than to exactions so unauthorized by the word of God and the legitimate ends of government. In these positions American Christians, as a body, will stand with him. They accord with the principles of our own institutions, and with our most cherished notions of religious liberty. We shall be inclined therefore to regard our author's exposition with candor.

The question respecting civil establishments of religion has become one of intense interest in Great Britain. Our author says, it is a question "which yields to few in magnitude, as involving in its right resolution, the most valuable interests of mankind, both as individuals and as civil and religious bodies, and which has at length excited such a sense of its true character, as secures that it shall never cease to agitate the public mind of this country, till it is satisfactorily settled. To many, as well as to the author, it is evident that it admits of only one mode of satisfactory settlement:-the entire disconnexion of Church and State." Again he remarks, "It is surely desirable to all enlightened lovers of their country, that the great crisis, which is obviously approaching-which cannot to be avoided, nor probably very long delayed-the most important crisis which has occurred in this country since the Reformationshould pass like the revolution of 1832, without disturbance of the public peace, and with the least possible sacrifice of individual happiness."

11.-The Case of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian

Church in the U. S. A. before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Impartially Reported by disinterested Stenographers; Including all the Proceedings, Testimony, and Arguments at Nisi Prius, and before the Court in Bank; with the Charge of Judge Rogers, the Verdict of the Jury, and the Opinion of Chief Justice Gibson. The whole Compiled and Prepared for the Press, by Rev. D. W. Lathrop. Philadelphia: A. McElroy, 1839. pp. 628, octavo.

Our readers were informed in the last No. of the Repository that this volume was in the press, and nearly ready for publication. We also promised a Review of it in the present No., This promise to be prepared by a gentleman of the Bar. would have been fulfilled, had not the publication of the book been delayed quite beyond our expectations. It must now be The volume has come to hand too deferred until our next. late to allow us to give any thing more than a brief notice of it, at present. This delay has been occasioned by the mass of matter to be reviewed by the editor, Mr. Lathrop, and his desire to make the work as perfect as possible, rather than to hurry

it through the press, to meet the demands of the anxious expectation which its promised publication had awakened.

As it is, the book surpasses our anticipations in all respects, in which we have had time to examine it. The publisher's advertisement promised us a volume of about 400 pages: these have been increased to more than 600 full pages, closely printed; and no expense appears to have been spared by the publisher, which was necessary, to present a full report of the case. The ample materials possessed by the editor have been arranged with great care and labor, so as to present the whole case, through the several stages of its progress to its present position before the Court and the public.

The statements of the opening Counsel, the documents given in evidence, and the examination of witnesses occupy 264 pages. The remainder of the volume, 364 pages, presents the arguments of the learned Counsel on both sides, the Charge of Judge Rogers and the Opinion of the Chief Justice. As an intellectual repast, and a source of instruction on the great principles of law, which lie at the foundation of our religious freedom and rights, this portion of the work cannot fail to be sought for and read by intelligent men of all classes; while the importance of the question pending, the vast and varied consequences involved in its right decision, will render it a work of intense interest to both the ministers and members of the Presbyterian church. Some of these arguments have probably not been surpassed in the trial of any cause in our country.

On the whole we are highly gratified with the appearance of this publication. We hail it as a most important accession to our stock of knowledge on the general subject of the rights and privileges of the churches and their members; and though much and deeply to be deplored have been the occasions of the judicial investigations here reported, we may yet hope that some principles will be settled and some threatened evils avoided, by the trial, which will more than counter-balance the calamities which have attended its progress.

We fully concur with the editor in the following remarks in regard to the importance of this investigation. The case necessarily involved the discussion, by distinguished civilians, of great principles of law, order, and constitutional and natural rights, which have given to it an importance, rarely if ever attached to a judicial investigation in our country. Eminent lawyers, not connected with the case, have even said, that in view of the extensive range, and weighty character of the questions involved, it is the most important judicial case to be found on the legal records of the world."

12.-History and General Views of the Sandwich Islands' Mission. By Rev. Sheldon Dibble, a Missionary at those Islands for seven years. New York: Taylor & Dodd, 1839. pp. 268.

This little volume is a tribute of gratitude from the author, to those numerous friends, both at the South and the North, whose hospitality he has enjoyed during a sojourn of about two years in this country, for the benefit of his health, and who in many instances solicited its publication. It is chiefly historical and descriptive, presenting the substance of a series of Lectures prepared by Mr. Dibble and delivered in different places, with the hope of exciting a more enlightened and permanent interest in the cause of Missions. Much of the information contained in it may be gathered from the "Missionary Herald," but it is here presented in a condensed form, and with a completeness which exhibits the story of the mission to the Sandwich Islands, its wonderful success, and the contrast between those Islands as they now are and as they were, only a few years since, more vividly than we have seen it presented in any other work. It is a faithful narrative and a good book.

13.-The Bride of Fort Edward, Founded on an Incident of the Revolution. New York: S. Colman, 1839. pp. 174.

On reading this little volume we could not suppress the remark that the author, who could write so good a book, ought to write a better one. It is the production, we are told, of a lady, whose literary acquisitions are considerable, and who is not wholly unknown to the public, but who has chosen to withhold her name. So, as the web of her discourse is designed to involve the reader in some doubt, as to the whereunto it is tending, she hopes also to heighten his interest in the mystery of the plot, by concealing the hand that weaves it.

Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of this book, as a whole, we think the author has accomplished the very thing she designed. She has seized upon a touching event connected with a well known crisis in the progress of the Revolutionary war, and presents us with a succession of Dialogues, with suitable changes of scene and of persons, in which the actors in that event are made to tell the story of the times to each other. It is an effort of imagination and of genius to copy nature in picturing to the mind's eye the scenes of by-gone

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days; and it is a successful effort. The fault we find with the picture is, that it copies nature a little too accurately in some things, and allows the soldiers, now and then, to use profane expressions, which we think might better have been omitted. But the book is exceedingly entertaining, to say the least of it. We commenced the reading, and were so allured from scene to scene, that we had no heart to close it, until we had seen the end. It contains some beautiful passages and sentiments. The following is worth the reading of the book to treasure it up in memory. A frantic mother weeps over her lovely daughter, slain by a cruel death, and says, "Did God, who loves as mothers love their babes, see this? Had I been there with my love, in the heavens, could I have given up this innocent and tender child, a prey to the wild Indians No!-and legions of pitying angels waiting but my word-No, no.

"Elliston. Had you been there, from that far centre whence God's eye sees all, you had beheld what lies in darkness here. Forth from this fearful hour, you might have seen peace, like a river, flowing o'er the years to come; and smiles, ten thousand thousand smiles, down the long ages brightening, sown in this day's tears. Had you been there with God's all-pitying eye, the pitying legions had waited your word in vain; for once, unto a sterner doom, for, the world's sake, he gave his Son."

14.-Travels in North America, during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836. Including a Summer-residence with the Pawnee Tribe of Indians, in the remote Prairies of the Missouri, and a Visit to Cuba and the Azore Islands. By the Hon. Charles Augustus Murray. In Two Volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1839. pp. 324, 247.

It is interesting and profitable to make the acquaintance of respectable foreigners who visit our country for the purpose of acquiring information; and we love to hear what they say of us when they return home and publish the story of their discoveries and adventures, for the instruction of the old world. Mr. Murray is a gentleman of this class; a Scotchman, who had leisure to protract his stay in the countries he visited, long enough to learn something of the scenes through which he passed. He kept a Journal, which, after some delay, he has published, much in the order in which it was originally written. It is on the whole a sensible book; one of the most respectable works of the kind which we have met with, and may be read with profit by such as have not already had more than

enough of this sort of reading. The residence of the author among the Indians is particularly interesting.

15.-Harper's Family Library No. LXXV.-Animal Mechan

ism and Physiology; being a plain and familiar Exposi tion of the Structure and Functions of the Human System: designed for the use of Families and Schools. By John H. Griscom, M. D. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 1839. pp. 357.

This work is admirably adapted to the end proposed by the author. It communicates the results of a thorough acquaintance with the subject in a plain and familiar style, and is illustrated with a sufficient number of wood cuts to exhibit the various parts of the human system to the reader in an intelligible manner. We are glad to see the "Family Library" continued by the enterprising publishers by the addition of works so

instructive and useful.

16.-Mc Donner: or Truth through Fiction. By Jacob Abbott, Boston Crocker & Brewster, 1839. pp. 283.

Several persons around us read Mc Donner without scarcely rising from their seats. This, it may be said, is an infallible evidence of a novel,-of a fiction in the genuine and naked sense of that term. It may, however, be replied that there is not one word about love in the volume, from beginning to end. A novel does not end legitimately except in the catastrophe of marriage. In the second place, the great object of the work is not to frame a story for the sake of a story. The writer's manifest aim is, not to beguile a passing hour, to amuse a fashionable lady, to arouse the vehement passions of our nature, or even to furnish food for the intellect. His great object is one which lies in the field of practical theology-to show men that they need an atoning Savior and a renovating Spirit, that no efforts of their own to attain salvation will be effectual without almighty aid. These two collateral and connected truths-the need of expiation and the need of sanctification are presented in a very clear and impressive manner. We think most decidedly that the reader will carry' away a deep moral impression. The story is told with great fidelity to nature. The incidents are narrated just as they occur in real life. The writer has unquestionably seen, or heard, or felt the very things which he describes. At the same time, there is scarcely any thing which is overdrawn.