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of her father's death, and the straitened resources of the family; for the magnificent estates of Orange had been nearly spent in the contest with Spain. Transferred to Heidelberg, the years she passed there at the head of her husband's court were the most prosperous, and, as far as we can gather, also the happiest, of her life. The Elector appreciated the high moral qualities of his wife, although, we may conclude, he did not always find himself able to imitate them for in the Tagebuch kept by the ingenuous Elector still extant at Heidelberg, among the daily records of masquerades, hunting, Scripture-reading and sermon-hearing in the fashion of those times, comes the somewhat startling entry, Bin ich fou gewesen.' The Elector died in 1610. The clause in his will, providing that the children should remain with the 'geliebte Frau Mutter,' proves the Elector's confidence in his pious wife. From her husband's death date her troubles, amongst the lightest of which must have been the diminished dignity of her position, after her son's marriage, as Electress Dowager. She retired to her dowry lands, though she seems to have maintained the peace with her extravagant daughter-in-law, Elizabeth of England; for we find her much occupied with the cares of her grandchildren, when the gaieties or misfortunes of Elizabeth's life left her no leisure for the charge.

It was the Electress Juliane alone of all her son's advisers who opposed his foolish ambition with respect to the crown of Bohemia: with a sagacity worthy of her illustrious father, she alone foresaw the bitter enemies it would raise up against him. Her entreaties were disregarded, but the evils she predicted came; the Palatinate was ruined, and even her own revenues as Electress Dowager were withheld by the Emperor. She was indebted to her son-in-law, the Elector of Brandenburg, for a home for many years, and for the domestic peace which surrounded her at the close of her life. The account of her last hours, given with much simplicity, is one of the best specimens of the author's powers which the book affords; but it is too long for quotation.

The book has been compiled with care, and displays much conscientious research amongst the original papers of the times. As such, it is a valuable addition to historical biography, or would be but for one serious defect which sadly mars its merits as a literary performance. The authoress, especially in the earlier portion, turns aside from her narrative, and presents to the reader certain reflections, partly sentimental, partly religious, which she judges applicable to the situation of the moment. These, however unobjectionable in themselves or even excellent, are quite out of place in a work like the present. The character of her heroine, as we gather it from these pages, stands in no need of the supports her biographer is so anxious to offer; and if the lessons' afforded by a pure life, earnest piety, and unshaken confidence in God under the shocks of earthly misfortune, do not commend themselves to the reader's heart and judgment, they are little likely to be enforced by a repetition of the commonplaces of religious sentiment.

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Sunsets and Sunshine; or, Varied Aspects of Life. By Erskine Neale, M.A. London: Longmans. 1862.

Poetry,

THERE is a sense in which every man's death is a sunset. however, has appropriated the word to her own uses, and it is now the accepted symbol of those exits from this world over which faith, and hope, and love shed their blessed radiance. In selecting the title of his book, Mr. Neale must have forgotten the poetry of the word; for it is one of the most sunless books that ever came into our hands. It contains the record of sixty-three deaths, most of which have evidently been selected for their tragical type. There is in this catalogue of mortality the strangest commingling of names. We have a picture of Count Batthyani, shot on the Holz Platz of Pesth; of Lola Montes, dying of dissipation, in New York; of the fourth Duke of Richmond, expiring in the agonies of hydrophobia, in a log-hut in Canada; of Huskisson, crushed by the locomotive at Liverpool; of the Marchioness of Salisbury, perishing in the flames at Hatfield House; of Castlereagh, weltering in the blood of suicide,-and, such is immortality, of Girling, bitten by a cobra in the London Zoological Gardens! Scattered up and down among these tragic recitals we have the case of the clergyman who perished some years ago among the defiles of Snowdon; of the gallant Colonel Willoughby Moore, who went down in the burning Europa; ' of Daniel Webster, Neander, Priscilla Gurney, and Dr. Adam Clarke. That nothing may be wanting to complete a list which comprises the names of Delta' and Caroline Fry, Mr. Neale gives us a picture of the last moments of Jameson, the miser, and of Ardesoif, the cock-fighter! These are varied aspects of life' with a vengeance.

The principles of selection adopted in this volume are certainly eccentric; but the author deserves great credit for the patient research by means of which he has contributed many items of interest to biographical literature. The motive of the work is praiseworthy, and the moral lessons founded upon many of its details are pointed and powerful. But whether a book of so morbid a tendency will prove of ultimate value is a matter of grave doubt. The mission of the truth is to win, rather than to terrify; and the lessons of a holy death are infinitely more telling than those of a life setting among clouds and horror.

Satan as Revealed in Scripture. By Rev. W. R. Tweedie, D.D. Edinburgh: John Maclaren. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1862.

THE title of this treatise, which Dr. Tweedie modestly calls a tract, does not exactly designate its contents, more than half of the volume being devoted to historical and personal illustrations of Satan's power. The first chapter is occupied with the names, the allies, and the personality of the tempter, upon all of which the Doctor holds the orthodox view. He omits, however, in treating on the names of Satan, to mark the distinction between διάβολος and δαίμων, which our English version unfortunately does not preserve. In the second chapter we have a very brief examination of the most conspicuous appearances of Satan in the

Bible history. The Fall, the case of Job, the numbering of the people by David, the resistance to the high priest in the vision of Zechariah, the great assault in the wilderness, the entering of Satan into Judas Iscariot, and the demoniacal possessions of the New Testament, are passed in rapid review. The Doctor carefully avoids anything like a speculative treatment of these most interesting points, and adheres rigidly and absolutely to the basis of express revelation. The third chapter deals with historical illustrations of the agency of Satan, as seen especially in those mighty counterfeits of Divine truth, and of the great facts of man's moral history, with which the world, and more especially the Church of Rome, abounds. A few words are given to illustrations of. Satanic influence in personal experience,-to modern forms of deception, such as clairvoyance and spirit-rapping,-and to objections brought against the teachings of Scripture; and the Doctor closes with an exultant anticipation of the final downfal of the great enemy of God and man.

We cannot speak too highly of the reverent regard for the simple utterances of the Divine Word which this volume exhibits throughout; and yet we fear that the author has not met the need which he felt of 'some manual of a scriptural character regarding Satanic agency.' The work before us is not exhaustive enough to meet the requirements of scientific investigation; nor, if intended for purely popular edification, can we understand the introduction of French and German quotations. A plain statement of the Scripture doctrine concerning Satan and his work, such as John Wesley would have loved to write, is yet needed for the masses; and, at the same time, the Church requires a treatise, which, while formed solely on the revelation of God, will deal with and expose those philosophical difficulties with which many devout and earnest Christians have daily to contend.

The Week of Prayer. By the Rev. Robert Oxlad. London: James Nisbet and Co. 1862.

In answer to the invitation of the Evangelical Alliance, one of the first weeks of 1861 and 1862 was set apart by Christian Churches throughout the world for special and united prayer. Mr. Oxlad very properly regards this fact, unparalleled in the history of the Church, as one of the greatest magnitude and importance, and exults in the prospects which such a fact calls up. But while glorying in the increasing unanimity and vigour of the Churches, he looks upon the season of success as the prelude of some crisis of trial, and discerns, in the providential advantages which encompass us, and which contribute to general religious improvement, elements which may be perverted so as to prove fatal to the interests which they are given to subserve. Foremost among these pervertible advantages are the progress of science, the extent of intellectual excitement, and the study of biblical criticisms The theories of Mr. Darwin, the Essays and Reviews, the critical canont of Professor Jowett, are cited as illustrations. Among the dangers of the day Mr. Oxlad concludes that the only safe and rational course to pursue, is to fix upon the fundamental truths, which no revision, no

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logic, no criticism, no discovery of new and subordinate truths, can subvert.' The whole of his Essay is pervaded by a devout, catholic, and intelligent spirit. It is a most seasonable production. The latter half of the volume is devoted to poems on the subjects proposed for each day of the week of prayer.' These poems do not enhance the value of the book. They prove that a man may be a very devout Christian, a considerable philosopher, and yet an indifferent poet.

Deaconesses; or, The Official Help of Women in Parochial Work and in Charitable Institutions. An Essay, reprinted, with large Additions, from the Quarterly Review, Sep., 1860. By the Rev. J. S. Howson, D.D. London: Longmans. 1862.

THE question of employing systematic female agency in works of benevolence and religion has lately occupied a large share of public attention. The numerical excess of the female population, the difficulty of finding remunerative occupation for women in the middle and lower classes, and the number and miserable condition of the female outcasts in our large towns,-have contributed to this result; while the success which has attended certain partial and desultory efforts to bring the influence of woman to bear on the relief of the distressed and the reformation of the fallen, has encouraged the formation of some more general organization of female usefulness.

It is notorious that such organizations are viewed with strong suspicion and dislike by a great majority of the English people. Nor are the reasons obscure or unsatisfactory. The gross scandal associated in Protestant minds with the history of conventual sisterhoods; the hearty English hatred to monastic restraint; the revival some years ago of celibacy by the Tractarian section of the established clergy; the semi-Popish practices introduced into such establishments as that of Miss Sellon at Plymouth, and other reasons, abstract or political, have fostered an intense antipathy in this country to professional female communities, especially of a religious or semireligious character. We well remember the jealousy with which the mission of Miss Nightingale and her staff of nurses to our army in the Crimea was regarded by a numerous section among us; and we should be the last to deny that, speaking generally, there was much in the history of similar enterprises to excuse that jealousy. The example of that excellent and devoted lady, however, and the results of her heroic and disinterested self-sacrifice, have done much to soften unreasonable prejudice on the subject, and to clear the way for a calm and dispassionate consideration of it. We cannot but hope that the time is full of promise for a thoroughly practical and profitable discussion; and that before long we shall behold a variety of thriving associations for the disciplined employment of women in woman's truest and holiest work; and such volumes as the little work of Dr. Howson now before us will do much to promote so desirable a result.

The question which is discussed in these pages relates to the employment of women professionally devoted to tending the sick, educating the

young, rescuing the degraded of their own sex, and similar works,-such women to be as distinct from their desultory lady-visitors on the one hand as from conventual sisterhoods on the other. That woman's place and work is emphatically that of helping is obvious; and anything that will render her more fitted for that place and work, provided it be duly guarded from abuse, should surely be at all times welcomed. But, as Dr. Howson forcibly argues, the peculiarities of our English social life in the present day imperatively call for more attention to this matter. "The congestion of the poor to our large towns,' coincidently with 'the radiation of the rich from them,' is one of the most characteristic social features of the time. One effect of this is to separate the two classes more widely than ever from each other; to deprive the poor, to a large extent, of the services of the rich in sick-visitation, Sunday-school instruction, and similar works, and to inflict a proportionate injury upon the rich themselves. This is in some degree inevitable, however much we may deplore it; but, in such circumstances, it becomes a very serious question whether we may not fill up the void by the creation of a respectable skilled agency adapted to the material and moral needs of the labouring classes. And such an agency, to be really effective, must be feminine. The reason of the case, and the experience of such organisations as that of the Bible-women, assure us that, if we would carry true relief and comfort into the abodes of poverty and sickness, and would reform the cottage-homes of England by reforming the women who preside over them, we must employ benevolent, pious, and skilful females in the work.

a

It is hardly necessary to say that Dr. Howson regards his subject from a Church-of-England point of view. He could not well do otherwise; but he has pursued his argument in spirit of eminent liberality, fairness, and earnestness; and we see no reason to quarrel with the main conclusions at which he has arrived. Perhaps we should be as naturally prejudiced against some of his suggestions, as he is in favour of them. And yet he is no one-sided theorist. After showing the need of systematic and trained female effort, he proceeds with some notices of the diaconate in the primitive Church, and of certain Deaconess Institutions among the Protestants of Germany, Switzerland, and France. The mention of these incidentally introduces the discussion of nearly all the points involved in the question itself. The internal discipline varies very considerably; but all of them agree in discarding conventual vows, and in ardent attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation. After showing what has been done in England, the writer discusses, with fairness and temper, the objections grounded on the dread of a Romanizing tendency, the alleged un-English character both of the office and the name, the difficulty of finding suitable agents, the tendency to promote gossiping and quarrelling, the relations of the deaconesses to marriage, the discouragement of voluntary labour, and so forth. He seems to us to answer these objections very completely, and to make it out that a Deaconess Institute, for the purposes named, that is to say, an order of women professionally set apart for sick-visiting, education, and other benevolent and religious works,-might be incorporated most easily and advantageously with the parochial system. We agree with