st confining sectarian barriers.
No Articles and no Creeds can stand for many generations as the
authoritative expressions of belief, after the character of the
compulsion which they exercise is understood, after the history of
sectarian differences is fairly stated, after the interpretation of
Scripture is placed upon a sound basis, and the nature of Christianity
and the object of the teachings of Christ are thus brought home to the
intellects and the hearts of men.

_A Journey in the Back-Country_. By FREDERICK LAW OLMSTED. Author of "A
Journey in the Seaboard Slave-States," "A Journey in Texas," "Walks and
Talks of an American Farmer in England," etc. New York: Mason Brothers.
1860. pp. xvi., 492.

Mr. Olmsted is no ordinary traveller for amusement or adventure. He
leaves home to instruct himself through his own eyes and ears concerning
matters of general interest about which no trustworthy information was
to be found in books. Looking at Slavery merely as an economist, with no
political or moral prepossessions to mislead his judgment, he went to
study for himself its workings and results as a form of labor, we might
almost say, so cool-headed is he, as an application of forces, rather
than as a social or political phenomenon. Self-possessed and wary,
almost provokingly unsympathetic in his report of what he saw,
pronouncing no judgment on isolated facts, and drawing no undue
inferences from them, he has now generalized his results in a most
interesting and valuable book. No more important contributions to
contemporary American history have been made than in this volume and the
two that preceded it. We know of no book that offers a parallel to them,
except Arthur Young's "Travels in France." To discuss the question of
Slavery without passion or even sentiment seemed an impossibility; yet
Mr. Olmsted has shown that it can be done, and, having no theory to
bolster, has contrived to tell us what he saw, and not what he went to
see,--the rarest achievement among travellers. Without the charm of
style, he has the truthfulness of Herodotus.

We do not forget that there was wisdom as well as wit in Dr. Johnson's
sarcastic classification of facts with donkeys. The great majority of
so-called facts, and especially those detailed by travellers, are of no
consequence whatever to man or beast. What is it to us that Mr. A. has
been condescending enough to look at the Venus of Milo, or that Mr. B.,
with more time than he know