t lessons to Young America. Such a man is a true
national glory. We close our imperfect notice with a short extract from
Mr. Ticknor's preface: 'But if, after all, this memoir should fail to
set the author of the 'Ferdinand and Isabella' before those who had not
the happiness to know him personally, as a man whose life for more than
forty years was one of almost constant struggle--of an almost constant
sacrifice to duty, of the present to the future--it will have failed to
teach its true lesson, or to present my friend to others as he stood
before the very few who knew him as he was.

"Virtue could see to do what virtue would
By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk."

SERMONS, Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton, by the late
Rev. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Fifth
Series. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1864. For sale by D. Appleton &
Co., New York.

The sermons of Mr. Robertson are very popular in England. They are
remarkable for clearness and excellence of style, and earnestness of
purpose. Many noble lessons are to be drawn from them, even by those who
differ with the author on sundry points of doctrine. We wish, however,
for the credit of theological exactness, that he had been somewhat more
careful in stating the views of his adversaries. Referring to the use of
indulgences, he says: 'The Romish Church permits crime for certain
considerations.' The Roman Catholic doctrine as actually held is, that
an indulgence is a remission of a portion of the earthly or purgatorial
punishment due to any sin, after it has been duly repented of,
confessed, abandoned, and restitution made so far as possible. It can
consequently never mean a pardon for sins to come, as is often
ignorantly supposed, and is apparently a reminiscence of the ancient
practice of canonical penances inflicted on penitents.

Just now, when the entire scientific world is being convulsed by the
attempted substitution of some inflexible law for a personal God with a
living _will_, it is not strange that some phase of the same idea should
creep into even the purest theology, and that in Mr. Robertson's theory
of prayer we should find traces of the rigidity characterizing 'ultra
predestinarian' as well as 'development' schemes of creation.

We cannot better conclude than by quoting the following passage from the
sermon on 'Selfishness,' a home thrust to nearly all of us: 'It is
possibl