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and its People. By the Rev. SAMUEL MATEER, F.L.S., of the London Missionary Society. London: John Snow and Co. 1871.Some books suit certain readers only, but this one is calculated to please and instruct everybody. It has much of the charm of novelty, it being the first book that has appeared on the subject. Travancore, the province of India about which it treats, is called, in poetic language, "The Land of Charity or Piety," which just means that it has long been the home of the most degrading idolatry, being called "The Land of Piety" in a similar sense to that in which Ireland is called "The Island of Saints." But the book before us is not a treatise on idolatry merely: it may be designated a "Handbook of Travancore," as it answers every question which an intelligent inquirer would propose to a missionary just returned from that country.

THE SILENT LAND.

The facts with which its 370 pages are literally packed full are admirably classified. It treats of the natural history and physical characteristics of the country; of the manners, customs, and various religions of the people; and of the mighty influence which the Gospel is exerting amongst them. Young people and general readers will linger over its illustrative engravings and its anecdotes with peculiar interest, whilst the naturalist, the Bible student, and he who takes an interest in foreign missions will find much information suited to his taste. The gifted author relates his facts from personal knowledge. -Communicated.

PERIODICALS RECEIVED.

The Methodist Quarterly for March.

Leisure Hour for March.

Sunday Magazine for March.

Poetry.

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To lead us with a gentle hand
Into the land of the great departed,
Into the Silent Land.

BE ALWAYS GIVING. THE sun gives ever; so the earthWhat it can give so much 'tis worth; The ocean gives in many waysGives baths, gives fishes, rivers, bays; So, too, the air, it gives us breath, When it stops giving, comes in death. Give, give, be always giving, Who gives not, is not living; The more you give,

The more you live.

God's love hath in us wealth unheaped;

Only by giving it is reaped;

The body withers, and the mind
Is pent in by a selfish rind.

Give strength, give thought, give deeds, give pelf,

Give love, give tears, and give thyself.

Give, give, be always giving,
Who gives not, is not living:

The more we give,
The more we live.

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"PHILOSOPHY is a graceful thing when it is moderately cultivated in youth, but if any one occupies himself with it beyond the proper age, it ruins him; for, however great may be his natural capacity, if he philosophizes too long, he must of necessity be inexperienced in all those things which one who would be great and eminent must be experienced in. He must be unacquainted with the laws of his country, and with the mode of influencing other men in the intercourse of life-whether private or public-and with the pleasures and passions of men; in short, with human characters and manners. And when such men are called upon to act, whether on a private or public occasion, they expose themselves to ridicule."

So says Callicles in Plato's "Gorgias," and he says truth, begging the pardon of all the philosophers in this philosophic generation.

Paul says, "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.”

Philosophy, then, according to Paul, can "spoil" a Christian, and, according to Callicles, it can "ruin" a man; both of which statements are of a very serious character, and should be pondered by all men, and especially by all philosophers.

But what philosophy? It was the philosophy of the time-the "ancient" philosophy. It began with Thales and ended with Philo. It embraced all the schools of thought between these extremes, and they were as many as the names they bear. How much of these various philosophies Paul had studied we do not know. To which of them he might be most favourably inclined before his conversion he does not tell us. But the warning he addressed to the Colossians he addressed to Greeks, for they were Greeks, and we may presume that the Greek philosophy was the philosophy he referred to, and that philosophy as it was placed before him and them at the time he

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wrote. That philosophy had the sanction of many illustrious names, and was the same that Proclus-four hundred years after Paul-took up and attempted to reconcile with faith. How it fared with him, and with others who had preceded him, in the endeavour to solve by philosophy alone the mysterious problems which they had placed before them, or to solve those problems by philosophy and faith united, may be stated in the language of Lewis, perhaps the best historian and expounder of the subject. "With Proclus," says he, "the Alexandrine school expired; with Proclus philosophy ceased. Religion and religion only was capable of affording satisfactory answers to the questions which perplexed the human race, and philosophy was reduced to the subordinate office which the Alexandrians had consigned to the Aristotelian logic. Philosophy became the servant of religion, but no longer reigned in its own right. Thus was the circle of endeavour completed. With Thales reason separated itself from faith; with the Alexandrians the two were again united. The centuries between those epochs were filled with helpless struggles to overcome an insuperable difficulty. . . . But to the reflective student, who thus sees these men, after centuries of endeavour, fixed on the self-same spot, the Alexandrian straining his eager eyes after the same object as the Ionian, and neither within the possible range of vision, there is something which would be unutterably sad were it not corrected by the conviction that these men were fixed to one spot because they had not discovered the only true pathway, a pathway which those who came after them securely trod. The spectacle of human failure, especially on so gigantic a scale, cannot be without some pain. So many hopes thwarted, so many great intellects wandering in error, are not to be thought of without sadness. But it bears a lesson which we hope those who have followed us thus far will not fail to read. It is a lesson on the vanity of philosophy-a lesson which almost amounts to a demonstration of the impossibility of the human mind ever compassing those exalted objects which its speculative ingenuity suggests as worthy of its pursuit. It points to that profound remark of Auguste Comte, that there exists in all classes of our investigations a constant and necessary harmony between the extent of our real intellectual wants and the efficient extent, actual or future, of our real knowledge."

Exactly so; and this opens up the whole subject of being "spoiled by philosophy." Mark, it is the Christian who can be, and may be, spoiled by philosophy. As to other men, they cannot well be more spoiled than they are, for multitudes are without God and without hope in the world. Multitudes are not only this, but they are "sensual and devilish," and it would be a mercy if these latter especially were to take up philosophy, as we take up dumb

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