This work, which is beautifully dedicated to Dr. Alexander, is written with much of the characteristic force and fervor of its author, and with more than his ordinary research and elaboration. He informs us that his purpose has been to help the inquiring soul and young Christian with counsel taken immediately from the unerring word: he has therefore studied conformity to scripture, rather than novelty of thought, and plainness more than grace of style. Yet there is in this volume much of the author's usual boldness of originality and peculiar felicity of expression. Our readers have been made acquainted with the high merits of Dr. Bethune as a poet, by his contributions to "Graham;" but highly as we appreciate his verse, there is a directness, an originality, an old-fashioned power in his prose which we prefer, and which we think place him in the first class of American writers. On subjects like that treated in the volume before us, his whole heart and mind seem to be poured into his pages; and in their perusal we doubt whether most to admire the divine or the rhetorician. _Keble's Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holidays throughout the Year. Philadelphia: Geo. S. Appleton. 148 Chestnut Street._ This beautiful volume is printed from the thirty-first London edition. Its merits are so well and universally known and appreciated that to review it would, to our readers, be tedious as a twice told tale. Suffice it to say, that its object is to bring the thoughts and feelings of worshipers into more entire unison with those recommended and exemplified in the Prayer Book. The poetry of this volume is often even worthy the exalted subjects of which it treats, and is never unworthy them. Its extraordinary popularity is the best evidence of its merit; for poetry is never generally and permanently popular without real merit. Transcriber's Note: 1. page 195--removed extra quote at end of paragraph 'boot-maker, landlady, and others?' 2. page 195--removed repeated word 'five' 3. page 198--changed comma to period at end of sentence 'knock the fort to pieces' 4. page 200--corrected typo 'litle' to 'little' in stanza beginning '"Spirit, I am of litle worth," 5. page 203--added missing end quote at end of poem 6. page 205--removed extraneous double quote mark from sentence '"Pooh! you green-horn!" said Jack Reeves,' 7. page 206--added missing single quote in sentence '...answered the skipper; so suit yourself' 8. page 213--changed punctuation at end of sentence '...now I am willing to die.,' to period + double quote 9. page 213--added missing double quote at end of sentence '...before I sail, with your permission.' 10. page 213--added missing double quote in sentence '...as we drove off. You told the truth...' 11. page 215--changed comma to period at end of sentence 'Yes, dear Frank,"'