The First Adam: a Course of Sermons preached to a Village Congregation. By the Rev. SAMUEL HOBSON, LL. B. Curate of Kirstead, Norfolk. London: Roake and Varty. 1839. 12mo. Pp. 200.

FROM the list of publications at the end of this volume, we are glad to recognise in its author the hitherto "Norfolk Clergyman," to anonymous whose successful labours in diffusing sound christian and useful knowledge among the poor, our journal has, on various occasions, borne willing testimony. "The First Adam" contains eight discourses on Gen. ii. and iii., which furnish a pleasing addition to the Domestic Library of those members of our Church, who follow the good "old path" pursued by our forefathers, of devoting a part of the Sunday evening to the reading of edifying works to their families. The Sermons having been "delivered to congregations, which consisted, for the most part, of the labouring classes," are written with much plainness and affectionate earnestness, and we sincerely hope that they will be extensively read. If any additional recommendation were necessary (independently of the utility of the work), it will be found in the following notice, which we submit to the consideration of our readers:"Should any profits arise from the sale of this small work, they will be given to the Brooke and Kirstead National and Infant Schools."

Who are the Persons authorized to preach the Gospel? A Sermon, preached at Usk, October 23, 1838, at the Anniversary of the Monmouthshire District Committees of S.P.C.K. and S.P.G. By EDWARD, Lord Bishop of Llandaff. With an Appendix on Logomachy and on the Duty of Building Churches. London: Rivingtons.

THIS Sermon is on a text which has lately undergone considerable discussion, Phil. i. 15-18, "Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife," &c. and the exposition of it by such a critic as Dr. Copleston well deserves

attention. The discourse founded on it affords an admirable reply, from Scripture and Church practice, to the important question placed in its titlepage, "Who are the persons authorized to preach the Gospel?" In an appendix is a document containing a noble resolution of the Proprietors of the Rhymney Iron Company to endow a Church and to build Schools for the benefit of the vast population which has been suddenly brought together by their works. In the Bishop's words, May this document awaken a corresponding sense of duty in all who

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read it."

Popery in the Ascendant. Sufferings of the English Protestant Martyrs; 1555, 1556, 1557, 1558. Compiled from Fox and other Writers. By THOMAS SMITH. London: Wright; and Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. Pp. viii. 112.

In these fearful times of Popery, infidelity, and apostasy, republications of this description are invaluable. The object of the able compiler will be best understood by the introduction, which we have great pleasure in presenting entire to our readers :

The Compiler of this little, but not unimportant work, has been moved to the task by the following facts of universal notoriety, threatening alike the welfare of the Protestant religion, and the liberties of mankind:

The O'Connell Rent:

The increase in this Island of Roman Catholic churches:

The conduct of the Archbishop of Cologne, supported by the Pope of Rome, in the affair of mixed marriages in Rhenish Prussia; together with the Pope's late minatory Bull upon the restoration of images in Portugal, as well as the solemn christening of Bells in re-re-re-revolutionized, regenerated, philosophic France:

The public dinner given to the Hon. and Rev. George Spencer, a seceder from the ministration of the Church of England, and a convert to the Church of Rome, on his return from the continent. The toast then and there drank, “The health of the Pope, God's Vicegerent on earth;" and the expressed and cherished

expectation of the return of England to the bosom of the Church of Rome :

The procession in pontificalibus at Leeds, and other ostentatious displays in defiance of the penalties of the law:

:

The inefficacy of the Confessional in deterring a people from the commission of crimes; as evidenced by those mysterious murders in Ireland, not produced by the desire of plunder, or for the concealment of robbery, but by some secret instigation, which in a country under the honest influence of the Protestant religion would long since have been brought to light :

The evidence before the Lords Committee, and the treatment of the Protestant colony at Achill :

The unsettled, and therefore unsound, state of the public mind exhibited in its permitting itself to listen to various constructions of this plain oath :

"House of Commons.-The Oath taken by Roman Catholics.

:

I A. B. do sincerely promise and swear, That I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA, and will defend Her to the utmost of my Power against all Conspi racies and Attempts whatever, which shall be made against Her Person, Crown, or Dignity; and I will do my utmost Endeavour to disclose and make known to Her Majesty, Her Heirs and Successors, all Treasons and traitorous Conspiracies which may be formed against Her or Them and I do faithfully promise to maintain, support, and defend, to the utmost of my power, the Succession of the Crown, which Succession, by an Act, intituled, An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject, is and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the Heirs of her Body, being Protestants; hereby utterly renouncing and abjuring any Obedience or Allegiance unto any other Person claiming or pretending a Right to the Crown of this Realm: And I do further declare, That it is not an Article of my Faith, and that I do renounce, reject, and abjure the Opinion, that Princes excommunicated or deprived by the Pope, or any other Authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their Subjects, or by any person whatsoever: And I do declare, That I do not believe that the Pope of Rome, or any other Foreign Prince, Prelate, Person, State, or Potentate, hath or ought to have any Temporal or Civil Jurisdiction,

Power, Superiority or Pre-eminence, directly or indirectly, within this Realm. I do swear, That I will defend to the utmost of my Power the Settlement of Property within this Realm, as established by the Laws: And I do hereby disclaim, disavow, and solemnly abjure any Intention to subvert the present Church Establishment as settled by Law within this Realm: And I do solemnly swear, That I never will exercise any Privilege to which I am or may become entitled, to disturb or weaken the Protestant Religion or Protestant Government in the United Kingdom: And I do solemnly, in the Presence of God, profess, testify, and declare, That I do make this Declaration, and every Part thereof, in the plain and ordinary Sense of the Words of this Oath, without any Evasion, Equivocation, or mental Reservation whatsoever. ; So help me God."

And lastly-the non-appearance of improvement in Daniel O'Connell since his visit to the Monks of La Trappe; which visit, from its meek and penitential character, had raised the charitable hopes of men of all persuasions.

When Toleration was granted to, and enjoyed by the Romanists, and when they demanded no more, the Compiler would not have thought of reverting to the fearful events related in the following pages; but Equality is now claimed by some, while Ascendancy is the avowed aspiration of others.

What has been may be again;-the cold-blooded murders on both sides in Spain, and the assassinations in Ireland, give something like indications, that even in this enlightened and liberal age, there might not be found wanting such hands as could unhesitatingly put a light to the faggots encircling a Heretic.

The pages of History, we have been personally told by a radical of the new school, were no longer to be consulted. Man is a new animal, and all around him is a blaze of intellectual light. It may be so; yet one cannot for the life of one but fancy that some of the old motives of the bygone world may still be seen influencing his actions; somewhat relying upon this fancy, the Compiler flatters himself, that, in a condensed form, he has offered to the right-minded English Protestant a small and cheap volume, which rousing no vindictive passions now may still prove a wholesome check upon the confiding simplicity of those, who injudiciously think that superstition and bigotry have lost their hold on the human mind, and that the religion calling its

Supreme though merely mortal head, infallible, is full of christian toleration to those who dissent from it, and would use none other than bland persuasives to ensure their re-conversion :- Happy dreams! in which probably many kindhearted Protestants indulged when the massacre of St. Bartholomew sent them to another world, or while the Gunpowder Treason was plotting, the explosion of which was mercifully averted by the great goodness of God."'

The Rubric: Its strict Observance recommended. London: Burns. Pp. 24. THIS little tract contains much sound advice, and the Clergy would do well to read it attentively.

A Friend in Need; or a Word of Consolation in the Hour of Affiiction from the Death of Friends. London Marshall. Pp. iv. 56. "A FRIEND in need is a friend indeed," says the old adage. And this excellent libellus is truly such. Though very small it is calculated to convey the necessity, as well as the value of a search for further comfort, on the loss of dear friends, where only it can be found, and learn that there is no real consolation under any affliction, but in the promises of the Bible.

The Call upon the Great. London:

Seeleys. Pp. viii. 150.

THIS is one of the best works we have had the good fortune to meet with for some time. It takes a sound moral and practical view of the position of the country, with reference to both Church and State; and lays down a code of rules, which, if acted upon, would wonderfully strengthen and consolidate the conservative interest, and heal the breaches which have been made in the walls of our Sion. On the subject of national education, the author is strikingly eloquent, and if our limits permitted we would gladly copy the whole chapter; as it is, we must content ourselves with the following:

Let not education, like vulgar benevolence, be scattered abroad with so little discernment as to defeat its own purposes. Let it carry in its front the announcement of its proper end and design; not to encourage selfish effort, or to expand the prospects of ambition, but to elevate feelings, correct principles, and supply motives to industry and contentment. And what other means are there whereby the poor of this land can be truly raised in the moral or intellectual scale?-But while the penis moving, it moves tremblingly along this path, lest it should seem to place religion in a subordinate rank. It is the means, but it is the end also. It comprehends the destiny, duty, and delight, of the poor of this world, rich in faith. It is the wisdom that "uttereth her voice in the streets," and, chartered to all mankind, opens her schools for every variety of condition. As far as education is adapted to graduate the poor in this university, its tendency is safe, and its progress certain.

The great proposition is this-that religion, not speculatively and argumentatively taught, but vitally impressed upon the heart and conduct, if not sole, must be supreme in a system of education fitly framed for the sons and daughters of the British poor. Any education of which our Enimanuel is not the light, and the life, discovers itself too soon in a sour, unblessed state of society, in a bad public temper, and a dissolute state of manners. No device for advancing the substantial condition of man can have success unless the counsel of God is with it; and this it cannot have unless it minister to the divine life of the soul, and is the handmaid of christian perfection. Ignorance is bliss compared with that unhallowed education, which mocks the poor with offers of what, generally speaking, is by them unattainable. If a little learning was ever a dangerous thing, surely it is so in the present state of the press, and in a region overspread with contagious

and the voluntary cooperation of individuals, it has the infirmity common to all similar arrangements. It is necessarily too technical and mechanical to determine the thoughts towards the subjects most entitled to engross them. Means, recommended by economy of expenditure, celerity of operation, and comprehensiveness of plan, have their appropriate excellence; but their beneficial working and immediate efficacy mainly depend upon collateral help.

If, therefore, we regard Christianity as the great end and scope of popular education, it is matter for consideration how far a technical mode of instruction can of itself effect the object. It is in things and actions that its essence resides; and for this reason it seems to be best taught to the poor when presented to them in connexion with duties; and always as a whole, because only as a whole can it be brought to bear upon the conscience, and govern the conduct. It may be made too much a matter of memory, with a view to which it is often broken and subdivided. There is an entireness in its great constituent doctrines which will not endure such splitting and parcelling. It can neither be understood nor felt unless it comes in its proper fulness of authoritative wisdom. In its briefest compendium it is an integral subject a system of inseparable truths, which, to be properly received and recognised, must be interpreted in the conscience and believed with the heart.

Sunday Schools are precisely those institutions which afford the most favourable opportunity for individual exertion; and let not the greatest amongst us disdain the employment. Their organization is very simple. They do their work more or less successfully in proportion to the faithfulness and discretion of the persons severally and distinctly engaged in the conduct of them. Their design is above controversy excellent, and their method plain and unambiguous. They were instituted in subserviency to the purposes, and in correspondence with the character of the Lord's day; they cannot be alienated therefrom without a violation of consistency and principle. They stand pledged to that paramount instruction which lays the foundation of morals in christian belief and scriptural authority. The proper province of the Sunday school is to act as an auxiliary of the Church; a preparative to congregational worship; a lever to lift the mind to a level with the day; a barrier at which the tide of desecration

is arrested, and compelled to respect the privileges of nonage and inexperience. But its most prominent advantage is the attraction it holds out to the gratuitous assistance of persons of active piety. Nor may we regret that it is also an organ of instruction in the hands of Dissent, while its value and advantages are so clearly on the side of our National Church. Who, that looks to Christianity as a subject of peculiar belief, does not feel the superiority of such a system, flexible though it be, to the frigid neutrality of an ethical discipline, or the floating generalities of a sentimental theology, accommodated as they may seem to the purposes of universal education? These means may to some appear to be humble, but they forget how holy is their end; to some the time devoted to them may seem too short, but they forget that it reaches to eternity; others may deem the knowledge imparted to be too confined, but they forget that it is all saving knowledge: and of these considerations the proper effect should be, to cause it to be the concern, as it is the duty of those possessing the most influence in each parish, to make that influence tell in this godlike direction. A great deal of fine planning might be spared, and a great deal of running about saved, if this simple system were more honestly and zealously pursued; keeping the one great and holy purpose always in view,-the improvement of the heart in christian scholarship. This is the true learning for poor children; which, in after life, will make the sun go down on the cottage in peace, the sweat of labour balmy, and its alternations sweet and reviving. -Pp. 80-84.

Christian Library.-I. Elisha: unabridged. Translated from the German of the Rev F. W. KRUMMACHER, D.D. Author of "Elijah the Tishbite," &c. With illustrative Notes. Pp. 102.-II. Memoirs of the Rev. JOHN NEWTON, late Rector of the United Parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch, Haw, Lombard Street. With general Remarks on his Life, Connexion, and Character. By the Rev.RICHARD CECIL, A.M. Minister of St. John's, Bedford Row. Pp. 46. London: Warren.

THE Christian Library promises to become a valuable addition to our

cheaper works upon theological subjects. It is printed on excellent paper, in double columns, and does great credit to the publishers. The works announced as a part of the series are of most sterling and recognised value, and we cordially wish success to the enterprise.

Eucharistica. Meditations and Prayers on the Most Holy Eucharist from Old English Divines. With an Introduction by the Rev. SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, M.A. London: Burns. Pp. xxvi. 160.

THE increased and increasing numbers of devout communicants is a delightful proof of the progress of sound religious feeling, which cannot fail to improve by the perusal of such excellent works as the Eucharistica of Mr. Wilberforce.

Selections from the Metrical Paraphrases on the Psalms, the Book of Job, and other Portions of Holy Scripture. By GEORGE SANDYS, Esq. Son of Dr. Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, and Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Charles I. With a Memoir of his Life and Writings, by the Rev. HENRY JOHN TODD, M.A. Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty, and Archdeacon of Cleveland. London: Rivingtons. Oxford : Parker. Pp. viii. 10. Born Dr. Warton and the Rev. W. L. Bowles have justly observed, that sufficient justice has never been done to Sandys, who did more to polish and tune the English versification, by his

Paraphrases, than either Denham or Waller, who are applauded on the subject. Mr. Todd says, that "perhaps by no writer of sacred poetry of that or succeeding times, has Sandys been surpassed in stanzas of seven or eight syllables;" and we agree with him in this and most of his other able and judicious remarks. The public, we are quite sure, will thank the editor for his interesting memoir and selections, one of which we have great pleasure in transferring to our pages.

PSALM CXXI.

To the hills thine eyes erect,
Help from those alone expect:
He, who heaven and earth hath made,
Shall from Sion send thee aid.
God, thy ever watchful guide,
Will not suffer thee to slide:
He, even He who Israel keeps,
Never slumbers, never sleeps.
He, thy guard, with wings displayed,
Shall refresh thee in their shade.
Suns shall not with heat infect,
But their temperate beams reflect;
Nor unwholesome sérene* shall

From the moon's moist influence fall.
When thou travell'st on the way,
When at home thou spend'st the day;
When sweet peace thy life delights;
Wher embroil'd in bloody fights;
God shall all thy steps attend,
Now, and evermore defend.

Preparations to a Holy Life; or Devotions for Families and Private Persons, with Directions suited to particular Cases. By the Author of « The New Week's Preparation for the Sacrament.", London: Hodson. Pp. vii. 79.

A VALUABLE little manual.