UTC
The Church Review, and Ecclesiastical Register
Unsigned
New York: April 1854

  HOT CORN: LIFE SCENES IN NEW YORK ILLUSTRATED. 1 vol., 8vo. pp. 408. Handsomely illustrated. 1853. 12mo. pp. 400. New York: De Witt & Davenport.

  Social Progress, Moral Reform, is now the order of the day; and a certain notorious old personage, whom we shall not name, finding the car in motion, has jumped on board, turned engineer, and bids fair to do a "smashing" business. He means to show that, in this matter of "Reform," he can go ahead of all the Churches in Christendom. And so he crowds the low theatres with Christian professors, who go to see "Uncle Tom's Log Cabin" exhibited; and he persuades clergymen to recommend this reeking nauseous sepulchre, whose epitaph we have placed above what we now write. It will do more to demoralize the young, to excite a morbid, prurient curiosity, to defile the imagination, to kindle the fires of unholy passion, than Eugene Sue or Paul De Kock have ever done; because it will go where their works have no access. In the country, especially, where, we understand, its sale has been very large, its deadly mischief will be beyond computation. It should be labeled "Deadly Poison," and shunned by the young as they would shun a basilisk. It ought to be added, that this fetid book comes out under the auspices of a certain school of "philanthropists" in New York city, whose real character this loathsome thing will help to expose. In this respect it may do good, just as the inscription "Small-Pox" on a pest-house may do good.

  LIBERIA; or, Mr. Peyton's Experiments. Edited by Mrs. SARAH J. HALE. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854. 12mo. pp. 304.

  Mrs. Hale's object in preparing this book was to show the advantages Liberia offers "to the African, who, among us, has no home, no position, and no

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future." She has thrown her argument into the form of a fictitious narrative, but her statements of facts, respecting Liberia, are drawn from the most authentic sources. A valuable Appendix, of over 50 pages, contains Letters from Colonists, the opinions of many of our most distinguished Statesmen, and others. Among the bright prospects for the elevation of a large portion of degraded humanity, there is none on which we calculate with more certainty, than African Colonization and Christian Missions connected therewith. Every noble principle and generous impulse point the colored race to the land of their fathers.