14 MAY 1864, Page 22

A Voice from the Church in Australia. Eight Sermons. By

Robert Potter, B A. (Macmillan and Co.)—These compositions are rather elegant essays than specimens of pulpit oratory. They are finished, intellectual, and cold, like the once famous sermons of Dr. Blair, but in a colony one would have anticipated that rousing vigorous appeals to the feelings would have been most in vogue. Perhaps, however, in the large towns of Australia (these sermons were delivered seemingly in Melbourne) there is a class who in their dread of roughness are hyper- critical. However this may be, Mr. Potter's sermons have hardly enough original thoughts in them to be good essays, nor fervour enough to be good speeches. We are disposed to think more highly of him than of them. Still they are far above the general run of published sermons.