at clerical tables. It is such a book as Richard Cecil or Simeon might have been expected to write. There are half-adozen stories we should like to quote, but we must be contented with one: These "Prayers," which are, for the most part, translated from the Sarum Missal, and adapted for the use of the English "Most Senior Fellows that I have known have been self-indulgent Church, are placed on a stiff card, which may be stood on the and fond of good living. Why, I remember two Senior Fellows in my own College quarrelling over an apple-pie. One was an 'Evangelical and the other High and Dry.' The apple-pie came gradually down the Fellows' table one Sunday. The apple was considerably poached upon before it reached the Evangelical; and he finished it, and passed crust.' THE CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST, with original Illustrations. London, &c.: Cassell, Petter, Galpin, and Co. Part I. (Price 7d.) altar or re-table, and so easily catch the eye. They are printed in large clear type, with red capitals, rubrics, and border. The prayers are concise, and may be used by many, to whom a fuller "secreta" would prove rather a hindrance than a help. The first rubric assumes that the priest kneels when he first goes up to the altar. To this, although a common practice, strict liturgists will take exception. We thank the compiler for providing these simple aids to devotion, and trust that they may be found helpful to the clergy in their highest and most solemn functions. Macmillan. are classed under seven heads of "Deeps." Different readers This book commences with the words: "In the beginning OUT OF THE DEEP, from the Writings of CHARLES KINGSLEY. GOD created the Heaven and the earth," because they are "wonderful words," and the first in the Bible. We should have thought it much better if 'The Life of Christ' had commenced with the verse "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD." And here we at once put our finger on the great defect of this book. There is scarcely an allusion in it to the Divinity of our LORD. Gabriel tells Mary "she was to be the mother of CHRIST," but that this should be effected by the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost is altogether omitted. There is once the term "Son of God" employed in reference to our LOKD, but with this exception we fail to find even a hint that He was a Divine, and not a mere human, Person. The language is most descriptive and the pictures excellent, and but for the omission we lament the book is everything that could be desired. There is a slip at page 7, where our LORD is said never to have breathed "the air of any country side of the Holy Land. He abode in Egypt. out The work is to be completed in twenty-four parts. We trust, as we advance in 'The Life of Christ,' that a more Divine glow will suffuse these pages. DR W. M. THOMSON'S THE LAND AND THE BOOK: SOUTHERN We do not generally find "literary pickings," as selections such as these have been called, very attractive :-but no one can letters, without feeling that it is a book certain to bring words take up this little volume gathered from Kingsley's sermons and of comfort to many a needy soul, just when the sufferer has neither inclination nor energy to look for it. The extracts will prefer one or the other chapter, according as their own thoughts are answered. Perhaps the "Deep of loneliness and disappointment," and the "Deep of Death," will speak in clearest sympathy to the greater number. Who that knew the writer but will recall him vividly in reading the following: "You are disappointed. Do remember if you lose heart about your work, that none of it is lost. That the good of every good deed remains, and breeds, and works on for ever; and that all that fails and is lost is the outside shell of the thing, which perhaps might have been better done; but, better or worse, has nothing to do with the real spiritual good which you have done to men's hearts, for which GOD will surely repay you in His own way and time." (Page 100.) And surely none but must be helped by such a passage as the following: "Those who die in the fear of GOD and in the faith of CHRIST do not really taste of death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, and change of state; they pass at once into some new life with all their powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, active beings which they were here on earth. Rest they may, rest they will, if they need rest. But what is their rest? Not idleness, but peace of mind. To rest from sin, from sorrow, from Among the great number of books upon Eastern "manners and customs, scenes and scenery," none probably has assimilated more of the genius loci or is better worth attentive study fear, from doubt, from care; this is true rest. Above all to rest from than this one. This handsome volume is due to the pen of a gentleman who has himself lived for more than forty years in the lands which he describes. Much of what he has put before his readers in these pages has, he mentions, been "actually written in the open country. On seashore or sacred lake, on hill-side or mountain top, under the olive or the oak, or the shadow of a great rock, there the author lived, thought, felt, and wrote, and place and circumstance have no doubt given colour and character to many parts of the work." A volume pervaded with this spirit cannot fail to be a most valuable aid to the student of the Holy Scriptures in realising the background of scene and circumstance in the midst of which they were written, to which they were fitted, and in the understanding of which alone they can be thoroughly understood. It has many beautiful illustrations from photographs, excellently engraved. the worst weariness of all, knowing one's duty, and not being able to do it. That is true rest-the rest of GOD, Who works for ever, and is at rest for ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are at perfect rest because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the law which GOD has given them. Perfect rest, in perfect work ;-that surely is the rest of blessed spirits, till the In a very pious and well-intentioned LETTER TO ALL WHO (London: E. Longhurst), the author mixes up two essentially Lock's UNIVERSAL INSTRUCTOR OF SELF CULTURE FOR ALL distinct questions-the doctrine of the Christian priesthood, (Price 6d.). The subjects included in it are not less than sixand the validity of Christian (lay) baptism. With regard to teen, ranging from arithmetic to penmanship, and are the latter, he propounds the theory that it is invalid. The methodically and concisely treated by competent hands. authority of the entire Western Church is, as he admits, French Grammar and German Grammar seems to us paragainst him in admitting the validity, though not the regularity, ticularly good. We should hardly think anyone bent upon of baptism administered by any Christian whatever, so that self-education can do better than get it. the proper matter and form be used. We do not think it needful, therefore, to defend the view attacked. IN TYPE AND SHADOW. Being Lesson Sketches on certain An excellent little book, and one of a kind which we are glad to encourage by every means in our power. The study of the wonderful system of typical foreshowing of the Person, work, and attributes of the Messiah cannot fail to increase the student's understanding of Holy Writ, and to deepen his reverence for it. The present little work reminds us a good deal of Lady Mary Herbert's 'Types and Antitypes of Holy Scripture,' but is worked up very skilfully into a series of lessons for school use, or they might serve as the basis for a course of sermons upon the typical teaching of Holy Scrip ture. The clergy and teachers of all grades ought not to omit to get it. THE HANDY BOOK FOR BIBLE READERS (Religious Tract Society), we think we have noticed before; but it is a most useful little book and is worthy a second notice. It consists of a compressed Concordance to the Old and New Testaments; a glossary of Bible Words; a Scripture Atlas, consisting of twelve Maps well drawn and coloured, with an Index; and a variety of other information bearing upon the right understanding of the Scriptures; quæ nunc describere longum est. STORIES OF THE EAST FROM HERODOTUS. By the Rev. ALFRED J. CHURCH, M. A. With Illustrations from Ancient Frescoes and Sculptures. London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday. 1881. Price 5s. For a school prize or a Christmas present, a more suitable book will hardly be found than this. There is so much that is really instructive in the rather heterogeneous and "gossipy" narrative of the "Father of History" as Herodotus is, not without a certain amount of fitness, styled, that for the former purpose, especially, it is admirably suited. The illustrations in chromo-lithograph will add much to the value of the book, particularly in young people's eyes. Perhaps schoolboys will learn with a good deal of surprise that the Hpódoтos, whose name they have been accustomed to see at the head of kλe or Oáλeia to be worked up as a task, is a story-teller of no mean rank, and can while away an afternoon as agreeably as, and far more usefully than, the yellow-covered novels they are so fond of. Mr Church's pleasant little book will certainly teach them that, and no doubt many other things besides. SOME DRAWINGS OF ANCIENT EMBROIDERY. By Mrs This most beautiful series of illustrations of fine old embroidery was the work, we believe, of many years' careful study on the part of the lady author, who prepared it as her contribution to the work of Church restoration, at the suggestion of one of our greatest and universally respected architects, Mr Butterfield. Mrs Barber having died before her laborious work was published, Mr Butterfield undertook, at her request, to superintend its issue; and a superb book it is, and most instructive to all who are interested in the wide subject of Church embroidery and the worthy production of Church vestments. The letter-press is brief, and generally descriptive only, but we must quote a few lines from Mrs Barber's Preface which are well worth attention: "It may surprise some persons," she says, "that the ornaments in use in old needlework were, comparatively speaking, few, and often repeated. Angels of various kinds, fleurs-de-lis, conventional flowers, a double-headed eagle, stars, &c., singularly alike, were in use as powderings generally in the specimens which remain to us. There was no effort after something new, but to a large extent a perfect contentment with a repetition which hardly suits our modern views. The arrangement and treatment, however, of these ornaments were so free and various that, instead of wearying the eye, they wore a continually fresh look. "Is there not very often too much effort in modern designs for embroidery, as in other things, to do something new?-too much rest. less striving after what is called' originality,' which, as Mr Ruskin well puts it, consists, after all, not in newness but in freshness?" The drawings (which are coloured and most accurately made, so that it is quite practicable to work from them) are taken from the finest specimens of old embroidery in the country. Buckland, Gloucestershire, Corby Castle, the vestments of S. Thomas á Becket, Salisbury, and Chipping Campden are among the contributing sources; Plate 18 is extremely interesting as giving the details of a splendid funeral pall belonging to the Fishmongers' Company of London, said to have been in use as early as 1381. Nos. 19 and 20 also represent palls belonging to the Vintners' and Saddlers' Companies. WITTON'S MAIN, AND OTHER STORIES. By Miss FANNIE SURTEES (Cherith), London: S. W. Partridge and Co., is the work of one who has keenly observed and tenderly sympathised with the joys and sorrows of the life which working people, labourers, miners, and others of our hard-handed toilers, live. These "short and simple annals of the poor" are mostly concerning miners, and against the drinking customs of England. We wish the author an abundant measure of success in her crusade against them. The stories would be We are always glad to notice works intended for self-listened to attentively if read at "mothers' meetings." SHAKESPEARE'S STORIES SIMPLY TOLD. BY MARY SEAMER. No doubt all our readers are familiar with that popular volume, Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.' This is a work of the same kind, but the plots of the great dramatist's several stories are admirably re-told and illustråted by outline engravings, which are really gems in their way. There are many more gaudy gift-books this season, but there will be few prettier; and it ought to be quite as successful as its pre decessor. THE WILDS OF FLORIDA. A Tale of Warfare and Hunting. Good wine needs no bush," says the proverb, and a story for boys, which bears the late Mr W. H. Kingston's name on the title-page, will be tolerably sure of the popular suffrage. We spare our praises therefore; and it may be taken for granted that the work will be a popular one with its special public of boy-readers. It has a picturesque subject—the now half-forgotten Seminole war in Florida, the last great stand made by the North American Indians against the encroachments of the white settlers-and this affords abundant scope for thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes "by fire and flood," from famine and feræ naturæ, after the most approved pattern. Need we say that the book is elegantly printed, and that the engravings are good, spirited, and abundant? We heartily wish that all boys had books so full of interest and attractiveness for their recreative reading. SUNDAY READING for Young and OLD. Boards, 3s. London: The annual volume has just made its appearance, and is as attractive as ever as a Sunday book for young children; it has over two hundred illustrations, a coloured frontispiece, and plenty of appropriate letter-press. To our readers who are looking among the "Christmas books" for a really charming present, we can recommend THE NECKLACE OF PRINCESS FIORIMONDE AND OTHER STORIES. By MARY DE MORGAN. Macmillan and Co. There is a novelty in the stories and a fertility of incident which will be delightful to young readers who are already familiar with the ordinary type of fairy tale, and can divine the conclusion before the narrative has well begun. They will not be able to do so with these graceful conceits of Miss de Morgan's fancy, and the book ought to be a popular one. But little children will like better than anything else healthy teaching, without any obtrusive "goodiness." Older people will find them attractive, as well as the children for whom they are meant. LEFT IN CHARGE. BY AUSTIN CLARE. S. P. C. K. A delightful child's book full of fun and life. The little sister, with her "responsibility" and the amusing adventures shared with her younger brother, whose "future profession' she is "always to keep before his eyes,"-viz., that of a diplomatist-although she needs the dictionary to tell her what it is, are charming, and most gracefully told. NIMPO'S TROUBLES. By OLIVE THORNE MILLER. London: "Nimpo" we supposed to be a dog till we found her to be Mrs About this time last year we heartily commended THE FAVOURITE PICTURE BOOK, compiled by Mr Charles Welsh (Uncle Charlie), as one of the most comprehensive and interesting nursery books we had met with. Though in its complete form it is a marvel of cheapness, yet 5s. is beyond the means of many a home where such a book would be especially welcome. To meet this difficulty the publishers, Messrs Griffith and Farran, have just reissued the book in four separate parts at 1s. each,-THE PICTURESQUE PRIMER, FRAGMENTS OF KNOWLEDGE, THE NURSERY COMPANION, and EASY READING. Our readers should send for a specimen, either volume is the cheapest shilling's worth we know of. The woodcuts, moreover, are admirably adapted for painting by their little owners. THE TINY NATURAL HISTORY SERIES. Griffith and Farran. PANSIE'S FLOUR BIN (Same Publishers), which is very charm-type, and is illustrated with capital woodcuts. ing too in its way, and we fancy more really intelligible to a child's comprehension than most of the books of its class. It is very pretty "children's nonsense," not without a substratum of suitable moral, skilfully and not obtrusively insinuated. Two ROSE TREES. BY MINNIE DOUGLAS. London: Griffith and Farran. Innocent as the white of an egg, and likely to amuse good little girls; but there is a want of spirit and reality in the story, and it is very puzzling to have some half-dozen pictures of the twin sisters, representing them as of some half-dozen different ages, although the compass of the whole story lies within a year. THE HOUSE ON THE BRIDGE, and other Tales. By C. E. Five short stories, told with great spirit, and carrying a press consists either of short descriptions of, or tales about animals, birds, etc., and we are pleased to note that, for the most part, the language is really simple, and there is a happy absence of those difficult words which are so apt to puzzle the little ones and to impede the flow of the story. There are, however, exceptions to this in Mrs R. Lee's books, for instance, we find "prolongation," "epithet," "propensity," "accuracy," tion to a very young child. We have seen some of the wood"rigorous climate," &c., which would certainly need explana cuts and the tales themselves in a somewhat condensed form in The Favourite Picture Book' (same publishers). The voiumes are nicely got up, and the price of each is only 9d. Publications of the S.P.C.K. In this season's issues from the office of this great Society which have been sent to us are clearly to be traced the effects of that larger and (perhaps we may call it) more literary conception of the Society's functions as a provider of Christian knowledge which has prevailed of late years in the Society's counsels, and to which it is no doubt owing that the issues bearing the familiar device "S. P. C. K." have thrown off that character of elementariness, "goodiness" (we do not mean goodness, for they have as much "goodness" as ever), and general dulness which some people thought used to attach to them, and now fulfil their very useful functions better than ever they did. The consequence is shown in an increased breadth of view in the choice of subjects, and in the method of their treatment, which we can hardly praise too highly. The first book we take up is WRECKED LIVES; or, Men Who have Failed. By W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. First and Second Series; 3s. 6d. each. A title having at least the merit of novelty. No doubt useful lessons may be learned from the lives of unsuccessful men, perhaps the best lesson of all; but we do not see that in these volumes they are selected on any uniform principle. No doubt also, that Rienzi, or Chatterton, or Burns, or Haydon the painter, come fairly under the designation; but we have to adopt quite another fundamentum divisionis to call Cardinal Wolsey, or Burns, or Kosciusko by the same name; and again, Robespierre falls into a third and very different class. The lives are, however, well and interestingly written. There is an obvious mistake of "Temple" for "Swift" on p. 148, of vol. i. Another volume of the same size and price is occupied by a valuable monograph on THE NORTH AFRICAN CHURCH. By JULIUS LLOYD, M.A. English readers generally know little of the history of the Church of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine, and yet unquestionably there is more to be learned from it by a national and somewhat isolated Church like our own than from any other single Church whatever. Mr. Lloyd has done his work well, and made his history fit to be a standard one. Of story books we have, as usual, a variety. BERNARD HAMILTON, Curate of Stowe, by MARY E. SHIPLEY (3s. 6d.), will be dear to that, we fear, large class of people whom Miss Yonge, in her clever story about The Clever Woman of the Family,' calls "curatolaters." But since people must idealise or idolise curates, it were well that they should have a pattern as good as, and not more foolish than this. We fancy the story has already appeared in Good Words or some other periodical. Life in Ireland must be a sad and trying time for all those who are not on the popular side. A vivid picture of its anxieties, from the point of view of the agent to a non-resident landlord, will be found in MIKE: A TALE OF THE GREAT IRISH FAMINE (1s. 6d.), and will help readers to enter into the experiences of English people in Ireland. Why is it that the two adjoining islands are so utterly unlike? the one peaceful and law-abiding, the other murder-stained, and turbulent from one end to the other. STEFFAN'S ANGEL AND OTHER STORIES (28. 6d.) is a collection of brief tales and sketches, of which the scene is mostly placed in North Italy. -THE BELLS OF FREIBURG, a Christmas story, by AUSTIN CLARE (1s.), is, as its name implies, a story of the Black Forest, and enforces with truly German herzlichkeit the lesson that GOD orders every event of our lives, and that His justice may be relied upon. -THE CRUISE OF THE DAINTY; or, Rovings in the Pacific, by WILLIAM H. G. KINGSTON (2s.), is one of the late respected author's well-known ""yarns" about sea life. The present one conducts the reader through the Australian seas, Fiji, the Samoan Archipelago, &c.; and having read it, he will know something more of those latitudes, of the labour traffic and the kidnapping for which it is often made the pretext, and of missionary operations in those seas, than he did when he began. We presume that it was the lamented A TEARFUL VICTORY, by DARLEY DALE (1s.), though entitled "A Story for Children," seems not to be especially appropriate for their reading. It is the narrative of the difficulties which a young stepmother encountered in her endeavour to win the affection of her husband's children by his first marriage, and how she finally succeeded at considerable cost to herself. author's last work. We are glad to observe that the Society have adopted that very useful book, AN ENGlishman's Brief on BEHALF OF HIS NATIONAL CHURCH, and have issued a revised and enlarged edition at the low price of 2s. We quite think that if every English clergyman and a good many English lay churchmen were in possession of a copy of this admirable little book fewer mistakes about the position of the Church as an Establishment would be made, and far less nonsense would be talked on platforms and elsewhere. We should like to suggest the subscribing of a fund to present a copy to each of the two churchwardens of the 12,000 parishes of England, and we think that if the price were reduced to sixpence, at least 100,000 copies might and ought to be circulated. We are glad to see the series entitled CHIEF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHIES, since we think that by means of it the general reader may gain some insight into a part of the history of thought of which he is now, as a rule, profoundly ignorant. Nor is this altogether by his own fault, for there are few popular accounts of the philosophers of Greece and their works. The only one we can at present call to mind is that in two duodecimo volumes by the late Mr. J. H. Lewes, and articles in encyclopædias dealing with the subject were pretty sure to be abysmally dull. EPICUREANISM, by WILLIAM WALLACE, M.A., and STOICISM, by W. W. CAPES (2s. 6d. each), are each just what such manuals should be, brief, clear, and as full of interest as the nature of the subject admits. We rather wonder that the former has not drawn out in detail the obvious parallels to the ancient Epicurean poco curante which are afforded by the Hedonism of our own day, or even by Utilitarianism, since pleasure is taken to be a "use," and therefore utilis. But the author would probably reply that, however tempting such an inquiry, it was beyond the bounds of his subject. Magazines. The November number of the NINETEENTH CENTURY is in every way to be noted for the ability and interest of its contents. Lord Sherbrooke has his forecast to offer upon that knotty subject for (we suppose) the next Session of Parliament, "Legislation for Ireland." Professor Tyndall treats what at first sight strikes one as a subject altogether beyond son métier, viz., "Sunday." But that there is a physical side to the question of its observance we must all allow, and this he treats with, on the whole, good common sense, though his veiled sarcasms about religion are in the worst taste. Very well worth reading is a brilliant disquisition, by Mr W. H. Mallock, on "The Philosophy of Conservatism." We extract two of his epigrammatic sentences: "The function of the Conservatives is to guard the necessary imperfections in the social structure, the function of the Liberals to attack the curable imperfections. The former have to check the ardour of the latter; the latter have to conquer the jealousy of the former." And Major Hallett argues that we may more than double the produce of our wheat-fields by an easy process of planting, which he describes; a statement important if well founded, and which we should like to see tried in practice. The CONTEMPORARY has come late, and we can only just glance over it; but we must notice that the Duke of Argyll contributes No. III. of his interesting articles on " Animal Instinct in its Relation to the Mind of Man," which are specially valuable for the large number of facts respecting birds and beasts which they contain, and on the basis of which their arguments are founded. Two attempted solutions, in opposite senses, by Professors W. Steadman Aldis and Alfred R. Wallace respectively, of the difficult and dangerous problem of the tenure of land, in England as in Ireland' which seems awaiting us in the immediate future, should be read; and an article on "The Future of the Canadian Dominion," evidently looks forward to eventual and not distant separation. Anything like a British Federal Empire the writer pronounces to be "impossible." The ANTIQUARY is full of articles which deserve to be read once and again for their real merit and value. The excerpta which Lord Talbot de Malahide has made from a certain obscure series of Transactions of a Society of Grub Street,' and entitled "The Grub-street Journal," embody many curious and amusing items, somewhat of the "fly in amber" order. We are glad to see that they are to be continued. Altogether satisfactory, too, are Mr J. H. Parker's two contributions, particularly the former, on the "Victorian Revival of Gothic Architecture," and there is much curious learning in Mr E. J. Watherston's paper on "Gems." There are only five articles in MACMILLAN this month, and one of them is very brief indeed, but excessively curious being the narrative by a lady resident in Ceylon of some nocturnal disturbances without assigned cause, which frightened all the household, the heads of it included, and were by the natives attributed to the pezazi-in plain English, to the devil. Mrs Oliphant's story concludes more agreeably than might have been expected, and "The Portrait of a Lady" goes on. We cannot say that there is much incident, but the dialogue is wonderfully felicitous and brilliant. It is curious to compare this sparkling vivacious story with another from the same pen which has been appearing in CORNHILL-"Washington Square." It concludes this month in the same noiseless, unaccented, undramatic fashion in which it has proceeded throughout, as if it were broken off short. It decidedly shows literary skill, but it is not, to our thinking, an agreeable story, and must have been intended as a study in low tones of colour in thought and feeling. Its chief charm is that it is so thoroughly consistent throughout. We wish we had time to point this out in detail. "My Faithful Johnny," the new The matter of greatest importance in establishing a Mothers' Meeting in any parish is that it should be distinctly recognised as work for the Church; that the lady appointed to conduct it should do so under the superintendence of the clergyman, and with the avowed object of bringing the women under Church teaching, never that of supplying the place of her services. The more the religious element is brought into the meeting, the more carefully does this point need to be guarded; and it is well that the clergyman should, as often as possible, read the prayers which close the meeting, or speak a few words of counsel and sympathy to the members of his flock gathered there. The time for the meeting must be the afternoon, while the children are at school, and the place either a comfortably-fitted parish room or some cottage parlour, hired or lent for the occasion. Chairs gathered round the fire or table, when the number of women is small, suggests more the idea of home comfort than do forms placed in rows. Where the room is used entirely for such purposes, pictures and illuminated texts on the walls are desirable, and are much appreciated. The methods of conducting such a meeting must greatly vary, according to the size and character of the parish, and whether it be town or country. In all cases mothers must be allowed to bring their babies while in arms; but in a large meeting much more strict rules as to order and silence are required, while in a small one it is well to encourage a little friendly chat about their families and Hints as to cooking, nursing, and the care of their houses may in this way be given, without any appearance of dictation or interference. home concerns. The lady chosen to conduct such a meeting should possess, if she is to be really fitted for her work, that power of tender sympathy which will make itself felt, |