Tins remarkable work is said to be by Major-General Hitchcock, of the United States Army, whose important services in the Mexican campaign and in our war with the Florida Indians will always command for him the grateful remembrance of his country. It presents many striking views, and at first glance appears to sweep somewhat breezily through the creeds and ceremonies of the external church. The danger, however, may not be great. The work is written in a spirit of forbearance and moral elevation that cannot fail to do good, if it is only to teach theologians that bitter warfare is no way to convince the world of the divinity of their opinions. The author affirms that he seeks to reestablish Christianity upon, its true basis. In opposition to existing churches, he places himself in the position of Saint Paul as opposed to the Pharisees, and says, with him, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing,"--or again, with the Spirit of Truth itself, he declares, "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." General Hitchcock believes that the New Testament was written by the Essene philosophers, a secret society well known to the Jews as dividing the religious world of Judea with the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was written for the instruction of the novitiates, and in symbolism and allegories, according to the oath by which they were solemnly bound. Whatever may be said of the truth of this theory, the interpretations it gives rise to are exceedingly interesting and instructive. The law of Moses, which all the Jews regarded as divine, the Essenes thought contained a twofold signification. They saw in it a letter and a spirit. As a letter it was the Son of Man, because written by man; as spirit it was the Son of God, because it proceeded from God. They held that the Pharisees murdered the spirit through adhering to the letter; and in the books which the Essenes themselves wrote--the Four Gospels--they taught this doctrine. In Jesus Christ they personified the law of Moses,--Christ representing in his double character both the spirit and the letter of the Law; John the Baptist, the witness of the spirit, representing the letter exclusively; the Virgin Mary the "wisdom" constantly personified in the Old Testament. She is also the Church, the bride of Christ, and that "invisible nature" symbolized in all mythologies as divine. The Father is the Spirit of the Law and the Spirit of Nature,--the infinite God from whom all life proceeds and in whom it abides.