lingering, miserable, existence it would be a mercy to cut short, because they are preachers simply endured for their goodness. If we quote two or three valuable counsels or suggestive sentences, the reader may be induced to seek himself for others of the same kind. The Art of Speaking: How to be learned. "First, acquire Readiness of Speech; Second, Correctness; Third, Force. Memory: "The memory loves to be trusted, and gains strength in proportion to the confidence reposed in it." This is much like William Jay's remark, also quoted in this volume: "The memory, like a friend, loves to be trusted, and seldom fails to reward the confidence reposed in it." The best Preparation for Preaching: "In every case a deep spiritual preparation is of indispensable importance, as a means of surcharging the heart with emotion, and the mind and the tongue with power. Continuous meditation, affecting views of truth, and much prayer for the influence of the Holy Spirit, are the true elements of this crowning grace of a full preparation to dispense the word of life." The Benediction: By long usage the utterance of a scriptural benediction has become the established mode of dismissing a religious congregation. By some ministers this act seems to be regarded as analogous to that of priestly absolution. Hence, with open eyes gazing upon the people, and with outstretched hands, they declare upon them the love of God, the grace of Christ, and the communion of the Holy Ghost. "The error of this mode of pronouncing the benediction is obvious from the simple reflection that the blessings indicated in the benediction are peculiarly the gift of God. They are not committed to mortals to dispense, ministers though they be. Hence they are to be sought in supplication, with uplifted hands and closed eyes, expressive of conscious dependence upon the Giver of all good gifts. "Attention to the different Scripture benedictions will show that they are invariably supplications in fact, if not in form. Hence ministers should not assume to bestow blessings when their highest province is to invoke them upon the people." We have many times been shocked to see ministers who claim to be regarded as Protestant ministers par excellence, rise from their knees to pronounce the benediction, waving their hands all the while as if the mystic blessing were falling upon the people therefrom. Manner of Speaking: "After the death of M'Cheyne, of Scotland, there was found upon his desk an unopened note from one who had heard his last sermon, to this effect: 'Pardon a stranger for addressing to you a few lines. I heard you preach last Sabbath evening, and it pleased God to bless that sermon to my soul. It was not so much what you said as your manner of speaking it that struck me. I saw in you a beauty of holiness I never saw before."" Preaching to the Unawakened: "Preaching designed to benefit the unawakened, or partially awakened, must be accompanied with personal visits and private appeals. Direct interviews with individuals of this character often furnish the most hopeful opportunities for leading them directly to the Saviour; and it is by diligent efforts to answer the questions, to remove the difficulties, and encourage the hopes of those not yet born into the kingdom of God, that the preacher becomes more and more thoroughly furnished and specially qualified for his public duties as a preacher." Fifty Sermons. By Rev. T. De Witt TalmAGE, D.D., author of “Crumbs Swept Up," &c. Second Series. London: R. D. Dickenson. THE author of these sermons is too well known to require any introduction, as is also the character of his sermons to require any description. Thousands who have read these discourses in the Christian Age will heartily welcome them again in this collected form. There may be in them plenty of minor faults and inelegancies of style, as some critics assert, but in wealth of illustration, in graphic description, and faithful powerful appeal, they are unequalled. It has been said that one Niagara is enough for a continent, or even for a world; but we wish that every country and every city and large town had such a preacher as the author of these sermons. We take one brief passage from the sermon entitled "The Grain Ripe." "But you ask, ' When shall we go to work at this great harvest ? The text says now. The fields are already white to the harvest. The world stands at the door of the Church ready to be invited in. What are you doing, O, Christian men? What are you waiting for? You will be dead very soon. I see Christian men and women going into glory. This soul goes up to the gate of heaven surrounded by a dozen souls whom he has brought with him. Yonder comes a tract distributor, followed by fifty souls. Yonder comes a Sabbath School teacher, with ten souls following him into the kingdom. I see your soul coming up alone. Why do you come up alone? Have you not brought one soul to Christ? Have you lived thirty or forty years and done nothing? What will God say? What will the angels say? You had better crouch down in one corner of heaven and never show yourself." The New Hand Book of Illustration. Introduction by Rev. W. MORLEY PUNSHON, LL.D. London: Elliot Stock. THE hope Dr. Punshon has expressed that this The Hand Book of Illustration "will afford valuable aid, as a book of suggestion and reference, to public speakers in every department of their profession," can hardly fail of being realised. It is one of the best books of the kind ever yet published. We venture to assert that every public teacher has felt the necessity of some such aid as this, and has done his best from his own reading to supply the want; and though he will be the loser if he suffers his own efforts to be superseded by any compilation by another, many persons will feel grateful that the choicest treasures of a wide range of reading are here placed at their disposal in this convenient and complete form. The King's Highway. The Methodist Family. The Methodist Visitor. The first named is a "Journal of Scriptural Holiness," which is filled with fresh and vigorous writing. There is hardly a page which can be read, without the reader being benefited. From a characteristic letter of Thomas Collins, on page 308, we extract two or three precious sentences: "God's promises are with you, that He will be to you a Father in the fullest and most intimate sense; this implies that He will wash and heal your spirit and fill you with strength. Don't doubt but He does this according to His word, just as you would not doubt if you received a banker's note. Here is the money,' you would say. Say, Here is the blessing!' when you lay your hand upon the promise." Methodist Family is a very cheap and instructive serial, suitable for family reading; The Hive is equally excellent, and adapted for teachers, and The Methodist Visitor for tract distribution, and more likely to be prized than the ordinary tract. Mr. Elliot Stock is the publisher of all these magazines. Catholic Sermons, Vol. 1. London: F. E. LONGLEY. The OF most of these sermons we expressed a favourable opinion as they appeared, and all, therefore, we need to say now is, that the get-up very good, and Dr. Parker, in the preface, tells us he is "glad to have the honour of being invited to identify his name with so conspicuous and influential a band of Christian preachers," a sufficient guarantee, we take it, of the goodness of the feast here provided. My Pet's Picture Book, with 130 illustrations, by Sir JOHN GILBERT, H. ANELAY, HARRISON WEIR, ROBERT BARNES, &c. Child-Land: Picture Pages for Little Ones. Containing nearly 200 designs by OSCAR PLETCH, M. RICHTER, &c. London: Partridge and Co. WE have quoted the titles of these beautiful books in full, and if we could have transferred two or three illustrations also, as specimens of the others, it would be the best recommendation we could give. These are mostly of remarkable excellence, and the child who is fortunate enough to get either of these books as a present will think it has a treasure indeed. Origin and History of the New Testament. By JAMES MARTIN, B.A. Second Edition. London: Hodder and Stoughton. SUCH questions as, "Whence did this book come? How has it been handed down? Through what adventures has it passed? How do we know it is the very same book which the Apostles wrote ?" are answered in this little volume in a most satisfactory manner, and for making such information easily accessible to every young person, thousands, we think, will readily acknowledge their great obligations to the author. THE BIBLE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE. A PASSION FOR SOULS. A PASSION for souls is an essential condition of success in our efforts to save them. That is the idea which the life of Thomas Vasey has fixed more firmly than ever in our minds, and the impression which it has left on our hearts, is, that God helping us, we will be more resolute and earnest, more prayerful and wise, in our efforts to save them. Fully convinced are we, that if ministers, and Sunday School teachers, and class-leaders, and private members, and Christian parents can be content if their hearers, and scholars, and friends, and children, remain unsaved, very few of them will be saved, at least through their instrumentality. We remember once hearing a person find fault with the sentiment expressed in the lines "Scarce can our glowing hearts endure A world where Thou art known no more: because of its unreality, i.e., that no person ever felt like that, or if persons did so feel, it was not a desirable or healthy state of experience. The supposition that the speaker was wholly a stranger to the constraining power of the love of Christ, and true compassion for souls, his blameless life, his abundant labours, and his degree of usefulness, would prevent us from entertaining for a moment; but it is not doing him any injustice to suppose that the "resistless might" of that love, and the intensest throbbings of that The Life of Thomas Vasey. By his Widow. London: Elliot Stock. G compassion he had never felt. The Apostle, writing to the Galatians, who had been soon removed from him that called them into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel, addresses them as "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." The prophet declares, that as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children. This truth is differently but beautifully expressed by the Psalmist when he says, in the full assurance of faith, that the Lord shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favour her, yea, the set time has come. What reason had he for that strong confidence? "For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof." We remember a good man telling us how he and his wife, when they were once in a great strait, spent the whole night in prayer, and how marvellously God the next day worked out their deliverance. But his wife, with a true sense of responsibility, said, but we never prayed for our children like that. No other motive or stimulus was afterwards required than that remembrance "to pray for them like that." A pious Sunday school teacher once said concerning her class, that she had prayed too much for them for any one of them to be lost. This reminds us of a saying of Mr. Vasey's grandmother, who was a woman of strong faith in God: "I have eight children, and, by the grace of God, the devil shall not get one of them;" and this, again, that we had almost forgotten the life of Mr. Vasey, which has suggested these remarks. He was a man of vigorous understanding, of more than ordinary attainments, a diligent student, a debater and controversialist of no mean order, combining strength and gentleness in no common degree; but he will be chiefly known and remembered as one who was intent upon saving souls, who was bent on making full proof of his ministry, whose zeal, as it were, consumed him, who became all things to all men, if by any means he might save some. Oh! that it were granted to every minister to reap such a harvest as he did; and that is only to wish they possessed the same qualifications as he possessed. We do not purpose giving even the most meagre sketch of the life of Thomas Vasey, but simply further concentrate our attention on the one point which we have already in some measure considered. His biographer says:-"He preached, lived, and laboured to save souls, believing that all the powers of man are meant to serve God, and all the influence of man to be baptized from on high, and dedicated to the glory of Him who has 'redeemed us by His blood.' unless he saw results, and not unfrequently at a friend's house at the close of the day, has he walked the room in an agony of soul, because, as he said, 'I have seen no sign, no sign that my Master's message has been received, that good has been done.'" The burden of souls is one that presses heavily upon every godly and devout Christian, but most heavily of all upon the godly and devout minister. The words of the Apostle recur to the memory, "In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often." It is not uncommon for such ministers "to have no rest of spirit." The saying of Richard Baxter may be here quoted:-"I never knew a minister much owned of God unless he had a desire bordering upon unhappiness to see the fruit of his labours." "This," we are told, was certainly the case with Mr. Vasey. His longing to see souls saved was so intense, that if he did not witness good done under his ministry, his depression was extreme: but if he saw sinners brought to Christ, and believers built up in their most holy faith, his joy and gratitude overflowed." The Rev. H. Hines on this point also says:-"I well remember Mr. Vasey's expression of countenance on some Sabbath evenings. Of satisfaction when himself or others had seen sinners submitting themselves unto God, or disappointment when labours in the Lord seemed in vain, and of something more than regret when there was reason to believe that the Spirit of God was grieved, and the good work hindered by apathy and inconsistency in the church." While in his first Circuit, Mr. Vasey wrote:"A keen perception of spiritual truths, the value of souls, the guilt and evil of sin, the shortness of time, and the changeless character of the future state, penetrates my mind, and so powerfully constrains me, that I am borne along by an almost resistless impetus, to the very utmost efforts I can put forth; and, after all, the little I can do seems so very trifling in comparison with the vast extent of good to be accomplished, that I have little cause for satisfaction. I am, however, comforted by the knowledge that under every sermon I preach some good is done." We are reminded of the Apostle's glowing words:-"Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest by us the savour of his knowledge in every place." Much of Mr. Vasey's success was owing to the fact that he "determined to be nothing but a 'preacher of the Gospel,' anda' winner of souls."" "At the outset it was his determination to win souls for Christ in every sermon." That he was faithful all through life to this conviction there is abundant evidence. Soon after he became an itinerant preacher, he was called to endure the greatest trial of his life, being prevented for a considerable time from publishing the "sinner's |