is not now so different as it was from that current in prosperity all classes of an overcrowded population, and so it has done and is still doing in Ireland; bat Irish landlords of Lisgar's stamp, accustomed to look closely to present needs, cannot see beyond them. Mr. Brassey does. Throughout his book, indeed, there runs a delightful vein of real human sympathy with his fellow-men of every nation, creed and class. He recommends courts of conciliation, to re-unite the temporarily widened gap between employer and employed; piece work, as a means of raising the earnings of the men without detriment to the master: the eventual shortening of hours to prevent the overtasking of the energies, in these days when the close attendance upon machinery taxes brain and muscle alike, and makes labour more severe than formerly, co-operative societies, in shapes shewn to work advantageously, as means for the settlement of disputes as to wages. He is a man of progress, not in the sense of feverish, restless excitement; but in the broad philanthropic sense, which looks to the eleva tion of the conditions of all classes, physically and morally; not a man whose piety begins and ends in his own money bags. And to Lord Lisgar and to the public generally, we commend the extract with which we close : "The importance of social reforms, and of secur ing the material well-being of the masses of or population, is now universally recognised. I con fess my doubts as to the efficacy of legislation in such Mr. matters. It must be remembered that all national expenditure for the benefit of the working classes which is not reproductive must be defrayed by additional taxes. Let the transfer of land be by al means facilitated, let railway communication be tween the centre of a great city and its suburbs be made as cheap as possible, let emigration be assisted by loans, if security can be taken for the repayment of such advances; but, granted that something may be done by these various means, I hesitate to adm that the State can be the chief instrument for eleva ting still higher the moral condition of the people The work is too vast for any Government to under take. It can only be accomplished by the self-hel; and self-sacrifice of the whole nation. And wher all shall have done their duty in their several stations. the pressure of unforeseen calamity upon some unhappy individuals and the incapacity of others wil leave a mass of suffering to our compassionate care, which it will task our best energies to relieve. The poor we shall always have with us; and the great peers, the landowners, and the men who have be come rich in commerce, must show themselves active in their sympathies for all just demands, benevolen and kindly in the presence of distress. The exercise of these excellent virtues, while it is in the first place a paramount duty, will undoubtedly bring with it to the State and the society in which we live, the immediate and priceless blessing of social union and contentment." FIRST BOOK OF BOTANY : being an Introduction to the Study of the Anatomy and Physiology of Plants, by John Hutton Balfour, F.R. S., Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh. London: William Collins & Sons. Now that the Natural Sciences are rapidly taking their true place in the education of the young, it has become a well recognised necessity that schools should be able to obtain accurate elementary textbooks. Publishers are beginning to manifest a keen appreciation of the revolution in educational matters which is quietly but surely taking place; and from all, sides we have announcements of forthcoming manuals and text-books of Science. Professor Balfour's little book is one of a series of elementary Science-text- | Botany, to at least as great an extent as any other of the Natural Sciences, requires to be taught practically, if it is to be taught with any real profit to the learner. If the pupil is to be taught Botany in the dead of winter, solely by means of text-books and diagrams, he may acquire a parrot-like knowledge of a number of technical terms, but he will assuredly acquire nothing else—-except, perhaps, a disgust at science in general. If, on the other hand, the leading facts of Botany are demonstrated to the beginner in the open fields, or by an appeal to actual specimens, he will be likely to gain some genuine acquaintance with the subject, along with some still more valuable knowledge of the scientific method of research, and some permanent and abiding love of nature-studies. So long as the teacher does not THE LAND OF DESOLATION : being a personal nar- If Dr. Hayes, arriving by night at a Greenland inn, terrupted. It was like the wind which moaning which protrudes into the sea, and in course of time becomes detached. The Panther was lying by the glacier, the artists were on shore, photographing; the sun was hot and, under its influence, cracklings and splittings had been going on in the glacier for some time. "Then without a moment's warning, there was a report louder than any we had yet heard. It was evident that some unusual event was about to happen, and a feeling of alarm was generally experienced." On the glacier was a forest of ice spires, and one which stood out quite detached, nearly two hundred feet high. "The last and loudest report came from this wonderful spire which was sinking down. It seemed, indeed, as if the foundation of the earth was giving way, and that the spire was descending into the yawning depths below. The effect was magnificent. It did not topple over and fall headlong, but went down bodily, and in doing so, crumbled into numberless pieces. The process was not instantaneous, but lasted for a space of at least a quarter of a minute. It broke up as if it were composed of scales, the fastenings of which had given way, layer after layer, until the very core was reached, and there was nothing left of it. But we could not witness this process of disintegration in detail after the first few moments, for the whole glacier, almost to its summit, became enveloped in spray-a semi-transparent cloud through which the crumbling of the ice could be faintly seen. Shouts of admiration and astonishment burst from the ship's company. Another and another came after in quick The greatest danger would scarcely have been suffi- succession, but each was smaller than the one precient to withdraw the eye from the fascinating spec- ceding it. The Panther was driven within two tacle. But when the summit of the spire began to fathoms of the shore, but she did not strike. Thank sink away amid the great white mass of foam and heaven our anchor held, or our ship would have been mist into which it finally disappeared, the enthu- knocked to pieces, or landed high and dry with the siasm was unbounded. By this time, however, other first great wave that rolled under us." The agitation portions of the glacier were undergoing a similar of the sea continued for half an hour. "The iceberg transformation-influenced, no doubt, by the shock had been born amidst the great confusion; and as which had been communicated by this first disruption. it was the rolling up of the vast mass that sent that Other spires, less perfect in their form, disappeared first wave away in a widening semicircle, so it was in the same manner, and great scales, peeling off from the rocking to and fro of the monster that continued the glacier in various places fell into the sea with a the agitation of the sea; for this new-born child of prolonged crash, and followed by a general hissing the Arctic frosts seemed loath to come to rest in its and crackling sound. Then in the general confusion watery cradle. And what an azure gem it was! all particular reports were swallowed up in one uni- glittering while it moved there in the bright sunversal roar which woke the echoes of the hills and shine like a mammoth lapis lazuli set in a sea of spread consternation to the people on the Panther's chased silver, for the waters round were but one mass deck. This consternation increased with every mo- of foam." The iceberg when measured was found ment, for the roar of the falling and crumbling ice to be a hundred and forty feet high above the water, was drowned in a peal, compared to which, the loud-giving a total depth of eleven hundred and twenty est thunder of the heavens would be but a feeble feet, since the proportion of ice below is to that above sound. It seemed as if the foundations of the earth as seven to one. Its circumference was almost a which had given way to admit the sinking ice, were mile. now rent asunder, and the world seemed to tremble. From the commencement of the crumbling till this moment the increase of sound was steady and unin manner. The visit to the ruins of old Norse settlements, long since abandoned either because the climate has changed, or because the circulation of the blood in man has become less heroic, are an interesting part of the book. The part which we could best have spared, is that which relates to the pranks of an American youth, nicknamed "The Prince," with a Greenland beauty, called Concordia. The book is Yankee, not in a disagreeable sense, but as having a strong tinge of Yankee adventurousness and audacity, which come out conspicuously-breaking through ice with the Panther. We are not told where the Panther was built, but she seems to have done credit to her builders. THE CHRISTIAN'S MANUAL: being a book of Directions and Devotions to be used daily, and especially in preparing for the Holy Communion. Toronto: Adam, Stevenson & Co. 1872. This little work, written, we believe, by an Anglican clergyman of the diocese of Toronto, and dedicated to the Bishop of the diocese, is extremely creditable to the earnest piety of the author. He evidently belongs to what is commonly called the "High Church," and his views on the Eucharist will, perhaps, prove unacceptable to some sections of his own communion; yet, controversy apart-and we do not think it is obnoxiously prominent-the "Manual" ought to be of essential service to all English Churchmen. It provides, within a brief space, a complete scheme of personal and family devotion, self-examination and preparation for the reception of the Communion. The prayers are, for the most part, taken from the Liturgy of the Church of England; the hymns, selected with admirable taste; and the admonitions to the reader, are well calculated to stimulate worshippers "to be spirituallyminded which," as St. Paul informs us, "is life and peace." We may add that the manual is, in point of price, within the reach of all, and that, typographically, it is all that can be desired. ORIENTAL AND LINGUISTIC STUDIES. The Veda, the Avesta; the Science of Language. By Wm. Dwight Whitney, Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in Yale College. New York Scribner, Armstrong & Co, This work is made up of a number of papers which originally appeared in American periodicals or were embalmed in the transactions of learned societies. The endowment of a Professorship of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology is, of itself, a creditable proof of intellectual life; and the republication of these essays seems to indicate that Prof. Whitney hopes to interest and instruct a wide circle of readers. As collected in the volume before us, they treat of two subjects more or less connected by the author: the sacred literature of the Hindu and Iranian nations, and the origin and development of articulate speech the former pertaining to Comparative Mythology, the latter to Philology. So far as the primitive religions of the Aryan race are concerned, the mass of educated men are still in gross darkness; but this is not to be wondered at, when dignitaries of the church are hopelessly at sea regarding the existing beliefs of the people they propose to convert. It was only the other day that the Archbishop of Canterbury pulled a hornet's nest youths, now studying English law at one or other of about his ears by stigmatizing a number of Hindu the Inns of Court, as "heathens" and "idolaters.” Dr. Tait went so far as to express the whimsical apprehension that London was in imminent danger of being converted to Brahminism. The imputation was resented with what appears to us unnecessary warmth; but the Hindu is extremely sensitive, disputatious, and fond of self-assertion. The truth is, the gulf between the creed of the intelligent Hindu and that of the lower castes and the pariahs is practically immeasurable. It is wider than that which divides the ethereal mysticism of Fenelon and Pascal from the simple devotion of the Italian contadino, or that which served to distinguish the mad capers of an Athenian slave at the Dionysia from the philosophic contemplations of the Porch or of the Grove. As far back as we can trace them in the Veda and the Avesta for both are of kindred origin—the Oriental beliefs were pure forms of nature-religion. Before the Hindu had set foot within the fertile peninsula-in a remote past when he still gazed wistfully across the Indus upon the promised land-his faith had found a permanent record in writings which are with us to this day. The gods of Greece are con jecturally resolved into human embodiments of the powers of nature; in India we find the spiritual religion itself, out of which sprang the Titans and their somewhat degenerate successors, the deities of Olympus. Anthropomorphism had not yet been de veloped when the hymns of the Rig-Veda were chanted by dusky worshippers. There was a god in the fire and a god in the breeze—in the rosy dawn and in the sober depths of the clear, blue sky. We are thus brought closer to the momentous question :— What is the origin of the world's religions? Did they uniformly begin with the impersonation, in a spiritual form, of the beauty and the power displayed in earthly phenomena ? Or was there an anterior faith,-purer than these which taught that there were not "gods many and lords many"-numerous as the manifestations of nature-but one God alone, whom men saw in clouds and heard upon the wind? A collection of writings which confronts the student with one of the great problems of this perplexing time, deserves the serious consideration of Christian and philosophic minds. It may be admitted that, at their best estate, the Aryan faiths, as we now know them, were but as broken rays, soon to grow hazy in the darkness. Still, to the eye of faith, they yet glow with some sparks of the Divine effulgence they possessed when first, like every perfect gift, they descended "from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." To appreciate the sacred writings of the East, we must first divest our minds of the prejudices which European contact with modern Hindu-ism has naturally excited. We must forget the modern institution of Suttee, the worship of Juggernaut and other kindred abominations and go back to "the infancy of the Hindu nationality, at the dawning time of Hindu culture, before the origin of caste, before the birth of Civa, Vishnu or Brahma, before the rise of the ceremonialism, the pantheism, the superstition and idolatry of later times." Bearing this in mind, we have "enough to attach a high and universal interest to these books-that as, in point of time, they are probably the most ancient existing literary records of our race, so, at any rate, in the progression of literary development, they are beyond dispute the earliest we possess, the most perfect representation of the primitive lyrical period"—for the form of the Vedas is that of lyrical poetry. Prof. Whitney gives an interesting view of each of the four Vedas which constitute the mantra of the Hindu theology. His second paper, devoted to the "Vedic doctrine of a future life" is exceedingly interesting. For over two thousand years past, the doctrine of metempsychosis has prevailed in India; but this was not countenanced in the Vedas. Here we have a simple faith and ceremonial, based upon a firm trust in the immortality of the soul :-"Yama hath found for us a passage; that's no possession to be taken from us, whither our Fathers of old time departed, thither their offspring, each his proper pathway." "Death was the kindly messenger of Yama, and hath thus sent his soul to dwell among the Fathers”—“ they who within the sphere of earth are stationed, or who are settled in the realms of pleasure." The parallel passages in Scripture will readily occur to the reader, and even "the fore-heaven as the third heaven is styled, there where the Fathers have their seat," revealed in trance to St. Paul, finds mention in Hindu verse. We ought now to proceed to a consideration of the Avesta, or Zend-avesta, as they are sometimes incorrectly termed the Persian sacred writings, with which the name of Zoroaster, the Moses of the Iranian race, is intimately associated. Those who call to mind the connection which subsisted between the conquerors of Babylon and the Jewish race, restored by them from captivity, will readily recognize the interest of the subject; our limits, however, forbid even a slight sketch of this important portion of the work under review. In the remaining papers, Prof. Whitney discusses the origin and development of language—a subject too vast to be hastily noticed here. We should like to have been able to give them unqualified commen dation; but they are largely controversial, and the discussion is not conducted, unfortunately, in a temperate and becoming spirit. It is deeply to be regretted that, in treating of a purely scientific question, national jealousy and self-sufficiency should be permitted to insinuate themselves. Our American friends ought not to mistake the pursuit of knowledge for its attainment as Prof. Whitney is prone to do. Especially do we protest against the rude and unscholarlike attack upon so respected a name as that of Max Müller. In some parts of this volume the author is prodigal in the Oxford professor's praise; in others, he is as coarsely vituperative. Indeed we have a shrewd suspicion that the New Englander owes the European scholar more than he is willing to acknowledge, and that, as sometimes happens, the abuse is but a measure of the felt, but unacknowledged, obligation. One of Max Muller's unpardonable sins is that he is the supreme authority in England on philological subjects—a sufficient reason, it would appear, for an attack hardly less bitter than St. Bernard's onslaught upon Abélard and the Nominalists. Continental scholars are treated with a little more courtesy, but they are also the victims of what Max Müller terms Prof. Whitney's “over confdent and unsuspecting criticism." Bleek and the Simious (!) Theory, Schleicher and the Physical Theory, and Steinthal and the Psychological Theory are all astray, and are likely to continue so und they espouse the "scientific theory" which, of course, is that of the professor himself. An English sergeant-at-law once remarked, "that the oftener be went to the West, the better he understood how the wise men came from the East :" it is to be feared the saying will receive a wider application, unless our American friends cultivate in season the humility which characterizes sound learning all the world over. These pugnacious manifestations somewhat mar Prof. Whitney's work; but they are not fatal blemishes. As an introduction to the subject of which it treats we commend it with pleasure to our readers. It will serve a good purpose if it only directs the student to the rich treasures of Oriental literature. |