Wesley and Methodism. By Isaac Taylor. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12 mo.
The author of this valuable and thoughtful volume is extensively known both in England and the United States as a philosophic writer on the great themes and great exponents of Christian faith. As in a former volume he considered Jesuitism in Loyola, its founder, so in this he views Methodism in Wesley. His penetrative and meditative mind, equally acute and sympathetic, readily discovers the connection between opinions and character, principles and persons; and by viewing sects and systems psychologically and historically in the characters and lives of their founders, he gives the interest of biography to the discussion of the most metaphysical questions of theology. His present work is eminently original and suggestive, evincing on every page the movement of a deep and earnest nature, and an intellect at once critical and interpretative. His own religious nature is too profound to allow his indulgence in any of those phrases of sarcasm, contempt, or pity, which it used to be fashionable to speak of Methodism and Methodists; but though he considers the religious movement which he analyses and represents as a genuine development of the principal elements of Christianity, and as second only to the Reformation in importance among the providential modes of vitalizing and diffusing the faith, he is still calm, reasonable and austerely just in his judgments. His criticism of the prominent Methodists is an example. He sees clearly that they were not great men mentally. “Let it be confessed,” he says, “that this company does not include one mind of that amplitude and grandeur, the contemplation of which, as a natural object—a sample of humanity—excites a pleasurable awe, and swells the bosom with a vague ambition, or with a noble emulation. Not one of the founders of Methodism can claim to stand on any such high level; nor was one of them gifted with the philosophic faculty—the abstractive and analytic power. More than one was a shrewd and exact logician, but none a master of the higher reason. Not one was erudite in more than an ordinary degree; not one was an accomplished scholar; yet while several were fairly learned, few were illiterate, and none showed themselves to be imbued with the fanaticism of ignorance.” In his sketches of Charles Wesley, Whitfield, Fletcher, Coke, and Lady Huntingdon, we have the truth given of those remarkable persons, unmixed with the exaggeration either of admiration or contempt. The volume as a whole, is the most comprehensive and accurate work on Methodism which we have ever seen.
Young Americans Abroad; or Vacation in Europe. Travels in England, France, Holland, Belgium, Prussia, and Switzerland. With Illustrations. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1 vol. 16mo.
This volume is a truly original book of travels, not so much because it describes new scenes, but because it describes them from a different point of view. It consists of letters written by three boys, whose respective ages are twelve, fourteen and sixteen, traveling in Europe under the care of their instructor, the Rev. Dr. Choules. Quick to see and eager to enjoy, fresh in mind and heart, these boys seem to write because they have much to say, and because their heads are so full of enchanting objects that a discharge of ink is absolutely necessary to preserve them from mental apoplexy. And we must admit that they have made a book which in interest, raciness and in the power of communicating their own delight to the reader, fairly excels many a volume of more pretension. The presiding spirit of the whole correspondence is, of course, the kindly and accomplished editor, a person who combines in an extraordinary degree, the joyous and elastic soul of youth with the large knowledge and experience of manhood. His own letters in the volume are very characteristic epistles, and add much to its value.
Adrian; or the Clouds of the Mind. By G. P. R. James and Mansell B. Field. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12 mo.
The authors of this American romance have produced a literary curiosity—a volume, every page of which is the product of two minds, without any apparent jarring of style or sentiment. In the conduct of the story, it is true, a little uncertainty is visible, but that appears to arise as much from the nature of the plot as from the presence of two hands in moving it forward. It is well written, has some capital descriptions of scenery and some very exciting incidents, and, in idea and sentiment, is a combination of English and American modes of thought and feeling. The scene in the Medical College is the most powerful in the volume.