Mines, of the Laight Street Church, New York. New York: John S. Taylor. pp. 54. Two Sermons, preached at Mansfield, Mass., Feb. 1838, by the Rev. J. B. Kendall, a Congregational Minister. pp. 28. Characteristics of the Times. A Sermon preached in Bangor on the Day of the Annual Fast, April 12th, 1838. By I. Maltby. Bangor: E. F. Duren. pp. 30. The Bible-Class Text-Book, or Biblical Catechismn; designed to promote an intimate Acquaintance with the Inspired Volume. By Hervy Wilbur, A. M. Eighteenth edition, revised, &c. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. pp. 132. The Importance of Self-Control. A Sermon delivered before the Auxiliary Education Society of Norfolk County, at their Annual Meeting in Foxborough, June 13th, 1838. By Lyman Matthews, Pastor of the South Church, Braintree. Boston: Perkins & Marvin. pp. 32. New York: D. Appleton 12mo. pp. 190. Glad Tidings. By Henry Dana Ward. & Co. Boston: Weeks, Jordan, & Co. The Personality of the Deity. A Sermon, preached in the Chapel of Harvard University, Sept. 23d, 1838. By Henry Ware, Jun., Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care. Published at the Request of the Members of the Divinity School. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 8vo. pp. 24. The Authenticity of the New Testament. Translated from the French of J. E. Cellerier, Professor of Criticism and Sacred Antiquities in the Academy of Geneva. With Notes and References, by a Sunday-School Teacher. Boston: Weeks, Jordan, & Co. 12mo. Pp. 254. The Missionary Cause at Jerusalem; or an Exhibition of the Claims of the World to the Gospel. By the Rev. David Abeel, Missionary to China. New York: John S. Taylor. 12mo. pp. 243. A Treatise on the Millennium, showing its Near Approximation, especially by the Accomplishment of those Events which were to precede it, &c. &c. &c. Boston: Printed for the Author. 12mo. pp. 276. The Closet; being an Aid to Private Devotion, containing Directions and Helps for Reading the Scriptures, Meditation, Self-Examination, and Prayer. By Harvey Newcomb. Boston: James B. Dow. 32mo. pp. 160. Centennial Sermon, delivered before the Church and Congregation in Franklin, Mass., Feb. 25th, 1838. By E. Smalley, Pastor of the Church. Boston: Manning & Fisher. pp. 56. A Sermon, delivered before His Excellency Edward Everett, Governor, his Honor George Hull, Lieutenant-Governor, the Honorable Council, and the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the Annual Election, Jan. 3d, 1838. By Richard S. Storrs, D. D., Pastor of the First Church in Braintree. Boston. pp. 46. A Sermon, delivered by the Rev. Thomas Snell, D. D., on the last Sabbath in June, 1838, which completed the Fortieth Year of his Ministry; containing a brief History of the Town, and especially of the Church and Parish of North Brookfield, from 1798 to the present Time. Brookfield. pp. 55. Lecture on Ultra Universalism. By A. Wilson McClure. Fourth Edition, with Improvements. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. 18mo. Pp. 126. The Happy Christian, or Piety the only Foundation of True and Substantial Joy. By J. B. Waterbury, Author of " Advice to a Young Christian." New York: William Robinson. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. 18mo. pp. 197. A Guide to the Principles and Practice of the Congregational Churches of New England, with a brief History of the Denomination. By John Mitchell, Pastor of the Edwards Church, Northampton. Northampton J. H. Butler. 18mo. pp. 300. : Meditations in Sickness and Old Age. By Baptist W. Noel, M. A. Philadelphia: Henry Perkins. 18mo. pp. 148. Prayer for the Children of Missionaries. A Sermon preached to the Members of the Nestorian Mission at Oozoomiah, Persia, Jan. 21st, 1838. By the Rev. Justin Perkins, Missionary of the A. B. C. F. M. Boston Crocker & Brewster. 8vo. p. 16. The Christian Hearer, Abridged. By Edward Bickersteth, Rector of Wotton, Herts. Edited, with additional Matter, by Chauncey Colton, D. D., Professor of Pastoral Divinity and Sacred Rhetoric in the Theological Seminary of the Diocese of Ohio. Columbus: Isaac N. Whiting. 12mo. pp. 115. The Scriptural Guide; A Familiar Introduction to the Study of the Bible. Written for the American Sunday School Union, and revised by the Committee of Publication. Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union. 18mo. pp. 263. The Character of Christ Considered; or a brief Exhibition of the Scripture Testimony respecting the Person and the Two Natures of Christ. Boston: Massachusetts Sabbath-School Society. 18mo. Pp. 184. The Recognition of Friends in another World. By the Rev. Benjamin Dorr, D D., Rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia. Philadelphia: G. W. Donahue. 32mo. pp. 96. Religion of the Bible, in Select Discourses. By Thomas H. Skinner. New York: John S. Taylor. 12mo. pp. 323. VOYAGES AND TRAVELS. China; its State and Prospects, with especial Reference to the Spread of the Gospel; containing Allusions to the Antiquity, Extent, Population, Civilization, Literature, and Religion, of the Chinese. By W. H. Medhurst. Boston: Crocker & Brewster. 12mo. pp. 472. Desultory Reminiscences of a Tour through Germany, Switzerland, and France. By an American. Boston: Wm. D. Ticknor. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey & A. Hart. 8vo. pp 364. Illinois and the West, with a Township Map, containing the latest Surveys and Improvements. By A. D. Jones. Boston: Weeks, Jordan, & Co. Philadelphia: William Marshall & Co. 18mo. pp. 255. Sketches of the Upper Wabash Valley. By Henry William Ellsworth. New York: Robinson, Pratt, & Co. 12mo. pp. 175. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CIII. APRIL, 1839. ART. I.1. Storia di Napoli del 1734 al 1825, del Gen. COLLETTA. Firenze, 1837. (2da ediz.) 4 vol. 2. Storia di Genova, di GIROLAMO SERRA. 1834. Torino. 3. Storia della Repubblica di Genova, di CARLO VARESE. Genova. 1834. 4. Storia d'Italia, di G. SFORZOSI. Italia. 1830. OUR age is the age of history. Numerous associations of able scholars are actively employed in the compilation of Cyclopædias, universal biographies, and contemporaneous memoirs. History appears in dictionaries and manuals, in general views, sketches, and essays. While the ephemeral literature of periodicals and magazines opens the treasures of memory to the newly-awakened curiosity of the people, works of a more solid stamp, noble monuments destined to immortality, are rising in all countries. Such in France are the works of Thiers and Sismondi, those of Schiller and Niebuhr in Germany, of Hallam and Mackintosh in England, of Sparks and Prescott in America. Every insignificant town, obscure province in the old world, every state forty years old in the new, is publishing its annals for the instruction of posterity. Sepulchral vaults and family portraits, city archives and parochial registers, are rescued from the venerable dust that covers them, to become in their turn monuments VOL. XLVIII. No. 103. every 42 of irrefragable authority. Add to this the establishment of historical societies and historical lectures; tragedy turned into historical drama; and that ingenious device, recently substituted for ancient epopee, the historical novel. Verily, our age is the age of history. This so decided tendency to look to the past, this restless inquisitiveness, that leads us to disturb the silence of the tombs of our forefathers, this universal rage for story-telling, is not so much a matter of choice with us, as of necessity. There are ages essentially destined to act, and ages inexorably condemned to write, history. The progress of human society is marked by an intermittent succession of activity and repose, which, without interrupting its eternal law of continuity, preserves it from the weariness of monotony. The generation, that comes after a stormy period of revolutions and wars, must necessarily be employed in repairing the ravages occasioned by the late convulsions. A council of philosophers is always seen seated on the bloody field laid waste by the rage of the warriors that preceded them, speculating on the causes of the past desolation, and, with theories and systems, providing against its recurrence. The social system proceeds by the impulse of two opposite forces, analogous to the centrifugal and centripetal laws of gravitation, that suns and planets obey. Man, in conflict with nature, is always aiming in his works at immortality. Cathedrals and capitols, forms of rereligion and constitutions of government, are always intended for an endless futurity. In all his fabrics and monuments, this being of clay seems ever to appeal against the short duration of the span of days that is assigned him. Thus he prepares laws and institutions for the generations to come. He deplores the consequences of the errors of generations gone by. He endeavours to foresee all contingencies, to conciliate all interests, to remove all subjects of collision; and he fancies he has secured his sons against the horrors he witnessed in his childhood, and that he shall convey to them the peace and order with which his mature age is blessed. But, with the new generation, new ideas come up, with which he was totally unacquainted. His sons, not having been struck by the view of the ravages of war, begin to feel tired of the monotony of a stagnating life. New ambi tions arise. Men begin to count each other, and to find that they are too many. The most active, at every step, find their neighbours in their way. They feel crowded, uneasy, and jealous. They can no longer breathe freely for want of room. The people riot in the squares; the nobility conspire in their palaces; confusion and panic seize diplomacy and police; men's spirits are again stirred up by the trumpet, the rusty sword is taken down from the walls of the castle, the war-horse is once more harnessed, and the edifice of the prudent father is razed to the ground, like a castle of cards that costs a child so many hours of labor and patience. But patience is an inexhaustible attribute of man. On the green sides of Mount Vesuvius, there are towns which have been several times covered, and, as it were, washed away, by torrents of lava. As soon as the molten stratum begins to cool, the scattered inhabitants return from their asylum to the beloved scene of danger, and, making the best of their disaster, rebuild their new house with the same lava which buried the old one; and with such heroic perseverance, that the pavement of the streets of today is on a level with the roofs of the dwellings of former ages. This is sad; and yet, sad as the order of human society may appear, we have some reason to believe, that not only is it the result of the inscrutable designs of the Eternal Providence, but that the Utopias and dreams of the most sanguine philosophers, admitting even the possibility of their realization, could never suggest a plan by which human affairs could better be carried on. If all Europe, and all the rest of the world, should advance the arts of civilization to the present standard of England; if all the systems of popular education, all philanthropic institutions could fully attain their ain; if all encroachments upon the independence, the liberty, the commerce of other nations, should cease; if every people should retire within its natural limits, and be contented with its own; if soldiers and lawyers were sent to till the ground; we could thus bring society back to the golden age of the poets, but what a fatal monotony would weigh upon life, how many aspiring spirits would pine and sink for want of an object of exertion, how many would say, like Alexander, "Alas! our fathers have left nothing for us to do!" Evil is then an enemy left among us by a wisdom like that, with which Cato opposed the total demolition of Carthage, that the young Romans |