This magnificent volume, with its superb illustrations, letter-press and binding, seems to have been published with a determination to rival those English houses who supply the American market with splendid gift-books. It contains seventeen ideal portraits, engraved from original designs for this work, and conveying all the varieties of expression which religious emotion communicates to the human countenance, from the humblest penitence to loftiest rapture. The notices are by the editor, assisted by Dr. Sprague, Dr. Kip, Dr. Ingen, Dr. Parks, the Rev. Mr. Osgood, and a few other eminent clergymen. The volume will be found especially interesting to those who delight in whatever increases their knowledge of the manners and the character, the sufferings and the heroic resolution of the early Christians. The lives of these women is a representation of Christianity as embodied in feminine character; and the study is curious in its metaphysical as well as its theological aspect. Among the best of the communicated articles, is that of St. Agnes, by Mr. Osgood. The conclusion we quote for the pointedness of its application. “To us,” says Mr. Osgood, “this Roman girl stands as a sacred ideal of the Christian maiden. Her name we may not invoke in prayer. Her purity and heroism we may admire and commend to the honor of the maidens of our time, who are tempted by powers more insidious than the arts and threats of Sempronius. The world has not changed its heart so much as its creed and costume. Its corrupt fashions would tyrannize over our daughters with the pride of the Cæsars, and a meretricious literature lurks in our journals and romances more dangerous to maidenly purity than the den of shame which assailed only to illustrate the virtue of Agnes. True to her soul and to her Saviour, the Christian maiden wins to her brow a radiance which, instead of being dimmed by marriage, is rather brightened by the affections of the wife and the sacrifices of the mother, into the aureola of the saint.” * * * * * _Greenwood Leaves. A Collection of Sketches and Letters. By Grace Greenwood. Second Series. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 12mo._