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 the lives of some of the re
