olley, a preacher in the new Southern country. He was
a man of great zeal, energy, and courage, and omitted no opportunity of
doing good to persons of any color or condition in whatever obscure
corner he could find them. On one occasion, while travelling, he came
upon a fresh wagon-track, and following it, he discovered an emigrant
family, who had just reached the spot where they intended to make their
home. The man, who was putting out his team, saw at once by the bearing
and costume of the stranger what his calling was, and exclaimed,--

"What! another Methodist preacher! I quit Virginia to get out of the way
of them, and went to a new settlement in Georgia, where I thought I
should be quite beyond their reach; but they got my wife and daughter
into the church. Then, in this late purchase, Choctaw Corner, I found a
piece of good land, and was sure I should have some peace of the
preachers; but here is one before my wagon is unloaded."

"My friend," said Nolley, "if you go to heaven, you'll find Methodist
preachers there; and if to hell, I'm afraid you'll find some there; and
you see how it is in this world. So you had better make terms with us
and be at peace."

Dr. Stevens, who has acquired some celebrity by his excellent history of
the Wesleyan movement in England, has displayed in the present volume
the same marked abilities which made his previous work so popular. There
is not only evidence of laborious and conscientious diligence in
gathering up, sometimes from almost inaccessible sources, the requisite
materials, but the skill displayed in their arrangement and treatment,
so as to make the narrative an absorbingly attractive one, is eminently
praiseworthy. As a history, the work is not only creditable in a
denominational and ecclesiastical point of view, but it is a valuable
contribution to our national literature.

Much of this success doubtless may be attributable to the nature of the
subject; for it is not easy to conceive of any movement, and especially
a religious one, in which the melodramatic, mingled here and there with
both the tragic and comic, forms so large a natural element. There was a
new country, a rude society, daring adventures, great perils, marvellous
escapes, terrible hardships, the stern, harsh realities of pioneer life,
grand and unexpected successes, all which, seen from the distance of the
present, have a romantic coloring, and produce an exhilarating effect.
Any ordinary ability woul