significance, and his lofty expectations reduced to a miserable shadow; for if all men are equally God's sons, equally heirs of the same inheritance, then must sonship consist of an outward dependence, and not upon an inward and spiritual relationship; and if they are God's sons in the true sense of the word, certainly it is a sonship, equally without a child's love and without a father's blessing.' 'Take away the confidence, the mutual trust, the close, living sympathy, the love which delights to give and finds it a joy to obey, and we take away from the relation between a father and his child all that makes it beautiful.' The family circle being thus described, the 'Children at School,' "The Home Pleasures,' the 'Family Trials,' and all the other titles of the seven sermons before us, are selfinterpretive. The book is correct in style, thoughtful and earnest in character, and evangelical in doctrine. The author writes as one who knows, feels, and lives up to the solemn verities of which he discourses. Those readers, then, who do not object to the doctrinal school to which Mr. Garbett belongs, will find no cause to be dissatisfied with anything else in the volume. The Fall of Babylon. An Epic Poem. By the Rev. Hibbert Newton, B.A., officiating minister of St. Michael's, Southwark. London: Charles Westerton, 27, St. George's Place, Hyde Park Cor ner. THE author of this epic proves to be one of an increasing class of inquirers who find that in proportion as the alleged facts of what is called 'spiritualism' are investigated, the vulgar theory that they are mere impostures becomes less and still less tenable. The inquiry is, indeed, rapidly narrowing into this corner; that either the results are wrought out by some purely natural but heretofore unrecognized law of mental action, or that they are of the operation of spiritual intelligences more or less trustworthy and respectable. Amongst those who adopt the latter branch of the alternative, the author of the 'Fall of Babylon' has place; but to him modern mediumship appears to be all necromancy, and the apostacy of demonism.' He nevertheless assigns, in his poem, guardian spirits to his favourite characters, and inhabitants of the angelic world are amongst the dramatis persona whom he causes to appear upon his mundane stage. He represents himself as falling more than once into the trance of seership. His whole poem is, indeed, full of the supernatural; and the leading events on the stage of this lower world wherein his plot is developed, are generally prefigured by scenes in another, and not always by any means a better world, to which, in separate cantos, he directs the attention of his readers. The misgiving that these special cantos might, after all, have been better spared, seems almost to have crossed the mind of the author; for he even suggests that they may be skipped on a first perusal of the poem, by those who desire to get at the gist of it! Few readers, we suspect, will decline to avail themselves of the hint; for the author's style is so condensed, so closely packed and elliptical, that much patience is requisite if the epic is to be understood, and, when all is done, the reward and patience are scarcely commensurate. Originality in epithet, felicity in comparison and metaphor, belong only in small proportion to Mr. Newton. Incisive wit is his, and great power of condensation, and fair average ability in representation. He is very severe upon, and in one case very unjustly abusive of, theological schools other than his own; and he is very private and narrow, so it seems to us, in his interpretation of prophecy. Of poetic beauty of expression, we do not find much in his poem; nor, in its absence, any compensating profundity or wide reach of thought. But good descriptions of landscape occur, and some vivid passages of action. Sin Reviews of Books. Sin and Suffering Reconcileable with the Divine Benevolence. Four Discourses. By Joshua Priestley, London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., Paternoster Row. FOUR discourses, delivered in the ordinary course of the author's ministry, and published by desire. The themes wrought out are, that God's benevolence is indubitable; that moral probationship involves the demand of faith in God, and the supply of means and opportunity alike for ill-doing and well-doing; that much of our suffering is the sole and inevitable result of our own ignorance or folly; and that all the rest is benevolently designed for a salutary and invaluable discipline and culture. We have read these discourses with pleasure. They are marked by a treatment of the topics at once manly and pious. The Alexandra Magazine; and Woman's Social and Industrial Advocate. London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder, 27, Paternoster Row. May, 1864. THE first number of a new upholder of woman's rights and duties. It contains contributions by Mrs. Sewell, Mrs. Bayly, Mrs. Meredith, Miss Jessie Boucherett, Miss Bessie R. Parkes, and others. Throughout Miss Parkes's letter to Women on Money-earning runs a rich vein of sterling good sense. Mrs. Bayly's excellent article on Parental Responsibility is the one prepared by that lady for the Social Science Congress last year. 'Benefit Societies for Women' are the theme of Jessie Boucherett's. Besides essays like these, there are tales, notices of books, and, on toned paper, a somewhat hard and unpleasant illustration of a foolish little poem. On the Practice of Employing Certain Substitutes for the Genuine Ingredients in Some Articles of Daily Food; Considered as it Affects the Health of the Community. A Paper read before the Brighton Literary and Scientific Institution. Contributed by a Lady. London: H. K. Lewis, 15, Gower-street. North. 191 THIS is a "counterblast" to baking powder, the use of which is strongly objected to by the author, on grounds which, as stated, appear to us to be somewhat deficient in force. The Condensed Argument for the Legislative Prohibition of the Liquor Traffic. By Dr. Frederic Richard Lees. London: J. Caudwell, 335, Strand. THE famous essay, for which one hundred guineas were awarded as a prize by the United Kingdom Alliance for the Suppression of the Liquor Traffic, has been condensed by the author, and is now offered in its concentrated form for a single sixpence. Besides condensing the old, however, Dr. Lees has added new matter, so that the 'Argument' is now offered in a form suitable for the present stage of the question of the suppression of the liquor traffic. An egg is not fuller of food than is this volume of facts, figures, and pithy reflections upon them. It has already attained a wide circulation, and ought, indeed, to be dispersed abroad wherever the English language is spoken. Newspaper Press Fund; for Affording Assistance to Members, their Widows, Children, &c. Established 1858. Report and Rules. Office, 6, Beaufort Buildings, Strand, W.C. WE can see no valid reason why newspaper pressmen should be the only class of persons connected with literature for whom there should exist no eleemosynary institution. More liable than many classes of toilers to be disabled by irregular and excessive work, and by no means overpaid, they need assistance in sickness and in penury as much as any other class, and the only wonder is that no such provision has hitherto been made. The objection urged against such an institution by the Times comes with a peculiarly ill grace from a journal many of whose employés have, of late years, been signally and shamefully ready to acccept substantial favours from politicians. My Limpley Springs: A Visit to Limpley Springs. By Charles Williams, author of The First Week of Time,' etc., etc. London, Jackson, Walford, & Hodder, 27, Paternoster Row. A WORD, cleverly spoken, in advocacy of hydropathy,homoeopathy, and the movement cure. Limpley Springs is the name of a water-cure establishment, near Bath; and Mr. Williams, having been there, has written this little book, as he says, "not from the suggestion of any one whose views they advocate, but only from The Baptist Magazine. Vol. LVI. May 18, 1864. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. The Sunday-School Teachers' Commentary on the New Testament; with Explanatory Notes, and Hints for Teaching. By Eustace R. Conder, M.A. Vol. I. The Gospels. No. III. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. [ERRATUM.-Page 135; line 17; pro Nova Scotia lege St. John, New Brunswick.] Meliora. ART. I.-OBSOLETE LEGISLATION. N a recent Session of Parliament (28th July, 1863), an Statute Law, by repealing certain enactments which have ceased to be in force or have become unnecessary.' The measure grew out of the discussions evoked by the question of the consolidation of the statutes. The archives of English legislation have been in a very chaotic state. Those who desired to consult them (previous to the passing of the act named) had no fewer than forty-three folios placed at their disposal a wealth of legal literature exceedingly embarrassing; unsimplified by any show of method in arrangement. A daring and skilful practitioner might possibly take a professional 'header' into this turbid sea and return to land with some desperately-recovered treasure; but no ordinary mortal could dare its depths with the faintest hope of safety or success. It must be regarded as an especial blessing, therefore, that the forty-three folios have collapsed to eight, the number at which they stand, minus those enactments which have ceased to be in force otherwise than by express and specific repeal, or have, by lapse of time and change of circumstances, become unnecessary.' The Statute Law Revision Act is exceedingly brief and simple. It consists of a few paragraphs and a schedule. Its object is to cancel what is useless; to expunge what is inoperative; and to erase what is obsolete. A short declaratory statement embraces the whole act; the first paragraph stating its scope and exceptions; the second its limit (extending to England only); and the third its brief and suggestive title, already quoted. It is, in fact, a sort of legislative besom by which the legal dust and débris of ages have been swept away. After such a purgation, classification and consolidation have become possible. It would be unwise, however, to part with the old statutes Vol. 7.-No. 27. without without a word or two of notice. In a certain limited sense they comprise the history of our legislation, and, in a wider, the history of national development. Dating from the reign of Henry III. they commence at the beginning of our recorded law. The first act in the schedule is that of 20 Henry III., entitled 'Provisions de Merton' (the provisions of Merton), which carries us back to purely feudal times, when the monarch's will was frequently the only authority, and the brief assertion Le Roi le veut was the basis of law. The provisions of Merton, however, exhibit the growing influence of the barons, who, assembled to discuss certain charges (an old practice mooted by the King), or to assent to new laws, were not slow to give an opinion. To one of the proposed enactments (that relating to bastardy), all the earls and barons, with one voice, answered that they would not change the laws of the realm which hitherto had been used and approved. It is not a little startling that such ancient statutes should remain virtually unrepealed for so many centuries. But such is the fact. No less than six of Henry III., containing many provisions under various chapters, were only disposed of by the act of 1863. Some of these are curious. 37 Henry III. is the Sententia Excommunicationis lata in Transgressores Cartarum; the sentence of curse given by the bishops against the breakers of the charters. The confirmation of the Great Charter by the monarch was, as it deserved to be regarded, a proceeding of the highest importance; and, in accordance with the spirit of those 'demi-religious' times, it was invariably followed by an ecclesiastical edict, in which all the terrors of religion were hurled at those who violated the Bill of Rights. In the 'Dictum de Kenilworth' (the award made at Kenilworth) we have the introduction of the words 'the King and his 'the King and his Commons,' 51 and 52 Henry III., and the influence of the popular element is distinctly observable. The last statute of this reign in the schedule (52 Hen. 3) is entitled 'Statutum de Marleberge'— the Statute of Marlborough-and is quoted to recall another illustration of feudalism, as exhibited in the fact that all these statutes were enacted at different places. Royal convenience or necessity seems to have determined the locality of a council or parliament; and it was not till the following reign of Edward I. that a change in this respect took place, and the sanction of custom began to be given to assemblies at Westminster. History tells, however, of frequent disregard of this arrangement, the monarch not hesitating to summon a parliament around him at any place, should emergency demand or policy suggest it. One of the earliest of the obsolete |