2. The conditions with which such experience must be. 3. The conditions so eventuating as evincive of a proposed end. Experience again furnishes us with three descriptions of object or subject matter. 1. Experience with pure physical and inorganic matter. 2. Experience with organic being. 3. Absolute being, as above finite being.

The treatise is brief: it is clear to a reader who is experienced in metaphysical symbols, and has had some acquaintance with Dr. Hickok's peculiar style. It is in every respect worthy the careful attention and close study which it requires.

SERMONS AND SONGS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.*-The alliterative title of this new volume from Dr. Sears-containing nineteen sermons, and twenty-three hymns on related subjects interspersed -reminds us that Watts and Doddridge often combined the two, with this difference, however, that in their practice the hymn was really born of the sermon, or of the same train of thought, and was meant to be sung, whereas these poems are of different dates, most of them having appeared before in other collections, and seem to be intended chiefly for reading. The connection is no doubt pleasant and edifying. By the way, when the author says in the preface, "In our church service the sermon consummated in the hymn," we question not the sentiment but the intransitive use of the verb, usage requiring the sermon to be consummated or the hymn to consummate. As to the quality of the sermons, our readers will come to them with high expectations, remembering the author's previous works, "The Fourth Gospel the Heart of Christ," "Regeneration," and "Foregleams of Immortality." Nor will they be disappointed. The same devout spirit, evangelic doctrine, rich and delicate sentiment, and winning style, characterize these discourses. The author's theological position is not less singular-not less anomalous, some would say than before, and it is one that indicates the "diversities of operations" in our times. His denominational association we suppose still to be with Unitarians, and this volume is inscribed to the "three Christian Societies" to whom he has ministered in "pastoral relations;" yet the orthodox have claimed him and will claim him still, and certainly on some most important questions not without reason. On other questions, however, he must be classed with the followers

* Sermons and Songs of the Christian Life. By EDMUND H. SEARS. Boston: Noyes, Holmes, & Co. 1875. 12mo, pp. 334.

of Swedenborg rather than with Trinitarians. Like that teacher, in regard to our Lord's person, he is as far removed as possible from Socinians. With the same class, too, he denies the proper personality of the Holy Spirit (as on p. 329), while not content with the "feeble" word "influence;" and in the first of these sermons the only angels he recognizes are departed human spirits. In his former works he adopts with some modification the same teacher's doctrine regarding our Lord's risen body and the "spiritual bodies" of his followers. But still more obvious is his antagonism to the "free religion" of the day, and his sympathy with the great body of believers regarding the supernatural facts of Christianity; and the evangelical elements of his faith are set forth in this as in foregoing works with a glow and charm that cannot fail to attract devout readers generally. We must add that in the preface, in characterizing these discourses, he defines a sermon on "the fundamental facts of the gospel history" with a discrimination which we heartily recommend to the attention of those orthodox ministers who are forever taken up in the pulpit with proving instead of proclaiming their authorized message. "I do not regard it," he says, as the province of the sermon to go behind the facts themselves, or try to prove them. That belongs to works of another kind. The sermon assumes them as premises acknowledged by the congregation, and prophesies from them, but in such wise and with such application to the wants of the human heart as to complement the historical evidence with the clearest spiritual vision and the most assured experience of Christian believers. This in itself is evidence, and without it the historical facts are of little avail, and finally lose their hold even upon the intellect, notwithstanding the completeness of the historic demonstration."

BROWN'S DISCOURSES AND SAYINGS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.* -The expository writings of Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh (a ministerial and gifted family) have long held a high place in theological literature. His work on the "First Epistle of Peter" had a warm reception in this country as well as abroad. The preface to the first edition of this series on our Lord bears the date of 1850, and the advertisement to the second two years later. It

* Discourses and Sayings of our Lord Jesus Christ, illustrated in a Series of Expositions. By JOHN BROWN, D.D. Two volumes in one. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1875.

stands in no need of description or commendation here. As our Lord's teachings offer the most important theme, and one espe cially prominent at this day, so the writer's learning, care, large experience and sound judgment qualified him for its worthy treatment. We call attention to it just now because it comes before us in a new and cheap edition, the two volumes being included in one, and that in all respects well executed, comprising no less than 1245 pages, at the price of only $3.50. The first preface exhibits happily the central place of the subject in Christianity. The dedication to "James Douglas, of Cavers," is a fit tribute to an admirable man, and a model in that kind of composition.

MUSINGS AND MEMORIES.*-The contents of this volume are arranged in sixteen chapters under their several general titles, such as Kindness, Individual Influence, Riches, War, Children, Providential Deliverances, Influence of the Holy Spirit, Ministry, and others; each being divided into smaller sections with appropriate headings. Usually some narrative or suggestive fact is handled as a text for devout meditation or counsel, with modest good sense, in a kindly spirit, with profound reverence for the Divine Word and the human conscience, and scrupulous delicacy of thought and language. With more than Quaker reticence, nothing is told us of the author, and the imprint of the " Association of Friends" is not needed to indicate the school from which it issues. The quietness, benignity, sober conviction, and wakeful discretion, that pervade all its pages, as well as the absence of whatever is sensational or pretentious, bring us into the very atmosphere of the brotherhood. Their writings abound more than those of any other sect in memoirs, narratives, and the devout use of anecdote. We think some of our best readers will find this volume a pleasant addition to the store of wholesome thoughts which they resort to at intervals, a chapter at a time, for some helpful ministry. We recomend to "outsiders" the chapters on "Providential Deliverance" and the "Influence of the Holy Spirit," and especially to the more restless, bustling Christian people, that section of the latter which treats of "Silent Worship."

*

Musings and Memories. Being chiefly a collection of anecdotes and reflections, of a religious character, on various subjects. Philadelphia; published by the Tract Association of Friends. 1875. 12mo, pp. 367.

Of

MARTINEAU'S RELIGION AS AFFECTED BY MODERN MATERIALISM.* This "is an address delivered," as the title-page informs us, "in Manchester New College, London, at the opening of its eightyninth session," last October. It is an able protest and argument against the materialism that bases itself on modern science. course, it will have the more weight with a class of cultivated readers from the theological position of the author. Moreover, he urges his conclusions with a really fine eloquence. As might be expected, he concedes more to unbelief than any orthodox theologian can do," the consecrated cosmogony" and "the system" of "the churches,"-admitting that "in the whole history of the Genesis of things Religion must unconditionally surrender to the Sciences." His stand is for mind-the human mind and the Supreme Mind-against the sufficiency of matter. He claims for religion the province of the question, "Whence, of all phenomena," and relegates science to the "How." For a specimen of ingenious and indeed conclusive argument, most happily put, within a small compass, we refer the reader to the whole passage beginning at the foot of p. 26, and ending near the top of p. 40, and particularly to his crushing grasp of Prof. Tyndall's admission that "we must radically change our notions of Matter," p. 30. Dr. Bellows may well be pardoned for calling attention with evident satisfaction to the fact, which moreover the champions of orthodoxy not only acknowledge but welcome, that "among the stoutest defenders of the essential postulates of religious faith" are some whom he calls "disowned leaders in theological reform,” p. 8. Nor is this fact new. Christianity has always found able defenders in its outer as well as inner courts. One of the choicest sermons we ever heard in behalf of prayer, as against mere naturalism, was from Dr. Bellows.

THE RENT VEIL. t-Among those who would explain the symbolism of the Mosaic economy, some may be said to allow it the minimum of evangelical meaning, if any at all, while others would extort from it the maximum. Of the two classes, if we must be confined to either, we prefer the latter for edification, and to this class, we hardly need say, Dr. H. Bonar belongs. The

*Religion as affected by Modern Materialism. By JAMES MARTINEAU, LL.D. With an Introduction by the Rev. HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1875. pp. 68.

The Rent Veil. By HORATIO BONAR, D.D. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1875. pp. 184.

neat volume before us is occupied with the doctrine of the need and efficacy of Christ's sacrifice as set forth under the symbol of the veil. We cannot say that we are aided or attracted by the style of his interpretation and comment, yet many readers find it adapted to themselves. His hymns, if not our favorites, are still more largely acceptable and useful.

MR. TIFFANY'S PRICE LECTURE.*-Endowed lectureships sometimes call out a traditional and perfunctory, rather than a fresh and original treatment, of the themes to which they relate. Such is not at all the case, however, with Mr. Tiffany's Discourse, delivered on the ancient Price foundation, in Boston. It is a condensed, yet clear and perspicuous, discussion of Modern Atheism; a discussion terse and definite, yet temperate in its tone, and discriminating, urgent, and conclusive in its reasonings. His appropriate text is the opening sentence of the Bible, the "root of all the religion contained in it."

The character of the lofty conception of God in the Bible is thus described:

The thought of God is not, either in Judaism or Christianity, merged in or entangled with the existence of the universe. He is distinct in essence, though in Him all things consist. For "in the beginning God created." He not only was, but He was acting, and the universe is the fruit of His act. It does not exist as His necessary organization, eternal as Himself, and as essentially Divine, according to the Pantheism of Spinoza. It does not constitute His essential opposite, without which He could not come to the consciousness of Himself, according to the earlier philosophy of Schelling and the later logic of Hegel. He is in Himself complete the I am, above all.

"He sits on no precarious throne,

Nor borrows leave to be."

The necessity in Him to create was the moral necessity of love, not the natural necessity of self-completion. The universe appears by the fiat of His will. He commanded, and it stood fast. Strauss, in his latest book, "The Old Faith and the New," says that from the Old Testament we inherit the Lord God; from the New Testament, the God-Father; from the Greek philosophy, the Absolute. But the idea of the Absolute is involved in the clear cut statement of the text. He who wrote it may not have had it fully developed in his thought, but all the elements of the thought are there. The earliest product of literature which we possess is an acknowledgment of the Supreme Being the Alpha and the Omega, the origin and end of all that exists. He who in the beginning of all things already is, and who creates all that doth appear, is of necessity the sole, self-existent, independent, unlimited One. The ultimate substance is Spirit; the ultimate Being is God.

* Modern Atheism. A Price Lecture, delivered in King's Chapel, Boston, in Lent, 1874. By Rev. C. C. TIFFANY, Rector of the Church of the Atonement, New York. New York: J. Whittaker, 2 Bible House.