never lost anything in a fair contest with falsehood; and here are materials, -facts and documents,-which will greatly lessen the labours of the future historian.

(7.) IN a former number we noticed briefly the great work by Ruskin, entitled, "The Seven Lamps of Architecture," and hinted at our inability to sympathize with the enthusiasm of the artist. We have now before us a work of plain practical utility on the " Architecture of Country Houses,” from the pen of A. J. DOWNING, well known by his writings on pomology and horticulture. It is a beautifully printed octavo of nearly five hundred pages, embellished with designs for cottages, farm-houses, and villas. Estimates of the probable cost of the several buildings are given, and information essential to those who study economy and taste in the erection of their dwellings is communicated in language intelligible to the uninitiated, and divested, as far as may be, of technical phraseology. The book will do something, we trust, toward checking what appears now to be the tendency of our men of wealth -the frippery and gew-gaw style of building, and the absurd imitation of foreign edifices, of which the very young castle, as Frederika Bremer called it, on the banks of the Hudson, is the latest and most striking illustration.

(8.) "Rural Hours, by a Lady," said to be a daughter of Cooper the novelist, is a readable volume in the form of a diary. It is light, sketchy, and, withal, of a moral tendency, and suggestive. We subjoin a specimen :

NAMES.

"Was there ever a region more deplorably afflicted with ill-judged names than these United States? From the title of the Continent to that of the merest hamlet. we are unfortunate in this respect; our mistakes began with Americo Vespucci, and have continued to increase ever since. The Republic itself is the great unnamed; the States of which it is composed, counties, cities, boroughs, rivers, lakes, mountains, all partake in some degree of this novel form of evil. The passing traveller admires some cheerful American village, and inquires what he shall call so pretty a spot; an inhabitant of the place tells him, with a flush of mortification, that he is approaching Nebuchadnezzarville, or South-West Cato, or Hottentopolis, or some other monstrously absurd combination of syllables and ideas. Strangely enough, this subject of names is one upon which very worthy people seem to have lost all ideas of fitness and propriety; you shall find that tender, doting parents, living in some Horridville or other, will deliberately, and without a shadow of compunction, devote their helpless offspring to lasting ridicule, by condemning the innocent child to carry through the world some pompous, heroic appellation, often misspelt and mispronounced to boot; thus rendering him for life a sort of peripatetic caricature, an ambulatory laughing-stock, rather than call him Peter or John, as becomes an honest man."

"New-York, at present the most populous State in the republic, is in this respect the most afflicted part of the country. The name of the State itself is unfortunate in its association with the feeble James, while the combination of the adjective New, with the brief old Saxon word York, seems particularly ill-judged. To make the matter worse, the fault is repeated in the title of the largest town of the Union, both State and city bearing the same name, which is always a great mistake, for it obliges people, in writing and speaking, to specify which of the two they mean. when either is mentioned. In fact, it destroys just half the advantage of a distinctive name. The Dutch were wiser: they called the town New-Amsterdam, and the province New-Netherlands. In old times, when the capital town ruled a whole

dependent country, it was natural that the last should be known by the name of the first; Rome and Carthage, Tyre and Athens, could each say, 'L'état, c'est moi!' and more recently, Venice, Genoa, Florence, Bern, and Geneva, might have made the same boast; but we Yankees have different notions on this point: cockneys and countrymen, we all have the same rights, and the good city of New-York has never yet claimed to eclipse the whole State. The counties of New-York are not quite so badly served: many of them do very well; but a very large number of the towns and villages are miserably off in this respect, and as for the townships into which the counties are divided, an outrageously absurd jumble of words has been fastened upon too many of them. It ought to be a crime little short of high treason, to give such names to habitable places; we have Ovids and Milos, Spartas and Hectors, mixed up with Smithvilles, and Stokesvilles, New-Palmyras, New-Herculaneums, Romes and Carthages, and all these by the dozen; for not content with fixing an absurd name upon one spot, it is most carefully repeated in twenty more, with the aggravating addition of all the points of the compass tacked to it."-Pp.

478-481.

THE GOLD MANIA.

"How fortunate it was, or, rather, how clearly providential, that those tempting placers were not found on the Atlantic coast by our ancestors! Well for them, and for us their descendants, that the rich gold-mines were found in Mexico and Peru, and not in Virginia or Massachusetts, the New-Netherlands, or Pennsylvania! Well for the nation that the Indians spoke the truth when they pointed farther and farther to the westward for the yellow metal! Well for the people that they had to work their way across the continent before touching that dangerous ground! Had the placers of California lain in the Highlands, in the White or the Blue Mountains, we should now, in all probability, have belonged to enfeebled, demoralized colonies, instead of occupying the high and hopeful ground where we now stand, and which we may, by the grace of Providence, continue to hold, if true to our God, true and united among ourselves."-Pp. 456, 457.

The volume is "got up" in Putnam's best style, which is all that need be said on that point.

(9.) WE have before us another volume by a lady-a work of very different character from the preceding. It is entitled, "Christian Effort: or, Facts and Incidents designed to Enforce and Illustrate the Duty of individual Labour for the Salvation of Souls." BY SARAH BAKER: (New-York: Lane & Scott: 1850.) "It is remarked by Seneca," says our authoress, "that the husbandmen in Egypt never look up to heaven for rain in time of drought, but to the overflowing of the Nile. So with many when they read a book: they look more to the wit, the style, the learning of the author, than to the blessing of God on what they read." This spirit of entire dependence upon Him, from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, pervades the entire volume. We trust it will have a wide circulation. It cannot fail, when read in the spirit in which it was written, to make the reader better, wiser, more zealous, and, consequently, more useful. "They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars forever and ever."

(10.) LANE & SCOTT have just published, in a style of great beauty, "The Hebrew People: or, the History and Religion of the Israelites, from the Origin of the Nation to the Time of Christ: deduced from the Writings of Moses and other Inspired Authors; and illustrated by Copious References to the Ancient

Records, Traditions, and Mythology of the Heathen World. By GEORGE SMITH, F. A. S., &c., &c.: (8vo., pp. 616.) Unquestionably the most valuable publication of the last quarter. Of course we cannot pretend to do the work anything like justice, within the brief limits now at our disposal. An extended review may be expected hereafter. The author's undertaking was encumbered with great and embarrassing difficulties. In his own language: "The most important questions in theology, the most recondite inquiries in ancient history, the most perplexing cases of Biblical criticism, the most difficult problems in early geography, all obtruded themselves upon the attention of the writer; and required to be investigated, adjusted, reconciled, and wrought up into a homogeneous narrative." The first volume of our author's series, being the "Patriarchal Age; or, the History and Religion of Mankind, from the Creation to the Death of Isaac," was noticed in our number for October, 1848. A concluding volume is in preparation. It will embrace the history and religion of the Gentiles, from the death of Isaac to the Christian era.

(11.) "Dr. Johnson: his Religious Life and Death:" (Harper & Brothers, 1850.) This volume is anonymous. From internal evidence we suppose it to be the work of a minister of the Church of England, who has performed his task with great shrewdness and not a little ingenuity. Of course, after Boswell, that most indefatigable of all gleaners, there was little new to be said about the ursa major of English literature. Our author, however, has culled out, and placed in orderly array, the great man's sentiments and sayings on almost every point connected with Christianity, and made them texts for the discussion of Church and State, Calvinism, Patrons and perpetual Advowsons, the insufficiency of curates' salaries, Dissenters and Wesleyans, the relative merits of South, Sherlock, and Atterbury, Jeremy Taylor, Hammond, and Barrow. Indeed, on almost every disputed point the true Churchman will here find something on his side of the question. After dwelling briefly upon the doctor's early religious and literary life, our author gives us two chapters on what he designates "His Religion;" and, as if it were of vastly more importance, five chapters on "His Churchmanship." He is very severe upon the pretensions of dissenting ministers, and gives us the old story of the player's servant, who, when the sheriff's officers were seizing his master's wardrobe, warned them to desist; for, said he, "that hat belongs to the king," meaning, to the sham king whom his master personated. The anecdote, we are told,

"Is called to mind when the pretensions of dissenting ministers are thrust forward. There is the counterfeit hat and the counterfeit king. Thus we find Dissenters calling their sect (however insignificant) 'the Church'-their ministers style themselves Reverend,' take out degrees of D. D., &c., in distant lands, and array themselves in black coat and white neckcloth, thus imitating a bona fide clergyman of the Established Church. Why they do so? is a question to which an answer has never yet been obtained."-P. 264.

In discussing the burial service of the Church of England, and the propriety of reading it at the funeral of Dissenters, our author is more charitable than many of his cloth. He thinks it may be done; but adds, in a note:

"At the same time, it must be said, that it would be well if Dissenters, generally, would bury their own dead. If they will come to the church in death, after reviling her in life, they can hardly expect to be treated on equal terms with consistent Churchmen. It is singular that Dissenters, knowing the nature of the funeral service of the Church, and that it is adapted (strictly speaking) to her beloved sons only, should endeavour to force the consciences of her ministers, themselves not despising the claims of conscience. Still, let nothing savouring of indignity be offered; and if they will persist in seeking burial at the hands of the Church, let the Church meet them in a forgetting and forgiving spirit. They are brethren."Pp. 120, 121.

(12.) "A New Method of Learning to Read, Write, and Speak the German Language." By W. H. WOODBURY: (New-York, Mark H. Newman & Co.) This work, unless we are greatly in error, occupies a happy middle ground between the course of Manesca, Ollendorff, and others of that school, and the stern and inflexible methods of the ancient teachers. Like those who follow exclusively the former, it gives little by little, as the pupil is able to receive them, all the leading facts and forms of the language; but follows up the departure from system, made necessary by this mode of teaching, by a complete and systematic restatement of all the principles taught in the first part of the work. Like them, it aims early to teach the pupil how to write in German; but it labours not merely to make him try to translate, but rather to compose. Having stated and illustrated a mode of expression, or announced a law or usage of the language, it does not simply append a list of English sentences to be translated into German, in conformity with the rule, but encourages and aids the student in taking thoughts of his own, and putting them into a German dress, according to models assigned.

(13.) WE noticed with commendation, in our last number, the Rev. DANIEL SMITH'S "Anecdotes for the Young; or, Principles Illustrated by Facts." We have before us two similar volumes, entitled, respectively, " Anecdotes and Illustrations of the Christian Ministry," and "Anecdotes for the Fireside; or, a Manual for Home." They are by the same compiler, and display the same tact in their arrangement and good judgment in the selection: (Lane & Scott, publishers, 200 Mulberry-street.)

(14.) ONE of the most interesting and useful volumes from our Sunday-school press is entitled, "The Jewish Nation; containing an Account of their Manners and Customs, Rites and Worship, Laws and Polity." It has been carefully revised by our Sunday-school editor, and is embellished with numerous wood-cuts. (Lane & Scott: 12mo., pp. 416.)

(15.) "Curiosities of Animal Life; as Developed by the recent Discoveries of the Microscope." Revised by Daniel P. Kidder: (New-York: Lane & Scott: 1850.) An elegantly printed volume, with many well-executed illustrations of the wonderful works of the Almighty, as exhibited by the microscope, and well calculated to lead the reader from nature up to nature's God, and show

ing, in the glowing language of Dr. Chalmers, that "in the leaves of every forest, and in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as are the glories of the firmament." We predict for this volume a wide circulation. It deserves it.

(16.) CARLYLE, it seems, has reached the end of his doleful wailings. We have No. VIII. of his " Latter-Day Pamphlets,” bearing the title-"Jesuitism.” The whole series is now published in a volume by the Harpers. It will add nothing to his reputation; and yet there are here and there, scattered through his pages, glimmerings of good sense, strangely expressed.

ART. VIII-MISCELLANIES.

[UNDER this title we purpose to publish, from time to time, short articles, either original, or selected from foreign journals, on topics of Biblical Literature and Theology. We shall also admit brief letters, from any who may be disposed to question statements of fact, doctrine, or interpretation found in the pages of this Journal.

I.

Exegetical Suggestions.

Luke i, 17 : ἐπιστρέψαι καρδίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα, καὶ ἀπειθεῖς ἐν φρονήσει δι καίων ἑτοιμάσαι κυρίῳ λαὸν κατεσκευασμένον. Construe ἀπειθεῖς as the direct object οἱ ἑτοιμάσαι, in apposition with λαόν. ἐν does not depend upon an implied Eniorρépal, the change in construction from ¿ní to v being too harsh; but indicates the limitation of ἀπειθεῖς, that in respect to which it is to be understood. ἀπειθεῖς admits this construction from the force of πείθομαι, like πιστεύειν ἐν αὐτῷ; such a use of ev is frequent after verbs denoting some mental state or action, to point out the subject in reference to which it is asserted or denied, e. g., ¿ðaúμašov ¿v rị Xpovičew, (ver. 21.) The absence of the article before dukaiwv does not make it neuter, any more than in the phrase áváσraois ék Vɛкpŵν; had the meaning been Tadikaía, the term dikaιoσúvη would have been more proper. The sense, however, will remain nearly the same. The latter clause of this passage is the Evangelist's paraphrase of the preceding quotation from Mal. iv, 6. Translate, "[for the purpose of restoring [the] hearts of [their] fathers to [the] children,' and [thus] fitting [the present generation] faithless as to [the religious] apprehension of [true] saints, [to become] a people prepared for [the coming of their] Lord."

Luke ii, 2: Αὕτη ἡ ἀπογραφὴ πρώτη ἐγένετο ἡγεμονεύοντος τῆς Συρίας Κυρηνίου. The interpretation of ¿yévero by took effect, as a subsequent transaction to that of verse 1, is strengthened by the contrast of roуpaon with dóyua,—the latter being there distinctly mentioned as a step preliminary to the άлоурáḍɛσα. The phraseology is not susceptible of a more natural rendering than the following: "[Accordingly,] this register (the first one [in contradistinction from that of Acts v, 37]) was actually made out [shortly afterward] under the superintendence of Quirinus, prefect of Syria." But for the same reason, the droуpáḍɛoval of verse 3 shows that the éyévero refers, in some sense at least, to the time of Joseph's journey; and therefore, in respect to what then took place, Quirinus must be here said to have exercised the requisite authority. Hence, the explanation adopted substantially by Lardner