"I have shown, I think, first, that the General Conference of 1844 could not, constitutionally, divide the Church, and did not claim to do it; but, on the contrary, disclaimed any such intention. Secondly, that what they did do was wholly conditional. That the conditions failed, and that the leaders in the South continually violated the plan from the adjournment of the General Conference of 1844, until the plan was entirely destroyed. I have shown that our side kept and observed the plan strictly, until our southern brethren wholly obliterated the boundary line by their repeated infractions of the plan, and that the plan being thus rendered null and void by the action of the southern leaders themselves, we have a good right to be here in Missouri, or anywhere else that we may be called in the providence of God to go." This document will furnish to all who may wish, a perspicuous and conclusive statement of the discussion with the Church, South, in regard to the abrogation of the "Covenant." (33.) "Vestiges of the Spirit-History of Man, by S. F. DUNLAP, Member of the American Oriental Society, New Haven." (8vo., pp. 404. New York: Appleton & Co. 1858.) This book seems to be written by a young man whose mind has run to a particular kind of reading until it has become, we fear, a little crazed. Its pages are overspread with a congeries of all the mythologies of the earth, among which the Bible is unceremoniously included; and whereever he is pleased to find a similarity, natural or far-fetched, he pronounces an identity. He has no conception of argument, and never proves anything. All his whimsies he utters as axioms; the sum total of which is, that all the religions of the world are about equally true and equally false. Christian reasoners have recognized the strong resemblance of many of the myths of antiquity to the clear, full, explicit narrations of the Old Testament. From the higher antiquity of the Hebrew writings, and their genuine historical character, these reasoners have inferred that the Biblical account is the original, and the others the dim distorted copy. Men of Mr. Dunlap's class, on very feeble grounds, assume that the Pentateuch is of modern origin, and hence its narratives are but the parallels or derivates of Pagan myths. Paley, in his Horæ Paulinæ, did, by a comparison of the Acts of the Apostles with Paul's Epistles, work out from the palpably undesigned coincidences of the two documents an argument surpassing even the force of the historical argument for the authenticity of the four Gospels, and placed the two documents on grounds which few, if any, scholarly skeptics at the present day impugn. We can specify one very similar undesigned internal trait in the book of Genesis, which we think few persons can examine without a deep intuitive feeling of the truth of the narrative. Let any man compare the state of Egypt as visited by Abraham with its state as visited by Joseph, and note the progress in wealth and power during the interval. The Pharaoh of Abraham appears not very greatly the patriarch's superior; and the presents he makes to Abraham are of a singularly rural character. But the Pharaoh before whom Joseph is summoned, is a magnificent monarch, whose presents are of a regal character, whose establishments are upon a munificent scale, and who requires a statesman of large views for his prime minister. And yet the differences of the two appear, not from formal description, but inferentially, by comparing groups of incidental facts. The perfect absence of all purpose, the natural keeping of each separate group, and the characteristic differences be tween the two, carry a force of conviction to the mind, very difficult to resist, of the genuinely historical character of the narrative. (34.) "The Banks of New York, their dealings, their Clearing House, and the Panic of 1857: with a Financial Chart. By J. S. GIBBONS. Thirty illustrations by Herrick." (12mo., pp. 399. Appleton & Co. 1858.) There are many of our readers, perhaps, who know what is a bull or a bear upon the prairies, but understand not the animals of that name in Wall-street. The mysteries of that wonderful locality are here laid open with a graphic pen, accompanied with pictorial illustrations, sufficiently instructive and abundantly amusing, without the necessity of sacrificing any truth to comic effect. It could hardly be supposed that among other remarkable phenomena, Wallstreet and its institutions could supply materials for a work more true than most history and more absorbing than fiction. (35.) "The Truth Unmasked and Error Exposed in Theology and Metaphysics, Moral Government, and Moral Agency. By Elder H. W. MIDDLETON, Panola, Mississippi." (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1858.) What sort of metaphysics it is that Elder Middleton unmasks, may be fairly judged by the following passage: "It is an important truth to be understood, that it belongs to the understanding to determine, think, choose, will, etc., and not to affections, or to an imaginary faculty that metaphysicians have unnecessarily figured up and called will." He had better replace the mask. (36.) "Almanach de Gotha. Annuaire Diplomatique et Statistique pour l'année, 1859. Quatre-vingt-seizième année." (24mo., pp. 886. Gotha: Justus Perthes.) We suppose ourselves to be indebted to our friend Westermann for this unique little annual. It is a small but compact and solid cube of information, in French, touching the calendar of the year to come, the genealogy of the royalties of Europe, the annals of the year past, and miscellanea hardly elsewhere to be found. Five miniatures of European illustrissimi adorn the earlier part. The author, L. Davanture, announces, in a style of polite gratitude, to his numerous patrons in all quarters of the globe, that on account of declining health the work will be discontinued. This is therefore to us a primus-ultimus. By (37.) " Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 the Author of the Thirty Years' View." Vol. IX. (8vo., pp. 780. New York: Appleton & Co. 1858.) This great national work is well entitled to the epithet of "The Benton Legacy." It will be a great standing reference for ages. The present volume extends through the administration of John Quincy Adams. V.-Educational. (38.) "A Treatise on the Greek Prepositions, and on the cases of Nouns with which these are used. By GESSNER HARRISON, M.D., Professor of Latin in the University of Virginia." (8vo., pp. 498. Philadelphia: Lippincott & FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XI.-11 Co. 1858.) Professor Harrison contributes an important share, in connection with Professors Bledsoe, Holmes, and Cabell, to the honorable reputation of the University of Virginia. The present is not his first philological obligation conferred upon the scholarship of our country; and when we consider that his fundamental researches are pursued amid the pressing labors of the practical instructor in an American college, the industry is as admirable as the talent. We owe not much ceremony to that pseudo-practicality which professes to despise the men who can "chase a particle through a library." He is a simpleton who imagines that a preposition is small in importance, because it is small in size. The nails and spikes of a ship are small in magnitude. But when Agib, the son of Cassim, in the "Arabian Nights," navigating too near the load-stone mountain, found his nails and spikes extracted from his ship, more neatly than a modern dentist could draw one's teeth, he discovered that nails and spikes are not so unimportant as they are minute. As the relations of things are often immensely more important than the things themselves, so relational terms in language are often more important than substantive. If we rightly remember, in "The Battle of the Books," so learnedly fought between those two stately octavos, "Stuart on Romans" and "Hodge on Romans," a large burden of the argument hinges upon the difference between óvтw kai and Kaí óvтwę. Gibbon very well knew that there was no truthfulness in the sarcasm, that in the days of the Homoousians and the Homoiousians "the whole world was in arms about a diphthong;" for that diphthong expressed an infinite difference. In the details of his process, Professor Harrison has not obliged himself to gather his examples, or rather his subjects, of analytical examination, from the wide-spread surface of classical literature; but has made use of such collections as the labors of others had made to his hand. To take, then, the primary and elemental idea of the particle, and trace the delicate windings and branchings, by which, without ever, perhaps, losing some trace of its original import, it attains to unexpected and difficultly-explained applications, is a process of the most exquisitely subtle logic. Such a process is not merely a mental curiosity, but a genuine utility in the matter of attaining perfection in the results of interpretation. Take the particle év, identical doubtless with our preposition in. It is by a very summary and uncouth method that a polemic will tell us that "in many cases it means with ;" and refer us to the passages where it presents such meaning, and there leave it. It cannot well be believed to change from the import of in to with, without our being able, if the literature of the subject be within reach, to trace the natural route by which the conception in has run into the conception with; and then the latter conception will, in all probability, show a remainder of the former. The particle will still in a sense signify in. Very plainly 'Ev roikią signifies in the house; the subject being supposed completely surrounded or enveloped by the container. And that is its natural, complete meaning. When, therefore, a subject is said to be baptized ¿v úðarı, it certainly somehow means baptized in water; and so we must say even in (év) spirit. That is, the primary idea that the element is a surrounder and a container is not wholly lost. Whether the subject be submerged in the ele ment, or the element enwrap the subject, he is still in. If the rain drizzle or sprinkle upon him, he is in the rain. And then come abridgments of the element, which, however reduced, the subject is still in. From requiring that the subject shall be completely enclosed by the element, our preposition will allow him to be touched with the element upon your finger-tip, and still be in. So in the Septuagint Greek, Ezek. xvi, 9, "I washed thee in water, Ev vðarı; if we must have complete immersion, what shall we do with the clause following: I anointed thee ev khai in oil? The very parallel clause will show that the preposition allows the element to be applied, by abridgment, in the slightest quantity to the subject, without wholly losing its reference to its original conception of in. The stately volume is done up in handsome style by Lippincott & Co.; more with a liberal purpose, we apprehend, to do honor to our native scholarship, than with the expectation of a “great run;" and yet we would hope our scholarly market sufficiently large to make it " "pay." (39.) "First Principles of Physics; or, Natural Philosophy. Designed for the Use of Schools and Colleges. By BENJAMIN SILLIMAN, Jr., Professor in Yale College. With six hundred and seventy-seven Illustrations." (12mo., pp. 720. Philadelphia: H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss. 1859.) This work will maintain a pre-eminent standing among our academic manuals in physical science. It embodies the latest words in that department. Its statements are clear, its illustrations copious, and the different topics are given with a fullness not usual in previous books of this class. (40.) "Elements of Natural Philosophy, designed for Academies and High Schools. By ELIAS LOOMIS, Professor in the University of New York. With three hundred and sixty Illustrations." (Pp. 351. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1858.) This excellent manual is less full than Professor Silliman's, but the name of its author assures its value for the class who need a work of its grade. (41.) The Ministry of Life. By MARIA LOUISA CHARLESWORTH, Author of "Ministering Children," etc., etc. (12mo., pp. 465. New-York: Carlton & Porter. 1858.) That this is a work by the authoress of "Ministering Children," is a fact that will awaken the attention of thousands of expectant readers. (42.) "The Hand-book of Standard or American Phonography. In five parts. By ANDREW J. GRAHAM, Conductor of the Phonetic Academy, New York." (New York: A. J. Graham, Phonetic Depot.) This work is the production of a gentleman who is at the head of his profession as a phonographer, and has done much for the diffusion of that beautiful art. It furnishes perhaps the best aid extant for a full acquirement by easy steps and lucid explanations of the entire principles. Mr. Graham has furnished some modifications of Pitman's system, by which, as we are informed by high professional authority, the contractions are rendered more effective, and the rapidity of the reporter's performance is greatly accelerated. If we are rightly in formed, the improvements are practically so self-demonstrative as to secure their immediate acceptance by practical reporters. Mr. Graham has, we are gratified to say, established a Phonetic Depot in 348 Broadway, (upper room,) at which the best furnishings for the phonographer, as blank "note books," pens, and books, can be procured. VI.-Belles-Lettres. (43.) "The Poetical Works of Fitz-Greene HALLECK. New Edition." (12mo., pp. 235. New York: Appleton & Co. 1858.) We do not pretend to dispute the public concord that Bryant is prince of American poets. Even here in our own Quarterly vatican, where we are brief, official pope, as the readers of our third article will perceive, it is allowed to go as the official faith that his throne is undisputed. But then in our own beating heart, in longcherished memory, we persist in retaining a darling heresy of our own. “I do not care who is your president," said Father Taylor some years ago in Faneuil Hall; "Daniel Webster has been my president this twenty years." We care not a demisemiquaver who is the public coronate; Fitz-Greene, the wizard, has been our laureate ever since our boyhood; ever since before our teens we accidentally pulled a nice-looking pamphlet from a lawyer's pile of literary rubbish, and began to read: "Fanny was younger once than she is now, And prettier of course," and our entranced soul floated along the current of facile and magic verse until we waked at the end from too brief an elysian dream, to wonder why it stopped; the laurel has been, to our mind's eye, upon that brow. We remember that Fanny was for a long time out of publication; and a friend of ours, like-spirited with ourself, imagining that the author, like the ostrich, had forgotten his offspring, sent many a mile to a college library to procure the relic, in order to copy it in manuscript and keep it as you would an antique, both for its perfection and its rarity. And the fluent language, the witty allusions, the magic power of transforming the objects of the moment into poetry, and now and then the spontaneous soar of the verse, twined themselves in our earlier memories. There was a certain John Rodman Drake, who always appeared to our own fancy a myth; a sort of reduplication or doppelganger, as the Teutons call it, of Halleck himself. The genius of each seemed so peculiar, so genuinely poetic, and yet the two were so like, that it seemed to us a little fanciful to suppose that two such should live in so unpoetical an age in the same most unpoetical of countries. And then to this being, real or imaginary, Halleck addresses an elegy containing words of tenderness, running in as sweet verse as ever poet wrought: "Green be the turf above thee, None named thee but to praise," etc. It is true that there was published Drake's Culprit Fay, a fancy piece, written, one might suppose, to show that true genius could as easily shed the hues of |