* * * * * _Punishment by Death: Its Authority and Expediency. By Rev. George B. Chester. One vol. 12mo. pp. 156. New York: M. W. Dodd._ Several able sermons on this important subject have issued from the press. This is a more extended and elaborate effort. It displays learning, research, and philosophical acumen, and is worthy of general and serious attention. We know of no treatise in our language, on this subject, so well calculated for circulation among the people at large. It is brief, clear, comprehensive, written in an interesting style, and often rising to a strain of vivid and stirring eloquence. About half the volume is devoted to the argument from Scripture; in which the original Noahic ordinance is taken as the ground-work, commented upon in the Mosaic statutes, and confirmed in the New Testament. The writings and experience of Paul are examined, and the course of the Divine Providence is shown to be consentaneous with this argument. The state of legislation and society in the antediluvian world, as well as afterwards, are investigated, with the origin of government, and the nature of its sanction in the Scriptures. The remainder of the book is taken up with the argument from Expediency. The question is examined, What constitutes the perfection of criminal jurisprudence! The efficacy of punishment by death in restraining crime is argued, and also that the abrogation of this punishment would prove a premium on the crime of murder, through the desire of concealing other crimes. The law of nature is examined, with the powerful convictions of conscience on this subject, as sustaining the Divine legislation, and demanding support also in human law. Various objections are considered and answered, with the occasion of the prejudice against Capital Punishment. The book concludes with a chapter on the power and solemnity of the argument from analogy, in reference to the sanctions of the Divine Government. * * * * * _A Popular Treatise on Agricultural Chemistry: intended for the use of the Practical Farmer. By Chas. Squarey, Chemist. One vol. Lea & Blanchard: Philadelphia._ An excellent work, in which most of what is really valuable in the treatises of Liebig, Davy, Johnson and Daubeny, has been condensed for the practical reader. * * * * * _Tecumseh, or the West Thirty Years Since: A Poem: By George H. Colton. 12mo. pp. 412. New York: Wiley & Putnam, 1842._