Lectures on the Revelation of St. John. By C. J.
Vaughan, D.D. Two. vols. (Macmillan and Co.)—When we say that this collection of ser- mons is inferior to any of its predecessors, we are only stating what is, perhaps, the natural consequence of Dr. Vaughan's choice of a subject on the present occasion. Of all the books in the New Testament the Apocalypse offers probably the narrowest field to the practical preacher. The system of paraphrasing closely the whole passage from which the text is taken, which is ordinarily one of the most striking and valuable features in Dr. Vaughan's discourses, results necessarily, in the present case, in little more than mere amplified, not to say diluted, description ; and the practical lessons which the preacher has found to be readily deducible from the Book of Revelation are so few in number, that in order to make them suffice for all the thirty-eight lectures which con- stitute the series, considerable repetition has been unavoidable. Dr. Vaughan's sermons are the most practical discourses on the Apocalypse with which we are acquainted ; but any one who expects to find them equal to his admirable expositions of the Epistles will certainly be dis- appointed.
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