SEEMONS. — The City Youth, by J. Thain Davidson, D.D. (Hodder and
Stoughton), is a volume of sermons addressed more or less to a special audience—to the lads and young men who come np from country homes to work their way in the occupations of a great city. They are simple to plainness, direct in their language in a way that would try Borns preachers to keep their proper dignity, and, we should think, effective. Perhaps we should be inclined to retrench one or two colloquialisms. "Bolted," for instance, is not a desirable equivalent for "ran away." But, on the whole, we are not inclined to find fault with the homely, vigorous language of the preacher. Of all things that hinder success with such an audience as he was addressing, there is nothing more fatal than conventionalism. Dr. Davidson, by-the-way, ventures on a very doubtful statement when he nays, on the strength of his family name, that the centurion Cornelius probably came of a "patrician stock." There were patrician Cornelii, indeed ; but from the days of Stills the name ceased to have any such general significance. The Dictator enfranchised, it is said, ten thousand slaves, and bestowed his own women gentile upon all of them.—The Children for Christ, by the Rev. Andrew Murray (Nisbet and Co.), is a series of discourses, or perhaps we should rather call them papers, intended for Christian parents, and containing many saggestions for giving a religions character to the home.life. Most of the difficulties and problems that occur are practically dealt with, and generally, we should say, in a wise and kindly spirit.—We have also received —Sermons for the Jubilee of Queen Victoria. By H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, W. E. Coghlan, Edmund Fowle, Dr. Hardman, J. B. C. Murphy, and C. J. Ridgeway. (Skeffington and Son.)—The "Verily, Verilys" of Christ. By the Rev. J. H. Rogers, M.A. (Nisbet and Cm)—The Blessed Dead in Paradise. By Robert G. Swarm, M.A. (Rivingtons.)
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