earnest thinking. Words are, with him, the mere
instruments for the expression of things; and he hits on felicitous
words only under that impatient stress of thought which demands exact
expression for definite ideas. All his words, simple as they are, are
therefore fairly earned, and he gives to them a force and significance
which they do not bear in the dictionary. The mind of the writer is felt
beating and burning beneath his phraseology, stamping every word with
the image of a thought. Largeness of intellect, acute discrimination,
clear and explicit statement, masterly arrangement of matter, an
unmistakable performance of the real business of expression,--these
qualities make every reader of the sermons conscious that a mind of
great vigor, breadth, and pungency is brought into direct contact
with his own. The almost ostentatious absence of "fine writing" only
increases the effect of the plain and sinewy words.

If we pass from the form to the substance of Dr. Walker's teachings, we
shall find that his sermons are especially characterized by practical
wisdom. A scholar, a moralist, a metaphysician, a theologian, learned
in all the lore and trained in the best methods of the schools, he is
distinguished from most scholars by his broad grasp of every-day life.
It is this quality which has given him his wide influence as a preacher,
and this is a prominent charm of his printed sermons. He brings
principles to the test of facts, and connects thoughts with things. The
conscience which can easily elude the threats, the monitions, and the
appeals of ordinary sermonizers, finds itself mastered by his mingled
fervor, logic, and practical knowledge. Every sermon in the present
volume is good for use, and furnishes both inducements and aids to the
formation of manly Christian character. There is much, of course, to
lift the depressed and inspire the weak; but the great peculiarity of
the discourses is the resolute energy with which they grapple with the
worldliness and sin of the proud and the strong.

_The Monks of the West, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard_. By the COUNT
DE MONTALEMBERT, Member of the French Academy. Authorized Translation.
Volumes I. and II. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons. 1861. 8vo.
pp. xii. and 515, 549.

These volumes form the first instalment of a work in which one of the
great lights of the Romish Church in our day proposes to recount the
glories of Western Monasticism, and to narrate th