(which has been referred to in a former number of the Methodist Quarterly Review,) there is now published every year a large number of local histories. One of the most recent and important of these publications is the History of the Reformed Church of Montpelier, by Corbière.* Montpelier has been, ever since the 16th century, one of the strongholds of French Protestantism. For a long time the city was predominantly Protestant, and even now it has a large Protestant element. M. Corbière has made extensive researches for his work, consulted numerous manuscripts and documents, and searched a number of libraries. His book is therefore warmly wel¡ comed by his fellow-Protestants, some of whom, however, complain that he has carried his desire to be strictly impartial so far as to become, in some instances, unfair to the persecuted Protestants of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An article by St. René Taillandier, the great French critic, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, highly commends a work by Abbé Flottest on St. Augustin and his Philosophy. Abbé Flottes, according to Taillandier, is one of the ablest and most indefatigable defenders of the Gallicanism of the seventeenth century against the ultramontane theories which are prevailing in the Church of France at present. His sketch of the character of St. Augustine is said to be of superior ability. Interesting chapters are given on the views of St. Augustine respecting social order, property, slavery, capital Corbière, Histoire de Eglise Reformée de Montpelier. Montpelier, 1862. + Abbé Flottes, Etudes sur Saint Augustin, sou genie, sou âme, sa philosophie. Paris, 1862. punishment, and liberty of conscience. With regard to the latter point, the opinions of the great Bishop of Hippo underwent, in the course of time, a painful change. At first his relations to the heretics were characterized by the utmost mildness and charity. But when the Donatists made alarming progress among the African Churches the urgent representations of his colleagues caused a radical change of his views. He became the most ardent advocate of the compulsory suppression of every heresy, and he based this shocking theory on the passage in Luke xiv, where the master of a house, after the invited guests have declined to come, orders the servants to bring in the poor, the maimed, the halt, the blind, from the streets and lanes of the city, and when there was yet room, to "go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in." This interpretation, by a Church father so profoundly revered, has been, in the following centuries, the source of incalculable mischief. It was one of the principal weapons with which ecclesiastical and royal despots attempted to justify the murder of millions of good citizens on the charge of heresy. Even men like Bossuet were induced, by the weight of Augustine's authority, to advocate compulsory measures against heretics. Abbé Flottes condemns with inflexible firmness both the principle of religious intolerance and the opinion of St. Augustine, which has done so much for supporting it. In this he is in accord with the distinguished men who are at the head of the so-called liberal school of French Catholics, such as Montalembert, Prince Broglie, Father Gratry, Abbé Maret, and others. ART. XI.-SYNOPSIS OF THE QUARTERLIES, AND OTHERS OF THE HIGHER PERIODICALS. American Quarterly Reviews. AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. Psychology and Skepticism. 2. Comparative Grammar. 3. The Origin of Idolatry: A Criticism of Rawlinson and others. 4. The Temptation of Christ. 5. British Sympathy with America. 6. The Presbyterian General Assem blies. BIBLICAL REPERTORY AND PRINCETON REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. Dr. Hickok's Philosophy. 2. Vindications of Dr. Hickok's Philosophy. 3. Augustine. 4. Diversity of Species in the Human Race. 5. The General Assembly. 6. Slavery and the Slave-trade. BIBLIOTHECA SACRA and BIBLICAL REPOSITORY, July, 1862.-1. Church Book of the Puritans at Geneva, from 1555 to 1560. 2. Semitic Comparative Philology. 3. A Shaksperian Glossary for our English Bible. 4. The Bible and Slavery. 5. Quatrefages and Godron in reply to Agassiz on the Origin and Distribution of Mankind. 6. Hopkinsianism. CONGREGATIONAL QUARTERLY, July, 1862.-Zachariah Eddy. Congregational Churches and Ministers in Portage and Summit Counties, Ohio. A True Revival of Religion. Oratio Dominica. Result of a Council at Grafton, Mass., in 1744. A Hymn of Thomas Aquinas, A. D. 1262. Sketch of the Half Century History of the Congregational Church in Litchfield, Me. Captain Miles Standish's Books. The Worship of the Christian Sanctuary. President Chauncy's Oration, 1622. Two Hundred Years Ago in New England. The Rebellion to be Tributary to Congregationalism. Lessons from Statistics. Summary of the Presbyterian Church. First Congregational Church, Woburn, Mass., (with engraving.) DANVILLE REVIEW, June, 1862.-1. Studies on the Bible, No. I. 2. The Secession Conspiracy in Kentucky, and its Overthrow; with the Relations of both to the General Revolt. 3. Imputation and Original Sin. 4. The Immortality of Man. 5. The General Assembly of 1862 of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. EVANGELICAL QUARTERLY REVIEW, October, 1862.-1. The Book of Job. 2. Martin Luther. 3. Public Worship. 4. Philip Jacob Spener. 5. Our General Synod. 6. The Crusades. 7. The Great Commandment. 8. Remarks on Romans vi, 3, 4. FREEWILL BAPTIST QUARTERLY, July, 1862.-1. The English Bible in Manuscript and its Translators. 2. Public Life. 3. Elias Hutchins in North Carolina. 4. Human Culture. 5. Government of God. 6. Christ's Universal Possessions. PRESBYTERIAN QUARTERLY REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. Readjustment of Christianity. 2. Man and Men. 3. The General Assembly of 1862. 4. The Future of the Colored Race in America. UNIVERSALIST QUARTERLY, July, 1862.-14. Regeneration. 15. A Providential View of War. 16. Allegiance to Government. 17. The Holy Spirit. 18. Law versus Force. 19. Idolatry Better than Practical Atheism. 20. President Miner's Inaugural. 21. The Assistance rendered by Man to his Maker. 22. Evil often a Stimulant to Good. 23. Our Late Publisher. English Reviews. BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. The Poetical Element in Scripture. 2. The Theological System of Emmons. 3. Montalembert's Monks of the West. 4. Power in the Pulpit. 5. Dorner on the Sinless Perfection of Jesus. 6. The Greek Testament of Webster and Wilkinson. 7. Rougemont on the Primitive People— their Religion, History, and Civilization. 8. Mr. Buckle's Philosophy of the Mind. BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. The Science of Language. 2. George Frederick Handel. 3. Ritual Uniformity a Protestant Innovation. 4. Peaks and Passes. 5. France and Italy. 6. The English School of Painting. 7. Döllinger on the Church and the Churches. 8. The Turkish Empire. 9. The Great Exhibition of 1862. THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER, July, 1862.-1. M. Mudry's French Translations. 2. Scott on Unclean Spirits. 3. Literature of the Lord's Prayer. 4. Replies to "Essays and Reviews." 5. George Herbert and his Times. 6. The Sarum Missal. 7. Publications of the Surtees Society. 8. The Future of the Scottish Liturgy. JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE AND BIBLICAL RECORD, July, 1862.— 1. Religion of the Ancient Romans. 2. The "Te Deum." 3. Sacred Trees. 4. Monasticism in the West-Benedict of Nursia. Part II. 5. The Epistle of St. Jude. 6. Clement of Alexandria and his Defense of the Faith. 7. What is Superstition? 8. The Record of Creation. 9. Exegesis of Difficult Texts. 10. Peter's Denial of Christ. 11. New Testament Critics: Tischendorf versus Tregelles. 12. The Antediluvian World, its Longevity and Progress in the Arts. 13. The Gospel of St. Luke. 14. Considerations on the State of Man: Tending to a Holy Life. LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. Memoirs of Sir Marc Isambard Brunel. 2. Sussex. 3. Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury. 4. The Volunteers and National Defense. 5. English Poetry from Dryden and Cowper. 6. The International Exhibition. 7. The Hawaiian Islands. 8. The Bicentenary. WESTMINSTER REVIEW. July, 1862.-1. The Life and Policy of Pitt. 2. Dr. Davidson's Introduction to the Old Testament. 3. Election Expenses. 4. Sir William Hamilton: his Doctrines of Perception and Judgment. 5. English Rule in India. 6. Celebrated Literary Friendships. 7. The Dawn of Animal Life. LONDON REVIEW, (WESLEYAN,) July, 1862.-1. Rénan on the Shemitic Tongues. 2. Froude's History of England, vols. 5 and 6. 3. The Mormons at Home. 4. The Portal Family. 5. Vocation and Training of the Christian Ministry. 6. Esquiros on the English. 7. The Bi-Centenary of Non-conformity. The learned and able article on Rénan is the gem of this number. It is mainly a review of that author's work entitled, "Histoire Générale et Système Comparé des Langues Sémitique." In this work M. Rénan has, with pre-eminent genius and learning, but in a spirit vitiated by his skeptical dogma, applied to the Shemitic languages those methods of comparative philosophy with which Bopp and others have wrought such wonderful results in the Aryan or IndoGermanic tongues. The reviewer, with a great mastery of his subject, discriminates between the excellences and defects of Rénan, and very successfully shows that the results of his researches may be separated from the skeptical alloy. EDINBURGH REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. The Explorers of Australia. 2. Wellington's Supplementary Dispatches. 3. Sir G. C. Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients. 4. Earl Stanhope's Life of Pitt. 5. Troyon's Lacustrine Abodes of Man. 6. Weber's Gleanings from German Archives. 7. Iron-its Uses and Manufacture. 8. Remains of Mrs. Richard Trench. 9. Döllinger on the Temporal Power. The articles on Lacustrine Abodes of Man is a detail, intensely interesting, of the evidences of the ancient existence of pre-historical races inhabiting the lakes and bays of Europe. Hitherto the doctrine has been that the Celts were the first tide of immigration from the East into the once howling wastes now tenanted by the highest civilization. But the present geological signs show that, ages before, a race of an inferior stature, who used warlike implements of stone only, lived in villages based upon platforms sustained by piles driven into the lake bottom at a little distance from the shore, with which they were connected by a bridge of similar structure. Immense masses of the remains of this race are revealed in different parts of Europe, of their life and of their ultimate destruction by a second more civilized race, who used weapons of bronze. These, in their turn, were exterminated by a third race, identified with the Celts, a race of iron. As to the antiquity of the first of these races, Troyon estimates that they may have existed three thousand three hundred years ago. But M. Morlot dates them as far back as seven thousand years. The reviewer in a note informs us that Sir Charles Lyell is preparing a work on the evidences for human fossil remains. THE NATIONAL REVIEW, July, 1862.-1. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. 2. M. Rénan's Translation of Job. 3. The Roman Index of Forbidden Books. 4. The Growth of the Early Italian Poetry. 5. Baxter and Owen. 6. Modern Latin Verse. 7. Political and Religious Phases of the Roman Question. 8. The Slave Power and the Secession War. The name of M. Rénan has become eminent in the department of Shemitic literature. This gentleman was born in 1823, and was at first destined for holy orders. He prosecuted at Paris the study of Arabic, Syriac, and Hebrew, and obtained the Volney prize for a dissertation on the Shemitic languages. Having become thoroughly imbued with Neological principles, he dismissed all purpose of an ecclesiastical profession, and obtained a position in the FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XIV.-44 national library. He has published a number of treatises on comparative philology, some translations of Old Testament books, and various articles and archæological memoirs which have attracted the notice of the literary world. The "dogma" with which M. Rénan commences, is thus stated in this Review: The science of criticism must start with proclaiming that the miracle has no place whatever in the tissue of human affairs, or in the order of the facts of nature; that everything in history is capable of human explanation, even when that explanation escapes us from want of sufficient knowledge. . . . He avows the deepest respect for religion, as being the universal instinct and necessity of man's nature. He thinks the formulas of religion are the utterances, and the doubts and questionings of men as to their ultimate destiny are the consequences of the same instinct. The instinct will shape itself differently, according to the race, country, climate, and habits of life of each people; at the bottom it is essentially a human instinct. And the forms and systems of belief may be salutary or hurtful. Though ordinarily what is narrow and hurtful in the dogma will become harmless in practical life, the superstitions which displease the cultivated man will become the ideal and poetry of life to the uncultivated. And because religion is such a need and necessity of human nature, because it does that which philosophy cannot-raise man's life above material interests, and awaken in him hopes of a higher destiny than the present-therefore the critic must not only respect it, but do it reverence. "I avow that I should be inconsolable," says M. Rénan, "if I knew that my writings would offend one of those simple souls who worship so well in spirit." Of course the criticism which opens a professed revelation with the assumption that everything miraculous, and therefore everything that is revelation, must be false, is little likely to furnish results acceptable to those who start with no such dogma. The National Review has, upon the subject of slavery and the American war, revolved the circuit of the horizon, and now points due north. German Reviews. JAHRBUCHER FUR DEUTSCHE THEOLOGIE. (Year-books of German Theology. Second Number, 1862.)-1. Schmidt, Origen, and Augustine as Apologists. 2. Plitt, On the Organic-Genetic Character of the Doctrinal Development of the Christian Church. 3. Wittichen, On the Tendency and Doctrinal Content of the Synoptical Sermons of Jesus. (Sermons of Jesus in the three "Synoptical" Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.) The second article, by Hermann Plitt, Inspector of the Theological Seminary of the Moravians at Gnadenfeld, undertakes to show that the history of the Christian doctrine, as well as the history of the Christian Church in general, is, in the full sense of the word, a development; that, while it was planned and regulated by God, it was at the same time to grow up under the influence of men, and bear the mark of the great historical junctures through which the Church had to pass, and of the individuality of the prominent men who were the leaders of the Church of their times. |