expense of the health, morals, and prosperity of the people.' A Book for Young Women. By the Wife of a Clergyman, author of 'How shall I come to the Table of the Lord?' Eighth edition. A LITTLE book designed to set forth, in simple and readable style, the justice and mercy of God, and to give advice on forgetfulness of baptismal and confirmation engagements, neglect of prayer, of reading the Scriptures, of attending church and the table of the Lord, of disobedience to and neglect of parents, love of dress, want of thrift, too early marriage, and other errors into which young women are apt to fall. The book is in its eighth edition, and must, therefore, have recommended itself very effectually. A Book for Wives and Mothers. By the author of A Book for Young Women,' and 'How shall I Come to the Table of the Lord ?' Third edition. London: Wertheim and Macintosh, 24, Paternoster Row. A STORY in continuation of 'A Book for Young Women.' It gives much good advice in language plain and simple. 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. V. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. THIS excellent little commentary is now upon the 10th chapter of St. Matthew. For its size and price, we know of nothing better. The Advantages of Temperance, discussed in a Series of Letters on the Sunday-closing of Public-houses, Mr. Lawson's Permissive Bill, and Working Men's Rights; with a Prison Warder's Testimony against the Liquor Traffic. By John Robert Taylor, author of Facts Lonfor the Thoughtful,' &c. don: James George Taylor, 13, Brownlow-street, Bedford Row. In this comprehensive pamphlet Mr. Taylor gives a commendation of temperance in relation to the natural, moral, social, and spiritual rights of man, and in a medical aspect; a copy of a letter from Professor Beesly in opposition to Mr. Somes's bill, and of Mr. Taylor's reply to it; a letter from Mr. Taylor to the 'Beehive,' embodying the substance of letters from the Rev. Bartholomew Nichols on Temperance Hay-making, and Professor Syed Abdoolah on Mussulman and Hindoo Drinking; a letter from a prison warder, in which he advises his brother not to take a public-house; an address of Mr. Taylor to the Lord Mayor, Corporation, and Citizens of London, &c.; a letter to the editor of the City Press on Ginshops and Workhouses; and, lastly, a number of reviews and editorial notices of Mr. Taylor's previous publication, entitled Facts for the Thoughtful.' In a note, the writer adds that this pamphlet will possess a melancholy interest for the friends of social reform, from the fact that the late Mr. Washington Wilks, the eloquent champion of the Permissive Bill, Freedom, and Reform, warmly supported the author in the idea of its publication, and, only a few minutes before he breathed his last, assured Mr. Taylor that it would be the means of accomplishing a great amount of good.' It is dedicated to Mr. Wilfrid Lawson, M.P., and the other supporters of the Permissive Bill in Parliament, and to the thoughtful electors of Great Britain, in whose hands will be the remedy for intemperance at the ensuing general election.' We desire for this pamphlet a wide circulation. American Slavery: A Sketch. By the Rev. William Whitby. London: Richard Davies, Suttonstreet, Commercial Road East. IN eleven chapters the writer of this little work gives us accounts of the Notices of Books. the origin, source, nature, and extent of American slavery, the slave voyage, market, and seasoning, American slavery, caste usages, and legal codes, and courts, and results. He treats also of the despotism of American slaveholders and slave oligarchies, and of the bearing of the American churches towards them and their horrible system; and, in a concluding chapter, urges upon the British people the performance of their duty to the American slaves. A convenient little manual of American slavery is thus provided. Under the head of duty, the writer teaches that we ought to have sympathy with the slaves, and with any righteous measure promotive of their freedom or welfare; we ought to pray for them; we ought to render personal, practical, and persevering aid to any righteous anti-slavery movement; we ought to treat fugitives in this country as free persons and as brothers; and we ought to render educational and religious assistance to the coloured people in the British dominions. The Church of England Temperance Magazine: A Monthly Journal of Intelligence. London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, 54, Fleet-street; and S. W. Partridge, 9, Paternoster Row. FOR fastidious tastes, there is no temperance magazine so delicately adapted as this. The engravings and the printing are excellent; and a scrupulous care presides over the selection of the matter, much of which is of excellent quality. The Three Gilt Balls; or, my Uncle, his Stock-in-Trade and Customers: A Lecture. By T. Turner. London: E. Marlborough and Co., 4, Ave Maria Lane, E.C. AN interesting lecture on pawnbroking. The Wounded Stag; or, the Three Warnings. By the Rev. C. Overton, author of "The Plank will Bear,' &c. 291 The Shabby Surtout. By Richard Hine, M.D. London: S. W. Partridge, 9, Paternoster Row. A COUPLE of Mr. Partridge's excellent Illustrated Penny Readings,' with woodcut illustrations. The Shabby Surtout is a garment worn by a benevolent young nobleman, who, disguised in it, is enabled to make sundry useful discoveries as he travels about the country. The 'Wounded Stag' is a tale in verse, well adapted to arrest the attention of the irreligious, and to conduce to serious thought and godly decision. Does the Cap Fit? By the author of Little Martha's Bible.' London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 24, Paternoster Row. A SERMON is casually delivered by an old friend of the rector of a rural village, and the good effects on the rector, on the squire, on the doctor, and in the almshouses, are described. The rector it makes more energetic; it induces the squire to send an order for three dozen of good port wine' to a poor relation, a deed, by the way, much more kindly intended than wisely planned; it influences the doctor to excuse a poor widow from payment of a long bill; it helps to make the nurse of a tiresome old invalid more patient and attentive; and it even avails to improve the disposition of the invalid herself. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians. Extracted from the Literal Translation of the Holy Bible. By Robert Young. Biblical Tracts for Every Day in the Year, on the Most Important Facts and Doctrines of Scripture, Illustrated from Itself. By Robert Young, author of the New Translation of the Holy Bible from the Original Languages,' &c. Supplement to the Bible. Marginal Readings for the English Bible, in Addition to those Given by the Editors Editors of King James's Version, being a Series of More Literal Renderings Derived from an Examination of the Original Scriptures when Compared with the Common Version, and with the New Translatum. By Robert Young, author of various works in Hebrew, Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Greek, Latin, Gujerati, &c. Edinburgh: George Adam Young and Co., Bible publishers. THE first of the foregoing publications contains five Pauline epistles newly translated by Mr. Young, whose endeavour it has been to adhere to the meaning of the original Greek as literally as possible. In the third, Mr. Young supplies literal renderings of many passages with which King James's translators ignorantly or by design took very undue liberties. The Biblical Tracts, of which thirty-one are before us, are fly-leaf comments and comparisons of portions of Scripture having regard to disputed points of doctrine, and drawing conclusions for the most part acceptable to orthodox Protes tants, although not devoid of markep individuality in certain respects. The titles of some of these will show the nature of the questions opened up, as, 'Age-during versus Eternal,' Baptism versus Immersion,'' Creation Out of Nothing,' Divinity of Christ,' 'Elder and Overseer,' Inspiration of Scripture,' Ministrant versus Deacon,' 'Postures in Public Worship,' 'Sheol, Hades, and the Unseen State,' and 'Wines of Scripture.' Into controversies on points like these we do not here enter; but we are always glad to observe signs of dissatisfaction with the common translation of the Bible, having long been convinced that nothing is so much needed for popular use as a faithful and close rendering of the originals. Meliora. ART. I.—THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF FRANCE. 1. Le Progrès. Par Edmond About. Paris: Hachette. 2. Modern France: its Journalism, Literature, and Society. By A. V. Kirwan. London: Jackson, Walford, and Hodder. 3. Ten Years of Imperialism in France. Impressions of a 'Flaneur.' William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 4. Reports of Her Majesty's Secretaries of Embassies and Legations on the Manufactures, Commerce, &c., of the Countries in which they Reside. Report of Mr. Grey, Her Majesty's Secretary of Embassy at Paris. IF F the President of the Social Science Association thinks it is not beyond his province to devote a portion of his yearly review to the political condition of foreign countries, we need offer no apology for asking the attention of our readers to the social condition of one such country. France is, of all others, the most closely allied to us. While diplomatists have endeavoured to maintain the old traditions of the Foreign Office, and to strengthen our union with the great German Powers, Mr. Gladstone has, by his commercial legislation, been establishing and confirming the Anglo-French Alliance. Recent events in the North of Europe have baffled the first, recent events in another hemisphere have made the second successful. The Dano-German War has made the people of England well nigh loathe an alliance with Germany. The American War, and the loss of their best customer, have made them more desirous than ever to cultivate the friendship of a country whose markets were opened just in time to prevent the ruin that would otherwise have followed the closing. of the transatlantic markets. The material interests of the trading community are stronger than Foreign Office traditions, Vol. 7.-No. 28. U and and if any English ministry is bent upon its downfall, it may ensure destruction either by making a defensive alliance with Austria and Prussia, or by making an offensive alliance against France. The experience of the four years which have passed since the Commercial Treaty with France was carried into effect, has removed the anti-Gallic prejudices which had survived the Crimean War. The Frenchman is considered no longer the Englishman's natural enemy, but his best customer. The Englishman rejoices in the prosperity of the Frenchman, for it is to the interest of the former that the latter should be prosperous. Hence it has come to pass that the statistics of French trade and commerce are read in this country with an attention short only of that which is given to our own Board of Trade Returns. Nor is this interest in French affairs confined only to commercial matters. French literature is more read in England than it ever was before. French politics likewise are more thoroughly understood, while, at the same time, some of the ablest of French writers are turning the attention of their readers to English literature. In a word, it is almost incredible to the Londoner of the present day, who runs over to Paris on the Monday and returns on the Wednesday, that, in this very nineteenth century, he was taught to believe the Frenchman to be the incarnation of all that was hateful, to be in fact a sort of fiend, thirsting for human blood and feeding upon frogs. It would be an interesting question to ask how far the French have, under their present ruler, obtained social improvement and commercial prosperity at the expense of political liberty. A thorough Imperialist would assert that the good was unattainable without the evil. He would appeal with some show of reason to French history of the past eighty years in support of his theory. Certain it is that the French have repeatedly suffered the loss of material prosperity at the time of their greatest freedom. It must ever be thus so long as liberty degenerates into licence, so long as political activity manifests itself by the erection of barricades, and by bloody battles in the streets, or bloody holocausts on the scaffold. It was the utter weariness that followed the excesses of the last revolution, the disgust on the part of the people at the incompetence of the historians and poets who ruled, or rather failed to rule, the Republic, which led the French to submit to the forcible establishment of the Empire, and to the subsequent political restraint. France might have fared far worse. might have become a second Naples had Napoleon been a second Ferdinand, and have declined in commercial prosperity at the time that she lost her political liberty. But it can never She be |