to hint briefly, for the benefit of our readers,

some things that have been floating in the atmosphere now for some time past.

Is he not a magnificent beast? What a size and altitude! What a stately tread! How splendidly he walks over the course, and what a sensation he produces! He does many queer things, it is truetramples on flowers not only beautiful and sweet-scented, but medicinal; and tears down trees which the fathers planted, and which have long borne pleasant and life-sustaining fruits. But then he is the elephant, and does it so grandly. What are all the fathers and mothers too compared with the elephant! Is he not a magnificent beast?

'Tis charged that he is irreverent, and makes havoc among sacred things. Indeed 'tis true: but is not courage one of the virtues? Is not too much reverence cowardice; and if the beast is abating the excessive reverence of our day, must we not presume him a benefactor?

'Tis also charged that he breaks down hedges, and lays the vineyard open to the incursion of beasts smaller but more dangerous than himself. Very startling, certainly; yet not so bad as appears at first sight. Have we not attached altogether too much importance to this matter of enclosures? That the apostles had them must be granted, also the old prophets, and were rather particular about them. We have nothing to say against the great company of saints who have loved to sing,

"We are a garden walled around,

Chosen and made peculiar ground,"

and thought they were in harmony with the provisions of a divine platform. But the letter killeth. An enclosure is mere wood or stone. Will you stand trembling before an enclosure, as if it were God?

We have no desire to abolish all enclosures; but, in the name of sacred and beautiful charity, let us not make them too narrow or too high. Let them be broad enough by all means to satisfy the elephant. Is he not a magnificent beast? There is the Baconian method, and the Chicago platform, both evidently having particular reference to the elephant. We see but little to choose between them. and have no doubt either will satisfy the beast, inasmuch as the whole thing is left so low and shaky that he will see in it the fast coming fulfilment of a prophecy: "That which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."

It has been suggested that a short and honest and safe way would be to be guided implicitly by the Lord of the country, and to hold

fast the old landmarks, and the old walls, and cast out the elephant. But who will venture to do it? The elephant does not choose to be cast out, and his rage would be terrible. Does any body want to see the elephant in a rage? Would he not charge "malice" and a "lie," and is it not better to have a great deal of charity than a very little of malice?

What this matter will grow to, we are not prepared to say. The foregoing are brief hints of things vibrating in our great atmosphere. The main point, it will be observed, is to keep the elephant, the elephant whom all the world admires, and who would be welcomed with shouting and the voice of a trumpet, to regions from which the last remnant of enclosures has disappeared long ago.

HOW DO THEY KNOW? We have been greatly interested during the progress of the war to notice how familiar some men have become with the plans and purposes and providential acts of God. They devoutly connect all our victories and defeats and good management and blunders with his secret designs. They speak as if they knew what he is going to do, and what he wants us to do, and why he has given us success and failure at different points, and are quite as thankful for some of our terrible disasters as for our glorious victories. When conversed with by those of opposite views, they make at first some show of reasoning, but soon resort to intuitions and personal revelations from God; and then their logic glides off into oracular and semi-inspired utterances for the past and prophecy for the future. Such men are to us a mental and spiritual phenomenon. How do they know all this about the mind of God? How have they obtained his authoritative explanation of past events? How have they come into the secret of his plans and purposes for the future? How are they able so confidently to assert that unless we do so and so, and no otherwise than so, God will veto all our movements? This knack of knowing the secret plans of God is not confined to military or civil, clerical or lay, radical or conservative persons. All classes show some who are in the secret. Young men see visions and old men dream dreams, and sons, and daughters too, prophesy.

Who owns and controls this heavenly telegraph? How have these wise ones been able to locate confidential agents or secret correspondents near to the celestial St. Cloud? It singularly happens that invariably God's plans for the future fall in precisely with their own, and they and God have thought just alike in the past. But this does not solve the mystery how they came to know all this. Is there a higher grade of spiritualism than that

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commonly propounded, and are these persons "mediums" between earth and heaven? The fact waits for an explanation, that some persons are on such intimate terms with God, and are able to speak for him with so much authority and assurance.

THUNDER AND LIGHTNING, AND THEIR DIFFERENCE SOMEWHAT. When we were children thunder used to trouble us very much. It made exceedingly uncomfortable impressions on us. And it was

a long time before we learned that thunder never hits any body, and that it is only the lightning that strikes. So latterly, let the thunder mutter and rumble and be as noisy as it may, we have stood in awe only in view of those fiery streams and balls and gushes from the cloud. By a mental process that we can not well explain we have carried this distinction between thunder and lightning over into the cloudy gatherings and storms of human passion.

We have learned quietly to let verbose and angry men utter their sounding words and pile up sentences and paragraphs and newspaper columns. We comfort our hearts by saying, thunder never strikes. We have learned to possess our souls in patience till they say something, till there is really the darting and the striking of an idea, a thought. The passionate and skilful display of tremendous words is mere muttering and threatening in a distant cloud, accompanied perhaps with the flashes of what is called "heat lightning." As a clap of thunder may fill all ears but leave no mark in a community, so wordy and angry sentences may pass through a place, producing only the most trivial and transient undulations in the atmosphere. But when together with the thunder some oak is splin tered, some castle shattered; when you are smitten by an idea, or confounded by a fact suddenly projected at you, then it is time to have anxiety, and think of personal safety. So when a "beautiful speaker" is very rich in rhetorical logic and orotund passages and words and sentences of magnificent sound, we have learned that there is a difference between all that and saying something, and we are left to regret that one who has such good lungs and vocal organs has not also something to say. Thus we mark the difference somewhat between thunder and lightning.

VIRGIL ON THE CORPS D'AFRIQUE. In the present deep national interest in the question of negro regiments any light must be acceptable, though from a distant star. The Mantuan bard sends us We quote it without committing ourselves, for this Review

his ray.