The Harvest of a Quiet Eye: Leisure Thoughts for Busy
Lives. (Religious Tract Society.)—This volume consists of papers which have been published in the Leisure Hour and the Sunday at Home, and were better suited, we think, for a separate than for a collective existence. The impression given by the whole is somewhat wearisome. Medita- tions and moralisinge of this kind must have either extraordinary beauty of language or surprising novelty of thought to recommend them effectually, and those are excellencies which we do not flndln the chapters before us, though, indeed, they are written with correctness and good-taste, and are not barren of meaning. The author has a genuine love of the country, which he observes, it would seem, with the attentive look of one who lives for the most part in a city; and he is familiar with some of the classics of our language, notably with the works of Archbishop Leighton, as being especially appropriate to his purpose. After all, the appreciation of a book like this must depend upon many things of which a critic can hardly take account. Judging it by a purely literary standard, we should say that the same thing has been done better before. Yet we can readily believe that there are many minds to which its genuine refinement and piety will be pleasing and profitable.
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