Tnaotoay.—Sermons Preached in the Chapel of Harrow School, and Elsewhere.
By the late Rev. T. H. Steel, M.A. With a Prefatory Memoir by Henry Nettleship, M.A. (Macmillan and Co.)—Mr. Steel, after highly distinguishing himself at Cambridge (he Miff Second Classic and Twentieth Wrangler), was content to give up his life to Harrow School. He had come near to being elected at King Edward's School, Birmingham (when Dr. Prince Lee was chosen). In 1834 he went, by the invitation of Dr. Wordsworth, to Harrow. Afterwards came an interval (1843.1849) of parochial work, into which he threw himself with characteristic energy ; then a return to Harrow, where he continued till within six months of his death. The two-and-twenty sermons here published strike us as being of considerable value. "His Christianity," says a friend who knew him well, "seemed to be drawn direct from the New Testament, restrained by the trammels of no ecclesiastical school." Accord- ingly. we find that a characteristic of his teaching is its simplicity and distinctness, the thoroughly natural character of its appeals and arguments. Another noteworthy feature in them is the happy illustrations from natural phenomena. Here is a specimen of his manner, an extract from a peculiarly happy dis- course on " Gathering up the Fragments ": —" See, too, here, as in an allegory, that the sun himself, no unworthy symbol of God's genial providence, rejoiceth to typify the same universal law. See how, as he sinks to rest when the storm is over, and the opening clouds suffer at last his level rule of streaming light to struggle forth, and his rays are broken and reflected by their thousand varying surfaces, see how he gathers up the fragments, as it were, and decks with them, as with purple and gold, the gorgeous tissue of the pavilion in which he seems to be sinking to repose ; or, shooting forth across the whole expanse of heaven, pieces together in a more regular order the broken hues, and sets his painted bow in the dark background of the eastern sky !" " Our Treatment of Strangers" is a specially good Berms:re, and one that should have spoken very directly to the hearts of those to whom it was addressed.—The Calling of a Christian Woman. By Morgan Dix, S.T.D. (Appleton and Co., New York.)—Lectures delivered last March, that have already reached a fourth edition, come anyhow with the recommendation of success. Nor iu this iustance do we wonder at the success. These are direct, plain-spoken appeals to the consciences of men and women, such appeals as aro always listened to not only with respect, but with a certain enthusiasm of attention. Antioch thronged the Church when Chrysostom lashed its popular vices, and always listened, if it did not always reform. So it is in London ; so it is also, it would seem, in New York. In his fifth lecture, Dr. Dix touches on the painful subject of divorce, as it is now in the United States. In New York, it would seem, divorce a vinculo can be granted only for the cause of adultery ; but then divorces and remarriages in other states, where the law is greatly relaxed, hold good in New York ; and in some of the New England States, there are nine sufficient causes. The sixth is entitled " A Mission for Women," and is a prac- tical and, for the most part, we think, a true statement of the situa- tion. We would fain hope, however, that the movement for the advance of women is not so closely connected as Dr. Dix thinks with unbelief. —Are Miracles Credible ? By the Rev. John James Liss, M.A., and Does Science Aid Faith ? by the Right Bev. Bishop Coterill, both published by Hodder and Stoughton, are two volumes of a new series of "The Theological Library," which is to include both apologetics and expository divinity. Mr. Lias's is in particular a calm and reason- able statement of the believer's case. With regard to the miracles of the sun standing still and the shadow returning on the dial, ho is in- clined, we gather, to got rid of thorn, though he holds that they were not impossible. His chapter on " How Do We Distinguish False or Sapposed Miracles from the True ?" is one of the best in the book. We find nothing sophistical in it He aoknowledges difficulties, and grapples with them to the best of his power. Ho allows, for instance, that the miracles at the tomb of the Abb6 Paris are, in one sense, just in the same category as the Gospel miracles, as having been wrought, not like mediaeval miracles in confirmation of an established system, but on behalf of a persecuted sect. Generally, we may say, that this new series has made a good beginning.—We Lave also received the first volume of the series of Present-Day Tracts, by Various. Writers (Religious Tract Society), the subject of the six tracts contained in it being " Christianity and Miracles at the Present Day," by Priuoipal Cairns ; " Christ, the Central Evidence of Christianity," and " The Success of Christianity," by the same author; "The Histori- cal Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ," "The Exist- epee and Character of God," by the Rev. Prebendary Row ; and " Christianity and the Life that Now Is," by the Rev. W. G. Blaikie, D.D.—Christianity and Common-sense, by a Barrister (Chapman and Hall), an effort to substitute Theism for Revealed Religion ; Priesteraft and Progress, by Stewart D. Headlam, B.A. (John Hodges), a second edition ; The Reasonableness of Christianity, by William M. Metcalfe (Alexander Gardner, Paisley and London) ; The Doctrine of Probation Ermined, by C. H. Emerson, D.D. (Universal- ist Publishing House, Boston), a statement of the Universalist argu- ment; The Two Gospels, by W. T. Lee (City of London Publishing Company) ; Biblical Theology of the New Testament, by Dr. Bernhard Weiss, second volume (T. and T. Clark); The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrews, D.D., edited and revised by Edmund Venables, M.A. (Sattaby and Co.); and Prayers for Public Schools, by the Rev. John Fowler, MA., a mooed edition, abridged (Skeffiugton and Son).
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