CURRENT LITERATURE.
A large circle of readers will welcome a Second Series of Sermons Preached in Manchester. By Alexander Maclaren. (Macmillan.)— These are very remarkable discourses, without any pomp, it might almost be said without any ornament of language, but vigorous in style, fall of thought, and rich in illustration, and in an unusual degree original. We take, for instance, the sermon on "The Seed by the Wayside ;" that is a topic which has been handled often enough, one would think, to put anything like novelty out of the question ; yet here is a passage which strikes us as being new. After pointing out that the heart is trodden down by custom and habit (and here Mr. Maclaren remarks very well that it is a good thing, on the whole, that we get harder as we grow older and less easy to move and convince) and by sin, he goes on to say, "And now, lastly, the heart is trodden down, so far as receiving the Gospel is concerned, by the very feet of the Sower. That is a thing that chapel and church-going people want, most of all, to have preached to them. Wherever and whenever the great 'Lord of the harvest,' or any of the messengers He sends out to declare His word, come to you sowing 'the seed of the kingdom,' if that seed does not spring, then the very sowers trample down your soul." The power of thought and language displayed in the volume is beyond question ; we gladly observe as well that it is inspirer by a broad and liberal spirit.
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