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ART. IX. SELECT LITERARY INFORMATION.

The Literary Souvenir for 1828, under the superintendence of Mr. Alaric Watts, is in a state of great forwardness, and will be published on the First of November. The peculiar advantages which have been enjoyed by the Editor, in having been permitted to make choice of the greater part of the subjects for his Illustrations from the Galleries of various distinguished Patrons of Living Art, as well as from those of some of the most eminent Painters of the day, have enabled him to increase very materially the interest of the pictorial department of his Work. Independently of other additions to its attractions, he has extended the quantity of his Embellishments. The Literary Souvenir for 1828 will, beside other Decorations, contain Twelve splendid Line Engravings (two more than usual) from the burins of many of the most eminent Engravers of the day, after original Paintings of first-rate excellence, by various distinguished Artists; viz. James Thomson, R.A.; C. R. Leslie, R.A.; A. E. Chalon, R.A.; T. Stothard, R.A.; H. W. Pickersgill, R.A.; W. Danby, A.; W. Allan, A.; W. Westall, A.; W. Liuton; J. Richter; R. Farrier; J. Wood, &c. &c. &c. Among other Pictures of well known beauty and celebrity engraved for the forthcoming Volume, may be mentioned, Thomson's Juliet after the Masquerade -Pickersgill's Medora-Chalon's Thief Discovered-Linton's Return of a Victorious Army to a Greek City-Richter's Love Letter-Westall's Indian Sceneand Wood's Psyche borne by the Zephyrs-all of which have been exhibited at the Royal Academy and elsewhere with great eclât. The volume will also contain an Engraving from a beautiful Picture by Leslie, of the Duke and Duchess, from Don Quixote. The Literary Contents of the Work will be composed, as usual, of a great variety of original Contributions, in Prose and Verse, from the first Writers of the day; including productions from several Pens not hitherto engaged in any publications of this class.

Proposals have been issued for publishing a uniform edition of the Works of the English Reformers. Edited by Thomas Russell, A.M.

It is proposed faithfully to reprint, without any alteration whatsoever,

(except conforming the orthography to present usage,) the entire works of the principal Reformers of the English Church, with a selection from the writings of several of their contemporaries. First, in order of time, will be the works of Tyndal, Frith, and Barnes, which will make between three and four volumes. Then will follow the Works of Cranmer, (some of which will be for the first time printed from his manuscript,) of Latimer, Hooper, Ridley and Bradford, which it is expected will be comprised in five or six volumes. A selection will be made from the writings of Nicholas Ridley, Knox, Coverdale, Ball, Ponet, Becon, Joy, Bacon, Fox, Lever, and other early Protestant divines, making four or five additional volumes; so that it is computed the whole work will extend to about fifteen volumes. The works of that distinguished prelate, Bishop Jewel, have not been enumerated in the above list, because they are al ready announced for a publication by another hand, or it is evident they would have been included as necessary to render the series complete. The Work will be comprised (as nearly as can be calculated) in fifteen or sixteen vols. 8vo. of about 500 pages each. The price to subscribers will be 10s. 6d. ; fifty copies will be taken off on large paper, price 14. 1s. A volume will be published every three months.

In the press, Twelve instructive and familiar Lectures to Young Persons, on the intellectual and moral powers of man; the existence, character, and government of God; the evidences of Christianity, &c.; with a concluding address on nonconformity, delivered at Northampton. By the late Rev. John Horsey.

In the press, and nearly ready, a new and greatly improved edition of Mr. Gray's Supplement to the Pharmacopoeias, including the new French remedies, with numerous and important additions.

Bagster's Comprehensive Bible, in addition to the three forms in which that important work is on sale, is at press on super-royal cream-coloured writing paper, with a spacious margin of four inches for manuscript notes. The student hereby will possess the advantages of an interleaved Bible, hav

ing multifarious and most valuable matter in the compass of one quarto volume.

In the press, Historical Tablets and Medallions, illustrative of an improved System of Artificial Memory, for the more easy remembrance of remarkable Events and Dates; exhibiting, in a Series of neatly tinted Engravings, (including more than one hundred medallic Portraits,) a connected outline of Historical and Biographical Chronology, the complete succession of all the Roman Emperors, and of the Sovereigns of England and France, down to the present time. Together with an appropriate

Introduction, Appendix, and Vocabulary. Designed and arranged by John Henry Todd.

*** The Tablets may also be had, neatly executed on Card-board, and fitted up in a handsome box-so that a number of students might, with equal convenience and economy, be using them at the same time. 31. 3s.

Preparing for the press, A defence of the Missions in the South Sea and Sandwich Islands, against the charges and misrepresentations of the Quarterly Review, in a Letter addressed to the Editor of that Journal.

ART. X. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Classical Manual; or a Mythological, Historical, and Geographical Commentary on Pope's Homer and Dryden's Eneid of Virgil; with a very copious Index. 8vo. 18s.

Statement by the Council of the University of London, explanatory of the Nature and Objects of the Institution. 8vo. 2s. sewed.

HISTORY.

The first volume of a new History of London, by Thomas Allen (author of the History of Lambeth), with numerous engravings of Antiquities, &c. on copper and wood. Es. 6d.

POETRY.

The Pelican-Island, in Nine Cantos; and other Poems. By J. Montgomery. Foolscap 8vo. 8s. boards.

The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies; Hero and Leander; Lycus the Centaur, and other Poems. By Thomas Hood, Author of "Whims and Oddities," &c. Post 8vo. 8s.

The Influence of Apathy, and other Poems. By Henry Trevanion, Esq. Foolscap 8vo. 5s boards.

THEOLOGY,

The Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, according to the Four Evangelists. From the German of John David Michaelis. Formerly Professor of Philosophy at Göttingen, Privy Counsellor of Justice, Knight of the Polar Star, Member of the Royal Society at London, and of the Academy of Inscriptions of Paris, &c. &c, 12mo. 6s. 6d.

A Funeral Sermon, occasioned by the Death of Miss Elizabeth C. By the Rev. John Styles, D. D. 1s. 6d.

The Reasons of the Laws of Moses, from the "More Nevochim" of Maimonides. With Notes, Dissertations, and a Life of the Author. By James Townley, D.D. 8vo. 10s. 6d.

A Review of Scripture, in Testimony of the Truth of the Second Advent, the First Resurrection, and the Millenium. By a Layman. 8vo. 6s.

A Few Hints on the Right Improvement of the Death of Pious Ministers; a Sermon preached on the Death of the Rev. R. W. Allix, B.D. By the Rev. Joseph Joues, M.A. 8vo. 1s. 6d.

A Discourse occasioned by the Death of the Right Hon. George Canning, delivered at Southampton, on Sunday, Aug. 12th, 18. By J. Bullar. 8vo. 1s. 6d.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR OCTOBER, 1827.

jn.

Art. I. Notice sur Jean-Frederic Oberlin, Pasteur à Waldbach, au
Ban-de-la-Roche; Mort le 1er Juin, 1826. 8vo. pp. 80. Paris,

1826.

66

THE memorials of the good constitute one of the most sacred possessions of the Church of Christ. Next to the Scriptures and the promises which they contain, we may be permitted to estimate the living evidences of Christianity which such records serve to perpetuate, and to make the common property of the Church catholic. Whose are the Fathers," whose, too, are the apostles, the martyrs, the evangelists, the pastors, of every age and of every communion; for the Christian Church has succeeded to the inheritance and prerogatives of ancient Israel, among whose peculiar privileges this was not the least. Modern biography has been, perhaps, too busily and curiously employed in enrolling and blazoning names which will scarcely outlive the records of the grave-stone. But, on the other hand, it is not easy to estimate the loss which is sustained by the Christian community, when an example of eminent sanctity and heroic zeal is defrauded of its just honours; when a living epistle of apostolic piety is suffered to perish; or, to change the figure, when the lamp kindled by a holy life, which might have shone to posterity, is suffered to go

out.

Oberlin was a man whom the Church of Rome, if it deserved the name of Catholic, would have canonized. Not that his piety was of the spurious kind which that Church delighteth to honour. He embraced a life of privation and poverty, but he was no mendicant; his habits were as autere as those of the cloister, but he was no monk. He wrought miracles, very different ones from those of St. Paris or St. Hohenlohe, but undeniable ones: they changed the face of nature and the moral character of a whole district. His virtue was of that Vol. XXVIII. N S. 2 H

lofty kind which springs from the calm and elevated enthusiasm peculiar to the Christian faith, and which we are too apt to suppose the exclusive attainment of saints of other times; as if religion itself could possibly degenerate in its genuine nature and efficiency, because we may have degenerated. Such a man could receive no honour from being ranked with the holy rabble of the Papal calendar; but it becomes Protestants to be not less solicitous than Romanists, to preserve and cherish the memory of those servants of Christ who have " obtained a "good report;" men, whom it were, indeed, folly to invocate, and impiety to worship, but whom it is good to remember, and noble to follow.

The English public are indebted to a small pamphlet, published in 1820, by the Rev. Mark Wilks of Paris, for the first distinct notice of this extraordinary man*. The late Rev.

John Owen had, indeed, in his account of a Journey on the Continent, made honcurable mention of the venerable pastor of Waldbach; and a letter from him, without his name, appears in the First Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. (No. XV). At that period, Oberlin had been prosecuting for nearly forty years his pious and philanthropic labours in the recesses of mountains scarcely accessible to the traveller. He is simply styled, in the Report above referred to, a clergyman in Alsace. Mr. Wilks's charming little narrative made him better known to his Protestant brethren in this country, to which the names of foreign worthies are sometimes long in finding their way; and now and then, a Christian traveller has turned aside from the beaten route, and forsaken the rich scenery of the Rhine, to visit the Ban de la Roche and its venerable pastor. Oberlin, le bon Papa Oberlin,' rests from his labours; but the scene of his pious achievements has acquired a permanent interest independent of its wild and romantic scenery, and few spots better deserve to engage the attention of continental travellers. Before we proceed to give an account of the subject of these remarks, drawn from the Notice before us and other materials in our possession, a description of this singular tract may not be unacceptable.

The Ban de la Roche is a mountainous canton of Alsace, forming part of the western declivities and ramifications of the Haut Champ or Hochfeld, an isolated groupe of mountains, separated by a deep longitudinal valley from the eastern side of the chain of the Vosges. The Haut Champ rises to an elevation of 3600 feet above the level of the sea. Waldbach, the

*The Ban de la Roche and its Benefactor, M. J. F. Oberlin." Svo. pp. 48. London, 1820.

principal village, is placed on its acclivity, at the height of 1800 feet, and Rothau at 1360 feet. The other villages, Fouday, Zollbach, Bellefosse, and Belmont, occupy points more or less elevated. The temperature varies extremely, according to the height and the position of the districts. At an elevation of 12 or 1300 feet above the level of the sea, the climate corresponds to that of Geneva and part of the Jura: this is called the warm region. Above that, as high as 2400 feet, is the temperate region, in which the thermometer indicates the same temperature as that of Warsaw and Wilna. At 2700 feet, the climate is that of Stockholm and Abo; and on ascending still higher, the cold becomes as intense as at St. Petersburgh. The fogs, rain, and snow, commence in September, and the snow remains undissolved in general till the latter end of May or the beginning of June, when the wind blows from the south. At Fouday, the harvest is about a week later, and at Waldbach, a fortnight later, than at Rothau; while at Belmont, it is a month later than at Fouday. The whole canton comprises between eight and nine thousand acres (of 48,400 French feet), of which, between three and four thousand are covered with wood, two thousand are occupied with pasture, and the remainder is enclosed. About 1600 acres are under cultivation, producing rye, oats, and potatoes, with a small quantity of flax, and 1400 are laid out in meadow and garden ground. At the beginning of the reign of Louis XV., the whole of this tract was in the wildest state, and almost inaccessible, there being no road even from village to village, and scarcely any land under cultivation. About fourscore families barely subsisted on the precarious produce of the soil, in a state of wretchedness and ignorance beyond conception. This obscure corner of territory participated, however, together with the rest of Alsace, in a privilege denied to the ancient French provinces. When it was incorporated with France, it was stipulated in the treaty, that its inhabitants should continue to enjoy an entire liberty of conscience; and while in Languedoc, the persecuted Protestants with difficulty found a spot sufficiently remote from observation to celebrate their worship, in that country they possessed their churches, and no restriction was laid upon their assemblies*.

In the year 1750, the Lutherans of the Ban de la Roche received for their pastor, M. Stouber, to whose truly apostolic character, his successor bears honourable testimony. It was

*See, for further details relating to the topography of this district, "Propositions Geologiques pour servir, &c. Par H. G. Oberlin, Doct. en Medicine." 8vo. Strasbourg, 1806.

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