RAMBLES AMONG WORDS.1

THIS volume was designed for the entertainment of its readers. Its materials are not arranged on philosophical principles, but in a form adapted to interest the popular mind. Many of its suggestions are enlivening; some of them, amusing. As the work was not intended to be scientifically philological, it ought not to be sweepingly condemned for its want of philological exactness.

In the researches of etymology, there is an ever-present danger of substituting fancy for judgment; an imaginative resemblance between words, for an historical connection. The present volume has by no means escaped this peril: see its conjectures with regard to the words Cant (p. 129), Gospel (p. 64), News (p. 141). The volume contains various inaccurate statements: as, on p. 45, it informs us that "a meeting almost always conveys the idea of something sinister hidden beneath it;" whereas this "sinister" design is very seldom intimated by the word. On pp. 184, 185, we read: "Right is no other than rectum (regitum), the participle of the Latin verb regere, to order, to command." "Right, then, is just what is ordered, commanded, laid down, in the laws of eternal justice." But the primary meaning of the word regere is not to order, to command, but to stretch, to keep or lead in a straight line; and the etymological history of the word right is not that which is commanded, ordered, but that which is stretched so as to be straight. The etymology of the word does not favor the idea that rectitude is founded in the will of a ruler; but rather the idea that rectitude is founded in the nature of things. (See p. 186, on Rectitude.)

HITCHCOCK'S Religion of Geology.2

THE first edition of this excellent work was published in 1851. The present edition contains a new and valuable lecture, of sixty-eight pages, giving a summary of the author's present opinions on the whole subject of the connection of religion with geology and its kindred sciences. In this lecture, Prof. Hitchcock resists the attempt to interpret the first chapters of Genesis as scientific statements of geological truth, or as minutely accurate in developing the order and method of the successive creations. He adopts, as our readers well know, the theory that the Mosaic narrative was designed, not to be a philosophical or chronological history of the creative

William

1 Rambles among Words: their Poetry, History and Wisdom. Swinton. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street; London: Sampson Low, Son and Co. 1859. pp. 302. 12mo.

2 The Religion of Geology, and its Connected Sciences. By Edward Hitchccck, D. D., LL. D., late President of Amherst College, and Professor of Natural Theology and Geology. A New Edition: with an Additional Lecture, giving a Summary of the author's present views of the whole subject. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company. 1859. pp. 592.

work; but to represent, in successive pictures, the acts of God, and the changes of the created universe. The great truths relating to the divine agency and its results, are exhibited to us in symbols; and it is a mistake to interpret these symbols as literal exponents of scientific verities. The word "day" means a period of twenty-four hours; but this period is a symbol of an indefinitely long duration. As the Gospels are not minutely accurate chronological statements, so the first chapters of Genesis contain memorabilia of the first scenes; and these memorabilia are expressed in words which are more properly termed symbolical than figurative. The Mosaic record of the creation is not a pictorial poem, but a pictorial history.

The spirit of Prof. Hitchcock's volume is eminently reverential and Christian. The style is perspicuous and animating. We hope to notice the work hereafter, and in an extended Article.

DWIGHT'S HIGHER CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.1

THE readers of the Bibliotheca Sacra have become acquainted with Mr. Dwight, through his various philological Articles that have appeared in our pages. He is an enthusiastic teacher. The present volume gives lucid evidence of his intense interest in his profession. His fervid utterances are well adapted to awaken, in all instructors, a zeal for the high ends of their calling; and, in all scholars, a desire for a symmetrical and healthful growth of mind and heart. A fair specimen of Mr. Dwight's earnest diction, and of his large, comprehensive views of mental and moral discipline, is found in his Chapter on the "True Style and Measure of the Higher Christian Education; first, in reference to the Body; secondly, in reference to the Intellect; thirdly, in reference to the Heart." The Intelligence is improved by "acquaintance with Man," "with Science," "with Nature," "with Art," "with God." Under the general topic of " Acquaintance with Nature," he remarks; "A youth should be taught both at home and in school; and for this reason, life in the country is so much better than in the city; to observe the ever-changing forms and scenes of nature, around and above him. Fine landscapes, sunrises and sunsets, the ever-varying clouds, majestic storms with their thunder-trumpets, the moon and stars by night, mountain heights, dells, and gorges and deep caves, the solemn hush of the forest, and its more solemn moan, the calm hour of twilight, the noise of water-falls, the laughing stream, the placid lake, the surging sea, the universal chorus of birds, as the gates of day open at dawn and shut at eve upon us, and all nature full, in high keys and low, of the voices of happy creatures summering away their lives in gladness: what endless food do these all furnish for the inspiration of thought and feeling!

"Beauty of form or outline is to be seen and studied in nature, as also

The Higher Christian Education. By Benjamin W. Dwight, author of "Modern Philology, its History, Discoveries and Results." New York: A. S. Barnes and Burr, 51 and 53 John Street. 1859. pp. 347. 12mo.

beauty of color or of light and shade; and not alone these mere external aspects, but also the inward order of mechanism, and the designs of love that they reveal, and of which the glittering or elegant exterior is but the fitting enclosure.

"It is surely one of the most surprising proofs of man's inward blindness, that nature, the very book whose letters are largest, and which God holds most closely before the eyes of men, and the only one containing the lessons of His wisdom and love, which is ever opened to the mass of mankind, is still the very one, in which the great majority of the race read not a lesson, and see not even a single letter.

"Let no student feel, wherever he is, that he is denied a high and true intercourse with nature. There are walks for meditation, and heights for prospect even in the crowded city, where swarms cover every open space, and where all original variations of surface are carefully evened; and the scenery of the sky is there, and of the sea, or of some mighty stream hastening towards it; whose bosom is ever heaving with the burdens of commerce, and within whose arms its sails, like doves whispering to each other, gather themselves together. And in the want of all material stimulations to poetic sensibility, there are yet books full of thought-pictures of the selectest beauty, which indeed have been nearly always drawn with the most effect by those, who amid the cares of city life have pined for the remembrances of a youth spent under more open skies, and on broader fields, and under the shadow of the everlasting hills."

SMITH'S CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES.'

"Most sciences," remarks Hume, "in proportion as they increase and improve, invent methods by which they facilitate their reasonings; and, employing general theorems, are enabled to comprehend, in a few propositions, a great number of inferences and conclusions. History, also, being a collection of facts which are multiplying without end, is obliged to adopt such arts of abridgment." Such a work has been performed for the student of Ecclesiastical History, in these very excellent Tables. The author has made a judicious selection of the materials, from the principal manuals and tables in both sacred and secular history; and has combined them with great skill and excellent taste. We have been surprised to find such an immense amount of historical data compressed within such narrow limits. The substance of the work is evidently the gradual accumulation of years; but the more immediate labor of putting the aggregate into form, for the press, must have been severe. The student will here find given to his hand, and indexed, the statistical matter of many volumes in German, English, and French, together with no little amount of philosophic generalization.

1 History of the Church of Christ in Chronological Tables, by Henry B. Smith, D. D. New York: Charles Scribner, 124 Grand Street.

The most interesting, and yet the least complete, portion of such a work as this, is the column that includes the intellectual and doctrinal history of the church. It is impossible to do justice to this subject, within the inexorable limits of the table. Vorlander's attempt to tabularize Neander's doctrinal section, is a constant conflict between the wish to be compact, and the desire to be comprehensive. Hence, his tables verge closely upon the manual. Professor Smith's tables, in this respect, will compare favorably with either those of Hagenbach or Vorlander; and yet it would not always be safe for a student blindly to infer the intellectual tendency of a distinguished mind, from the brief disconnected extract to which the tabulist is confined. What, for example, would be the inference of a servile reader, respecting the anthropology of Wiclif, from the statement that "Wiclif argues against all Pelagianism, and in favor of a strict necessity: Deus necessitat creaturas singulas activas ad quemlibet actum (p. 48. m)?" Similar extracts might be quoted from the dogmatic and polemic writings of Luther and Calvin. And yet, nothing would be more inaccurate than the deduction which they warrant, if taken thus in isolation. It would be like inferring the theology of Cowper from the lines:

there lives and works

A soul in all things, and that soul is God.

Still, Historical Tables, and these in particular, are a great aid to an advanced student, even within the province of internal history; because such an one is competent to make the requisite qualifications, and to look up the citations in their original connections. After a careful study of the general history, the monograph, the immediate sources, and the manual, there is no more important exercise, than to review and condense the whole, in the clear and succinct resumé of these tables.

We observe typographical errors which will doubtless be corrected in future issues from the plates. We notice, also, that Professor Smith repeats the error, to which some currency has been given of late, of representing the elder Edwards as rejecting the doctrine of immediate imputation, and holding to that of "mediate imputation" (p. 73, m). Neither Edwards nor Stapfer adopted the view of the school of Saumur, but held, as did Turretine and Heidegger, to both immediate and mediate imputation.

We hope that the author and the publisher of these very convenient and elegant tables may find their reward for their labors, in an extensive circulation. It is one of the encouraging signs of the times, that historical works are multiplying in our young and unhistorical country; and, among the publications of the American press, we know of no one that will do more to facilitate the studies of historical students than this.

THE PRONUNCIATION, VOWEL-SOUNDS, AND ACCENTUATION of the LATIN LANGUAGE, by W. Corssen. First volume. 1858.1

THE Prize offered by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Berlin for the best treatise on the Ancient Pronunciation of the Latin Language, furnished the occasion for the present work. It received the prize from the Academy in 1857, and has since been carefully revised for publication. The plan of the work embraces three distinct topics: I. The Latin Alphabet; II. The System of Vowel-Sounds; III. Accentuation. The last subject, which is reserved for a future volume, will embrace: 1. The System of Accentuation; 2. Its Relation to Latin Versification. The volume before us discusses the first two topics, under a long array of sub-divisions.

The work bears unmistakable evidence of ripe scholarship, and of patient research. It is a thorough and elaborate investigation, evincing a familiarity with the literature of the subject, and a ready command of all the requisite materials, whether furnished by Latin poets, by ancient grammarians, by inscriptions, or by modern research. A thorough and exhaustive treatise on this subject, like the one before us, could have been produced only by the present school of philology. Many of its conclusions could have been reached only in the light of recent philological researches. It could not have preceded the great works of Lachmann, Ritschl, Mommsen, Hensen, Bopp, and Lepsius, for it is itself the fruit of these works. We commend it to the attention of American scholars, as the most learned and complete investigation of the subject with which we are acquainted.

PROF. SCHAFF'S HYMN Book.'

There are some important differences between a German and an American or English collection of hymns for the sanctuary. One of the most notable distinctions is seen in the comparative length of the hymns. The Germans are so enthusiastically attached to sacred song, that they love to sing sixty or seventy lines at one time. The first hymn in Dr. Schaff's Collection consists of forty lines; the sixth, of seventy-two lines; the one hundredth and tenth contains one hundred lines.

Dr. Schaff has made a rich selection from the treasures of German song. It is refreshing to peruse these old and deeply spiritual stanzas; and to reflect on their wonderful history. The historical notes of Dr. Schaff are also

'Ueber Aussprache, Vocalismus, und Betonung der lateinischen Sprache. 2 Deutsches Gesangbuch. Eine Auswahl geistlicher Lieder aus allen Zeiten der christlichen Kirche. Nach den besten hymnologischen Quellen bearbeitet und mit erläuternden Bemerkungen über die Verfasser, den Inhalt und die Geschichte der Lieder versehen: von Philipp Schaff, Doctor und Professor der Theologie. Probe Ausgabe. Philadelphia: Lindsay and Blakiston; Schäffer und Koradi. Berlin: Wiegandt und Grieben. 1859. pp. 663. 12mo.