The King sighed, "We shall not toll the bell, then, to-day; but assuredly to-morrow."

In the morning he rode over to the house of the mistress of his heart. "There," he remarked to himself, as he went along in that pace which used to be observed by the pilgrims to Canterbury, and which in England has taken its name from the two first syllables of the city's name "there I have never found disappointment." What he did find he never told; but on his return to the palace, when his groom of the chambers looked interrogatively between him and the bell-rope, the monarch simply twisted the end of the latter into a noose, and angrily muttered, as he flung it down again, "Would to heaven that they were both hanging from it together!"

On the following day he philosophically reviewed his case. "I have been unreasonable," he said; "why should I grieve because I have been betrayed by a knave, and jilted by a girl with golden hair? I have wide dominions, a full treasury, a mighty army, laughing vineyards, verdant meadows, a people who pay taxes as if they loved them, and God's free air to breathe in. I may be happy yet," added he, advancing to the window-"nay, I am!" and he reached his hand to the rope. He was on the very point of ringing at it with good will, when he saw a sight without, and heard a voice within, which made him pause.

A messenger was at his feet. 'Oh, Sire!" exclaimed the bringer of bad tidings, "thou seest the dust, the fires, and the gleam of arms without. The foe has broken in upon the land, and terror is before and devastation behind him!"

66

"Now, a curse upon kingship, that brings a wretched monarch evils like these!" cried the King who wanted to be happy. The courier hint ed something about the miseries of the people. By that Lady of Hate, whose church is in Brittany," cried the Prince, thou art right! I thonght to pull lustily at the bell, but I will as lustily pull at my sword in the sheath, and see if there be not virtue in that. How came in the foe? and who commands them ?"

The answer to this double query told him that the enemy could not have entered had not his despatches been betrayed to the invader, and that the van of the army was under the command of a prince whose name was no sooner uttered to the King than the latter turned red with fury, and exclaimed, “He!—then I shall ring the bell yet. I will have his life and-"

He said no more, but went out, fought like a man, cleared the land of the foe, hung the traitor with all his orders on him, maimed the young leader of the hostile vanguard, and returned to his capital in triumph. He had so much to employ him after his return, so much to accomplish for the restoration of the fortunes of his people, so much to meditate upon for future accomplishment, that when at night he lay down upon his couch, weariness upon his brow, but a shade of honest joy upon his cheek, he had fairly forgotten the silver bell in his turret, and the ropes which depended from it. And so he grew gray and infirm, never turning from his work till the Inevitable Angel looked smilingly in his face, and began to beckon him away.

He was sitting upright in his uneasy chair, pale as death, but still at his ministry, till his eyes grew dim, his head sank on his breast, and there was, without, a sound of wailing. "What voices are those?" asked he softly what is there yet for me to do?"

His Chancellor stooped over him as he now lay on a couch, and whispered, "Our father is departing from among us, and his children are at the threshold in tears."

"Let them in! let them come in!" hoarsely cried the King. "God! do they really love me?"

"If there were a life to be purchased here, O worthy Sire, they would purchase thine with their blood." The crowd streamed silently in, to look once more upon the good old King, and to mourn at his departure. He stretched his hand toward them, and asked, "Have I won your love, children? have I won your love?" One universal affirmative reply, given from the heart, though given with soft expression, seemed to bestow on the dying monarch new life. He raised himself on the couch, looked like an inspired saint, and tried to speak, but failed in the attempt. None the less happy, he looked up to God, glanced to the turret where hung the bell, extended his hand to the rope, gave one pull, and died, with a smile on his lips, as he rang his own knell.

VIII. The Life of Rev. Michael Schlatter; with a full Account of his Travels and Labors among the Germans in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia; including his Services as Chaplain in the French and Indian War, and in the War of the Revolution. 1716 to 1790. By Rev. H. Harbaugh, A. M. Author of "The Sainted Dead," &c. &c. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston. 1857. pp. 375.

Whatever the dangers to which the German Reformed Church is subject from the recent opinions that have been prevailing among them, there is one signal advantage; it turns their attention to their own history, and to use the German expression, leads them to "develop their own historic life." There is scarcely a limit to the value of this. It deepens character; it makes a Church respect itself; it stimulates to boundless exertion.

Mr. Schlatter was one of the pioneers of the German Reformed Church; he labored for nearly half a century for that Church, in the period including the Old French and Revolutionary Wars. The question, which has excited such anxious interest, especially among Pennsylvanians, as to how the German population can be improved and elevated, is beginning for the first time to find satisfactory solution in our times. There is the Pennsylvania Common School system, a noble monument to successful perseverance amidst innumerable difficulties. A project, long a favorite with us, has just been accomplished, the creation of a separate Department of Public Instruction at Harrisburg, including the separation of the office of Secretary of the Commonwealth for that of the Superintendent of Common Schools. Then the Reformed and Lutheran Churches are awake as they never before have been in America. It is to be expected that the re-action might carry them too far; we cannot believe that they will go off into Popery; we wait, confidently, as to the great body of them, for other oscillations of the pendulum. Germans are impassable to influences from without; they are capable of movement to any extent from within. We are glad to see the colleges at Lancaster and Gettysburg. The larger, more powerful and enlightened they grow, even if they should become Halles and Berlins-the better we should be pleased, for it is a

settled fact that cannot be unsettled, that the powers that move the masses of Pennsylvania, are the German Protestants and the Presbyterians. Other sources of influence are incidental and local; these are the life-blood of a great Commonwealth. We quote a little from Mr. Harbaugh, as to a matter very little understood:

The social and religious life among the Germans of Pennsylvania and neighboring States, one hundred years ago, was peculiar to itself, and its history has its own charm. A retiring and rural people, were our forefathers. Isolated to a great extent from others by language, social habits, religion, and even the character of their secular pursuits, they dwelt in the fertile and friendly valleys of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, ambitious only for the quiet ways of peace and love. It cannot be uninteresting even to strangers, and certainly not to their own children, to be presented with a picture, even though it may be very imperfect, of the social and religious features of the olden time among the Germans. Such a picture must come forward in the life and labors of a man like Rev. Michael Schlatter, who earnestly identified himself with their highest educational and religious interests for the space of more than forty years, and that during the most interesting and eventful period of our country's civil and ecclesiastical history.

A true history of Pennsylvania would be one that would cluster, not around its civil machinery, its council records, its battle-fields and forts, its public officers and schemes of State policy, but one which would thread on its religious history, follow its churches as they rose in one valley and settlement after another, the pioneerings of its early pastors, and the general progress of piety and purity in its families. There is not a valley in the State whose history is not prevailingly bound up with its venerable churches, and well-filled graveyards. These were not only the first prominent, sacred, and venerated places in the early settlements, but have always been the centres to which the deepest and most earnest thoughts of men have tended, and from which have gone out those moulding influences which have made individuals, families, valleys, and the State itself, as wealthy, worthy, and peaceful, as they are.

The phrase "German Pennsylvania" is traditionally abroad, and will last as long as the phrase "Yankee New England." This proverb, like the fabled wandering Jew, will travel the earth as a testimony, whatever historians may write in books. Whether they will claim it, or whether others will allow it, the Germans have turned Penn's woods into fruitful fields-and their blood is the bearer of the inmost life of the State. The Indians are gone, but their names are still uttered in our hearing by the sounding mountains, the roaring rivers, and the softer murmur of the gentler streams. These are their monuments that will tell of the ancient people forever. So the Germans may vanish, their language may be forgotten, their habits improved into what is worse, and their records fade from the historic page; but German names will stick fast to German towns, counties, townships, valleys, streams, and hills, till earth and heaven themselves are changed. Then, too, German family names will tell the tale. Look over the State and beyond it, and is not their name Legion, for they are many. These, it is true, may be changed,—the Shibboleth may be turned into Sibboleth, by such as "cannot frame to pronounce it right," yet the man of quaint and curious lore will always be able to trace them through their transmigrations, and demonstrate that in the beginning they were not so. As there is a power behind thrones, so there are monuments back of history; and what historians bury, antiqua

rians will dig out-and they will show to the ages to come, who were the ancient people that reigned in the land.

The extent to which the social spirit of Pennsylvania has been moulded by a German element, is worthy of all grateful consideration. Moreover, wonderful is it, how certain peculiarities have adhered to the German character through nearly a score of centuries, and still appear as prominent traits, notwithstanding all the modifications which German life has undergone in America! Like all other nations, they have their faults and follies. Whatever nation that be which is without these, from it shall he come forth who shall stone them for their German sins. Neither by our religion, nor by the lessons of our parents, have we been taught to reproach our ancestors, or set forth their faults before the world. Of their virtues it is pious to speak, and where these prevail, they must form the web upon which history will weave its story.

Mr. Schlatter was born at St. Gall in Switzerland, a place "lying beautifully between two mountains, and on the bank of the Steinach,”July 14, 1716. He arrived in America in 1746. The first Synod of the German Reformed Church was constituted-very much through his influence at Philadelphia, September 29, 1747. The first Cœtus or Synod of the Reformed Dutch Church was constituted the same year.

The interesting history of "The Charity Schools" is given. They were founded by a Society of noblemen and gentlemen in London, of whom the Earl of Shaftesbury is first named. The Church of Scotland gave £1200, the King gave £1000. The "Trustees General" were James Hamilton, William Allen, Richard Peters, Benjamin Franklin, Conrad Weiser, and Rev. Dr. William Smith. Mr. Schlatter was Supervisor of the Schools, and a press was established for books, tracts and a newspaper. Mr. Schlatter, after being pastor in Philadelphia, performing much missionary work, and being Chaplain in the Army, removed to Chestnut Hill, where his place was called Sweetland. He died in 1790, and was buried in Franklin Square, formerly the German Reformed buryingground, where his remains still lie, his tomb-stone, with that of many others having been covered up by the grading.

This is really an interesting book. Mr. Harbaugh has done his work well. He brings out its archaic value and grounds on it an impressive appeal for Home Missions.

IX. James Mountjoy: or I've been Thinking. By A. S. Roe. New York: Derby & Jackson. Philadelphia: Martiens'. pp.

327.

The Star and the Cloud; or a Daughter's Love. By the Same : Same publishers. 1857. pp. 410.

A long Look ahead; or the First Stroke and the Last. By the Same Same publishers. 1857. pp. 441.

:

To love and to be loved, and Time and Tide; or Strive and Win.

By the Same: Same publishers. 1857. pp. 243.

Five Stories at once! average nearly 300 pages! We have taken some pains to ascertain the character of these books. The moral, we think, is

pure, the tendency excellent. They are well broken up, and dialogue and description well intermingled. We think most people would find them pleasant reading and be improved by them.

X. A Manual of Church History. By Henry E. F. Guericke, Doctor and Professor of Theology in Halle. Translated from the German, by W. G. T. Shedd, Brown Professor in Andover Theological Seminary. Ancient Church History, comprising the first six Centuries. Andover: W. F. Draper. Philadelphia: Smith, English & Co. 1857. pp. 422.

Guericke's Manual has passed through eight editions in Germany. Prof. Shedd makes four leading characteristics of it. 1. The author is orthodox, though high Lutheran, and "sharing to some extent, it must be conceded, in the recent manœuvres [of the Lutherans] whenever he approaches the points at issue between the Lutherans and Calvinists." 2. 66 He places the highest estimate upon the internal history of the Church." 3. The Manual has accuracy and learning. 4. It hits the mean between the full and flowing narration of history proper, and the mere meagre synopsis and epitome.

This is one division of the author's plan-the Ancient Church. The other two are the Mediæval and Modern. The view of Church government is mainly Lutheran. The translation is good English and clear. The work is well brought out by Mr. Draper.

XI. Sanders' School Speaker: a comprehensive Course of Instruction in the Principles of Oratory; with numerous Exercises for Practice in Declamation. By Charles W. Sanders, A. M. Author of "A Series of Readers," &c. New York: Ivison & Phinney. 1857. pp. 528.

Messrs. Ivison & Phinney are giving their special attention to school books. The School Speaker contains fifty pages of judicious directions for Oratory; the bulk of the book consisting of selections, well made, in prose and verse. We are pleased to see that a full proportion are from

American writers.

XII. History of the Invasion and Capture of Washington, and of the Events which preceded and followed. By John S. Williams, Brigade Major and Inspector, Columbian Brigade, in the War of 1812. New York: Harpers. 1857. pp. 371.

The object of this book is to state what in the opinion of the writer is the truth about the Battle of Bladensburg, and the defence or want of defence of Washington. He thinks that there has been a general misapprehension on the subject, and that the difficulty lay not so much in any want of courage in the combatants, as in political mismanagement. The subject is worthy a careful investigation, and is certainly very interesting.