Life assurance is one of the growing interests in our country, and, we think, deservedly so. Information should be widely circulated in regard to it. For this purpose we commend the " American Life Assurance Magazine."

A second convention of American Life Underwriters has been recently held in New York, May, 1860. From its proceedings we learn that the funds now held in trust by the life assurance companies in this country amount to twenty-two millions of dollars, the sums insured are about one hundred and eighty millions, and the number of lives assured near one hundred and sixty thousand. Over two millions of dollars are paid out every year by the falling in of claims, mostly to widows and orphans. The necessity has been felt by American companies for an American table of mortality. This is now in the hands of an able committee for construction, and we learn that the number of lives, their data for the work, is greater than that from which the best English tables were made. It is ascertained that middle-life in America is not subject to as high a rate of mortality as in England, while both ends of life with us are subject to a greater rate.

This system originated in pure benevolence, and benevolence too for widows and clergymen. In England, in 1698, the first society was organized for the benefit of widows of clergymen. In our country it had the same origin. In 1769 "The Protestant Episcopal Corporation for the Benefit of Widows and Children of Clergymen in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania" was chartered. And yet we believe no class has shared less in the benefits of assurance than clergymen. Several articles have lately appeared in the Christian Advocate and Journal, New York, calling the attention of Churches to this subject, proposing that they enter upon some arrangement to secure life policies for their pastors. One of these articles suggested an outline of a plan by which the advantages of the system of assurance might be secured to the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, generally, at but little cost, or inconvenience to the Church at large. Some of the Annual Conferences have agitated the subject, and we hope it will receive the attention and action it deserves.

(37.) "The University Quarterly. Conducted by an Association of Collegiate and Professional Students in the United States and Europe. April, 1860.” 8vo., pp. 429. Printed for the Association. Thomas H. Pease, New Haven, Conn., General Agent.

The purpose of this stately quarterly is to stand as an organ of our American Colleges, a medium of intercourse and unity, serving to give them in some degree the collective character of a national university. It is a happy conception, and should be realized without failure. It is characterized by a marked catholicity of plan and spirit. It starts indeed from Yale. The present number embodies contributions and statements of collegiate history from New Haven to Beloit, from venerable Columbia to youthful Troy. Every college may associate in the enterprise. We regret to see that as yet Troy alone of our own colleges appears in its pages. Middletown, Dickinson, and the whole corps will, we trust, co-operate.

(38.) "Annuaire des Deux Mondes Histoire Generale des divers Etats. Histoire Politique-Relations Internationales et Diplomatic; Administration, Commerce et Finances. Presse Periodique et Litterature. 1858-1859." Svo., pp. 1044. Paris: Bureau de la Revue des Deux Mondes; New York: Ballière.

This is a year-book of general and secular history for both hemispheres. Such a work affords a very convenient resort for reference. Nearly two hundred pages are devoted to America, North and South.

VII.-Juvenile.

"Little Songs for Little People. With numerous Illustrations." pp. 256. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

16mo,

"Little Things for Little Folks. By Mrs. MARY JANE PHILLIPS. Two Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 133. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

"The Young Gold Seeker, and other Authentic Sketches. A Book for Youth. By Mrs. MARY JANE PHILLIPS. Two Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 132. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

"Arthur and his Mother; or, The Story of a Child that belonged to the Church. A Book for Christian Children. Five Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 106. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

Margaret Maxham. A Book for Young Ladies. By MARIANNA H. BLISS, Author of Little Tiger Lily. Three Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 144. New York: Carlton & Porter.

1860.

"Sweet Corabelle, and other Authentic Sketches. A Book for Youth. By Mrs. MARY JANE PHILLIPS. Two Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 164. New York: Carlton & Porter.

1860.

"The Emigrants, an Allegory; or, Christianity versus the World. By Rev. WESLEY COCHRAN, A. M." 16mo., pp. 194. New York: Printed for the Author, 200 Mulberry-street.

"Happy Mike; or, How Sam Jones became a Good Boy: and The Little Gardener. By CATHARINE BELL. Two Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 114. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

"Clara, the Motherless Young Housekeeper; or, The Life of Faith. By UNA LOCKE. Three Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 122. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1860.

"Juna Atherton's Year at School. ELLEN Three Illustrations."

Porter. 1860.

A Story for Young Ladies. By LOUISA 18mo., pp. 198. New York: Carlton &

"Pleasant Talks with the Little Folks. By ROBIN RANGER. Ten Illustrations." 18mo., pp. 154. New York: Carlton & Porter.

By a Lady. Four Illustrations."

"Little Mabel and her Sunlit Home. 18mo., pp. 164. New York: Carlton & Porter.

THE

METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW.

OCTOBER, 1860.

ART. I.-JOHN RUSKIN.

Modern Painters. By a Graduate of Oxford. Vols. I, II, III, IV and V. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

Seven Lamps of Architecture. By the Author of "Modern Painters." London: Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

Stones of Venice: Vol. I. Foundations. Vol. II. Sea Stories. Vol. III. The Fall. By the Author of "Modern Painters." London: Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

The Two Paths. By the Author of " Modern Painters." London: Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

Pre-Raphaelites. By the Author of "Modern Painters." London: Smith, Elder,. & Co. New York: John Wiley.

Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds. By the Author of "Modern Painters." London Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

Economy of Art. By the Author of "Modern Painters." London: Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

Elements of Drawing. By the Author of "Modern Painters." London: Smith, Elder, & Co. New York: John Wiley.

In the year 1843 a work appeared in England entitled "Modern Painters," by a Graduate of Oxford. The title was unattractive, the theme not less so. The apparent vanity of the author, in his ncm de plume, did not strengthen their weakness. Yet in spite of these defects, which seemed to shut it out alike from the masses and the elect, it ran through four large editions within five years, and was read by every class with equal astonishment, if not with equal admiration. It provoked bitter assaults upon its doctrines and descriptions from the scathed artists, and introduced a new life, with all its fluctuations, into the domain of art.

The secret of its success lay partly in the beauty and vigor of its style, partly in its bold criticisms on the great masters of art, old and new, but chiefly in its new and thrilling descriptions of the phenomena and laws of nature. It has the honor of opening the FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XII.-34

world of art to the world of readers. To them this province had been previously closed. Whatever privileges had been accorded to them as admirers of the works of artists, the laws of art, though universal and patent to every eye, had never before been developed. Vitruvius or Fuseli, Reynolds or Angelo, whoever had discoursed upon this theme, had failed to see its high origin in nature, and wide relations to all her offspring of science and letters. The literature of art he must be said to have founded. Whoever now enters this field must learn his tactics and wield his arms, if they would win his honors.

John Ruskin, the author of the work, was the son of a London merchant, in which city he was born in 1819. He graduated at Christ Church, Oxford, in 1843, when he took the Newdegate prize for English poetry. The same year, when not twenty-five years old, he issued the first volume of the "Modern Painters." It was designed as a defense of Turner, the famous landscape artist, whose works had been the butt of ridicule among artists and connoisseurs. He meant to compass the defense within the little limits and life of a pamphlet, but he soon saw that the only way to carry him triumphantly through the contest was to bring him and all his rivals, cotemporaneous or antecedent, to that nature which they professed to follow, and test their professions in the light of her realities. To do this it was necessary to know what they were set to copy. But when he looked at the canons of the school he found none of her divine decrees recorded there. All was musty, weak, erroneous, human. His paramount duty, therefore, evidently was, to bring the artist. home to nature, to show him her whom he must love and worship, must study and obey, if he would have any of the offspring of his own genius adorned and strengthened with her immortal beauty and life.

It is in this department of investigation that he rises from the critic to the seer, from the reformer of art to the revealer of nature, from the transient, if brilliant, fame of the advocate and pamphleteer, to the enduring post of a philosopher and lawgiver. Here, too, is where the students of diviner mysteries find a place for him beside the explorers of the word of God. The book of nature, the elder, but not the better brother of the book of revelation, will be always reverently read by every lover of their Author. And if there is one who has had access to her secret chambers, has grasped her inmost life, or dwelt wisely and reverently upon the loveliness of that "body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part," it is our duty and privilege to follow him on these great paths of thought, to gaze with him on her new revelations of truth and beauty, and to feel with him the fullness of her glory, strength, and joy.

Ruskin has, perhaps unconsciously, shaped himself according to the form and pressure of the age. Its ruling passion has wrought in him, though in a manner and to ends unusual. That passion is to search into nature, to know the knowable in her every part and particle. The rise of many sciences of nature within the past century, the wondrous growth which those have seen that led a feeble and contemptuous existence before, mark the currents on which the present thoughts of the race are swept. Man has at last found the key to these mysteries, and he cannot rest till he explores every private cabinet and gloats over every hidden gem. He maps the surface of earth and ocean, so that the whole globe is as familiar to him as his garden. He drops his plummet among the stars, and draws from those untraveled depths their eternal secrets. He enters the abysses of earth and sea, and drags forth to the garish light of our day the treasures which myriads of ages have there stored up. He weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance. He turns water to fire, fire to ice, rock to air, and all to unseen elements, in whose new combinations he creates new atmospheres, new seas, new worlds. Poetry and philosophy, language and letters, theology and politics, all other modes of mental activity, play a secondary part in the great intellectual drama of to-day. Natural science has the chief role. Humboldt is called the greatest man of the age only because he most perfectly plays this part. His associates, Cuvier, Linnæus, La Verrier, Agassiz, hold the supreme rank among men only because they best represent the passion of the hour. They are the kings of the laboratory and the observatory, and these are the thrones of present dominion. But this force, like every other in nature, is one-sided. It cannot truly live without its counterforce. This scrutiny of nature is unnatural. If carried forward without check it would soon slay the form it worships. Its devotion involves the murder of its idol. For natural science as popularly understood is but the dissection of nature. The world without is anatomized by the world within. That lovely, living form is stretched upon the table of the operator. She is flayed, her flesh is stripped from her bones, her nerves are laid bare, her throbbing heart and brain are coolly taken from their living couches, and cleft in a spirit that is usually utterly careless, if not ignorant, of their real life, and is only anxious to learn their material constitution. She is perfect only when she hangs, a skeleton, in her idolater's cabinet. This ceaseless contemplation of nature in her unnatural forms is apt to breed in the student a contempt for the exquisite and wondrous life that she really possesses, as the physician, by his constant study of the dissevered body, is tempted to despise that body