Mr. Stone's book covers a period extending from a few years before the French War of 1745 to the death of Johnson in 1774. In accordance with its title, it is largely occupied with the "times" as well as with the "life" of its subject. In fact, it is a history of the period, relating with considerable detail contemporary events with which Johnson was connected only indirectly. This detracts from its character as a work of purely original research, to which, as far as regards the personal history of its subject, it is preëminently entitled.
Johnson's vast correspondence relates chiefly to matters of public interest, and supplies comparatively few of those details of private life which give liveliness to pictures of scenes and character. The book, in respect to execution, is perhaps necessarily unequal. The first seven chapters were written by the father of Mr. Stone, who endeavored to continue the work on its original plan. The attempt, always difficult, to carry out a design conceived in the mind of another, seems at the outset to have somewhat hampered the author; but as he proceeds with his work, his excellent qualification for it becomes more and more apparent. He is thorough and faithful in the use of his great store of material, and clear, vigorous, and often picturesque in his narrative. The period with which he deals is one of the most interesting and most important in American history, and the treatment is worthy of the theme. The hackneyed phrase, so often meaningless, is in the case of this book emphatically true,—that no library of American history can be said to be complete without it.
1. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living. By Jeremy Taylor, D. D. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
2. The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying. By Jeremy Taylor, D. D. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
The beautiful meditations of Jeremy Taylor, written in the intervals of the great English civil war, seem appropriate enough amidst these closing days of our own contest. While the English language remains, his delicious sentences will find readers and lovers; and the endless variety of choice learning with which his pages are gemmed would make them always delightful, were his own part valueless.
This copiousness of allusion makes no small work for his American editor, since even the latest English editions leave much to be supplied. It is an enormous undertaking to verify and complete all these manifold citations, and yet the present editor has been content with nothing less. Editors so conscientious are not easily to be found; and it is to the honor of Little, Brown & Company that they habitually secure such services, and thus make their reprints almost as creditable to our literature as if they were original works.
History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America. By Abel Stevens, LL. D., Author of "The History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century called Methodism," etc. Volumes I. and II. New York: Carleton & Porter.
The history of a religions denomination is in itself a matter of no small importance. Taken in connection with other ecclesiastical bodies as a portion of the data in estimating the national development, it is still more valuable. In the churches inhere almost exclusively the sources of influence available for the moral culture of the people. The pulpit, the pastorate, and the various other ecclesiastical appliances are potent in effects which cannot be produced by other causes. The higher educational institutions are under the direction of the religious bodies; while our common schools, though properly excluding sectarian influence, are yet indirectly and not improperly affected by the religious character of the community. Not only does the man who undertakes to write history, while ignoring the religious element, give us an incompetent and false representation, but no one can become a respectable student of history who does not carefully consider the religious development of society as proceeding under the guidance of the several denominational bodies.
Up to about the period of the Revolution the principal religious establishments in this country were the Puritans, occupying practically the whole field in New England, the Presbyterians preponderating in the Middle Colonies, and the Episcopalians in the South. There were other elements, as the Quakers and the Baptists. The former, though not without a considerable influence in shaping the national character, were less marked in their effect. The latter, though already an important body and destined to become still more so, and though in fervor and aggressiveness subsequently approximating the Methodists, were as yet so little distinct from the Puritans that we may regard them as substantially one with the latter.
Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism were then, as they have been ever since, conservative in their character and tendencies. Puritanism was radical in its views and sentiments, yet lacking that diffusive propagandist power inhering in conventional bodies. Methodism, coming in, supplied this lack, and at the same time appealed to vast masses which had not before been reached by religious influences. An argument might be found here, were any needed, in support of the voluntary system of religious establishments, as more perfectly adapting themselves to the various wants and peculiarities of the different classes of people. Suggestions also arise concerning the equilibrium so necessary in a free government, for the proper settlement of moral, social, and political questions,—an equilibrium between the conservative and progressive tendencies, which is far more likely to be attained when left free from any direction by the state.