Educational. Books and Reading; or, What Books shall I Read, and How shall I Read Them. By NOAH PORTER, D.D., LL.D. 12mo., pp. 378. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1871. Professor Porter delineates with great skill the well-rounded curriculum of a liberal but not literalistic reader. He presents to us the true idea of a largely Christian literature: Christian, not in the sense of purely religious; not in the narrow spirit excluding works of imagination and art; not in the jealous precisianism that dreads free inquiry in morals, science, or politics, but with the purpose of excluding writers who are polemically Anti. christian, or who contradict the Christian assumptions hitherto held by the Church of all ages. He decisively affirms that it is just and right that Antichristian writers should not wear the Christian name. We are justified, we may add, in excluding them from the common area of literature as being truly sectarian. If Emerson blasphemes Christ and proclaims pantheism; if James Russell Lowell advocates pure deism, their works are not only to be excluded from "literature" as Antichristian, but as being doctrinary. The "Atlantic Monthly" is as truly sectarian as the "Methodist Quarterly Review," and the "New York Tribune" scarcely less than the "Christian Advocate." The difference is that the one frankly avows its position-the other claims to belong to the broad common, and then avails itself of its position to propagate its special doctrines. As an analysis of the true philosophy of reading, as a programme of the general field of literature, and as a guide to the inquirer for "the right book," Professor Porter's book is a very suitable publication. Miscellaneous. The True Unity of Christ's Church; being a Renewed Appeal to the Friends of the Redeemer on Primitive Christian Union, and the History of its Corruption; io which is now added a Modified Plan for the Reunion of all Evangelical Churches, embracing as Integral Parts the World's Evangelical Alliance, with all its National Branches. By S. S. SUMCHER, D.D. First Lessons in Composition. By JOHN S. HART, L.L.D. adelphia: Eldredge & Brother. 1871. 12mo., pp. 144. Phil The Poetical Works of Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. Numerous illustrations. 8vo., pp. 54. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1871. Simple Stories, with Odd Pictures; or, Evening Amusement for the Little Ones at Home. With twenty illustrations by PAUL KONEWKA. 16mo., pp. 150. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. The Infant Sunday-School. By ALICE W. KNOX and CHARLES E. KNOX. With an Appendix by Rev. J. H. VINCENT. 12mo., pp. 166. New York: Carlton & Lanahan. History of Louis XIV. By JoHN S. C. ABBOTT. With illustrations. 410. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1871. 12mo., pp. The Story of the Rocks. A Fourteen Weeks' Course in Popular Geology. By J. 12mo., pp. 280. New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. DORMAN STEELE, A.M., Ph. D. 1871. A Year with Moses. Nos. 1 and 2. By J. H. VINCENT, D.D. 16mo., pp. 93, 100. 1871. 1869. Standard Phonographic Writer. Edited and Published by ANDREW J. GRAHAM, Proceedings of the Second Annual Session of the American Philological Association, held at Rochester, N. Y., July 1870. 8vo., pp. 31. New York. 1871. The Rapid Writer, (Quarterly,) Devoted to the Introduction of The New System of Drief Writing. 12mo. Mendon, Mass.; Boston, Otis Clapp. Importance of Doctrinal Truth in Religion and Man's Responsibility for his Belief. A Conference Sermon by Rev. Bishop D. W. CLARK. 4to., pp. 30. Detroit J. M. Arnold. 1871. Wonders of Grace. By Rev. W. H. BOOLE. Pp. 15. New York: Water-street Tract Rooms. Every Day. By the author of "Katerine Morris," etc. 12mo., pp. 282. Boston: Noyes, Holmes, & Co. 1871. Bible Lore. By Rev. J. COMPER GRAY. Stoughton. 1870. 16mo., pp. 312. London: Hodder & The Old Masters. The Princes of Art: Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers. Translated from the French by Mrs. S. R. URBINO. 12mo., pp. 337. Boston: Lee & Shepard. 1870. Judged by His Works. An Attempt to Weigh a Certain Kind of Evidence respecting Christ. 12mo., pp. 331. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1870. The Apple Culturist. By SERENO E. TODD. 12mo., pp. 334. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1871. The Mutineers of the Ship Bounty and their Descendants in Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands. By LADY BELCHER. With Maps and Illustrations. 12mo., pp. 377. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1871. A German Reader to succeed the German Course. By GEORGE F. COMFORT, A. M. Teachers' Meetings. An Address delivered to the Philadelphia Sunday-School 16mo., pp. 14. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Letters Every-where. Stories and Rhymes for Children, with twenty-eight Illustrations. By THEOPHILE SCHULER. 12mo., pp. 228. 1871. The Tone Masters. A Musical Series 1871. for Young People. By CHARLES BARNARD. 12mo., pp. 223. Boston: Lee & Shepard. Fiction. The Victory of the Vanquished. A Story of the First Century. By the Author of "The Chronicles of the Schonberg Cotta Family." 12mo., pp. 520. New York: Dodd & Mead. Ethel Linton; or, the Feversham Temper. By E. A. M. 12mo., pp. 317. Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden. Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 12mo., pp. 112. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1871. Postponed for notice to next Quarterly: Max Müller's Chips, Vol. III-Scribner & Co. Wakeley's Prince of Pulpit Orators-Carlton & Lanahan. METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY, 1871. ART. I.-ERNEST NAVILLE: HIS WORKS AND A BERLIN book-seller, on being asked recently in what store of the city a good supply of French works on theology could be found, replied, "In none. The Pastors of our Huguenot 'Churches can all read German, and no one who reads German ever thinks of looking to French writers for theology or science." This blunt remark of the German book-merchant is but a fair expression of the average German estimate of the French literature of the day. And, unfortunately, this estimate is, on the whole, too nearly just. The Second Empire has not been favorable to a vigorous growth either of free thought or of moral life. Its literature has partaken of the general atrophy has thrown itself largely into the channels of doubt, materialism, and impurity. names But the somber picture is not without its light points. In the midst of the corrupt mass there has continued to be a select few to whom all honor is due. We cannot afford to despise French literature, so long as it is represented by such as Godet, D'Aubigné, Gratry, Bautain, De Félice, Rougemont, Bersier, Astié, Pressensé, Caro, Janet, Secrétan, Broglie, Rémusat, Laboulaye, Quatrefages, Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire, Milne Edwards, Saint-René Taillandier, and a host of others equally deserving. By the efforts of these men the banner of French thought is kept safe from trailing in the dust; FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXIII.-23 if not in advance, it is at least abreast with the general thought of the age. Few names deserve more honorable mention in this connection than the one at the head of this article. Nine years ago * a paper in this Review called attention to the labors of M. Naville in the more complete rehabilitation of the works and philosophy of Maine de Biran. The recent publication in English of three series of lectures on the philosophy of relig ion places him more fully before the public, giving us, in fact, the choice fruit of thirty years of healthful, earnest thinking. The purpose of this article is to give a rapid survey of this author's life, and of its significancy for evangelical Christianity. M. Ernest Naville is yet in the vigor of manhood, and in the midst of widely planned intellectual labors. He is of an ancient refugee Huguenot family, and was born Deceinber 13, 1816, in a village of the Canton of Geneva, of which his father was long the revered Pastor. His first studies were prosecuted under the direction of his father, who had founded in the village a private seminary. Subsequently he took a thorough course of philosophy and theology at the National Academy (University) of Geneva. At the age of twenty-three he re-' ceived the degree of licentiate in theology, and shortly thereafter made a tour of several months in Italy, sojourning longest at Florence, but visiting also Rome and Naples, and returning to Geneva in July, 1840. Here he was employed in the "religious instruction of the youth," and was charged by the government with the superintendency of primary education in the Canton. In 1844, having been called to the chair of History of Philosophy in the Faculty of Letters of Geneva, he entered more outwardly and actively upon that career of philosophical labor for which years of predilection and meditation had been ripening him. But the sunshine of academic life was not to be without clouds. The Liliputian republic felt two years beforehand the throes of that political revolution which so suddenly threw all Europe into convulsion. In 1846 the conservative gave place to a very radical régime, and in 1848 M. Naville was expelled from his chair in consequence. At this time he renounced his character as ordained clergyman in the State Church of the Canton, and ever since he has preferred to * October, 1862. main in the ranks of the laity. The radicals, however, did not succeed in silencing his eloquent and healthful utterances. He opened a course of free lectures on philosophy, at first in a private hall; but at a later period, when the popular passions had calmed down, he transferred them to the National Academy. His expulsion from his public professorship was the occasion of giving his labors a more decided literary turn. His voice, though silenced in the State auditorium, was, in fact, given a much worthier auditory. He addressed himself to the great literary public. His first publication was "Maine de Biran, his Life and Thoughts," one volume, 1857-an exposition of the personal character and leading thoughts of his favorite master in philosophy. His next work was a painstaking labor of love, the collecting and editing of the posthumous papers of the sage of Bergerac. It appeared in three volumes in 1859, under the title, "The Inedited Works of Maine de Biran." The first of these works, and the elaborate introduction to the second, obtained at once for M. Naville an honorable place among the philosophers of the day. These volumes were successively followed by three works which made their author's name familiar wherever there are wide-awake students of Christian apologetics. "Life Eternal" appeared in 1861, "The Heavenly Father" in 1865, "The Problem of Evil" in 1868. These volumes, though of a strictly philosophical character, are yet popular in style, and were severally delivered with great success to audiences of males, first at Geneva, and then at Lausanne, before being finally edited for the press. They constitute each an attempt at a theodicy in the special field suggested by its title, the whole being an elaborate effort to justify the central doctrines of evangelical religion as opposed to the various godless systems of the day. The spirit that breathes in these volumes is admirable and winning; is generous, hopeful, enthusiastic; but what is their scientific and theological worth? Are they but the honest theorizings of a good man to serve a good cause, or are they in the main solid, irrefutable truth? These questions can better be answered after a brief glance |