awakenment of the sense of right or duty, both by teaching and example, and of the love and veneration of God, these, acting and being acted upon by the desire of knowledge, while the inferior affections are placed in subordination, constitute Mr. Chapman's scheme, which he has urged in a style of pleasing and instructive persuasiveness. We can sincerely recommend to parents and teachers, and others interested in the training of children, this highly useful little work, the chapters of which were originally delivered as "Lectures to Sunday-School Teachers, at the request of the Committee of the Sunday-School Association," and which are well calculated to promote the author's laudable design in their publication.

A Pocket-Book of Private Devotions for every Morning and Evening in the Week, with Prayers for some Particular Occasions. By the Rev. Hugh Hutton, M. A. 2d Edition, pp. 136. London: J. S. Smallfield.

WE unintentionally omitted to notice this useful and interesting little manual of devotion on its first publication; and now our notice is perhaps a work of supererogation, as the public have borne testimony to its value by requiring a second edition. In addition to prayers for an individual, suitable for the morning and evening of each day in the week, there are devotinal exercises for persons in affliction or adversity; sickness; after recovery from sickness; on the restoration of a friend to health; in the expectation of death; and, when death has occurred in a family. The prayers are simply, and clearly, often beautifully expressed, and cannot fail to cherish the devotional spirit in those who use them as aids in the formation of the habit and practice of piety. The printing of the Lord's Prayer at length, at the close of all the morning and evening devotions of the week, was, we think, unnecessary. Its commencement would have been sufficient, "Our Father which art in heaven," &c.; and the space it occupies, at least twelve pages, might more profitably have been filled by other occasional devotional exercises. The Lord's Prayer, we trust, is so engraven on the hearts of Christians, even in their earliest childhood, as to justify this only exception to Mr. Hutton's valuable contri

bution.

Lectures on the Elevation of the Labouring Portion of the Community. By Wm. E. Channing, D. D.-pp. 87. Hedderwick & Son, Glasgow; Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. London. 1840.

THESE Lectures are an appropriate and noble accompaniment to "Self-Culture;" they should go together, and the life-awakening truths they contain be impressed most deeply on the mind and heart not only of every labouring man, but of every individual, rich and poor, male and female, who would fulfil worthily the duties of existence, and think and act in accordance with the intentions of their all-glorious Creator. The Lectures were prepared for, and for the most part delivered before, the "Mechanic Apprentices' Library Association" of Boston. Happy the people who are blessed with the privilege of listening to such effusions; more happy they who can fully appreciate the intellectual and moral power and truth and beauty contained in them, and who resolve to carry out in their lives and conversations the holy and godlike principles they embody. Would the masses, instead of giving ear to factious demagogues and social theorists, sit at the feet of Christian philanthropists like Channing, and practically imbibe the words of truth and soberness he utters, the redemption of the millions from ignorance, sin, misery, misgovernment, slavery, bigotry, and superstition, would assuredly draw nigh.

One thing in these Lectures, we confess, has surprised us. It is the tone of fear which breathes in a few sentences, occasioned, we apprehend, by too dark a view of the state of European society, as contrasted with too bright a one of that of America. Dr. Channing asks, "Is there no danger, that with increasing intercourse with Europe, we shall import the striking, fearful contrasts which there divide one people into separate nations? Sooner than that our labouring class should become a European populace, a good man would almost wish that perpetual hurricanes, driving every ship from the ocean, should sever wholly the two hemispheres from each other. Heaven preserve us from the anticipated benefits of nearer connection with Europe, if with these must come the degradation which we see or read of among the squalid poor of her great cities, among the overworked operatives

of her manufactories, among her ignorant and half-brutalised peasants."

These fears we think inconsistent with the views of human nature which these Lectures, and all the other works of Dr. Channing so powerfully and beautifully portray; they are inconsistent with hope in the progress of that nature, as well as with faith in the overruling providence of God. That amongst the "European populace" there exist great ignorance and misery, we know and we lament; but is America altogether free from these evils? Boston, in "the spirit of improvement," may be all the Christian philanthropist could desire perhaps, but Boston is not America. Europe, too, to its disgrace, has its "squalid poor," its "over-worked operatives," and its "half-brutalised peasants," but is America qualified to "cast the first stone" at her parent for these outrages on the brotherhood of man? We trow not. Lord George Gordon's anti-Catholic riot occurred in 1780, and the Birmingham Church-and-King mob in 1791; the Catholic Convent at Charleston, Boston, was destroyed at a much more recent date than the perpetration of either of those atrocities, and the anti-slave-abolition mobs of Boston and Philadelphia were nearer this year still. Lynchlaw is not extinct; the hatred of the coloured population is still kept up with unholy virulence; millions, in defiance both of the letter and spirit of "The Declaration of Independence," are slaves. Yes, the two hemispheres have each their errors and vices calling loudly for reformation and eradication-errors and vices springing, it is probable, from a similar source, Mammon-worship. But the evils which exist in either hemisphere are not invincible; society, even in the Old World, spite of its corruption and degradation, is wakening up to the perception of its duties. The people who cheerfully paid millions for the emancipation of the wronged and fettered, will not injure the free by their approximation; commerce, manufactures, do not necessarily entail the degradation of the operatives, any more than the cultivation of rice, and sugar, and cotton; steam-power, and every other species of power, whether monarchical or republican, is subject to the overruling sway of One mightier than theymightier than all; the pure Gospel shall yet go forth on

the four winds of heaven, and He who is Good, and doeth good continually, shall yet cause knowledge and liberty, peace and virtue, to dwell among all the nations.

The Life and Times of Martin Luther. By the Author of" Three Experiments of Living," "Sketches of the Old Painters," &c. James Hedderwick & Son, Glasgow; Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh; Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. London. 1840. pp. 362.

THE work of which this is a neat and cheap reprint from the American press, is by a lady, who has the happiness to be a "friend and hearer" of Dr. Channing, and to whom it is very fittingly inscribed. By her former publications, she is well and favourably known to the reading public of this country as well as of her own; and the volume before us seems calculated greatly to increase the measure of her popularity. It gives a distinct and interesting and remarkably faithful outline of the life, character, and times of the great Reformer. In the most vivid manner, it places him before the reader, first as an obscure scholar, earning the means of his education as an itinerant musician; then as an humble and depressed monk of the Augustinian order; then opposing the decrees of the Pope, burning the bull, and resisting the Imperial edict-making Europe ring with the name of Luther; and afterwards, as a married man-an affectionate husband and father, going through the various alternations of joy and sorrow, to which human life is ever subject, with a propriety and a dignity worthy of his Christian principle and exalted character. His life is, in truth, admirably delineated-possessing all the dramatic interest of the most stirring romance, with the truthfulness of the most faithful biography. The conversations, letters, and anecdotes, in so far at least as the Reformer is concerned, are true, we believe, to the letter; -the scenery, grouping, and intertexture only being original; but these are executed with a skill so masterly, and are in such admirable keeping with the chief delineation, that they give a greater interest and relish to the picture. Various contemporary characters are also introtroduced, and finely portrayed:-Melancthon, Erasmus, Frederic of Saxony (the Protector of Luther, and the

illustrious ancestor of Prince Albert), Leo the Tenth, and other important actors at the period of the Reformation-the eventful drama in which Luther sustained the chief part. The subordinate story of Count Albert and the Lady Alice, affords an agreeable relief from the more stirring and serious business of the time—and will be reckoned by many, we have no doubt, not the least interesting and attractive portion of the book. The characters of the two friends, Margaret, wife of Melancthon, and Catharine Von Borne, wife of Luther, may be studied with advantage by all wives and mothers. We regret that we can spare no space for extracts, to bear out our encomiums, as many which we could make would amply repay the reader; but we cordially recommend the work itself to the early attention of all who can procure it.

NEW UNITARIAN CHAPEL IN BELFAST.-The want of a third place of worship in Belfast, designed for the use of those Unitarian Christians who are not possessed of regular accommodation in either the First or Second Congregation, having been for some time felt and complained of,-a few public-spirited gentlemen of the Unitarian body, resident in the town and neighbourhood of Belfast, entered into a subscription in order to build or procure a Meetinghouse for that purpose: and having concluded an agreement for the purchase of a Meetinghouse in York-street, lately occupied by a congregation of Methodists, it was opened for the public worship of God, upon the principles of Christian Unitarianism, on Sunday, the 5th of January, 1840. On this deeply interesting occasion, the Rev. Dr. Montgomery preached to a highly respectable auditory, whom his persuasive eloquence kept entranced in fixed attention for nearly two hours, one of the most able and argumentative discourses ever delivered in Belfast, in explanation and defence of the principles of religious liberty and of Christian doctrine, professed by the Unitarian body. A very general desire has been expressed for the publication of this