is highly satisfactory and valuable. But to our taste, he frequently errs by the ambitious rhetorical language in which he has clothed the discourses of the Great Teacher. The reverent simplicity of the original is but poorly reproduced by the florid phrases of modern oratory. In this way, the sacred impression produced by the Evangelists is injured, a lower tone of feeling is substituted, and the refined religious associations connected with their purity of language is sacrificed to the intellectual clearness which is aimed at by a more liberal use of rhetorical expressions than a severe and just taste would warrant. With this exception, we regard the present work as an important and valuable contribution to biblical literature. It displays extensive research, various and sound learning, and indefatigable patience. The numerous engravings with which the volume is illustrated, are selected from the most authentic sources, and are well adapted to throw light on the principal localities alluded to in the text, as well as attractive by their fine pictorial effect. We have no doubt that the labors of the studious author will be welcomed by his fellow students of the sacred writings, by preachers of the Gospel, and by Sunday School teachers, no less than by the great mass of private Christians of every persuasion, who can not consult his volume without satisfaction and advantage. (Published by Lane and Scott.) A valuable manual of ecclesiastical statistics is furnished by FOX and HOYT'S _Quadrennial Register of the Methodist Episcopal Church_, of which the first Number has been recently published by Case, Tiffany, and Co., Hartford. It is intended to exhibit the condition, economy, institutions, and resources of the Methodist Episcopal Church in this country, in a form adapted to popular use and general reference. Among the contents of this Number, we find a complete Report of the General Conference for 1852, a copious Church Directory, an Abstract of the Discipline of the Church, a list of the Seminaries of Learning and their officers, and a general view of the various religious denominations in this country. The work evinces a great deal of research, and the compilers have evidently spared no pains to give it the utmost fullness of detail as well as accuracy of statement. It does credit both to their judgment and diligence. To the clergy of the Methodist Church it will prove an indispensable companion in their journeys and labors. Nor is it confined in its interest to that persuasion of Christians. Whoever has occasion to consult an ecclesiastical directory, will find this volume replete with useful information, arranged in a very convenient method, and worthy of implicit reliance for its general correctness.