Two religious publications are before us.
The Miracles if the Lord Jesus Christ. By time Reverend B. H. DRAPER. First and Second Series.
Maternal Instructions on the Rile of Confirmation.
The first of this class is intended for children. It consists of a selection of the Saviour's Miracles ; not always told in the language of Scripture, but slightly paraphrased by Mr. DRAPER. The narrative is largely accompanied by observations, sometimes explanatory of Jewish customs, and sometimes doctrinal ; whilst occasion is generally taken to improve the opportunity by reli- gious exhortation and sermon-like commentary. Of the good in- tentions of all this there can be no question ; but of its good effect upon the shrewd and discursive minds of childhood, a doubt may
entertained, seeing that the discourses are somewhat wordy.
Maternal Instructions on Confirmation are conveyed in the shape of dialogues between a mother and daughters ; and are written with plainness enough, but with considerable diffuseness. What is very much worse, they are disfigured by the narrowest and most formal kind of sectarian spirit. Confirmation is not so much recommended or enforced as a solemn renewal of infant baptism; as the consummation, when years of discretion are at- tained, of a sacrament, which otherwise would rest a mere " out- ward and visible sign ;" and as a public profession of the Christian faith and its high duties,—but as an ordinance of the Church of England, which church is obtrusively represented as the only true church, and as descending in a regular and lineal succession from the Apostles : a dangerous, because a weak opinion, for whoever rests upon this as a fundamental doctrine, will find it difficult to resist the weight of historical evidence and theological argument by which the Catholics can prove that the Church of Rome was, for some time at least, an " only true church" too.
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