realize so good a method. It is probable that Mr. Alcott need not travel very far to see it even now in practice. We are not familiar with the "meetin' privileges" of the old Puritan town in which our Oracle resides. But if some time he could look in upon a Real Church of the present, without waiting for the Ideal Church of the future, he might take courage. So too with the next suggestion, that "an arrangement of the pews in semicircles will bring all more nearly at equal gradation of distance from the speaker, whose position is best slightly elevated above the con

Of purity,

And thus fulfills life's destiny."

In regard to all of which we are compelled to ask (having first attentively considered it as a conundrum or some species of enigma, and given it completely up), in the name of grammar and of sense, of rhyme and of reason, of prose and of poetry, if this is not oracular, what under the sun is it?

The Greeks of To-Day.

CONSIDERING what great interest attaches to the

phet of the Ideal Church!

"Thou mindest me of gentlefolks,

Old gentlefolks are they,

Thou say'st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way."

As yet we are no whit advanced beyond the old, the real. Only when we come to the "pictures and statues representing to the senses the grand events of the religious history of the past," which may be "an essential part of the Church furniture," do we find ourselves in the Ideal. It is to be broadly catholic, "the statues embodying the great leaders of religious thought of all races. These are not many; the world owes its progress to a few persons. The divine order gives one typical soul to a race. Let us respect all races and creeds as well as our own; read and expound their sacred books like our Scriptures. Let there be frequent interchange of preachers. Let the services be left to the speaker's selection. Let the music be set to the best lyrical poetry of all ages, poems sometimes read or recited as part of the services. As for prayer, it may be spoken from an overflowing heart, may be silent, or omitted at the option of the minister."

Ah! now we begin to see where we are! drifting "towards a Personal Theism inclusive of the faiths of all races, embodying the substance of their Sacred Books, with added forms and instrumentalities" (to which at last the Conversation might, haply, not be lacking), "suited to the needs of our time." Room in the new church, doubtless, for our Oracle, to whom shall come "the divinity students," which will be "gratifying;" and place in the new architecture, surely, among those desirable statues, for some one of our oracular neighbors in Concord.

Once in a while, that the "Concord days" may be complete, we dip into poetry, of which we quote but one example:

"Whose the decree

Souls Magdalens must be
To know felicity,

The path to it
Through pleasure's pit,
Soft sin undress
Them of their holiness,-
Hath heaven so writ?

Happier the fate

That opes heaven's gate With crystal key

close at hand it is to all the constant and changeful progress of modern Europe, it is surprising that there is so little that is popularly and accurately known concerning its present condition, and that a book like Mr. Charles K. Tuckerman's (The Greeks of ToDay; New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons) finds a field so nearly unoccupied. Mr. Tuckerman was recently Minister Resident of the United States at Athens, and had, of course, unusual opportunities to become familiar with the present aspect of the little kingdom. He had also, what is even more to the purpose, the disposition to improve his opportunities and the good sense and freedom from prejudice which enabled him to form opinions that are of evident value. Some of the chapters of this volume have appeared already in the pages of SCRIBNER's; and our readers do not need to be assured that they are profitable both for entertainment and for instruction.

A Good Thing for Children.

IF a pedagogic Newton were to construct a philo. sophy of education, the fundamental proposition, we fancy, would run somewhat in this wise :

The educational gravity of matter-measured by the mental action it excites-varies directly as the amount of curiosity it awakens, and inversely as its distance from the thinking center.

Joyous activity of sense and intellect is the truest evidence and most significant attendant of healthy ju venile culture, and whatever means of experience or information most excites such activity is best for the development of mind. In considering what knowledge is most worth at the outset of education, it is therefore necessary to take up a position quite the reverse of that chosen by Herbert Spencer in his able and admirable essay on this subject, since knowledge having no measurable value in itself-knowledge worth nothing as knowledge-may be of immeasurable value in early culture because it appeals directly and closely to the child's instinct of curiosity, and by evoking germinal thinking sets the mind agrowing as sunshine does the germ of a plant. The kitten on the hearth, the weed that springs by the door-stoneanything in the little world that hedges him round about is more serviceable for the child's instruction and culture if rightly used, and more worthy of his study than the most important matter over the fence

and without the sphere of his mental attraction. These are to him what the collections of the museum, the laboratory, the library-all the machinery of higher culture-are to the maturer disciple of learning. And it is the first business of the educator to take up the child's development, at whatever stage it may have reached, and carry it on by these simple and homely means precisely as the advanced science instructor leads his followers along the paths of investigation. In this work method is everything. Right thinking

is learned by thinking aright, and in no other way; and right teaching has right thinking always in view as the first and highest object to be secured. Loose, timid, dishonest thinking is too often the result of much teaching; it is never the result of genuine instruction-which is little else than proper guidance in the conscientious pursuit of what is true by personal investigation a sort of scientific work, we may add, which the child is capable of doing in his sphere as thoroughly well as a Tyndall or a Huxley in his.

use of them, that the child will learn to discriminate closely by force of habit, and to group the objects and results of his observations according to their natural relationships. This is a new feature in object-teaching, and one which seems well calculated to secure the cumulative effects which object-teaching of the ordinary sort so strikingly misses. Hitherto object-teachers have aimed chiefly to cultivate acuteness of observa-, tion and facility in naming,-ends good in themselves, but sadly disappointing when standing alone: they do not produce productive learning, they do not develop comprehensive thinking. The habit of discriminating, comparing, judging-in short, classifying the results and objects of observation-is what is most needed; and this can be cultivated and exercised as well by the study of the simplest properties of sticks and stones, common plants and animals, as by the investigation of the most occult or important laws of the created universe. For teaching parents and teachers how to begin and carry on this much-needed work, Mr. Calkins's cards are wisely and happily planned.

Dr. Hodge's Latest Volume.

Primary instruction is consequently becoming more and more attractive to children; in other words, more and more in harmony with their condition and needs.

As a fresh evidence of this tendency, we have examined with unusual pleasure the series of colored cardpictures devised by one of the superintendents of our city schools for the initiation of young children into the methods of systematic nature study. (Calkins's Natural History Series, for Schools and Families. L. Prang & Co., Boston.)

With a teacher whose knowledge of common things is minute and comprehensive, and who is capable of distinguishing between giving information in natural science which is of little worth-and training in the fundamental methods of scientific investigation-which is worth everything-the best materials with which to begin mental culture are, of course, the familiar objects which the child has already discovered more or less about. But as few teachers have much trustworthy knowledge of common things, and fewer still have any just conception of how to study or to lead others to study them, the author of these cards has planned them so that the teacher must learn right methods of teaching as surely as the pupil acquires right habits of learning; and by the time the cards are done with, both will be prepared to apply the same methods to the study of objects out of doors.

The instinct of curiosity-the main-spring of primary education-cannot fail to be stimulated to the utmost by these pretty prints, while the gratification of the curiosity so aroused must be so effected by the right

THE publication of Dr. Hodge's Systematic Theology is at last completed in a third volume, which is as much larger than the second, as the second was larger than the first. But though the size of the volumes has thus increased-the elegance of typo

publishers have given to the work is no way dimin ished. By far the greater part of the volume is occupied with the great department of Soteriology, of which Dr. Hodge's treatment is thorough almost to exhaustiveness. The characteristics of the school of which he is the acknowledged master, are abundantly apparent in his discussion, for example, of regeneration and of faith. But in regard to these themes, as in regard to all the vexed questions at issue between the schools, the statement of Dr. Hodge himself is commonly more temperate and candid, more broad and Christian, even in the judgment of his opponents, than the statements of his disciples are commonly found to be. Apart from the caution and adroitness of the theologian, which alone would serve to make such statements less extreme, the genuine reverence and charity by which the discussion is commonly characterized, give to the whole a restrained and moderate expression. We have recognized, also, in one or two instances, a more evident and successful effort at candor and impartiality in the statement of opposing views. And yet, we need hardly add, the whole work is devoutly and strictly Biblical, and uncompromisingly "orthodox."

Certain sections of this volume have a practical and popular value, which is not to be looked for in a simply doctrinal discussion, and exhibit Dr. Hodge in the character of a casuist and teacher of Christian morality --a character in which he appears to great advantage. In his chapter on “The Law" (including as it does a careful examination of the Decalogue), the Sunday

question, the question of obedience to the civil authority, capital punishment, marriage and divorce, communism and socialism, and other topics are treated with a bold and Christian freedom, which is very admirable and very timely. So, also, the discussion of the Sacraments is brought down to date in its applicability to ritualistic error; and the discussion of the subject of Prayer has just and able reference to the very latest scientific criticism.

The next great division of the work-Eschatology— has the same characteristic excellences and the same incidental defects which we have noticed in our criticism of the preceding sections. It is necessarily more brief and general, not undertaking to be wise above what is written. The work, now complete, is a monument to the genius and learning of its venerable author, and it must at once take rank, on both sides of the Atlantic, as a theology of permanent and standard value.

The reader is conscious, presently, of some slight misgiving lest what is such easy and delightful reading, absorbing the attention almost like some skillfully told story, must be superficial in its thought or untrustworthy in its conclusions. Closer examination, however, only proves that while there is no lack of thoroughness and depth in Professor Blackie's study | of his great subject, and no lack of breadth and fairness in his judgment and comparison, there is the added charm of a style at once eloquent and clear, ornate but at the same time transparent, which captivates and interests the unlearned reader, to whom an ordinary discourse on morals would simply be a bore.

We have been especially interested in the paper on Aristotle, which gives in the briefest possible compass and with the clearest and simplest method, the outline of the life of the great philosopher and the characteristic features of his Ethics, showing especially the eminently practical character of his teaching, and its permanent value and present application to certain needs of our own time. So also in the paper on Christianity, the essay seems at times to be a sermon, except that it is more pointed and energetic in its denunciation of certain crying evils of our day, and its warning against certain perilous tendencies of these times, than most sermons are likely to be. So that one knows not whether to commend the book most

warmly for its critical value, as a study in comparative morals, or for its practical value as a sturdy and fearless attack upon some of the immoralities of modern society. In this latter particular, the book is all the more valuable for being written, not by a clergyman, but by a Greek Professor. (Scribner, Armstrong & Co.)

"Words Fitly Spoken."

IF the Reverend Mr. W. H. H. Murray had compiled the volume of paragraphs from his sermons which has just been published (by Lee & Shepherd, Boston) under the title Words Fitly Spoken, he would have been justly chargeable with a complacency in his own work to which, in a preface, he pleads not guilty. The work, he says, "is mine and not mine;" that is to say, it is made up of extracts from his sermons, but arranged and published by some admiring friend in the congregation of which he is the popular and admired minister. As for the extracts, they are, if not very profound, more readable and possibly more useful than if they were profounder, and seem in style and in spirit precisely what ought to come from the bright, good-natured, and thoroughly healthy young gentleman whose engraved portrait is prefixed to the volume.

Mr. Haweis's "Thoughts for the Times." THE REV. H. R. HAWEIS, M. A., a clergyman of the Church of England, has recently become known to readers on both sides of the Atlantic by his little book on Music and Morals. He follows it promptly by the present volume of sermons, which, though they are printed without texts, are frankly acknowledged as sermons on the title-page and in the preface. They are, evidently, sermons of the kind that can without the slightest difficulty be disconnected from their texts. Sometimes a sermon grows out of its text; sometimes the text grows into the sermon. Apparently, in Mr. Haweis's method no such essential unity exists, but the text and the sermon stand in a relation to one another which is rather accidental than otherwise. This fact makes his book none the less readable; but it may be taken as significant of the free and easy attitude in which he stands with reference to established usages in religious matters. His broadness is of so accommodating a sort-not only with reference to doctrine, but also with reference to practice that it will not be so likely to attract as to repel the hearers and readers whom he honestly intends to reach and to influence for good.

Mr. Haweis aims to be, and expressly declares that he is, a disciple of the late Mr. Maurice; and he gives us to understand that the theology of his volume, and the religion of it, is of the sort that Mr. Maurice taught him. It is to be regretted that he was not better fitted to appreciate the spirit of that great master, whose disciple he supposes himself to be. A single word in the last sermon of the book (a discourse commemorative of Mr. Maurice) will indicate how

little he is fitted to be an interpreter of Mr. Maurice's thought and spirit. "High and low clergy," he says,

66

men of all parties and sects, taught and are teaching

answers to prayer. The strict authenticity of this history is vouched for; and its narrative of facts is a practical answer to Mr. Tyndall and his school touch

to imagine the horror with which that most devout and unselfish man (of whom one who knew him well has said, that he was "probably the humblest man in England") would hear his name attached to a new ism.

The man whose charity was so broad and true that he looked always for the soul of good in evil, although shuddering at the evil all the time, and who, with a tremulous distrust of his own opinions, preferred rather to suggest than to assert the grand truths which have done so much to bring in a new and better Christian theology-which is not new, but was from the beginning-the man in whose presence all dogmatic narrowness and positiveness became hushed and shamed—is a very different kind of teacher from the one who preaches to us with such confident boldness in this volume.

Not that there is not much in Mr. Haweis's sermons

which is timely and stimulating. The defiant spirit in which he challenges old prejudices and opinions has in it something which invigorates the thought even of his opponents. And his style is often very agreeable, and always perfectly intelligible. Only we protest that his book must stand on its own merits, and be taken as the expression simply of his own somewhat crude and superficial thinking.

Illustrated Travel.

MESSRS. SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG & Co. have issued two additional volumes of their attractive Library of Illustrated Travel and Adventure. Mr. Bayard Taylor's volume on South Africa will be found a useful hand-book to those who wish in the easiest and surest way to bring their knowledge of the wonderful explorations in that most interesting region down to date, and to appreciate the great work which Livingstone is now completing. Much of Mr. Taylor's present compilation is from Livingstone's earli er narratives, and the republication of this story of his preparatory work is just now especially timely.

The Yellowstone region is already familiar to the readers of SCRIBNER'S, but it is well to have the vivid pictures of that wonderful scenery in permanent form, as we have it in Mr. James Richardson's Wonders of the Yellowstone. It will not be a great while before that splendid region will be accessible to the ordinary. tourist, and all of us who want to see the Yellowstone before we die may as well be getting up our knowledge of it. This Library of Illustrated Travel is especially wholesome reading for the boys.

"Miracles of Faith."

REV. CHARLES S. ROBINSON, D.D., of this city, has introduced, with a few cordial words, to the American public, a little book detailing the history of BEATE PAULUS (Miracles of Faith: Dodd & Mead), in which is recorded a series of marvelous

to the Divine Being. A pure, womanly life, implicit faith, and what would seem to be miraculous direct responses to prayer-these make the staple of the book; and not one of the marvels recorded traverses the Christian theory, however much it may rise above the popular standard of faith. It is a book that should be placed in all the Sunday-school libraries in the land, and find a cordial reception at the hands of the Christian public.

Earth-Treasures.

In a neat volume, primarily intended for the instruction and amusement of his own children, Mr. William Jones, F.S.A., offers to other people's children a medley of facts, fables, anecdotes, and so on, more or less connected with precious stones and useful minerals, which seems likely to entertain if it does not greatly instruct its young readers. (The Treasures of the Earth: Putnam). The descriptions of mines, mining operations, the treatment of minerals and gems, are studiously free from technicalities, and pleasantly interspersed with stories of mining adventure, incidents in connection with the discovery and working of mines, miners' superstitions, superstitions regarding precious stones, and the like. Mr. Jones, however, is manifestly neither a miner nor a mineralogist, and, as a natural result, the materials of his book are somewhat irregular in quality, and not always strictly accurate in point of fact. They are also put together in a curiously disconnected way; still the book is pleasant reading, and, on the whole, rather better than such compilations are apt to be. A closelyprinted, double-column index of eleven pages, adds to the value of the work, and at the same time indicates the breadth of the field from which the matter has been Some mention of the diamond-fields of South Africa, of the silver mines of Nevada, and the coal mines of Pennsylvania, would have made the book much more satisfactory to American boys and girls.

gathered.

"The Shadow of the Obelisk."

UNDER this title we have a dainty English edition (London, Hatchards) of the lyrics of Thomas William Parsons, one of the purest and most artistic of American poets. We are free to say-and not only as a compliment which none but a true poet can receive, but as a matter for both regret and censure—that Dr. Parsons has availed himself too sparingly of the talent with which he is endowed. He has composed so little, and been so careless of his fame, that few beyond the cultured are familiar with the grace and virile strength which by turns have characterized his verses; yet poets know him as a poet, and students as a scholar by acquirements and intuition. His foremost lyric still remains that for which he long has been most esteemed-the unrivaled lines "On a

Bust of Dante." This poem compresses within six stanzas, marked by lyrical fire and strengthened with rhythm of uncommon nobility, all the passion, sorrow, and pride that, with the image of "Latimer's Other Virgil," are forever associated in the mind.

The present volume contains, besides the poem on Dante, others which are justly admired, such as "Alle Sorelles," ‚""Hudson River," "On a Magnolia Flower," and the "Letter from America to a Friend in Tuscany." Several of these exhibit Dr. Parsons's rare mastery over the English quatrain-stanza, a form of verse in which he stands side by side with Bryant, and is scarcely excelled by Gray. The lines from which this volume takes its name were suggested by the obelisk at Rome, and, like some others in the book, do not show the author at his best; for he is very uneven in the spirit of his compositions, however perfect in their art. Often they are suffused with a white light, the reflection of his Italian master's serenest phase. Our readers will thank us for reprinting the "Paradisi Gloria: "

"There is a city, builded by no hand,

And unapproachable by sea or shore;
And unassailable by any band

Of storming soldiery for evermore.
There we no longer shall divide our time
By acts or pleasures,-doing petty things
Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme;
But we shall sit beside the silver springs

That flow from God's own footstool, and behold
Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few
Who loved us once and were beloved of old,-
To dwell with them and walk with them anew,

In alternations of sublime repose,

Musical motion,-the perpetual play
Of every faculty that Heaven bestows
Through the bright, busy, and eternal day."

"The World Priest." *

IT is five years since Mr. Brooks published the Layman's Breviary. This was a collection of three hundred and sixty-five short poems, one for every day in the year. Subtle, reflective, religious in tone, they could not easily attract careless ears, and careless hearts found little to admire in them. But if to be loved better and better each year by all who have learned to know it-and to use it as a Breviary should be used-is a measure of success, the Layman's Breviary has been a rarely successful book.

The World Priest was published in Germany in 1846, when Schefer was sixty-two years old. It is said to have been his favorite work. It is, like the Breviary, a collection of poems, none of them very long, many of them short, but all characterized by the same exquisite purity, tenderness, holiness of thought. They are unique in literature. They combine the steadfastness and fortitude of

The World Priest; translated from the German of Leopold Schefer, author of the Layman's Breviary, by Charles T. Brooks (Roberts Bros.).

Epictetus, the tenderness and pathos and subtle insight of Jean Paul, with an all-pervading reli giousness to which all religions might do reverence, but in which no one religion will find exact statement or place. No page of these poems but contains suggestion, stimulus, cheer: to read one of these poems every morning is to live the whole day better.

It is impossible to give by short extracts any just idea of the peculiar charm of Schefer's poems; for the thought in them is continuous and sustained, and the chain does not bear breaking. We quote a few passages, however, which may give a faint sug gestion of their quality and flavor, and we heartily hope may also be the means of putting this deli cious and helpful book into the hands of many readers.

From the poem entitled "The Primeval World," we take the following lines:

"He now who fain would rob the human heart
Of this essential unity with God

In goodness, power, yea, length of life itself-
He would not only rob man of his God,
But would rob God--the highest sacrilege-
Of men, of all that lives, yea, of the whole
Great universe throughout Eternity
Wherein He lives; for God is life itself."

and from the poem "God's Goodness," these:
"To be a child, a poor good human child
Heartily reconciled with all the world,
A human being with deep pity moved
To help each fellow-creature on through life
Even to death, and to the very grave;
That is the goodness of the good, of God;
That is the heart of God, in all men's breasts."
and from the poem "Sorrow," these:

"The sorest sufferings grief alone can heal,
And make the miserable endurable,
Yea, sweet and precious, till the noble man
Would scarce exchange it for another good."

and

"Be tranquil, O my brothers; for your grief Has to the most high God a sacred worth; He gave to sorrow to be dumb, and so, And only so, to do its utmost work."

Miss Proctor's Russian Journey. MISS PROCTOR's pictures of Russian life and travel (A Russian Journey: illustrated edition, J. R. Os good & Co.) are bright, sketchy, not overweighted with material, and, in short, just such as any cultured lady traveling in a strange country might send to her friends and familiar acquaintances at home. In this probably lies the secret of the cordial reception the book has met with, as well in the first plain edition as in the one now before us with its wealth of pictonal illustration. The ground traversed includes St. Peters burg, Moscow, the fair-ground of Nijni Novgorod (since devastated by fire), the descent of the Volga to Kamyschin, thence across Southern Russia and along the Crimean coasts to Odessa, and beyond to the Aus trian frontier. It is comparatively fresh ground to English-speaking travelers, ladies certainly, and Miss Proctor has related her experiences and observations with a cheerful picturesqueness that makes her book very pleasant reading.