It is a very different thing to read a tourist's account of his progress, when there is nothing but his own powers of description to realize the scenes referred to, and to have those scenes vividly pourtrayed, not only by the pen of a ready writer, but also by the pencil of an accurate draftsman, and the burine of an eminent engraver. In the instances before us, the two first works are calculated to awaken the liveliest interest: anything connected with Canada or Ireland is just now sure to attract attention; nor is the old Martyrologist a whit less seasonable. With regard to Ireland, we have often wondered how it was that so exquisitely beautiful a country, as many a part of "The Green Island" is, should have so few visitors. It may, we sometimes think, be accounted for by the unsettled state of the country-the Conservatives not caring to trust themselves in a land where both life and property have been rendered insecure by ten years of Whig government; and the "Liberals" being naturally afraid to face the effects of their own misdoings.

This publication of Mr. Virtue's may, however, make us familiar with the beauties of Ireland, without the harrowing sight of her miseries and her wrongs; for during the last ten years she has suffered many. We hope, now, however, that the time has come when she may hope to see the dawn of justice-have equal laws, and equally enforced, with ourselves; and, above all, be freed from the domination of Popish faction.

Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai, and Arabia Petrea : a Journal of Travels in the year 1838. By E. Robinson and E. Smith, undertaken in reference to Biblical Geography. Drawn up from Original Diaries, with Historical Illustrations. By Edward Robinson, D.D. 3 vols. 8vo. London: Murray. 1841. THESE "Biblical Researches" have been published too short a time to allow us to prepare an analysis of them for the present number of our journal. We hope to present a detailed account in our next publication. At present, therefore, we announce Dr. Robinson's work as by far the best which has ever appeared, elucidatory of Biblical geography, in our own, or indeed in any other language. To Biblical students and Christian scholars, it opens sources of information in the highest degree interesting. No well-selected library can be complete without it.

National Ballads, Patriotic and Protestant.
London: Baisler. 1841.

By M. A. Stodart.

THE person to whom we owe the restoration of that kind of poetry which Miss Stodart here employs is unquestionably Barry Cornwall, "aut quocunque alio nomine gaude;" he first showed us how the ancient melodies of our magnificent language were composed, and has equalled, if he has not excelled, the elder masters of the lyre. Miss Stodart is not an altogether unworthy disciple of the same school. We meet with the same species of enthusiasm, though in a minor degree-somewhat of the same vivid richness of imagery, though with far less splendour and variety. Perhaps the best of the poems before us is the first, "The Oaks of England." But though these lays are "Protestant," and most fiercely Protestant too, we fear they are not Catholic. Sometimes this fiercely Protestant spirit shows itself in a harmless effusion, and then it may be called patriotic. One, which we would willingly quote, is " The Church of England not a New Church;" we must make room for the two concluding stanzas:

"We're of no sect; our hearts are knit

With Jesus Christ the Lord :

And we will not change our ancient faith,
Apostate! at thy word.

"Our faith is truth-the truth of God!
It blazes high and bright:

We'll stand to it as our fathers stood,
And the Lord uphold the right!"

But there are many exceedingly Protestant effusions here which breathe forth a bitter and inextinguishable hatred, not only to Romanism, but to Rome; not only to Popery, but to Papists. "These things ought not so to be." Hannibal is pressed into the service of Protestantism; and it is insinuated, and more than insinuated, that it is our duty to do as he did, though in another sense-swear at the altar eternal enmity to Rome:

"No peace with Rome! an Afric youth
Beside his father stood;

The words he spake were words of truth,
And sealed in time with blood:
Though in an age of darkness born,
Though on a heathen altar sworn,
The words in early boyhood spoken

Were kept till age, till death, unbroken."

We

How truly in the case of such persons may our Lord's words be applied: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." shall make no more quotations: generally speaking, the poems are highly creditable to the authoress; and if she would read a

few books written by the Reformers she so much praisesCranmer and Ridley, for instance-she would find that the Church of England inculcates not the mere negative-hatred to Popery, but the positive also-love of catholicity, evangelical truth AND apostolical order.

Efés Dammim; a Series of Conversations, at Jerusalem, between a Patriarch of the Greek Church and a Chief Rabbi of the Jews, concerning the malicious charge against the Jews of using Christian Blood. By J. B. Levinsohn. Translated from the Hebrew, by Dr. L. Loewe. London: Longmans. 1841.

THE author of this book endeavours, and we are bound to say successfully, to repudiate the strange charge made against the Jews of using Christian blood. That so dreadful an accusation was not the offspring of mere invention, we do not, however, believe; though, at the same time, we are perfectly convinced that every true Israelite would most severely condemn, and unhesitatingly disavow, the horrid practice.

SERMONS.

1. The Baptismal Privileges, the Baptismal Vow, and the Means of Grace, as they are set forth in the Church Catechism, considered in Six Lent Lectures, preached at Sulhamstead, Berks, 1841. By the Rev. Charles Smith Bird, M.A., F.L.S., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Seeleys. 1841.

2. Sermons preached at Harrow School. By Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Head Master of Harrow School. London: Rivingtons. 3. Sermons preached in the Parish Church of Bilston, Staffordshire, on the Principal Doctrines of the Church of England. By Fourteen Clergymen of the Church of England. Wolverhampton: White. MR. BIRD is not one of those clergymen who subscribe to articles which they do not believe, and use formularies which they imagine to be Popish, if not worse. He understands our Church as she intended her ministers to understand her; and in these six lectures has he given an admirable analysis of her doctrines, as to baptism and regeneration. Partly to show what sort of divinity the readers of these lectures may expect, partly because we do not know a more lucid exposition of the subject, we shall extract the commencement of the second sermon, and wish our limits would allow us to do more :

"In my morning's discourse last Sunday I laid before you (more briefly than I wished) the view which our Church takes of the blessings and privileges accompanying infant baptism. I endeavoured to show you, from the words she uses in the Catechism, that it is a high view. She believes that actual grace is communicated to the child; that if he dies in infancy his pardon is sealed, and, through the love and merits of his Redeemer, he passes from this lower region, where there is nothing good to detain an immortal soul, to that glorious and everlasting

state of existence where all is good and all is happy, because the immediate presence of God is there; but that if he continues to live, then the Spirit is ready, with the first dawnings of reason, to suggest to him holy things, to warn him against sin, and to strengthen him to resist it. Nothing less than this seems implied in the words, that the baptized child is made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven; or in those other words, that he, being by nature born in sin, and a child of wrath, is made a child of grace.' She thanks God, in the baptismal service, that the child is regenerate, and grafted into the body of Christ's Church,' and prays that he may lead the rest of his life according to this beginning. By 'regenerate,' she does not mean, what is sometimes meant by this or any equivalent term (for Scripture seldom confines itself to one meaning in the use of its terms), being brought into a state of confirmed salvation, but only being put into a salvable state-a state of grace, as opposed to a state of unassisted nature a state in which grace is given as a seminal principle, not in which it already buds, or blossoms, or brings forth its precious fruits. Without grace, indeed, what sacrament would there be in baptism? To make it a sacrament there must be inward and spiritual grace,' as well as the outward and visible sign and form.'"

If such were the doctrine preached in all our parish churches, we should no longer hear of Churchmen calling baptismal regeneration a Popish doctrine.

The discourses of Dr. Wordsworth are marked by sound reasoning, and great force and beauty of language.

The Bilston sermons are of a very unequal degree of merit. Dr. Kennedy and Dr. Whittaker were among the preachers, and to their discourses we shall on a future occasion refer.

EXPOSITIONS.

1. A Practical Exposition of the Gospel according to St. John. By the Rev. Robert Anderson. Vol. 1. London: Hatchards. 1841. 2. Cottage Dialogues on the Gospel of St. Mark. By D. H. W. London: Baisler. 1841.

3. Christ on the Cross: an Exposition of the Twenty-second Psalm. By the Rev. John Stevenson, Perpetual Curate of Cury and Gunevalloe, Cornwall. London: Jackson (Islington). 1841. Of the numberless expositions which from time to time make their appearance, we hardly know, among modern ones, any more valuable than the three before us. Mr. Anderson, save a tincture of Calvinism, is both sound and practical. That of D. H. W., on the Gospel of St. Mark, is exceedingly well adapted to the classes for whom it is prepared; and its predecessor, on St. Matthew, has been found very useful. Mr. Stevenson's volume is at once eloquent, poetical, and evangelical. We cordially recommend it.

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