"Clerical Symposium" on the Lord's Supper, in which the various views of that important institution are ably set forth. Amongst the best helps provided for the modern pulpit, the Homiletic Quarterly still retains a foremost place.

HOURS WITH THE BIBLE; or, the Scriptures in the Sight of Modern Discovery and Knowledge. From Moses to the Judges. By Cunningham Geikie, D.D. With Illustrations. London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 9, Paternoster Row.

THE unqualified recommendation which we gave to the first volume of this great work would be equally applicable to the second. Dr. Geikie lays his encyclopædic information under tribute for the illustration of the sacred history which he reviews, and so uses it as to light up the events which have been Divinely recorded with a transparency and a brilliancy which it would be impossible for them otherwise to possess. To a mind charged with so immense a mass of apposite knowledge as Dr. Geikie's mind is, and so master of it as to be able to call it forth at the moment when it is wanted, how sublime and impressive must the old histories of the Word of God be felt to be! The grandeur of the Book is enhanced, the conviction of its Divine origin is strengthened, and the heart more readily yields to its vitalising and ennobling power. It is refreshing to note the contrast between the learning which ministers to faith in such volumes as these and the nibbling criticism which is so miserably characteristic of the Rationalistic school.

ROBERT HALL. By the Rev. E. Paxton Hood. Hodder & Stoughton.

THIS is one of a series of popular biographies, under the general title of "Men Worth Remembering," some dozen of which are advertised as already published or forthcoming. The name of Robert Hall is unquestionably one of the most brilliant in the list. Any mere eulogy of him in the pages of the BAPTIST MAGAZINE would be not only superfluous, but impertinent. Though he died half-a-century ago, even the younger members in our Baptist churches and families are fully aware that he was one of the brightest luminaries by which the Baptist denomination has ever been adorned.. They know that for saintliness and eloquence he has never been surpassed. He is to be reckoned not only amongst men worthy to be remembered, but also amongst those whose lasting fame is sure. Our English Christianity must subside, and our English language die, before Robert Hall can be forgotten. This being so, we are not surprised that the story of his life should now be newly told. We have our doubts as to whether Mr. Paxton Hood was the writer most fitted for the task. His thinking is discursive, and his style chatty and loose-qualities at the antipodes of those which so greatly contributed to Mr. Hall's almost unrivalled greatness as a writer and pulpit orator. Nevertheless, Mr. Hood has compiled the biographical facts with fair accuracy, and ventured upon some analysis of Mr. Hall's character and genius which will be read with interest, and with some measure of approval even by the comparatively few persons yet living who personally knew the

great preacher and enthusiastically admired him; whilst the popular style of the work, and the anecdotes which sparkle in its pages, will make it welcome to the younger generation to whom Robert Hall is entirely a celebrity of the past.

STUDIES IN THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. By the Rev. J. Cynddylan Jones, Cardiff. London: Houlston & Sons, Paternoster Square.

STUDIES IN THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. By the Same Author. London Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 32, Paternoster Row; Houlston & Sons, Paternoster Square; R. D. Dickinson, 89, Farringdon Street; Bible Christian Book Room, 26, Paternoster Row.

THE results of Mr. Jones's "Studies in these two books of the New Testament appear before us in the form of sermons, which, we presume, have been spoken from the pulpit. They are very good sermons to read, and, if well delivered, must have been very good to hear. We have placed them in the order of their publication. The first volume contains fifteen discourses, and the second seventeen. We do not know to what denomination the author belongs. In descanting upon the cases of the eunuch and Lydia, he had to touch upon the subject of baptism, but we do not find anything distinctively Pædobaptist in his utterances. Some

of his remarks, indeed, would seem to lean slightly in the opposite direction. We have read these sermons with unusual gratification. They are perfectly Evangelical, vigorous, and often original in thought, robust in sentiment, vivid

in illustration, with frequent quaintnesses of expression which give piquancy to their teaching, and keep the interest of the auditor or reader wide awake.

THE CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. With original Illustrations. Parts 6 and 7. Cassell, Petter, Galpin, & Co. THESE two parts of this most charming work conduct the reader from the ministry of John the Baptist to the interview of our Lord with the woman of Samaria. There is a great deal of explanatory and highly useful informa tion slipped quietly and easily into the course of the narrative, which still retains all the elements of perfect adaptation to the child-mind which we have noticed with so much pleasure in the preceding parts. We hope to be forgiven for saying that the work would have lost nothing that was worth keeping if the hideous picture of the Baptism of Christ had been withdrawn. Our Lord is represented as kneeling with one knee in the shallow of the Jordan, and bending his head slightly forward to receive a few drops of water upon it from the Baptist's hands! We thought this error had been finally and for ever exploded.

WARD & LOCK'S UNIVERSAL INSTRUCTOR. Parts 6 and 7. London: Ward, Lock, & Co.

WE are amazed at the mass of knowledge in relation to all matters which have to do with the culture of the mind which this marvellously cheap publication brings within the reach of all who are able to read, think, remem

ber, and learn. We have expressed our unqualified admiration of it before, and we rejoice in the opportunity of doing so again. It ought to circulate by hundreds of thousands.

A TRANSLATION OF THE ANGLO-SAXON VERSION OF ST. MARK'S GOSPEL. With Preface and Notes. By the Rev. H. C. Leonard, M.A. London: James Clarke & Co., 13 and 14, Fleet Street.

A VERY timely and most welcome publication. Our brother has done his work in a reverent, tender, and loving spirit, as was most fitting. The Preface not only revives the beautiful story of the death of the Venerable Bede, but contains some interesting facts respecting the Anglo-Saxon version of the Gospels, and shows the points in which it differed from our modern translations. It is very pleasant to be able to derive from this old version of Mark's Gospel so clear "an idea of the Bible, as read by our ancestors during a period of nearly five centuries." The notes are philologically valuable. Mr. Leonard has our best thanks for this charming little contribution to our Biblical literature.

CHINA'S MILLIONS. Edited by J.

Hudson Taylor, M.R.C.S., &c., &c. London: Morgan & Scott, 12, Paternoster Buildings. 1880.

WE have frequently had occasion to commend this valuable periodical, not only for the interesting account it gives of the work of the "China Inland Mission," but for the insight it affords

into the social and religious condition of the people. Its information is unusually minute, so that it enables us, as for ourselves, to see the strange life of the flowery land, and to feel how deeply, how urgently, they need the Gospel of Jesus Christ to elevate and save them.

A LECTURE ON THE IMPRECATORY PSALMS. With Notes. By John Stock, LL.D., Huddersfield. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. THE question raised in this Lecture is large and complicated, and for exhaustive treatment requires much more extensive space. But Dr. Stock has clearly laid down the lines along which the wisest Christian teachers will proceed, and has effectually broken the force of the sceptical argument which seeks to discredit the Imprecatory Psalms as integral parts of the Divine Word. He has also shown how unreasonable and mischievous is the tendency of the present age to merge "the Judge of all the earth into a Father who is too weak to punish even those who defy both law and Gospel."

THE INDUCTIVE METHOD OF REASONING REDUCED TO A SYSTEM. A Lecture. By Thomas Crow. London: Kempster & Co., St. Bride's Avenue, Fleet Street.

A GOOD popular exposition of an abstruse subject. If the author had, however, consulted Mr. White's authorised issue of his lectures on "The New Testament Tone of Certainty," &c., he would have withdrawn the criticism on p. 29.