"If, then, any one shall accuse me of wasting upon the mother of my Saviour feelings and affections which he hath jealously reserved for himself. I will appeal from the charge to his judgment, and lay the cause before him, at any stage of his blessed life. I will go unto him at the crib of Bethlehem, and acknowledge that, while, with the kings of the East, I have presented to him all my gold and frankincense and myrrh, I have ventured, with the shepherds, to present an humbler oblation of respect to her who was enduring the winter's frost in an unsheltered stable, entirely for his sake. Or I will meet him, as the holy fugitives repose on their desert-path to Egypt, and confess that, knowing from the example of Agar, how a mother cast forth from her house into the wilderness, for her infant's sake, only loves it the more, and needs an angel to comfort her in her anguish (Gen. xxi. 17), I have not restrained my eyes from her whose fatigues and pain were a hundred-fold increased by his, when I have sympathized with him in this his early flight, endured for my sins. Or I will approach a more awful tribunal, and step to the foot of his cross, and own to him, that while I have adored his wounds, and stirred up in my breast my deepest feelings of grief and commiseration for what I have made him suffer, my thoughts could not refrain from sometimes glancing toward her whom I saw resignedly standing at his feet, and sharing his sorrows; and that, knowing how much Respha endured while sitting opposite to her children justly crucified by command of God (2 Kings xxi. 10), I had felt far greater compassion for her, and had not withheld the emotions, which nature itself dictated, of love, and veneration, and devout affection toward her. And to the judgment of such a son I will gladly bow, and his meek mouth shall speak my sentence, and I will not fear it. For I have already heard it from the cross, addressed to me, to you, to all, as he said: 'Woman, behold thy son;' and again: 'Behold thy mother.' (John xix. 26, 27.)" An appendix to the volume contains six beautiful pastorals, on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in connection with education. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. By J. W. Cummings, D.D., LL.D., of St. Stephen's Church, New York City. 12mo., pp. 330. New York: P. O'Shea.