OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 321, 6 November 1865, Page 2

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

THE SUNDAY MAGAZINE, August aud September, 1565 We observe that the September number of this very valuable magazine brings the first volume to a close, and we congratulate the enterprising proprietors on the unqualified success of their endeavors to provide for the reading public a fund of most valuable information of the highest class, and at a merely nominal charge. The two parts before us comprise ICO large pages of closely-printed matter, and IS illustrations of a superior class—the frontispiece, “ The Rigid,” being peculiarly beautiful.

The title of the magazine will be sufficient to prepare the reader for a great portion of its contents, which consist of scriptural illustrations and explanations, narrative accounts of the progress of various associations for the moral and intellect* ual elevation of the poor and ignorant, papers descriptive of the countries mentioned in Holy Writ, or rendered interesting as being connected with ecclesiastical history. Nor is the branch of light* literature wholly neglected, as the principal attraction to many will be found in the tale of “Joshua Taylor’s Passion,” which enchains the reader’s attention by its absorbing interest until the end.

Neither are the theological essays of such a character as to repel the general reader. On the contrary, they are rendered more interesting than would be supposed. We have already given in a former notice a short extract from one of these on “The unwritten Revelation,” and we must also give the following paragraph on the personality of the Supreme Being, from the same pen, as another fair specimen of the style of this of papers:—

Take away that faith, in a personal God and Father which the Bible teaches, and science is living science no longer, it is reduced to a dead register. Men talk of the wisdom, the power, the order, the benevolence of Nature. But let Nature be conceived of as apart from a living Providence and a personal God, and then what do such expressions mean ? They are utterly illusive; they have no true or real meaning. All the seeming wisdom, all the marvelous adjustments, all the curiosa felicilas of nature, are but the happy conjunctures, the exquisite chance-unisons, of we know not what. When lost in admiration of grand allanswering laws, of wonderful organizations, of complexly apt and beautiful contrivances, of what seem like the most kind and heuiflcent provisions, the soul that is beginning to wonder at this seeming wisdom, and to swell with thankfulness because of this seeming love, is struck as with a deah-chill in black and hopeless bewilderment by the thought that there is no being of wisdom and benevolence, no Father, no God, who can be thanked or adored beeiuse of his wonderful works. Surely this is enough to darken the universe to the explorer of Nature’s mysteries, and to fill the soul with perpetual melancholy and confusion. There is a God, then, —a personal God,— and He is the Maker and Master of the Universe.

Mr Eigg, the writer of the above, in a subsequent paper, endeavors to answer the momentous question—“ Are there not certain discrepancies in detail between the doctrines of the written word, and the conclusions of reason, —as also between the same doctrines and the intuitions of the human heart ? and what is there to be said in the case of such discrepancies ? Are we to give up science or to give up the Bible ? Are we to belie our intuitions or to revise and rectify the page of Scripture ?” We need scarcely say that these questions can be satisfactorily solved, and believe that Mr E. has done so.

This notice has already extended to a greater length than we anticipated, and we can only further say, with regard to the lighter reading, that we shall feel a pleasure in transferring some of the shorter tales to our own columns as we can find space for them.

GOOD WORDS, August and September, 1565. This magazine fully maintains its reputation as a first-class every-day book for the religious public. The romance of “ Hereward, the last of the English,’’ by Charles Kingsley, is one of the most prominent pieces, and has become intensely interesting. It is founded on the history of Great Britain at the time of the Norman Conquest, and shows that all England was not conquered at the Battle of Hastings, but that there were heroes then who contested the progress of the Conqueror, and did not yield to him without many a struggle and some partial successes. In these two parts wo have the continuation of the papers on Light, in which an attempt is made (and not without good success) to render the somewhat abstruse properties of diffraction and interferences understandable to the popular mind. The September part gives us three papers by travelers —“ Orkney and the Orcadians,” “ Eastward, No. B—The neighborhood of Jerusalem,” and “ Three Weeks among tho Churches of France.” It also gives us a biographical notice of Sir William Malcolm, being No. 9 of “ Our Indian Heroes,” and a memoir, with portrait, of Isaac Taylor, late one of the contributors to the magazine, and “ the last link that connected our time with tho age of tho giants in the evangelical movement in Great Bripain in the early part of this centuty —an order that has now no representative.” The whole series are very interesting and instructive. Ths plates in these parts are fully up to the standard, and perhaps some of them a little higher, if possible. We allude particularly to two large panoramic view's in the part for August, of “ Jerusalem from the Golden Gate” and “Jerusalem, with the surrounding country, from, the north side of the Mount of Olives, from a-photograph by Mr Jas. Graham.

We cannot conclude without one word on the poetry introduced into the magazine. The poems are of a superior class—generally original, and, as far as we have seen, every way worthy of the prose articles.

■MORGAN’S BRITISH TRaDE JOURNAL AND' EXPORT PRICE CURRENT.—No. 32, Tol. 3, August. This journal will be found of great value to the mercantile public, as it contains the general, financial, postal, and shipping news of the previous month, circulars of manufactures, London, Liverpool, and continental; prices current of all kinds of merchandise, machinery, &c., very fully illustrated, and is a complete monthly resume of all items of interest to traders resident out of England. It consists of 132 pages quarto, and its price (postage included) but £1 per annum. Wo can cordially recoratnsnd it to the notice of of th® mercantile public.