Notices of Books. THE WORDS OF THE RISEN SAVIOUR; deeply interesting chapters. They are severally entitled, to Saul the persecutor; Ananias' commission, (recorded for the sake of Paul); to Saul in the temple; further appearance to Saul; housetop; to St. Paul at Corinth; to to St. Peter in the trance upon the We must apologize to our readers for St. Paul in bonds at Jerusalem; to our delay in noticing the above volume. St. Paul in bis infirmity; to St. John The delay has been unavoidable, and in Patmos, at the beginning of his not from any backwards in our desire visions; the seven epistles to the seven to say emphatically, as we conscien-churches; I will show thee!'; final tiously do, that STIER'S ' Words of the word from the throne. Lord Jesus' is one of the most valuable, because most reverent and suggestive books recently added to English theological literature. In the volume before us, the author brings his exposition to a close, taking up the essentially last words, the words of the Lord from heaven. The plan is thoroughly original, no one having hitherto collected together for minute and pains-taking exposition the words spoken from heaven by the risen Lord to the three great apostles, Paul, Peter, and John. These words, Dr. Stier remarks, 'retain and exhibit their distinctive peculiarity in this, that the glorified bodily personality of the God-man is manifested, or gives itself expression, with the voice of the individual. This, on the one hand, is still just as in the forty days, in as far as personal fellowship, suspended in the rule, is renewed in the exception; on the other hand, there is this great difference, inasmuch as the familiarity which still existed during those days, as they were in some sense linked with His former life on earth, has utterly ceased, and can never return, even on the occasions of His deepest condescension. But still the unbroken unity and identity of His person, of that person which had sunk into the depths of shame and death, is perserved-I am Jesus of Nazareth! (Acts xxii. 8) I was dead! (Rev. i. 18); just as at an earlier period, He who was going to His death could say-Glorify me with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was!' An analysis of the contents will best reveal the plan pursued in these twelve The very nature of the book shuts out the possibility of giving citations. We earnestly commend its careful study to every minister. The commentary on the epistle of St. James, with which the volume is made up to the ordinary size of Messrs. Clarke's issues of their valuable Foreign Theological Library, is eminently practical; and though less critical than the preceding exposition, is not without traces of the admirable use which Dr. Stier has put his severer studies. to THE PUBLIC SPEAKER; and how to make one. BY A CAMBRIDGE MAN. London: Nisbet & Co. A very useful book, and one that deserves to be read by every young man. As teachers or superintendents in Sabbath-schools, as members of various societies for mental and moral advancement, and as citizens of a free commonwealth, young men, at some time or other, may be called upon to speak in public. This book, if well studied, and its directions honestly practiced, will save them from prosiness and their hearers from downright misery. Hints on public speaking; is true standard; the cultivation of the voice; the use of plain Saxon words; the avoidance, at the first, more especially, of awkward gestures; and a few illustrations of successful oratory, will be found in it. We can scarcely agree with the author, however, that the style of preaching most valued among Nonconformists is inferior to that heard from the pulpits of the Establishment.' 102 Correspondence.-Baptist College, Sherwood Rise, Nottingham. EMMANUEL. By JOSEPH PARKER. | appeal to ministers, and one not to be London: Judd & Glass. read without provoking greater earnestPassages from lectures on the life ness in the pulpit. The Heart not right of our Saviour. Many of them show with God. By Rev. J. Robinson. London: great felicity of expression; and all, Nisbet & Co. A lecture delivered to one vigour of thought, and the true spirit of a of the divisions of the body of missionaries reverent disciple at the feet of Jesus. connected with the London City mis-Heathen Fables in Christian Verse sion. Forcible, practical, and useful. By Ellen Roberts. Nisbet & Co. The Holy Child, in easy words for the An admirable book for the young, and Little Ones. Leicester: Winks & Son. deserves to be popular.-Gathered London: Simpkin & Co. A charming Flowers By Dr. Winslow. Nisbet. little book, one of the best of its class, Memoirs of two young believers, told and certain to become a general with the express desire of leading favourite with pious mothers in leading other young people in Bible-classes to their dear ones to Jesus-Rough Notes Jesus.-My Cup Runneth over. By of Travels from Liverpool to Southampton, Lydia Ames. Nisbet. Eighteen letters by way of Australia, New Zealand, and on various topics treated in a religious South America. By R. S. Leicester: spirit. JOSEPH: a Poem. By Sharon. Siddons. The substance of letters sent Ward & Co. A very smooth rhyth- home to friends, containing in a rough mical version of the life of Joseph-state the materials of a very interesting Pastoral Jubilee Services of Rev. George Cheatle, Birmingham. London: Simpkin & Co. A full account of these interesting services, containing a report of the preliminary meeting, sermon by Rev. J. F. Winks, the presentation meeting, and Rev. G. Cheatle's pastoral epistle to the church and congregation. In addition to the ministers mentioned in our notice as present were, Revs. I. Lord, E. Payne, H Ashbery, P. Sibree, and R. W. Dale. We feel sure that all our readers will obtain a copy of this pamphlet. WORDS TO THE WINNERS OF SOULS. London: Nisbet & Co. A very faithful book of travels.-The Last Judgment: its reasonableness and equity. By Rev. J. Malcolm. Leicester: Hewitt and Moore. The subject of this lecture, one of a to working men, is another of the very series given by the Leicester ministers rapidly increasing proofs that the masses do not need the announcement draw them together on Sunday after. of comic titles to catch their eye and noons. A graver theme could not have been selected, and we have little doubt that the pungent appeals of the lecture itself came home to the business and bosoms of those to whom they were addressed. Correspondence. BAPTIST COLLEGE, SHERWOOD RISE, NOTTINGHAM. MY DEAR SIR,-I shall be obliged by your inserting the following note in the Magazine for March, together with a few observations of my own appended to it : A thank offering for mercies received during the past year, from one, who by Divine permission, has completed his 78th year. See Gen. xxviii. 20, 23, also 1 Chron. xxix, 14. Before reading the letter of the Rev. J. Lewitt, in the Magazine for December, I had purposed to present a thankoffering to some one or more of our poor churches, but afterwards I determined to give it to the College, to provide additional furniture. On naming my intention to my eldest son, on Dec. 26th, he observed, that if I did anything extra for the College the best thing would be to make a deposit toward the purchase of land or premises. So I now think, and in presenting my deposit, would say to every friend of Correspondence.-Christians and the Ballot. 6 the Institution, thou mayest add thereto.' 1 Chron. xxii. 14. Furthermore, I consider the Associa tion in 1857, did my native town a great honour in fixing the College in its neighbourhood and may the Lord bless the good town of Nottingham with the College. I think the churches of Nottingham are bound to assist in obtaining a building of our own, and I would say to the Connexion at large, Men of Israel, help!' Dated, Feb. 13th, 1860, near Nottingham.' The paper from which the above is copied has no signature, but the writer has given me permission to mention his name if I like to do so. When I say it is Mr. Hill, of New Basford, many of our poor churches will recognize him as the friend who, year after year sends them gifts, varying from £1 to £5, towards clearing off their chapel debts, or meeting their current expendi ture. Out of a limited income it is his pleasure to save sufficient to enable him thus to do good in this life.' He has to-day left in my hands £20 for the object stated in his note, viz: to form the origin of a fund, either to purchase a site for the erection of a College, or to purchase premises which the committee may deem suitable for the use of the Institution. The sum so voluntarily and handsomely given is not large in itself, but it is more than all the formers of the Baptist Missionary Society together contributed at the commencement of that famous enterprize. Their hopes could not have been very elevated with so diminutive a treasure; but when the seraphic Samuel Pearce, at the second meeting, brought the surprising sum of £70 from his friends at Birmingham, Dr. Ryland says, this contribution 'put new spirits into us all. My intercourse with our churches has made me sensible that different views are entertained as to the propriety of an immediate effort to raise subscriptions for College premises. To express these varying opinions would answer no useful purpose, and to avow my own impressions, anticipations, or aspirations might be deemed immodest or indiscreet. If, however, the wealthy brethren who promised £100 each toward this im 103 portant project a few years ago would The following Books have been pre- Biography, 2 vols.; Trench on Parables; Bacon's Essays with Whately's Annotations; Paley's Moral Philosophy, with ditto; Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome; Taylor's | Logic in Theology; Field's Septuagint. By Rev. W. R. Stevenson. Hinton's Lectures on Redemption. By the Author. George Fox's Journal, 2 vols. By Chamber's Cyclopædia of English Also a small Volume of Prayers!! CHRISTIANS AND THE BALLOT. MY DEAR SIR,-A letter appeared in your January number signed 'A Ballot Christian,' which I read with surprise and regret, and in reference to which I am compelled to trouble you with a few remarks. Your correspondent affects an ad captandum style of writing, apparently intended as suggestive and sententious. It leads him, however, into some strange positions, which irresistibly prompt the question whether this off-hand manner of dealing with delicate moral questions be not rather a dangerous exercise for anybody unaccustomed to consecutive reasoning. The present is surely an instance in point, for a more amusingly inconsequent production it has never been my lot to read. The letter opens by a protest against mixing up Religion and Politics,' and when we turn to the end to discover who is the protestor, we find that he has chosen for his signature, a combination of words which claims a religious ground, not only for political proceedings in general, but for the peculiar opinions of a political party. This however, though illogical enough, is otherwise harmless. Not so the protest itself. For the whole scope of the letter indicates the sense in which the writer intends us to understand his words. He tells us to keep Religion and Politics distinct, and then proceeds to collect a number of instances in which he maintains that men were excusable though acting in a manner contrary to high principle and strict morality. So that the entire matter amounts to this-that when we go to the electoral committee-room or the polling booth, we had better leave our Testaments and our consciences at home, since the one may command and the other may whisper what it will be extremely inconvenient to hear. If this be not the idea of the letter, for what purpose are we told of men who voted against conscience to keep a farm, and of others, who, if they had the ballot, could please themselves and their masters too?' I suppose by promising one thing and performing another! Your correspondent calls his array of instances trying the question, not by abstract reasoning, but by plain facts and common sense." And the instauces themselves amount to a presumptive proof of what nobody ever questioned, namely, that when men are true to principle they will often have to make sacrifices for their consistency. Does 'common sense' then condemn such sacrifices? If so, what is common sense?' Is it another name for cowardice, or worldliness, or for the special faculty which in this age of intelligence and freedom' has solved the old problem which was once thought insoluble, and discovered a way to 'serve God and mammon,' So as to shield us from all risk and loss?' It strikes me very forcibly that it is a blessed thing for the world that 'common sense' belongs peculiarly to Oh no,' says our ballot Christian; for the early Christians absolutely knew that they would inspire men with high principle by the course they pursued.' Did they? And pray, how? They could only know the tendency of what they did, and we know that. I have the misfortune, Sir, to differ from every line of your correspondent's letter. I do not believe in the ballot; and if anything were still wanting to convince me that Lord John Russell's charge against it, that of being unEnglish-is not cant, but 'plain fact,' I should only need to read such a letter as the one before me. When a man advocates the ballot on the avowed ground that it will shield moral cowardice, give opportunities for pleasing both parties (that is, in plain language, for deception)—and render the display of manly firmness an unnecessary superfluity,-one cannot doubt the demoralising measure itself. influence of the As to our having no 'right' to know how our neighbour votes, be it so. We have no right to know how be dresses, yet we do and must; or how he pronounces his words, yet he cannot very well conceal it. And if he wants to vote, he must be willing to do so under conditions which experience shows to tend toward the well-being of the community, and must not stand upon his trumpery private' rights.' Let your correspondent remember that there is such a thing as yielding a right for the good of others. Of all abstract notions, this right to secret voting is the most aërially invisible. But in conclusion, Sir, I must renew my expression of sorrow at the whole tone of the letter under review. It seems to be pervaded by the idea that self-sacrifice and consistency are obsolete virtues,-very well for the dark Correspondence. days of our forefathers, but completely superseded now; in that as soon as you have called a truth abstract,' you have shown it to be practically absurd; and that Christianity is to be applied only to those circumstances in which it is found a convenience. Pray let your correspondent look whither he is going. He is afraid enough of the consequences of actions; let him have a wholesome terror of those which flow from opinions. If we are not to be Christians in politics, because it is inconvenient to contend with scruples of conscience, the same reason will divorce religion from business, from our homes, from the social circle, and from life altogether. ANTI-BALLOT. (ANOTHER REPLY.) would have told, if he had the ballot, can be palliated; or if you can excuse the conduct of that 'member of a church,' who, after the deliberation and anxious suspense of a struggle, can let the grain of his fears as to his farm, (for mind you, it was only fear, and that from no actual threat,) weigh down all other considerations of duty and patriotism which his religion must have excited in his mind, and that so conspicuously as when the result of an election trembled in the balance, Christian morality has indeed fallen to pretty nearly a dead level. The vulgar and gross preference for the pocket to the conscience in these cases is from below, and has nothing in common with pure Christianity. And the danger, the pressing danger, of these times is that religion is now fashionable, and it MY DEAR SIR,-I read with pleasure comes to be understood that the prothe query of A Sincere Sceptic;' and fession involves no sacrifice and no real with surprise the letter signed A Ballot separation from the maxims or control Christian.' This is one of those questions of the world. Mr. Worldly-Wiseman which, (like those touched in Mr. and Christian may jog on together, if Liggins's Association letter,) deserve the compromise is cordial. Your corthe serious attention of Christians at respondent cravenly says if he knew the present time. It is fraught with so that his example would inspire all much of practical duty, that I join the others, the advocacy of an open con'Sceptic' in desiring the advice of one fession of your opinions might do good. so well qualified to guide us as the Does he not see that there would be no respected writer of the Association virtue in his faith, in a testimony to letter. It is so very easy to lay down the truth? He says, 'Opinions vary abstract propositions as to duty, and like faces,' and proceeds to say, (what is sometimes so difficult to show their very true,) that people on laud are, in relation to our daily round of oppor- tendency of opinion, conservative, and tunities and necessities for action, those in trade, liberal; and, inadthat in a matter like that of the fran- vertently, he thus exposes the fallacy chise counsel is most important. As an which is incessantly canted by proadvocate of open voting, I should hope ballotists; namely, that tenants must that the friends of the Ballot have (do not choose to) vote with their landsomething better to say for it than your lords, and tradesmen with their cuscorrespondent, who seems to glory in tomers. Under the open system a his assumed nome de plume, as though tenant may occasionally be oppressed, his views on this question raised the but is it the rule? Is it not even better character of his Christianity. His than that general duplicity be endefence of secret voting would be un-couraged, and masks cover honest faces? worthy of a reply, if it were not too often the one which is used, even by Christians. Pray assure him, Sir, that I intend no personal disrespect, and only refer to his morale and reasoning when I denounce the one as most corrupt and loathsome, and the other as palpably sophistical. If the practical lie which such an unfaithful servant,' as that Railway servant For the ballot is to prevent some one knowing the truth of a man's real opinions. If they are good and right, should they not be known? if wrong, corrected and reproved? What says Christianity? Your correspondent asks, what right have you to know how I voted? I reply: Your profession of a privilege capable of being used for my benefit or detriment, as well as your |