14 MAY 1864, Page 22

A Manual of Religious Instruction. By Albert Revile, D.D. (Simp-

kin, Marshall, and Co.)— Dr. R6ville is a pastor of the Dutch Church at Rotterdam, and a former work by him on the Gospel of St. Matthew was " crowned " by the Hague Society for the defence of the Christian religion. He is, therefore, regarded among the Protestant churches of the Continent as a champion of the Conservative party in religion ; while here he will certainly be regarded as an innovator, not to say rationalist. Freedom of thought in religions matters is so much wanted in this country that we welcome this translation with especial pleasure, for it will afford a timely proof that reasonable views on the subject of the inspiration of Scripture do not destroy the Christian religion, but only certain prejudices about it. At the same time we must guard our- selves from being supposed to adopt the opinions expressed by M.

R6ville, and still more those of his translator, who has often exercised the permission given him to interpolate his own ideas between brackets, as we think injudiciously. The theory, for instance, that the account of the Deluge was gathered from a hieroglyphic drawn without perspective, so that the water seemed to be above the mountains and the ark to be on the top of one of them, is highly conjectural, not to say absurd.