26.-A Sermon, delivered before his Excellency Edward Everett, Governor, his Honor George Hull, Lieutenant Governor, the Honorable Council, and the Legislature of Massachusetts, on the Anniversary Election, January 3d, 1838. By RICHARD S. STORRS, D. D., Pastor of the First Church in Braintree. Boston: Pp. 46.

It is greatly to the honor of Massachusetts, that its legislature has never renounced nor intermitted the practice of attending public worship, and hearing a sermon, on the day of "general election." This practice commenced in 1631; the senate and house of representatives choose the preacher alternately; and though the choice is made in the year preceding that in which the discourse is delivered, yet there never has been a failure, during more than two hundred years, from the death or sickness of the clergyman chosen. The prevalence of the small pox in Boston has, in a very few instances, prevented the delivery of the sermon.

The discourse now before us is an able and a seasonable one. It is written with power, and its doctrines are sound and conservative. The style is more diffuse than we like; but we seldom find so much strength and diffuseness united. The theme is, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers," &c.; and the doctrine deduced from it is, that obedience to government is a fundamental principle of christian duty. This principle is very clearly illustrated, and ably enforced, and the limitations of the powers of government are well stated.

Our readers will relish the following passage, taken from that part of the sermon which inculcates the providing for the diffusion of education, as one of the "duties pertaining to christian legislation :"

"If common schools demand the patronage of government, because of their powerful bearing on our great public interests, can our higher semiraries of learning be denied it? These are the living fountains that pour forth their fertilizing streams over the whole plain covered with the rising plants of genius, destined either to flourish or decay-to disappoint a thousand hopes, or bring forth fruit in rich luxuriance for the refreshment of future generations, according to the culture they receive. Shail they become "as a spring shut up, a fountain sealed," for want of legislative encouragement? If the Egyptian would irrigate his grounds, he not only prepares their surface, but digs his canals, and then watches the floating clouds as they are borne along toward the distant summits of Atlas, where they discharge their treasures, for the supply of the mighty river, whose waters convey fertility to the soil, with sustenance and gladness to its swarming population. And if the patriot would enrich the whole ground consecrated to liberty and religion, with common school instruction, let him not only prepare the surface of the wide field before him, and cut the channels through which the fertilizing streams may be conducted over it, but let him watch the sun-lit clouds of science as they float above him, and gather over the distant hills, thence to pour their treasures upon the vales below, through the channel of that mighty river which makes glad the city of our God. Our colleges form the Atlas of our intel

lectual world-and from them alone can flow the pure waters that are necessary to replenish our smaller streams, and fill our cisterns, and mature our harvests, and realize the patriots most ardent wishes. They are the fountains of public health of high moral influence — and of universal improvement. Their power upon public sentiment is gentle and penetrating as that of the dew on the tender herb, and the showers upon the grass." So far from being the miserly hoarders of knowledge, they are its cheerful almoners, supplying the means of wealth, honor, and usefulness, not to a favored few, but to all without distinction who are willing to accept them. To them alone can we look with confidence for those supplies of extended and well-adapted instruction, which the necessities of the whole rising generation demand and in them alone is the power lodged, that can draw forth fully the resources of those young minds of special promise. whose developments under primary instruction evince their susceptibility of an enlargement and polish, which will render them the lights of the world.”

We have room for no more quotations, though we should be glad to extract several passages, remarkable for their soundness of opinion on important topics, and the force with which they are expressed.

27. An Address delivered before the Members of the Norfolk Bar, at their request, Febuary 25, 1837. By JAMES RICHARDSON, their President. Boston: pp. 24.

THIS is an excellent performance, evidently from the pen of a sound and ripe scholar, and a member of the old school. The character and duties of his profession are regarded by him in their true light; and the spirit of the whole address is uncommonly pure and lofty. We always take a special and lively pleasure in commending such writings, both because we rejoice in every evidence of the prevalence of sound opinions in different quarters of the country, and because we would contribute to extend their influence.

28.-Passages in Foreign Travel. By ISAAC APPLETON JEWETT. Boston: C. C. Little and James Brown, 1838. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 319, 369.

A SCRUPULOUS regard to truth is one of the great characteristics of these volumes, and it is one of sufficient rarity in books of travels, to be esteemed of high value. Having followed in the footsteps of the author throughout a greater part of his route, within a few months of him, we are able to bear direct testimony to that point. This however is far from being their only merit; they are uncommonly sensible and well written, and mark the scholar and the man

of taste, the accurate observer and the candid judge. Were the choice of topics a right of either reader or critic, we would express a wish, that our author had made a somewhat different selection of his, or a different estimate of the relative importance of those selected We would have had him devote a larger part of his work to England, a country to us in many respects of unequalled interest, which our tourist strangely undervalues; and if his prescribed limits did not allow this, we would have been willing for an exchange, and spared some four or five of the eleven chapters on the operas, theatres, markets, and eating houses of Paris, to make room for an equal additional number on the land of our fathers. Generous as he has been, his compliment to the Parisians will not satisfy them; they will consider it a great slight to be thought only of equal importance to the rest of Europe, and have no more than half of his pages. For our part, we think that he treats them with a full share of consideration, and puts a great deal more rose into the coloring of his picture of them than they deserve. He concedes to their city its claim of unequalled fascinations, and only slightly intimates that it is also one of unequalled abominations. As respects this latter point, the whole story is told in a few words, and all writers agree as to the tenor of those: they are in a deplorable state as to religion and morality; they are living without God in the world -he is not in all their thoughts. We state this fact not merely on the testimony of those whom it fills with anguish: the impious Heine, who glories in it, laughs at the idea of calling the Parisians atheists; they do not think enough about God, he says, to deny his existence. Mr. Jewett gives us a truly appalling picture of the irreligion of the people in his chapter on a Parisian sabbath; and it must not be understood, that such an observance, or rather nonobservance of it, is inherent in the catholic faith—there are catholics in other countries, who yield to none in a spirit of true devotion on that day and on all other days; and then with what a suggestion does the chapter close-Paris unroofed! the thought is enough to make even a Parisian shudder- Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, and Dante's Inferno, are but feeble imaginings compared with the realities it would disclose. We cannot now enlarge upon this topic; it must be dismissed with the single remark, that we fall under a strange infatuation in systematically introducing our youth into "this largest sink of European vice," and teaching them when there to adopt the old maxim about being among the Romans, and the still more extraordinary one, that the traveller must see every thing, and follow to the end of every path, even those which "go down to the chambers of death." There is another notion, which comes by travelling abroad, that cannot be too loudly reprobated: that we must give up our narrow prejudices, our puritanic morals as they are are called, and adopt the more liberal standard of enlightened Europe. We rejoice to find Mr. Jewett expressing himself de

cidedly on the general principle, and we wish he had given a more unequivocally moral bearing to his remarks; with a large class of readers, his authority would have more weight than that of a graver moralist.

"There is much of query," he observes, "among travelling Americans, as to what of Europe might profitably be conveyed across the Atlantic. At first, broad questions may seem to arise. The more I look and reflect, the narrower grows the sphere of choice. As there is very little in American institutions that at this moment would be feasible or even desirable in Europe, so, there is still less of Europe that we could wish to see translated into the United States. I state my thought distinctly, disguising not its repulsiveness."

This sentiment has our unqualified assent; in that respect we would be glad to see the ocean completely "dissociabilis," and all the "impia rates" merged in the deep, which should attempt a passage hither, freighted with the moral corruption and the political vices of Europe, whether monarchical or radical-the audacious race have already brought evils enough upon us.

We observe but one important error in "Foreign Travel," and that is rather an inadvertence than error; it is stated, that the representatives of thirty-three and a half millions of people are elected by only eighty thousand of the qualified. It was so, under the old electoral law; that of 1831, which reduced the direct tax qualification to two hundred francs, increased the electors to two hundred and fifteen thousand; but the principle is still the same-a small portion of the people only, enjoy the elective franchise.

Mr. Jewett's book deserves commendation on every account; and his publishers also, are entitled to the same, for their share in its attractions: they have sent it forth in a very gentlemanly dress, showing that they well understand its intrinsic worth, and attired it accordingly.

29.-Sketches of Paris, in Familiar Letters to his Friend. By an AMERICAN GENTLEMAN. Philadelphia: 1838. E. L. Carey & A. Hart. 12mo. pp. 321.

IT is difficult to account for the absence of a moral sense in the community, on the subject of bad books. We have police regulations, against exposing to sale pictures of a certain class, and societies without number for the suppression of intemperance; but the pernicious influence of these immoralities, bears no comparison to that of the circulation of corrupting books. As the press now works, it diffuses its poison with the rapidity of a pestiferous blast. We have no wish to see it restrained; if publishers and booksellers would listen to the dictates of conscience, the evil would be stayed.

John Milton, in his eloquent speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, recognizes it to be a matter "of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors." And this is precisely the course we do not pursue; if a book has any cleverness, it is sure to get currency and credit with us, although every page may be soiled with its indecencies, and every paragraph with corrupting principles. We extend an indulgence to unlawful traffic in this respect, that we deny to all others; we hang the starved apothecary, when poverty, not will, consents to the sale of a little poison, to be used for wicked purposes; and we allow the same principle to justify, even in the court of conscience, the unlimited sale of the poison which kills the soul. Verily it is a strange morality. It is a strange kind of morality too, that it is extensively practised by the reading public: many families who would exclude from their dwellings a roué, a man of profligate principles, however brilliant his reputation for wit and talent, will yet freely admit into their parlors a corrupt and corrupting book, if it be distinguished for ability.

The above remarks will be understood to apply to the book which stands at the head of them; and for it they were intended. It has crept into public favor by means of its talent, vivacity, and piquancy, without a rebuke from the public press, or rather with its express approbation; and yet it comes to us in the state of a fine plant, foul with devouring insects: it needs to be smoked and washed with soap suds, before it will be fit to be received into the parlor. It is gratuitously scoffing in its allusions to religion; and grossly offensive in its exhibitions of vice. Surely it ought to satisfy any amateur of the Paris Hetaerae, to witness the spectacle himself, without obtruding their portraits upon public view. To heighten the atrocity of the offence against good morals, many of the letters are addressed to ladies; did any one before ever think it meet to make up a bouquet for them with roses, eaten at the bud, and picked up from the kennel.

Chapters might be selected from this book, filled with valuable information and sound reflections; but the objection above stated stands out in such bold relief, that it deservedly condemns an otherwise highly meritorious work.-One livid spot is sufficient to mark the plague, and warn us that death lurks beneath the most attractive beauty.