History of Maria Antoinette. By John S. C. Abbott. With Engravings. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 16mo.
This is another of Mr. Abbott’s beautiful series of pocket histories, having for its subject a story so exciting and so mournful that the novelist or dramatist could hardly treat its incidents with more pathetic effect than the chronicler who confines himself to the literal facts. The characteristic merit of Mr. Abbott’s books is the knowledge they display not merely of their subjects but of the exact nature of the ignorance of the general class of readers, and this merit is well illustrated in the present volume. The French Revolution is to most minds a confused mass of terrible events without any connecting principles; but few can read its history, as far as it is presented in Mr. Abbott’s simple and orderly narrative, without obtaining clearer ideas of the whole matter.
A History of American Baptist Missions in Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. By William Gammell, A. M., Professor in Brown University. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.
We like the present volume for the indication it gives of the rich materials for history and biography which lie almost unused in the various records of Christian missions. All the heroic qualities developed in man and woman by religious principles and religious passions, are visible in those records to the initiated eye, but they are commonly so submerged in the affected phraseology and sectarian jargon of mediocre compilers, that they are commonly set aside as vulgar and fanatical by the general reader. Professor Gammell has written a volume in which all the worn and wasted terms of the pedants of cant are discarded, and the subject, as far as the Baptist missions are concerned, is treated in a style intelligible to all who have any perception of beauty, holiness or heroism. The work, apart from its theological character, is one of great interest and excellence.
Sacred Rhetoric; or Composition and Delivery of Sermons. By Henry J. Ripley. Boston: Gould, Kendall & Lincoln. 1 vol. 12mo.
This treatise should be carefully pondered by all clergymen who have a contempt for the graces and proprieties of composition, arising from their apprehension of being interesting to their congregations. Professor Ripley has produced a searching treatise, in which, with a true critical remorselessness, he lays bare the defects of arrangement and composition most likely to beset the productions of his profession, and gives a clear statement of those principles which should guide the brain and pen of the preacher. The volume also includes Dr. Ware’s admirable “Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching.”
History of Wonderful Inventions. Illustrated with numerous Engravings on Wood. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 12mo.