ant, and have proved faithful through a course of ages to the primitive principles and creed of their fathers; one, too, which, under the dispensation of the Divine Spirit, has received its baptisms of "blood and fire." For the truth's sake broken, scattered, peeled, crushed, yet never dishonored; always noble in its deepest depressions, rising again above each successive flood of tribulation, and, by dint of native intelligence and genius, or its own mental and moral power, building itself afresh, in still nobler proportions, on the foundation of an ancient and untarnished name.

THIS is one of those modest but sugges- | from the Albigeois, which remain Protesttive volumes which always engage the reader's heart on the author's side. Apart from the literary merits of his pages, and irrespective of his philosophical acumen, patient research, and beautiful grouping of interesting facts, the writer's dignified principle, noble temper, and fine spirit, would be a sufficient recommendation to every lover of goodness and truth. We regard the author himself with peculiar interest, as the living representative, on French soil, of a family which stood identified with evangelical doctrine and spiritual piety in times when Europe at large was darkening under the sway of lifeless formalism and corrupting error; one of those rare French families which descend *Les Descendants des Albigeois et des Huguenots, ou Mémoires de la Famille de Portal. Paris. 1860.

VOL. LVII.-NO. 4

M. F. de Portal's collection and arrangement of family traditions serve to remind us that all the historical interests of a province sometimes appear to be gathered, as into a knot, within and around a single

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