Having come to an understanding with himself, he honestly tries, again, to come to an understanding with the reader. He honestly imparts his mind. We find the book in this respect worthy of especial admiration. Mr. Alger always writes well when he is not overmuch _trying_ to write well. If he forbear to covet striking effect, his style has perspicuity, directness, and vigor,--the essentials of all excellent writing,--and to these adds verbal affluence and occasional felicity. But if he be tempted of the Devil to become eloquent, and the father of all rhetorical evil strives hard to bring the soul of his style to perdition, then he begins to write badly. Let him, since he is capable of heroic things, imitate Luther, and fling his ink-pot. Even though it light upon the page, let him not be inconsolable, but remember that no blots are so bad as those made by ambitious inflation. We have not that horror of "fine writing" which leads The Saturday Review and Company to such obstreperous exclamation, and can endure the worst that Americans are guilty of in this matter quite as well as that affectation of off-hand ease and _nonchalance_ which enhances the native clumsiness of many among the later English writers, and, to our mind, mars extremely the poetry of Browning. But if a writer has some propensity to rhetorical Babel-building, it were well for _him_ to make an effort in the opposite direction, and try to build his sentences underground, like the houses of the Esquimaux. Mr. Alger's book has minor faults and major excellences. But let him be content. He has faithfully performed a great labor, and we give him cordial approval. To a great theme he has brought great industry, a just appreciation, a fine spirit, and much of intellectual courage and activity. Add that he is a man whose soul is in sympathy with the best thought, hope, and heart of the time. Brave, just, and humane, he is always on the right side, and always as direct and unflinching in the utterance of his faith as he is intrepid and right-natured in its adoption. Opinions are expressed in his work which do not accord with those of ecclesiastical majorities; nevertheless we think that those will thank him who least agree with him. It were, indeed, a shame that the people which sets the highest price upon political liberty should be the last to welcome the higher freedoms of thought; but it is a shame, we trust, which will not befall our country. We ourselves have, it is true, as little affection as most men for that sort of "free thinking" which consists in pouring out upon the public the mere wash and cerebral excretion of unclean spirits; but when any man has brought to a consideration of the greatest facts a pure and reverent spirit, he is entitled to present the results of his meditations with manly directness and vigor, as Mr. Alger has done in the work before us.