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The Bible and Working People. By Alexander Wallace, D.D., Glasgow. Seventh thousand. Pp. 304. Edinburgh: William Oliphant and Co. A SERIES of fifteen lectures on the Bible, delivered originally in Bradford, and first published in 1852. The titles of the lectures run thus:-False Impressions; The World in Darkness; The Day Spring from on High; Old Testament, Origin and Completion; New Testament, Antiquity and Genuineness; The Divine Oracle its Own Witness; Miscellaneous Characteristics; The Bible and the Love of Nature; Design and Destiny of the Bible; Divine Adaptation; The Bible Adapted to all Men; Social Influence of the Bible; The Bible and Social Economics; Objections; Conclusion. The object of the course was to cultivate a better understanding between the friends of Christianity and the working classes, and to remove from the minds of the latter objections, where these exist, to the rightful claims of the Bible. The lectures seem to have already done good service in these directions, and will no doubt continue to do so, for Mr. Wallace wields an able pen, and deals with his subject, according to his light, in a candid, earnest, and impressive manner.

The Scattered Nation. Edited by C. Schwartz, D.D. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. THE editor says:-'Let me briefly state what our God has done for us. In October, 1864, I arrived in London, a foreigner and stranger, but animated by an earnest desire to do for my Jewish brethren, converted and unconverted, all that God would enable me to do. I had been a Jewish missionary for the last twenty-two years, in Germany, Turkey, and Holland; but I knew perfectly well that no place was so suitable for this work as London, the metropolis of the world. Daily intercourse with Jews, and prayerful consideration of their wants, convinced me that three things were highly desirable for the promotion of Christ's kingdom amongst Israel:

1. A home for young and educated Jews who had learned no trade, but were either engaged in business or in studies, and who had lost everything in consequence of their confession of Christ.

2. A periodical wherein the cause of Israel could be pleaded, and the Israelitish view and exposition of Scrip

tures be given, along with answers to the continual attacks on the truths of the Gospel by Jewish writers, more especially by the Jewish Chronicle.

3. A union amongst Hebrew Christians, which was to be a witness to Jews and Christians, and a centre for all Hebrews who had been cast out by their own nation, and yet were not ashamed of the hope of Israel.

The Hebrew - Christian Alliance, blessed be God, is a fact, and though as yet a tender plant, it grows and begins to yield fruit to God's honour.

The magazine exists, and by God's goodness has found favour in the eyes of many of His children. It is no smal 1 undertaking to start a monthly in London; and even my best friends shook their heads when I laid before them my intention. They thought it very desirable, but Well, the Lord has helped us; our periodical exists, and if our present friends continue faithful, as I fully believe they will, and bestir themselves to gain new subscribers, the "Scattered Nation" will not only be regularly continued, but will occupy its place amongst those publications which give no uncertain sound, and testify of the truth against every kind of error by unfurling the banner of the King of Israel and the Head of the Church.

"The home began like a mustard seed, and has grown wonderfully within a short time.'

Essays and Discourses on Popular and Standard Themes. By T. W. Tozer, minister of the First Congregational Church, Dudley. Pp. 374. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row. A DOZEN plain, practical discourses on popular excuses for the neglect of religion and religious ordinances; on buts;' on religious and social dissensions, their cause and cure; on young men from home, their dangers and duties; on mutual confidence the want of our churches; on domestic life, its duties, pains, and pleasures; on Christian assurance; on the sad soul's Comforter; on the human conscience; on the new birth; on repentance; and on man's assimilation to the Divine image. The writer belongs to the Evangelical' school of theology, of which his writings bear all the tokens. His tone is earnest, but calm, and governed by good sense. In the first two essays he deals with the

obstacles to the working man's attendance on public worship.

Hints for Whom They May Concern. No. 2. Capital Punishment. Dedicated to the Church. London: F. Bowyer Kitto, 5, Bishopsgate Without.

WE opened this pamphlet in the hope of finding in it some useful advocacy of the abolition of capital punishment. The author's real object, however, proves to be to expound and illustrate his peculiar theology. He shows much ability in clothing in very telling language such crude notions as he has yet attained to of the matters of which he treats; but a mind that can see no legitimate object in punishment beyond the reformation of the offender, a judgment that can admit no proper and useful deterrent operation in punitive administration, is really not capable of dealing with this great question.

The Man of Sorrows, and His Relationships. A Contribution to Religious Thought. Pp. 137. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row.

We find nothing original in this contribution, and much with which we heartily disagree. When a contributor to religious thought persuades himself to write about the Divine Beings,' we throw down his book in despair.

The Gospel Magazine and Protestant Beacon. Edited by the Rev. D. A. Doudney, D.D., incumbent of St. Luke's, Bedminster, Bristol. London: W. H. Collingridge, 117 to 119 Aldersgate-street.

THE number for June advocated the Sunday closing of public-houses, and contained a letter indignantly denouncing the disgraceful tumult got up by the opponents of a Guildhall meeting at Bristol.

Onward. The Organ of the Lancashire and Cheshire Band of Hope Union. London: Wm. Tweedie, 337, Strand. Manchester: Lancashire and Cheshire Band of Hope Union, Barlow's Court, 43, Market-street.

HAS recently been improved, and is a cheap and valuable publication.

An Address to a Pastor. Delivered at his Ordination. By R. Ingham. London: Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row.

The Christian as a Citizen, the Part He should Take, and the Principles which should guide Him in relation to Politics and Social Life. By the Rev. W. H. Bonner, of London, one of the vicepresidents of the National Reform League. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row.

A Few Friendly Words to Young Mothers. By One of the Maternity. With some Remarks upon Monthly Nurses, and Nurses in General. London: Wertheim and Macintosh, 24, Paternoster Row.

Old Jonathan; or, The District and Parish Helper. Published Monthly. Illustrated. London: W. H. Collingridge, 117 to 119, Aldersgate

street.

The Baptist Magazine. Monthly. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row.

The Church. Monthly. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row.

The Appeal. A Magazine for the People. Monthly. London: Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row.

Meliora.

OUR PERIODICAL PRESS.

1. Areopagitica, a Speech on the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England. London. November, 1644.

2. Mitchell's Newspaper Directory for 1867.

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By John Milton.

3. The Edinburgh Review' and the Quarterly Review.' October, 1864.

4. The Athenæum,' the 'Saturday Review,' 'Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper,' Punch,' The Tomahawk.' November 30th, 1867.

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5. Blackwood's Magazine,' the Contemporary Review,' 'St. Paul's.' December, 1867.

6. The Times,' the Daily Telegraph,' the 'Globe.' December 2nd, 1867.

7. The London Post Office Directory for 1868.'

WE

HEN reflecting upon the history of printing by moveable types-an art apparently so simple and of almost unrivalled value-two things are apt to strike us with surprise; first, that the invention should have been so long delayed; and second, that, when made, it should have been so slowly and imperfectly applied. Our astonishment upon the latter point, however, diminishes when we consider the circumstances of the age in which the fathers of typography lived and laboured. Copyists and scriveners naturally opposed an innovating art which threatened their existence; and there is but one answer to the inquiry-how should a popular literature Vol. 10.-No. 40.

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have flourished generations before any vestige of a popular demand? On the one side was a small widely-separated band of scholars anxious to possess themselves of the treasures of classical genius then for the first time placed within their reach; and on the other side was a heterogeneous multitude of the illiterate, nobles and princes included, able neither to write nor read, and seeing little occasion for troubling themselves to learn to do either. Intercommunication, too, was difficult between kingdoms, provinces, and even adjacent towns; and the populace were everywhere satisfied to gain their knowledge of current events, and to drink of the streams of instruction, through the itinerant agency of the pilgrim, the pack-merchant, the soldier, and the preaching friar. The masses were taught through the ear, not the eye, except when they gazed upon the symbolic service of the Church, or when, with perhaps greater admiration, they watched the rude miracle-plays performed for their spiritual good. With the Reformation, the printing press came into more vigorous and polemic play; its importance as an engine of agitation and propagandism could not be overlooked; and this, also, was the period when editions of many a magnum opus were struck off with a mechanical skill and exquisite finish hardly surpassable at the present day. Soon, however, the censorship was set up to curb the so-called wildness and licentiousness of the press, and this alone would have proved a great impediment to the spread of a periodical literature, had all other social influences been favourable to its growth. Such a literature first sprung up, as might have been anticipated, to gratify the universal thirst for news; and though we must regard as forgeries the British Museum copies of an English Mercurie,' claiming to have been issued by authoritie,' to inform Queen Elizabeth's lieges concerning the Spanish Armada and its fate; it is, nevertheless, the fact that 'Newsletters,' 'Mercuries,' &c., swarmed in the early Stuart times, and had the merit, if it be one, of narrating contemporary events in a style of political partisanship best adapted to please the friends of the inditers. The first weekly periodical was brought out (1622) by Nathaniel Butler, under the title of the Newes of the Present Week; but we have to pass on to the Restoration of Charles II. before we meet with a weekly sheet, Kingdom's Intelligencer (1662), which inserted advertisements and supplied notes of business in Parliament and the courts of law. L'Estrange followed with his paper, the Intelligencer, in 1663, which committed the happy dispatch' in favour of the Oxford Gazette (re-named the London Gazette after the removal of the Court to London). This

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official journal dates from February 4, 1665, and has remained for two centuries and more the medium of all Government proclamations and intelligence. L'Estrange, who was the official licenser in 1680, tried to establish a monopoly for his Observator, by procuring a royal order prohibiting the issue of all unlicensed new books and pamphlets; but the 'Glorious Revolution' was at hand, and gave a triumphant echo to the noble 'speech' of Milton, years after the eloquent pleader had seemed to be defeated and had fallen asleep. In 1709 the first English daily newspaper was published under the name of the Daily Courant; and in the April of that year appeared the Tatler, the earliest though not the most celebrated model of the periodical literary essay, treating in a lively and witty strain of things both new and old. These tiny periodicals, of the size of a four-paged tract, were generally short-lived, but as one succumbed to misfortune another rose to sparkle, and in its turn to fade. A stamp duty of a halfpenny imposed by 10 Anne, cap. 19, was intended to suppress the issue of pamphlets galling to the Queen; but the fairest flowers of the light current literature suffered as much from that nipping frost' as the veriest weeds. Daniel De Foe stands out as the originator of the modern Magazine or Review, and this without derogation to the honour of Edward Cave, who started the Gentleman's Magazine in 1731. In Edinburgh the Mercurius Caledonius appeared on the last day of December, 1660, with a glowing account of the reception of the King's commissioner; and once a week for three months this periodical of eight small pages (a copy of which, the first number, lies before us) continued to give a budget of carefully-sifted political intelligence to the Northern kingdom. The Caledonian Mercury was issued April 28, 1720, as the first weekly Scottish newspaper, and after many changes recently expired. As early as 1700, a small daily sheet under the name of Pue's Occurrences was issued in Dublin; and the Belfast News Letter commenced, in 1737, a weekly career which it still continues. In 1704 the Boston News Letter began to appear weekly, the first newspaper published on the American continent.

Periodical literature of all kinds made but little progress during the first half of the eighteenth century, and it was not till the last quarter of that century that the newspapers acquired an influence and appearance at all corresponding with that which they now possess. stimulated the activity of rival proprietors, and in the race for The great French war priority of news the Times, under the elder Mr. Walter's direction, not only distanced the other journals, but not unfrequently carried off the palm from the Government

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