National Repository ONLY A Christian Magazine. $3 a Year! Rev. D. Curry, D. D., Editor. BEGINS JANUARY, 1877. TRY IT ONE YEAR. "The scope and character of the magazine shall be that of a first-class religions and literary monthly, of the highest character attainable, and pervaded, whether in its general or religious articles, by a thoroughly Christian spirit.”—Order of the Committee. Under these directions, it will be devoted to General and Religious Literature, Biographies and Travels, Criticisms and Art. A sufficient number of the best writers for the press are employed to furnish all the variety in the several departments which their scope and importance require to make them rich and instructive. The Editorial Department will be a feature of the Magazine. Rev. Dr. Curry, both experienced and successful as an editor, enters upon his duties with the purpose of giving his whole strength to the work before him. Each number will contain one or more articles illustrated with Wood Engravings, in the best style of this art, adding beauty and value to the pages. The twelve numbers for the year will contain 1,152 pages of reading-matter, which, published in book form, would make not less than fifteen volumes, worth $1.50 each, and will comprise a variety that will be more interesting and valuable to the general reader than could be procured in books for many times the yearly price of the magazine. We earnestly request our people to take the National Repository for 1877-to give it one year's trial, and thereby determine for themselves whether it is worthy of a place in the Christian home. ALL METHODIST PASTORS ARE AUTHORIZED AGENTS. GOLDEN HOURS A First-class Magazine 1877 H. V. OSBORNE, Each number contains forty-eight octavo pages, printed on fine paper, with a beautiful frontispiece, besides numerous illustrations. Its contents comprise Sketches, Travels, Biography, Science, Natural History, Tales, Incidents, Charades, Puzzles, Enigmas, etc., etc. Just what the young readers want and need. CAREFUL PARENTS can feel entirely safe in putting the GOLDEN HOURS in the family. It is free from every objectionable feature in illustrations and reading-matter, and adapted to a place in the Christian and moral household. A VOLUME OF 576 PAGES is furnished in the twelve numbers for the year, which, bound up, affords, at a small expense, an amount of reading-matter that would cost five times the subscription-price. ONLY $1.60 A YEAR, POST-PAID. HITCHCOCK & WALDEN, Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis. NELSON & PHILLIPS, New York. A Weekly Record of the Law and the Lawyers. THE LAW JOURNAL has been published for five years with steadily increasing success, and its regular circulation is believed now to be much greater than that of any similar periodical ever published. It has been the aim of its conductors to make the LAW JOURNAL one of the very best of professional journals—one that should not only furnish to the profession the results of the latest important adjudications, both of this country and of England, but that should also discuss, ably and intelligently, all matters of legal importance, and all questions affecting the interests of the profession. While the LAW JOURNAL will be continued in the same general style, and upon the same plan as heretofore, some new features will be introduced during the coming years which will greatly add to its interest and utility. Each number will contain, among other, the following contents: First. Two or more original leading articles upon legal subjects. Second.-Current Topics, in which legal topics of current interest will be discussed with ability and independence. Third. Notes of Case, containing brief expositions of the more important recent American and English decisions. Fourth. - Abstracts of all decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States; of the decisions of the New York Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, and of the important decisions of the Courts of the other States. Fifth.-Full Reports of decisions which are thought to be of especial interest and importance. Sixth. Critical notices of new law-books, written with ability and candor, and designed to give the profession a fair and reliable estimate of the legal works constantly issuing from the press. Seventh.-General and Special Correspondence. Eighth.-A Weekly Summary of home and foreign legal intelligence. Ninth. The General Statutes of New York printed in a supplement. The Law Journal is published every Saturday, and each number contains twenty royal octavo double-column pages. It is entirely independent of all local or sectional influence, but in plan and contents is eminently national and is intended for the profession of the whole country. SOME OPINIONS OF THE LAW JOURNAL. "I am authorized by all the members of the Court to express to you our unqualified approval of the ALBANY LAW JOURNAL, edited by you. We regard it a very valuable publication which cannot fail to be favorably appreciated by the profession generally.”—Hon, Sanford E. Church, Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of New York. * "One of its pleasantest features is, that it contains a mixture of the purely legal with what we may venture to call the literary legal. * It is rare, in legal newspapers, to have such a variety of readable matter."-Law Magazine and Review, England. "THE LAW JOURNAL is beyond question the ablest law periodical published in the country.”— The Troy Daily Press. "We cannot remember when we have picked up a publication that gave such unmistakable evidence, as this journal gives, of having the right man in the right place."- Wisconsin State Journal. "We do not see how a live lawyer can do without it."-Elizabeth, (N.J.) Daily Herald. "I consider it a work necessary to the safety of every practising lawyer."-Mr. Justice Boardman, N. Y. Supreme Court. "There is no subscription for magazine or paper I so cheerfully pay.”—Mr. Justice McAllister, Illinois Supreme Court. Subscription price, $5.00 a year, in advance, free of postage. Volume will begin with January Ist. An extra copy sent free to any one getting up a club of five new subscribers. Specimen copies sent free on application. Address WEED, PARSONS & CO., Albany, N. Y. always treating cases as urgent, and reliev- | Poor Law, which the poor do not turn to ing pending investigation, and assuming readily, which has, moreover, a strong, that discretionary power of granting in-permanent machinery in every parish in stant help must be vested somewhere England, is the only right source of relief besides in the relieving-officer. I know for urgent cases. No respectable family parishes where benevolent people plead but has friends, neighbors, or savings to that starvation or great need may arise if fall back on just while you look well into they have a weekly committee and no their cases. Those who are not respectaofficer empowered to deal with urgent ble want, and, in my estimation, should cases. Suppose we ourselves had lost the have, help, but they cannot be helped pride of independence which does still easily with grants in urgent haste; they exist in the middle and upper classes, need thought, and influence, and much though the tendency to look for extrane- power. If, then, we decide that urgent ous help is, I sometimes fear, eating grad- cases can be left to the Poor Law, your ually upwards; but suppose we had no committees will have those only left to hesitation on the score of pride in asking deal with whose circumstances they can our richer neighbor for a meal, or new thoroughly know and deliberately decide clothes or boots, or additional blankets, or upon; and these, I believe, they will find a ton of coal, would it be better for us to class themselves into cases in which temuse just the amount of providence neces-porary help will raise the applicants into sary for us to go to him a week before- permanently self-supporting positions, and hand and say, "Please, we shall want our chronic cases. The first, no doubt, they dinner next Sunday?" or would it be bet- will try to help liberally, carefully, and ter for us to be led to expect that if we kindly. The second they will probably called on Saturday to tell him the fact, and help only if they can do so adequately, he was out at a garden-party, when he which I should fancy here you might came home he would say, "Dear me, per- easily do if you all heartily and thoughthaps they have no dinner, and Sunday fully co-operated, and knew each what the too. I dare not wait to see why they are other was doing, so that no work was done in want; whether there is any member of twice over. Such organization of almsthe fami'y who might be helped to a place giving would be, I should think, the limit where he can earn more. I'd better send of your aim at present. for some roast meat. I don't like to be enjoying myself at garden-parties with my wife and daughter, and not consider my poorer neighbors." Do you think that, be our earnings much or little, that kind of help would be likely to be helpful? The For I do not myself believe that we smaller the earnings, the more need of from above can help the people so thorprovidence; and there is no man so pooroughly and well in any other way as by but he might, by effort, at least have a few shillings in hand for emergency, if he really felt it important. Literally, that is all that is wanted to do away with this clamor about urgency. That every man should at some time of his life put aside five or ten shillings, which should be ready for need, and apply for help directly he saw need to draw upon that, instead of when he hasn't a crust in the house. I don't know whether you are troubled with this great bugbear of "urgency" here; I know some people think the halfit frightens many districts, but always dis- crown, or packet of tea, the best introducappears when approached. Depend upon tion to these. I cannot say I have seen it it, starvation cases are much more likely so. I do not remember a single example to arise where we have trained our poor in any age or country in which a class in to look for instantaneous help, than where receipt of small occasional doles was in a they rely on their own forethought at least position of honorable, healthy friendship to the extent I have mentioned; for if with the givers of such, or it to receive they trust to sudden aid, and any accident from them any intelligent teaching. Of removes it, then they have no money, they course the receipt of alms produces courare in need indeed. Depend on it, the tesies and respectful welcomes, and per Perhaps you will also add to these relieved persons a very large number of sick, whom I should be glad to see after, say a year's notice, forced into some independent form of sick-club. helping them to help themselves. This I think they are meant to do this I believe they can do, by association and by forethought. When they do provide necessaries for their own families, I think it leaves our relation to them far better, and enables us to help them more fully in better ways. After all, what are the gifts of these outside things compared to the great gifts of friendship, of teaching, of companionship, of advice, of spiritual help? | haps attendances at church or chapel from those who care more for the gifts than for the quiet dignity of independence which is found in many humble people; more for the good tea than for any sermon or service. But how do the better ones feel it? Haven't your gifts absolutely tended to alienate them from churches and chapels? Do they not scorn them, and desire to be seen to benefit nothing by them? The application for help is nearly always made by the wife, and the respectable husband would no more make it than you or I would, in nine cases out of ten. Only notice what happens whenever the rule is that the man must come up to ask for help they hardly ever come, but simply earn the needed amount. And among the women, too, the better ones hold aloof from anything that looks like bribery to come to a place of worship. I would ask any clergyman whether he does not think that the mixing of temporal gifts with spiritual teaching has not a direct tendency to lower the value of the teaching in the eyes of the recipient? Of old, when apostles preached, they treated the gospel as good news which the people would care to receive for itself; they honored it in treating it as if it were a blessing. Of course it is difficult to distinguish the actions which come from the radiant outpouring of every species of good gift in mere wealth of joyful human love springing from vivid sense of divine love, which we see in earnest preachers of all ages, from the gift which is meant to be, and felt to be, a bribe. In many cases, probably, the gifts combine a mixture of love and of a purpose to attract, which it would be impossible to separate. But religious teaching, I have no manner of doubt whatever, has suffered of late years incomparably more than it has gained by this confusion. Let the gift, then, stand or fall by its own intrinsic value; if it be helpful in itself, cultivating such right qualities as will make the recipient richer in such outside things as itself, let it be made. If not, withhold it. And for God's sake let his truth stand on its own merits. If it be a real need of his children, trust him in his own good time to make this plain to them. Preach it by word, by deed, by patient abiding; but do not use bribes, or even what look like bribes, to make men take it in. Depend on it, it cannot be taken so. It has been accepted in this and other ages by men ready to meet poverty, toil, scorn, death, rather than be false to it; it has been accepted with acclaim by muititudes who felt in it the answer to their difficulties, the great good news for their lives. The lowest natures, when they have received it, have done so through the noble feelings which are latent in the worst of us. It is only through appeal to these their fortitude, their reverence that it can come home to them. I cannot believe that God's truth has ever entered one human heart wrapped up in a bribe. Let it speak quietly for itself; it is very strong. Shall we doubt it? Our special form of it, or application of it, may not commend itself to our neighbors. Do not let this disappoint us; let us with single-minded zeal try to get those neighbors to be and to do what they see to be right, and then will be revealed to them gradually whatever form of truth they can comprehend and apply. They will help to form God's church, which is of many members; and if Our little systems have their day They have their day and cease to be, we must remember that the words go on : They are but broken lights of thee, From The Academy. A POPULAR HISTORY OF FRANCE.* THE time is not yet very long past when a historical work, especially an elementary and popular work, was scarcely anything but an endless series of names, dates, and facts arranged in regular succession, in which the actions of kings and princes, and battles lost or gained, played the principal part. Now, however, our conception is changed. We ask of the historian, not to load our memory with facts and dates, but to recall the dead past to life, to give us a vivid, animated, and truthful picture of the times that are no more. We require him to make us live the life of our forefathers; to initiate us into their ideas, their beliefs, their passions; to disclose to us all the motives, good or evil, on which they acted; to reveal to us their virtues and vices, their joys and sorrows. We require him to depict the condition of the poor and lowly, of the people, of the masses, as well as that of kings, princes, and the great; and we thus say of the historian, what used to be said only of the poet, that he must be a painter. A Popular History of France, from the earliest Period to the Death of Louis XIV. By Elizabeth Sewell. London: Longmans & Co., 1876. Even in the case, not of a long and de- be justly divided between the guilty partailed history, as complete as it can be ties, and the memory of Charles IX. is made, but of a summary, an elementary cleared to some extent at the expense of book, the object of which is to narrate that of his mother and the Guises. Of briefly in one short volume the history of this the author seems to have a very disa whole people, we require the author not tinct perception. to confine himself to a simple record of dry and lifeless facts, but to present to us a picture addressing the imagination as much as the memory, and enabling us to understand what were at various periods the manners, the intellectual condition, the character, the tendencies of the nation which is the subject of his work. Such then is the end which the author of this "Popular History of France," has kept in view, and this end she seems to us to have attained. Drawing her inspiration from Michelet, from Duruy, from Bonnechose, and other authorities, she has composed an attractive story, which, while easy reading, is fully adequate to instruct the readers for whom it is intended, and to prepare for more complete studies those who wish for a minute acquaintance with a special period of French history. Eight maps of the country at various dates, genealogical tables of the various houses which have reigned in France, and a very complete alphabetical index, which greatly facilitates the student's researches, combine to make the book a very convenient manual, which will doubtless have the success it deserves. The composition of such a book needs much art, and also really scientific knowledge; the author possesses both qualifications, and has acquainted herself with the most recent works. For instance, her account of the St. Bartholomew appears to us very accurate. It is well known to what long controversies the dark events of that night of blood have given rise. At the present day the responsibility seems to The author has fallen into a slight mistake in her which she has consulted to the Cardinal de Bonnechose. We believe that she is in error, and that this history is not by the cardinal, who, to the best of our knowledge, wrote nothing on the subject. But an elder brother of the cardinal, M. Emile de Bonnechose, now deceased, left an elementary History of France" which is very widely circulated. M. E. de Bonnechose was a highly distinguished writer, but instead of being a cardinal he belonged to the Protestant Church, and his numerous writings ("Les Reformateurs avant la Reforme, L'Histoire de France," etc., etc.) bear the stamp of the religious and liberal spirit of Protestantism. preface (p. vi.). She attributes a "History of France" A book like hers has to contend with many kinds of difficulties. Intended for all classes of readers, young girls included, the author is forced to pass lightly over many facts, which, shameful and ignoble as they may be, have often exercised a great influence over the destinies of a people. Louis XIV. cannot be understood without La Vallière, Montespan, and Maintenon; but this side of his history is too perilous ground to allow the author to give it as much prominence as historical reality would demand. There is here no ground for complaint or astonishment; but we are inclined to find fault with our author for a too constant inclination to take a lenient view. She does not seem to us sufficiently severe towards Henry III., one of the most infamous princes known to history. Nor does she blame as severely as it deserves the abjuration of Henry IV.; certainly she brings out the fatal consequences which that act of hypocrisy brought in its train, from the moral and religious point of view: but there is yet more to be said. The abjuration of the Béarnais was the most useless of treasons; it did not hasten by a single day the submission of his enemies: had he remained a Huguenot he would have reigned all the same, and his reign would perhaps have founded a more durable state of things. On this point we cannot agree with Miss Sewell, who seems to believe that but for his abjuration Henry IV. would have remained Henri de Béarn; but clearly this is one of those problems, which will always remain open to discussion. On the other hand, the judgment passed by the author on Louis XIV. appears to us to be just and perfectly wellfounded. The narrative ends with the death of the Grand Roi. The author in her preface promises to continue it to our own days if her volume meets with a favorable reception from the public. Its reception has been favorable; and we sincerely trust that the promise may be kept. ETIENNE COQUEREL. |