25 SEPTEMBER 1880, Page 23

CURRENT LITERATURE.

The Early Years of .Tohn, Calvin. A Fragment, 1509-1536. By the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, D.D. Edited by William Ferguson. (David Douglas.)—The ground traversed by Mr. M'Crie has been traversed, and satisfactorily traversed, before. But though this volume can hardly be said to supply a want, many would have regretted if the work of so accomplished and competent a writer as Dr. M'Crie had been suffered to perish. There are three complete chapters,—" Birth to Close of Secular Studies," " Till Driven from France," " Sketch of the History of Geneva,"—and a very brief fragment of a fourth, headed "Geneva: 1536," this last ending with a significant sentence,—" History has shown that it is not religious liberty, so much as the neglect of ecclesiastical discipline and promiscuous admission to the seals of the new covenant in established churches, which has led to the increase of tenets classed by divines under the common name of sectarianism.' " We notice grave errors in names, due, it may be conjectured, to the editor's misreading Dr. M`Crie's manuscript. On page 9, " Barf " should be "Bait," and on page 94, "Charles Hippeville " is strangely sub- stituted for "Charles d'Espeville." The inaccuracy of " Charles Bellay, Bishop of Paris, and his brother William do Langey," is probably to be credited to the author. Both these personages bear the name of " De Bellay-Langey."