In making the suggestion, however, that these “Thoughts” would be of special value to those who have fallen into the habit of disbelieving the Gospels, they hardly know why, we know that there is no more probability that they will read a book with this title than there is that young men should read “Letters to Young Men,” or young women should read “Letters to Young Women.”  We suppose that the unconverted seldom read “Hints to the Unconverted,” and that undecided fools never read “Foster on Decision of Character.”  Recurring, then, to Mr. Everett’s story of the Guava jelly, which was recommended to invalids, but would “not materially injure those who are well,” we may add to what we have said, that all readers of this volume will find valuable suggestions in it for the enlightenment of the gospel narratives.  Theologians who differed fundamentally from Dr. Furness have been eager to express their sense of the value of his “Jesus and his Biographers,” as affording some of the most vivid and scenic representations in all literature of that life which he has devoted all his studies to illustrating.  It does not fall in the way of this book to attempt many such illustrations; but it is full of hints which all readers will value as lightening up and making fresh their notion of Scripture.

Critically speaking, the most prominent fault in the book is the occasional interpolation of matter not connected directly with its argument.  That argument is simply laid out.  In the first part is the direct plea of the author for the gospel narrative as a whole, earnestly and effectively sustained.  The second part examines Mr. Theodore Parker’s arguments against the truth of parts of it.  The third book discusses other objections.  So far as this is done from the author’s leading point of view, the book is coherent and effective.  But occasionally there comes in a little piece of fanciful criticism on the text, or a comment on some side-view or transaction, or the suggestion of a probability or a possibility, which remind one of the thin puerilities of the commentators whom Dr. Furness despises more than of the general drift of his own discussion.

* * * * *

Vernon Grove; or Hearts as they are.  A Novel.  New York:  Rudd & Carleton.

This volume makes a pleasant addition to the light reading of the day.  It is the more welcome as coming from a new field; for we believe that the veil of secrecy with regard to its authorship has been so far blown aside, that we shall be permitted to say, that, although it is written by a lady of New England birth, it may be most properly claimed as a part of the literature of South Carolina.  It is a regular novel, although a short one.  It is an interesting story, of marked, but not improbable incidents, involving a very few well-distinguished characters, who fall into situations to display which requires nice analysis of the mind and heart,—­developed in graceful