The Sword and the trowel; ed. by C.H. Spurgeon

sin of trifling, and concludes with the story of the children who left off playing to mock a prophet of God and were torn in pieces by two she-bears. Under such treatment the children associate religion with tears, and their idea of heaven is, that it is an awfully dull place where they must sit still and be eternally singing uninteresting hymns. All this is pernicious in the extreme, and only a miracle of grace can prevent a reaction towards infidelity and ungodliness. But our good friend does not see the mischief he is working, he even ventures to hope the good seed may bear fruit "after many days." It is a lamentable mistake to put a hypochondriac into such an office, and no delusion can be more fatal than that which expects children to become disciples of Christ through the influence of those who have no sympathy with childhood. 5. The last I shall introduce to your notice is Mr. Forgetful. He is in love with his work, and on good terms with his teachers, but he has a fatal facility for forgetting things. One facetious friend suspects him of having swallowed a piece of sponge, which, having got into his head in some mysterious way, erases from the tablet of memory every impression that is made. He is quick in promise, but tardy in fulfilment. Many of his scholars have been promised books, but they have been disappointed so often that they do not expect them. Lectures and entertainments have been promised but never given.

The teachers have been led to expect books and seats and other necessaries, but, alas! how rarely has their expectation been honoured! The order of school is frequently forgotten, and sometimes the prayer is omitted from sheer forgetfulness. Notices are left on the desk until the school is dismissed, and the teachers are annoyed that an important meeting has passed by which they would have gone to had they known it in time. The anniversary is forgotten till the time has gone by for making due preparation. Remonstrances have been lavished in vain: systems of mnemonics have been suggested, but there is no improvement. This weakness or disease, or call it what you will, makes the teachers' work difficult and annoying. Were they not gifted with a large measure of charity, they would throw up the work in disgust, or seek a more congenial sphere. They cherish the hope of a successor, whose advent they strive to precipitate by hinting to the present Superintendent that "he is out of his place," &c. Habitual forgetfulness in an officer is fatal to his success, and should be held a sufficient disqualification. If a man cannot remember his duties, how can he possibly discharge them?

I have covered the space at my command without exhausting my list. I have purposely described extreme cases, that you may see the evil of those faults and foibles which I have specified. To a greater or less degree some one or other may possibly be detected in every superintendent.

In conclusion, let me urge you Sunday-school Superintendents to maintain a quiet dignity, and never allow yourselves to be betrayed into that haste which hinders progress. On the other hand, do not imitate the slow ponderous movements of the elephant, or deprecate change. Wisely conserve the good in things old, and transmit all that is valuable to your successors. Adapt your methods to the altered circumstances of the present, and make any alteration for the better. Don't be fidgetty, but learn to "let well alone." "Know your work and do it," and leave others to do the same. Avoid a melancholy spirit, and believe that God's servants should be the happiest people under heaven. Does he not command us to "rejoice evermore"? Wisely arrange your plans, that all the detail of your office may receive attention. John Ploughman gives sage advice when he says, "Never promise a child a bun or a beating without keeping your word."

Reviews.

The Paradise of Martyrs: a Faith | And tenderness. It is or altars brave

Rhyme. By THOMAS COOPER, author of "The Purgatory of Suicides." THOMAS COOPER is a true man, true to the backbone, and intensely in earnest in all that he does. His lectures are so forcible, and he himself is so much the embodiment of strength, that few would expect to find in him so rich a vein of poetry, and so much of the tender and beautiful as this poem reveals. We have read the work with considerable pleasure, though we must confess also with some labour, for it is a very large dose of rhyme for a man to take at one time. Flashes of genius light up the page, and bursts of glorious eloquence are not uncommon; living lines and exquisite epithets are frequent, and the whole work is far above the region of common place: yet to our mind it lacks the incident, life, and which energy alone can make so long a production popular. Whenever Mr. Cooper comes across a superstition or an oppression he wields the hammer of Thor and smashes all before him. For this work he is the man of men, and our soul rejoices to see the Samsonian blows and kicks with which he smites the adversary hip and thigh with great slaughter. We can hardly wish him "more power to his arm," but may he enjoy a green old age, and continue still to be a champion in the Lord's hosts, as he was once in the armies of the foe. We subjoin a few stanzas, in which he deals with the abominations of Anglicanism :"Thou seest them, pitying Father, in their

doubt

And darkness! And thy just and sovereign

gaze

Is fixt upon the ministers who beclout
Themselves anew with rags of Rome, and
raise,

Once more, for idol, with old pomps, and blaze
Of gold, and bannered splendours, and the

sheen

Of lamps and candles, and the fragrant praise
Of incensed-chaunt, their starry-vestured

Queen

The lowly mother of the lowly Nazarene.
The toiling thousands grope for saving truth,
And yearn to find; but ye seek not to save
Your untaught biethren with the words of

ruth

And gay bedizenments ye hotly crave:
Dalmatica, and chasuble, and cope,
Biretta, rubied cross, and ivoried stave
Episcopal:-to have these toys ye hope-
But for Christ's truth still let the toiling
thousands grope!

Out on your childish greed for gew-gaws:

toys

look

On which your martyred sires could scarcely
Without a frown! Are there no nobler joys
Within your grasp? Have ye for these

forsook

shook

The simple truths your fathers loved? They
The Romish slavery off; and freedom then
Truly became your birthright: if ye brook
Meekly the Papal yoke to wear again,
Will your sons look ye in the face and call ye

-men?"

Life of Wm. Anderson, LL.D. By

GEORGE GILFILLAN. Hodder &
Stoughton.

WITH Dr. Anderson for its subject and
George Gilfillan for its author, a book
cannot be dull, and accordingly this
biography rises far above those ordinary
"memoirs" in which the remains of
good men are buried beneath a heap of
rubbish. One is glad to read the story
of A MAN, a true man, a genius, a philan
thropist, a Christian, a divine; but for
all that the almost total lack of the
spiritual element in this biography de-
prives it of that which might have been
its charm and soul. A reader may
become perhaps the more manly by
reading this book, but certainly not the
more devout, or heavenly-minded. There
is nothing set forth which would fire the
heart with love to Jesus, or zeal for the
winning of souls. We did not know
Dr. William Anderson, but we gather
think him unfortunate in falling into the
enough from his writings to make us
hands of a biographer who has preserved
his skeleton and evaporated his soul;
giving us the man in his relations to
man, and so little, so very little, about
his communion with God, or his reflec
tion of the Saviour's image. The good
and we have presented to us not his
man has ascended in his chariot of fire,
mantle and his spirit, but a plaster cast

of his countenance.

Ruth and Patience.

Rose; or the | Anecdotes Illustrative of Religious and Moral Truth. By MATTHEW DENTON. Fourth Series. Partridge and Co.

Ministering Child. Little Jane, and other Tales. The Blind Man's Child. All four by MARIA LOUISA CHARLESWORTH. Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday. THESE four beautiful little books are reprinted from the well-known volume entitled," Ministering Children." Their separate issue is a happy thought, and it is not necessary to do more than announce it to secure for them a wide circulation.

Gone Before: a Manual of Consolation for the Bereaved. By HENRY SOUTHGATE. Lockwood & Co., 7, Stationers'

Hall Court.

THOSE who are acquainted with Mr. Southgate's most valuable compilations, entitled " Many Thoughts of Many Minds," and "Noble Thoughts in Noble Language," will concede to him the palm as a collector of precious extracts. The work before us is, as he calls it, "a well of sympathy for the sorrowing, filled from many sources." We do not know a more suitable present for a mourning family. The style of the binding is worthy of the excellent matter; indeed the book is in all respects a gem.

The Biblical Museum. By COMPER GRAY. Vol. IV. Elliot Stock. We cannot too highly recommend the Biblical Museum. It is, for popular use, one of the best commentaries ever issued. It is both cheap and good. The five volumes which complete the New Testament will be of great value to general readers, and especially to laypreachers; they are neatly bound, and by the use of contractions the matter is condensed, so that a great deal is compressed into every page.

Pounceford Hall: A Story of School Life. By BENJ. CLARKE. Sunday School Union.

MANY good people think it their duty to give boys books which are far too prosy and goody to be read; our author has not added one to the number from which such excellent people can select, but has written a tale which is sure to engross a boy's attention, and at the same time to teach him useful lessons.

It is not easy to make a collection of anecdotes which shall be at all novel : our author has been moderately successful. These stories are most of them recognised by us as old acquaintances in books, but there are a few which we have not met with before in a separate form. They will amuse and interest most readers, and some of them will be useful for illustrations, but not all. Friends who have any one of the cyclopædias of anecdotes will have no need of this volume; but those who are not so favoured will do well to procure it. We have not met with the following: "The wife of a Quaker availed herself of her husband's absence to embellish the house; when he came back he was much struck with the alterations, and remonstrated, Thou'st got those rooms papered—and I observe thou'st got roses in the paper-red roses ? ' Well,' said she, thou wouldst not have drab roses.' Some grave people would divest creation of its gay beauty."

A Chronological Synopsis of the Four

Gospels. By KARL WIESELER. Bell and Daldy, London.

WE have studied this work, and while disagreeing with some of the points it seeks to maintain, we are struck with its able and exhaustive character. will prove a storehouse of information to all investigators as to the chronological order of the acts and sermons of our Lord.

The Laws of the Kingdom. By J. Os

WALD DYKES, M.A. Nisbet and Co.,
Berners Street.

WE have read this book with much

pleasure. It is the product of a refined and cultivated mind. We presume that it is a connecting-link between a work we have already enjoyed, and another we hope to see in due time, the trio being an exposition of our Lord's Ser mon on the Mount. We commend this volume most gladly. It is seldom that precepts have been made to yield so much profitable spiritual thought, clothed in such chaste and nervous language.

Edited by the | The Higher Ministries of Heaven. Hodder and Stoughton, 27, Paternoster Row.

The Bible Educator.
Rev. E. H. PLUMPTRE, M.A. Cassell,
Petter, & Galpin.

THE first part of this most promising work is now before us, and we cannot say too much in its praise as to its scholarship, though we do not yet feel quite sure of the theology. Think of sixty-four large pages of instructive matter, crowded with illustrations, to be bought for sevenpence. Our young people of the working classes will have no excuse if they remain ignorant in Biblical matters. Members of Bibleclasses, Sabbath-school teachers, villagepreachers, and all poor students, ought to take in the numbers and to be very grateful for such a boon. We wish the spirited publishers the utmost success.

THE REV. Don Pasquale de Franciscis has edited a collection of two hundred and one speeches of Pio Nono, all delivered since he has chosen to sulk within the walls of the Vatican. The Rev. Don in his dedicatory epistle informs us that "A great and fair treasure, or to speak more correctly, a divine one, is at last placed in your hands. We have here what the portentous father of the peoples said to the thousands of his children, rather what he drew from the depths of his soul inspired by God." He trembles with emotion while acting as editor, and delivers the volume to its readers with the pathetic words, "Then, let us reckon that a supernal and invisible hand presents, gives, and dedicates to the church that which to her so rightly belongs. Therefore let the DIVINE VOLUME OF THE ANGELICAL PIO NONO be received as from the hand of an angel." Mr. Arthur does not appear to be at all overawed by all this, but makes great havoc among the celestial crockery. If anything could keep our silly Anglican priests from rushing into Popery such a book as this might do it, but we fear they are past hope. Mr. Arthur has our hearty thanks for his capital, earnest, but also amusing book.

GoD cuts his corn when ripe, and some plants "whiten to the harvest" at an earlier stage than others. This little book gives the life story of a student who was "made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," when his years were still fresh with the dew of his youth. A father's chastened hand has well drawn for us the pleasant story of a son whose sun went down while it was yet day. Students may read with profit the record, and gather stimulus to labour before the night cometh wherein no man can work.

The Words of the New Testament. By Rev. W. MILLIGAN, D.D. T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh.

a new

THE present effort to secure translation of the Bible, giving the emendations which a riper scholarship may suggest, has created a necessity for some popular works which may aid the general public to decide as to the wisdom and necessity for such alterations. This book aims to supply this want, and There is of course nothing fresh for the with a very fair amount of success. advanced student, but it is a good book for any reader who wishes to know on what principles translators decide as to the value of different readings in the text of the Bible.

An Introduction to the Old Testament. By FREDERICK BLEEK. Bell and Daldy, York Street, Covent Garden. A BOOK for scholars and advanced Hebrew students. It is in two volumes, and contains a mine of information on the Old Testament Scriptures. have suffered much from German theology in times past, and do so still, but in the deep and patient research of German scholars we have some compensation. The antidote has often grown close to the poison. Nothing will so help the truth as that which leads to a clear understanding of what is the mind of the Spirit. Bleek's introduction is an acquisition to any library, and we hope our readers may make room for it in theirs.

Notes.

THE Editor having been absent from home through ill-health has not noted events for memoranda. He only begs to repeat the appeal of the first article in this month's issue, and hopes that the College Buildings will be finished out of hand at once. This will be a very gladsome commemoration of the twentieth year of his ministry in London.

Baptisms at Metropolitan Tabernacle by Mr. J. A. Spurgeon, May 29th, eighteen; by Mr. G. Goldstan, June 19th, fifteen.

Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Mrs. Bydawell

A Widow's Mite

Mr. F. E. Smith

Mrs. Holroyd

Mrs. Gibson...

Mr. Surr

Statement of Receipts from May 20th to June 19th, 1873.