LITERATURE.

NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

The Churchman in Scotland; or, the Scottish Crusade. IF religion be the highest-born spirit of heaven, patriotism is the noblest-born spirit of earth; and we sincerely believe that it is the joint operation of these two divine influences which have prompted the penning of a production unpretending, indeed, in bulk and form, but most important in scope and purpose.

For ourselves, we solace ourselves with the belief, that religious heat, though fanned by discord into burning flames, like great evil overruled for great good, often turns into a living fire, from which the spirit of truth arises, with healing on his wings, to sanctify our earth. Just as the electric light cuts its forked way in the visible world amidst the roaring of the elements, and the storm in all its fearfulness purifies where it passes, so do these warrings of men's opinions often chase away the pestilential vapours of moral evil. The human mind needs constant provocations to sustain its energies. Activity alone can keep it awake. When time runs on in a smooth current, the sentinel falls asleep at his post; but when danger threatens him, his faculties become quickened, and he is alert and active, and ready, if needs be, to die. It is just thus that evil often works its own cure. Let abuses but reach a certain point, and immediately there commences a re-action, which faithfully retraces the way to the starting point of truth. It was thus with the Reformation; it has been thus in all the world's great movements; it will be so to the end of time; and the religious agitations of Scotland but furnish us with another instance. It is war itself that leads to peace. Yet even in the din of the conflict the olive-branch ought to be reverenced, and our Author here holds it aloft. He would fain still the din of religious dissension, cement the disunited, and preach a Gospel peace. Not only does he urge its Christian necessity, but he shows the path which, if simply and faithfully trodden, must lead to the desired result. In this little work, he takes a clear, a masterly, a comprehensive view of those gradations of national circumstances which have led to the present unholy war in Scotland; with a firm, but gentle, and even generous hand, he draws away the veil by which the faults of either party are hid from their own eyes; and be it ever remembered, that these shrouds, like that of death, hide us only from ourselves; and

that the man who is most densely enwrapped to himself is the most strikingly exhibited to the gaze of others. Of whatever class or whatever party, those men who profess to honour our Master's attributes of peace and love ought to read this book. The very individuals who have taken up most hotly the weapons of war, are those most imperatively bound to receive the white flag and enter on terms of accommodation. Let the warmest of partizans in this field of religious contest rest on his arms, and weigh well the arguments here offered for his consideration. He is bound to hear whatever can be advanced on either side; and even if he possess but a nominal reverence for the dearer and gentler elements of Christianity, he must pause and listen to suggestions made in a spirit that would draw all men, on every side, into a circle of love and unity. We are not among the number of those who look for miracles; but we believe that while the voice of a trumpet-tongue might not be recognized from without, in the din of the battle, yet that the "still, small voice," notwithstanding the tumult, may be heard within.

Letters from the Isle of Man, in 1846.

THIS little volume is full of interesting information respecting a miniature territory, well-known by name, though indifferently familiarized to the general world by actual observation, and will prove an agreeable and acceptable contribution to the stores of our literature. The Isle of Man, being but a speck in the vast ocean, offering no peculiar temptation to casual visitors and summer tourists, and, consequently, retaining much of that primeval simplicity which, like a native crust, encloses even the diamond, is, on that very account, more interesting to all who love unhackneyed scenes. Even those who, in these our days of steam celerity, traverse the very limits of civilized society-putting a girdle round the earth in forty minutesscarcely pause in their flight, to glance at the little Island of Mona. Places of peculiar attraction, either from intrinsic beauty, or from lying within the localities of traffic or of pleasure, become the familiar haunts of a generation, in which the powers of personal locomotion have reached a point verging on the miraculous. This exemption from the list of fashionable attractiveness, has, however, the effect of leaving such retirements in possession of a certain degree of undisturbed native character; which, even though crude, offers a striking contrast to the high degree of artificial refinement, both intellectual and physical, which are the necessary results of the untiring commerce of the world. These "Letters from the Isle of Man" are valuable in

many points of view. They are written in an agreeable vein, full of ease, and with a perfect exemption from every species of affectation. We believe, with our Author, that the really striking features of our home views are forgotten and overlooked in the more piquant and attractive aspect of Continental scenery; and we are confirmed in the persuasion, that novelty, and not loveliness, is most often the charm which dazzles human eyes. But, passing over the features of a scenery which the hand of Nature has distinctly marked, we have, in the Isle of Man, much to please and interest. This little volume gives usbriefly, indeed, but satisfactorily-history, description, and every important characteristic of the Island. Here we have a sketch of its ecclesiastical history, the succession in its bishopric, its courts of law, and its fisheries. All these points are clearly elucidated; but there is another, which, while it shows the leaning of the Author's own mind, will supply a source of high gratification to the antiquary. We speak of the legends and old customs of the place-replete with matter for curious speculation. To the philosopher, also, this portion of the work will be suggestive of important argument. We measure the past by the present; and bringing both to bear upon what we presume may ultimately result, we draw such deductions of the intellectual capabilities of our mortal existence as may best enable us to anticipate to what height of intellect and refinement man, while still an inhabitant of earth, may finally attain. Leaving, however, the philosopher to draw his own conclusions, we submit ours to the reader, which is, that this little volume is replete with curious, agrecable, and interesting information.

The New Philosophy, Part I.

THIS "New Philosophy" purposes to teach us "a right understanding in all things.' This "right understanding" would prove nothing less than the regeneration of our intellectual faculties; and the result of such a regeneration would doubtless be like a universal resurrection of the mind from the grave of error, amounting to a new peopling of this world's creation.

The apostasy of our first parents sprang from different causes. Eve fell through a sin of the intellect; Adam, through a sin of the heart. The desire of our first mother was the craving of intellectual pride. The yielding of Adam was the weakness of his heart. Since that hour the causes of transgression appear to be reversed. The faults of woman generally spring from her impassioned feelings: those of man, from the aspirings of his understanding. Our author's paramount desire is to restore this

noble faculty, to reinstate the mind upon that high and intellectual throne, where it should reign as the true sovereign of every thought and action, reducing all to its just and legitimate dominion. Hence the little volume now under our consideration, in which, with great acuteness of reasoning and argumentative power, our author endeavours to establish a principle so great and so important. He would have all men shake off the shackles of enthralling custom, re-assuming the right use of their reasoning faculties, stimulating them to assert the birthright of the mind to guide all actions, and to reason out all good. Whether or not the world will go with him to his extreme conclusion, we will not anticipate; but this we say, that all that induces man to reflect—and to reflect upon his own conditionis good. Exercise is the great means of perfecting every human faculty, either mental or corporeal, making those who duly exercise it, recipients of the blessing which never can be detached from labour; and, when men are once brought to reflect -like the wise men watching the east-they, too, will see the star breaking through the darkness, which may lead their footsteps to the presence of the earth-born, but heaven-descended Divinity of Truth. Happiness is the great craving of the human heart, and what happiness can be found in error? We are wont to say that the great unction of sincerity hallows all actions; but even sincerity requires enlightenment, else were the adorations of the Indian before his idol an acceptable sacrifice to the Holy and Only One and yet the heart of humanity weeps over the mangled limbs, and the torn flesh, of the dying votary, whose bodily abandonment can never sanctify the sin of self-destruction. It is a noble object to teach men to reflect on their own nature, to induce them to enter on the great study of themselves; to analyse their own ingredients, and, by thus reading the book which the Divine Author hath written-the book of human nature, of which each of us is a volume, into the pages of which we but so seldom glance-to learn the lessons of true, undying wisdom. Our own heart is the book of destiny, in which the doom of eternity is entered.

HS