see a despicable person, whose hand we would not take in the way of friendship, selected for a crown, and a saint who has been an inspiration to us in the conflict of the soul allotted a cross! Can our commonwealth be blamed if it follow the lead of Providence and set rascals on high and hold the children of the kingdom in scorn?

So it comes to pass that we begin by being concerned about good men, and end by being concerned about God. Is He also careless whether one choose the higher or lower way, whether he feed or mortify his evil self? Are men and cowards, vain and proud persons, the same to Him as the men of the Beatitudes? This is a very serious question, vital and final. If God be on the right side, then there is not a good man anywhere who will not hold up his head; if God goes over to the enemy, then it seems nò use that the rest of us continue the fight-let us fling away our scruples and join in the general scramble. course we know what God has said: his words are in the Law of Moses and in the Sermon on the Mount; they are graven on our hearts. We also see what God does, and his deeds and his words do not correspond. This is the problem of Providence, and it is not light. We ought carefully to remember that Providence has not finished its work with those two men and their affairs. It is at the foot of the page the figures are added, and till the columns are filled up no one can say whether the debtor or creditor side has the advantage. Life has many surprises, and some of them are very cheering. Knaves come oftentimes to shame and beggary, much to the relief of society; just men suddenly win their rights, to every one's delight. Wickedness may succeed to-day and to-morrow, and be made a hissing and a reproach the third day. Honor may be set in the pillory and be pelted by the rascal multitude for a day and be clothed in purple and borne to her throne at eve of sun. And if this happy event come not to pass in our time, then the figures will be carried over the page, and the balance will be struck on the other side. Dives and Lazarus in this world may seem an argument against Providence; the argument has to be modified when you meet the two men in the next world. God has

an infinite patience, and does not make haste; it will be soon enough to judge his ways when they are complete.

Is it not also our misfortune to be dazzled by the glitter of this world and to identify the rewards of God with material prosperity? If one be rich and increased in goods, if he hold high station in Church or State, then is it not evident that God has blessed him? If one live in a small house and his name be not known two streets away, then surely God has not blessed him. Could any standard be more shallow, deceptive, unbelieving, ungodly? It would seem as if the New Testament had never been written and Jesus had never lived in Nazareth! If the teaching of Jesus goes for anything, worldly success is no sign of divine approval, but is rather a very trying discipline; hardship is no evidence that God is disowning a man, but, maybe, the most convincing gift of his fatherly love. Joseph of Arimathea was no dearer to Christ than St. John, and although Nero lived in a palace and wore the purple, while St. Paul was chained to a soldier and imprisoned in the barracks, the Apostle had not been willing to change places with the Emperor. When God is pleased and wishes to bless the men he loves, his hands have other gifts than silver and gold.

It is more than probable, moreover, that the accounts are being squared here and now, but that our eyes are holden. Is it absolutely certain that our Dives rejoices as one on whom God's face is shining? What of the reprobation of good men, of the gnawing misery of self-contempt, of the conscious impoverishment of the soul, of the haunting dread of the future? Are there none who would give all they have won by years of scheming and self-degradation for a quiet conscience and a good character? Does it go without saying that our Lazarus is miserable because he is not clothed in fine linen and does not dine sumptuously every day? May he not have his own consolations? Surely it is no mean compensation for a severe life and narrow circumstances to be able to look every man in the face, to have the loyal friendship of six honest men, to leave an unstained name as the heritage of his children, to hear God say in the stillness of the soul, "Well done, my son."

T

HE drawing on the opposite page presents an interesting study of two widely differing elements of population. The first may be called the hopeless poor. The second consists largely of diseased and disabled persons receiving aid from public and private benevolence.

Exhibit No. 1 (at the right-hand upper corner of the drawing) consists of a pair of measuring-bars, which show that the census report divides the 97,265 paupers into two parts. Almost exactly three-fourths of them were found sheltered in almshouses, while the other one-fourth are those "permanently supported at public expense at their own homes or with private families."

Distribution.-Exhibit No. 2 portrays the geographical distribution of the almshouse poor, and shows (as in the case of insanity, studied in the second paper) that the North Atlantic section has a much larger proportion than any other part of the United States.2

The reason for this larger proportion of paupers-as well as of insane and criminals-is undoubtedly, in large measure. that found in the study of the criminal element, viz., the presence of the most undesirable portion of the foreign-born population, which remains in the seacoast towns, while the more thrifty portion finds its way westward, settling in the agricultural States.

This view is in part corroborated by the very long bar

For the preceding papers see The Outlook for March 7 and September 5. This is also equally true of the outdoor poor. In fact, all data concerning the outdoor poor correspond very closely to that of the almshouse poor, so that what is presented regarding the almshouse poor may properly be taken as representing the whole.

I

in exhibit No. 3, which shows that a much greater portion of the foreign-born element finds its way into almshouses than of either native-born white or colored persons in the country, as a whole.

The very small circle of the South Central section, and the slightly larger one of the South Atlantic section, are in strong contrast with that of the North Atlantic and Middle States. It appears clear that either the South has fewer poor, or that almshouses are not so abundantly supplied.

Before leaving exhibit No. 3 it is worth while to note that if our population were made up wholly of native-born white persons our proportion of paupers would be only about two-thirds what it is, for the bar portraying nativeborn white is marked 798, while the actual average, including all classes, is 1,166, as recorded on the United States circle just above No. 3. The chief element making up the larger percentage is clearly the excessively large proportion of the foreign-born population, as shown by that bar of No. 3.1

Decrease. That large and growing class of people at the North who are in favor of a very careful public and private expenditure for the support of the poor will be pleased to note the sharp downward pitch of the upper slant line in This downward pitch indicates an important decrease in the proportion of paupers in the North Atlantic section between 1880 and 1890. This would seem to

1 It is to be kept in mind that the greater age of the foreign-born population counts against them.

indicate a more discriminating and restrictive policy in that portion of the United States.

Were a like reduction indicated in each of the other sections, then it might be attributed to the effect of the business prosperity which prevailed throughout the country in that decade. Since, however, the four other slant lines show only trifling changes, the decrease in the Eastern section must come from some local influence, and that influence probably the one already noted.

Male and Female.—The population of the country, as a whole, has a few more males than females; and since wage-earning offers much more ample employment to males than females (the census reports showing nearly five times as many males as females employed), it would be natural to expect a much smaller proportion of male than female paupers. An examination of No. 5 shows, however, that during what may be termed the wage-earning period of life there is only a slightly smaller proportion. After the wage-earning period the excess of male paupers is remarkable. Must this be taken to mean that men are naturally much more ready to become paupers than are women?

Another remarkable fact presented in No. 5 is that the number of paupers is so much less in the second decade of life than in the first. This would seem to indicate a larger proportion of self-supporting population between ten and twenty years of age than at any other period of life. Not less remarkable is the sudden increase of paupers in the third decade (twenty to thirty years of age). It seems astonishing that so many so quickly drop out of the self-supporting ranks.

Child Paupers.-A very gratifying result is presented in No. 6, where the larger (broken) map circles show how great were the proportions of paupers under ten years of age in 1880-at the close of the 1873-79 panic; and the smaller (shaded) circles show the reduction to 1890, covering ten years of prosperity. The United States circle (off the lower left-hand corner of the map) marks a reduction from 104 to 60 per million, or over forty per cent. The five pairs of section circles show that the reduction was very general all through the country, reaching over fifty per cent. in the North Central and seventy per cent. in the Western division; where at the same time even the 1880 proportion was much smaller than in any other part of the country.

It looks very much as if this general improvement were due to the business prosperity of that decade. It was also undoubtedly aided by the efforts of philanthropic persons and societies to remove dependent children from almshouses to "homes" and other better institutions.

The diagram lines show that in both 1880 and 1890 there was a larger proportion of paupers between sixty and seventy years of age than at any other period of life. They also show an increase from 146 to 176 in a thousand, during the ten years, in this seventh decade of life, which indicates that the average age of all paupers advances considerably. This fact is portrayed by the two thermometers of No. 8, near the upper right-hand corner of the drawing. Benevolent Institutions.-Besides the numerous recipients of benevolence and charity already studied in this and the preceding paper, the census found 112,263 persons in other benevolent institutions-" National, State, county, city, and private; in hospitals, orphan asylums, church benevolent institutions, homes for aged women, homes for children, and all places of such character." Exhibit No. 9 gives the geographical distribution of these persons, and calls attention to the much larger provision made for these needy ones in the North Atlantic section than elsewhere. The remarkably small circles of the South show either a much less generous provision or a much smaller need.

Negroes. The very small proportion of the negro population represented in these benevolent institutions raises the inquiry whether prejudice against that race operates to exclude them. It is scarcely reasonable to suppose that there are so very few among them needing this kind of aid. The people of the North charge those of the South with a lack of humanity toward the negro. The people of the South make just as earnest a counter charge, and claim that in practice the Northerners are the guilty ones.

The data have, therefore, been analyzed to ascertain how this class of benevolence is distributed, between white persons and negroes, in each of the five sections of the country. The result is shown in No. 11. Beginning with the North Atlantic section, it is clearly evident that the negroes of that section have much more than their equal share in the benefits provided; for while the white population of that section have about three and a half (3.521) persons to each thousand white persons, in these benevolent insti"tutions the negroes have nearly six and a half (6.409) persons to each thousand negroes. Either the negroes of that section are much more needy than the white population, or prejudice is greatly in their favor. The circles of the North Central and Western sections show similar conditions existing in those two sections.

The opposite conditions, shown even more emphatically in the two Southern sections, point out one of two facts. Either the negroes are not nearly as needy in the South or certain forces are against them.

SUMMARY AND REVIEW

The three papers hereby concluded have brought under brief examination the afflicted and disturbing elements of population, sheltered in organized institutions. This is, however, only a part of the count. Besides all these there are in their own homes a still larger number of persons who through disease or other disability are unable to follow their ordinary occupations. The census of 1890 approximated those afflicted at 1,026,000 persons.

A set of measuring-bars at the foot of the drawing compares these several great "armies" with the standing army of the United States, and thereby leaves the reader to his own ponderings regarding the disturbing and disturbed elements of the population of our country.

Books and Authors

The Bible as Literature'

It was inevitable that the fresh and independent study of the Bible which has been carried forward with such enthusiasm of late years, and which, in spite of some rash conclusions, has been so beneficent in its influence, should eventually awaken a new appreciation of the unique collection of writings which compose the Book as literature. Webster is reported to have said that one evidence of the divine origin of the Christian religion was furnished by the fact that it has survived the written sermon; he might have added that one evidence of the unique spiritual quality and value of the Bible is to be found in the fact that it has searched, inspired, and consoled so many noble men and women, and written itself so largely into the experience and history of a large part of the world, despite the arbitrary way in which it has been divided, the mechanical method by which it has been treated, the indifference shown to its beauty and integrity of form. Through the fog of literal interpretation, and in spite of absurd and mechanical arrangement, the soul of the Bible has still found its way to the soul of humanity. The study of recent years will bear fruit in a repossession of a body of literature full of a beauty which has been obscured, and characterized by a variety which has been almost obliterated. The soul shines with a new splendor now that men are able to see with what harmonious beauty of form it is matched.

The recovery of the Bible of literature was certain to come, but it has found in Professor Richard G. Moulton an interpreter of very unusual gifts. A student and scholar of wide learning, Professor Moulton has also a very genuine feeling for literature and a very notable gift of dramatic interpretation. His study of the Greek and Shakespearean dramas has born fruit in two suggestive books, while his brilliant qualities as an expositor of literary themes have not only charmed audiences in many parts of the country, but have awakened an intelligent and abiding interest in the serious study of literature. Coming from an English university, with an established reputation as a University Extension lecturer, Professor Moulton, by reason of his position in the University of Chicago, has become one of us if warmth of welcome and wide respect can effect a change of citizenship.

The Bible has long been the subject of reverent and intelligent study by Professor Moulton-study which has borne valu

The Modern Reader's Bible. 15 vols. 50 cents a volume. The Macmillan Company, New York.

able fruit in his "Literary Study of the Bible," which bears the imprint of Messrs. D. C. Heath & Co., and still more important fruit in the series of well-printed and convenient little volumes which are now coming from the press of the Macmillan Company. The purpose of this series is well expressed in its general title, "The Modern Reader's Bible: A Series of Works from the Sacred Scriptures Presented in Modern Literary Form." The earlier work is a comment upon and exposition of the literary quality and form of the Bible; these volumes present the Bible in the literary forms which, in the judgment of the editor, it ought to wear. The effect of these changes back to the original poems under which the sacred writings first appeared will be, for the vast majority of readers, a surprise and delight; they will feel as if they had come upon new spiritual and intellectual treasures, and they will appreciate for the first time how much the Bible has suffered from the hands of those who have treated it without reference to its literary quality. In view of the significance and possible results of Professor Moulton's undertaking, it is not too much to pronounce it one of the most important spiritual and literary events of the times. It is part of the renaissance of Biblical study; but it may mean, and in our judgment it does mean, the renewal of a fresh and deep impression of the beauty and power of the supreme spiritual writing of the world.

The plan involves primarily the proper arrangement of the printed page, the recognition of the distinction between prose and verse, the use of the different metrical forms, the insertion of the names of speakers in dialogue, and the introduction of titles to such compositions as essays and discourses. The series, so far as announced, is to include fifteen volumes: four devoted to the Wisdom literature, and including books of selections from the Proverbs, Ecclesiasticus, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Job; one containing the orations and songs of Moses, Deuteronomy; one made up of Biblical Idyls, containing Solomon's Song and the epic lyrics of Ruth, Esther, and Tobit; a History Series in five volumes, devoted to Genesis, Exodus, The Judges, The Kings, and The Chronicles; and a Prophecy Series, presenting Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and The Minor Prophets. It is very much to be hoped that the reception given to the series will insure its completion. Each volume contains a very valuable introductory study of the book presented as a piece of literature; and this series of essays, summing up the results of Professor Moulton's long study, form a contribution of no small importance to the literature relating to the Bible. Each volume is also furnished with notes. The text used throughout the series is that of the Revised Version, the marginal readings being usually preferred.

Professor Moulton's skill and judgment have been subjected to very severe tests in the arrangement and treatment of a series of works in prose and verse of such diverse quality and character, but his success has been notable; for he has brought to his task ample knowledge, genuine literary feeling, and deep reverence. It is impossible to do justice to his work by quotation; his rendering of the Book of Job, for instance, must be read entire, with the Introduction, to gain the full and rich impression of that noble poem-the greatest poem, in many ways, in the literature of the world. Two selections may, however, give a hint of Professor Moulton's method, and of the value and charm of the results attained by it. The Song of Solomon is divided into seven Idyls, the second of which Dr. Moulton entitles "The Bride's Reminiscence of the Courtship:"

The deepest impression that one receives from Mr. Edmund Gosse's essays in literary criticism is that of his candor. He is not, like Mr. Zangwill, prone to sacrifice accuracy of expression (and good nature to boot) to the opportunity of making an epigram. Mr. Zangwill's critical sense is acute, but he has the spirit of the soi disant François Arouet hovering over him. Mr. Gosse is genial and generous. His own literary successes have put him in a good humor with the sorry phantasm we call the world. He dedicates this collection of his critical reviews to Mr. Thomas Hardy, and calls it “Critical Kit-Kats." The felicity of the title titillates. Mr. Gosse paints us kit-kat portraits of Mrs. Browning, Keats, Beddoes, Fitzgerald, Walt Whitman, Tolstoï, Christina Rossetti, Lord de Tabley, Toru Dutt, Pater, and Stevenson; he draws from life mostly, and he sketches cleverly. It is clear that he does not get as much pleasure out of profound emotions and subtle thought in literature as he does out of perfection of form. To take an instance or two— it is queer that he should select as the best of the Rubaiyát of Omar-Fitzgerald the lines beginning:

and

Alas, that spring should vanish with the rose!

Thus with a loaf of bread beneath the bough. Likewise, when he comes to speak of Hérèdia-of whom, by the way, Mr. Gosse gives us the only biographical account that has been published-it is the quatorzain beginning

Au milieu de l'écume arrétant son essor

that Mr. Gosse selects as a sample, instead of that on "Jason. and Medea," or that on "The Sphynx," or "The Awaking of the God." Mr. Gosse instinctively flees mysticism and metaphysics. No wonder, therefore, that he should enthusiastically adore M. José Maria de Hérèdia. Who that has reveled in the Critical Kit-Kats. By Edmund Gosse. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $1.50.

sumptuosity of "Les Trophées" will blame Mr. Gosse, who is entirely right in proclaiming the Cuban Frenchman, the latest of the Forty Immortals, as the greatest poetic artist now living? Hérèdia's sonnets are as complete, we venture to say, as Petrarch's. They have not the heart of Shakespeare's, not the philosophy of Wordsworth's, nor the subtlety of Dante Rossetti's, but they have a perfection of form that is unsurpassable; they are the fine gold chiseling of a Cellini, or they are the relievos of a Donatello of letters. There is a tender sympathy in his touch when Mr. Gosse tells us his story of the late Mr. Pater. If Mr. Pater had any fault, it was a love for preciosity of style, euphuism. It is a difficulty that took possession of him when he perpetrated those interminable sentences in his "Plato and Platonism." Mr. Gosse says that when Pater was at the nadir of his religious faith he most admired the Roman Catholic Church. When Mr. Gosse was in America, he visited Walt Whitman, and frankly he tells us that he went to scoff and remained to-admire. Naturally the formlessness of Whitman's vaticinations would repel him, but the personality of the prophet of Camden was irresistibly attractive. Since it is not generally known how the exquisite sequence of love-poems that Mrs. Browning addressed to her husband came to be named "Sonnets from the Portuguese," here is the explanation in Mr. Gosse's own words:

During the months of their brief courtship, closing, as all the world knows, in the clandestine flight and romantic wedding of September 12, 1846, neither poet showed any verses to the other. Mr. Browning, in particular, had not the smallest notion that the circumstances of their betrothal had led Miss Barrett into any artistic expression of feeling. As little did he suspect it during their honeymoon in Paris, or during their first crowded weeks in Italy. They settled at length in Pisa, and, being quitted by Mrs. Jamieson and her niece, in a very calm and happy mood, the young couple took up each his or her separate work. Their custom was, Mr. Browning said, to write alone, and not to show each other what they had written. This was a rule which he sometimes broke through, but she never. He had the habit of working in a downstairs room, where their meals were spread, while Mrs. Browning studied in a room on the floor above.

One day, early in 1847, their breakfast being over, Mrs. Browning went upstairs while her husband stood at the window watching the street till the table should be cleared. He was presently aware of some one behind him, although the servant was gone. It was Mrs. Browning, who held him by the shoulder to prevent his turning to look at her, and at the same time pushed a packet of papers into the pocket of his coat. She told him to read that and to tear it up if he did not like it, and then she fled again to her own room. Mr. Browning settled himself at the table and unfolded the parcel. It contained the series of sonnets which have now become so illustrious. As he read, his emotion and delight may be conceived. Before he had finished, it was impossible for him to restrain himself, and, regardless of his promise, he rushed upstairs and stormed that guarded citadel. He was early conscious that these were treasures not to be kept from the world. "I dared not reserve to myself," he said, "the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare's." When it was determined to publish the sonnets in the volumes of 1850, the question of a title arose. The name which was ultimately chosen," Sonnets from the Portuguese," was invented by Mr. Browning as an ingenious device to veil the true authorship, and yet to suggest kinship with that beautiful lyric called "Caterina to Camoens," in which so similar a passion had been expressed. Long before he ever heard of these poems, Mr. Browning called his wife his "own little Portuguese," and so, when she proposed" Sonnets Translated from the Bosnian," he, catching at the happy thought of "translated," replied: "No, not Bosnian-that means nothing but from the Portuguese! They are Caterina's sonnets!" And so, in half a joke, halt a conceit, the famous title was invented.

The average American reader will not find in the writings of the Lord de Tabley and of Miss Rossetti the charm that Mr. Gosse feels. We allow for the element of personal friendship in his opinion. They were poets, pleasing at times, but, notwithstanding all that their coterie did to get the world to admire them, they remain minor poets. Yet we all shall always, or at least for a long time, remember that Miss Rossetti wrote "The Goblin Market."

No one ought to find fault with Mr. Gosse for what he has not said, because he has disarmed the antagonist by the modest title of his book. He has sketched his portraits, and one can imagine him waving his hand along the row and saying, "People whom I have known." In fact, he tells us in his preface that what he has written about the sonnets of Mrs. Browning was laid upon him as a duty by his friend the late Robert Browning, "writer of plays."

New Books

[The books mentioned under this head and under that of Books Received include all received by The Outlook during the week ending September 11. This weekly report of current literature will be supplemented by fuller reviews of the more important works.]

Mr. B. L. Farjeon has not of late years printed anything as good as his first two or three stories, which had a good deal of human sympathy, though they had also distinct reminscences of Dickens's worst faults, and marked the author as a devoted disciple, in style, of the greater novelist. The Betrayal of John Fordham is full of improbabilities. It begins with the persecution of a husband by his dipsomaniacal wife, who seems to find almost every one willing to help her in her insane plots, and it ends in a sensational and intricate network of crime and detection. (R. F. Fenno & Co., New York.)—————— Tyne Folk is an excellent descriptive title for Dr. Joseph Parker's collec

tion of character sketches of Northumberland people. The book has acuteness, vitality, and humor. (The F. H. Revell Company, New York.)

A new edition has been published by Charles Scribner's Sons, of this city, of Mrs. Burnett's ever fresh and readable story That Lass o' Lowrie's, which many people still consider the author's strongest work in fiction. The same firm send us in a new edition Mr. J. G. Holland's Sevenoaks and Arthur Bonnicastle. This edition is very prettily bound; perhaps it is too much to expect fine paper in volumes. costing seventy-five cents each, but in these books the paper is so poor that the type-impression is not as good as it should be. As to the stories themselves, they have already been read by hundreds of thousands, and maintain their popularity. They have very obvious faults, but they possess the great merit of sincerity and high purpose. "Sevenoaks" has much the stronger story interest; perhaps "Arthur Bonnicastle" is more suggestive to thought. Also from the same publishers come two volumes in the series "Stories by English Authors;" Germany and The Sea are the titles; they include short stories by Stevenson, Black, Miss Harraden, W. C. Russell, Walter Besant, and others.- -Jean Porter Rudd's The Tower of the Old Schloss is a pretty and simple story of German life. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.) -We are glad to see a new edition of Mayne Reid's The Boy Hunters and The Bush Boys. These are among the best of this famous writer's books for boys, and belong to that class of his works which is as far removed as possible from certain volumes bearing his name which are nothing but sensational trash. These two books pleased the boys of a generation, or two generations, ago, and may well please the boys of to-day. (G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.) -Another boys' book is The Mystery of Lost River Canyon, by Harry Castlemon. Like all this writer's books, the story is somewhat overcrowded with incident, and the boy hero is one of those extraordinary creatures who, in books, accomplish anything and everything desired. (H. T. Coates & Co., Philadelphia.). -Anne K. Benedict's The Hathaways' Sister is a pleasantly told story of child life in New England, in which the religious element is present, but is not over-intrusive. (American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia.)

A work of vast learning and of immense value as furnishing material for systematic study of anthropology is The History of Mankind, by Professor Friedrich Ratzel, the first volume of which has just been translated from the second German edition by Mr. A. J. Butler. An interesting introduction is furnished by Dr. E. B. Tylor. The work when completed will really comprise a history of the progress of civilization. It follows the beginnings of language, religion, industrial arts, family customs, ornamentation, house-building, superstitions, tool-making, property distinctions, war methods, and many other characteristic phases of the life of the early races. The book is fully and completely illustrated; some of the illustrations are unpleasant to the eye-particularly the frontispiece-and it seems to us might, without slighting the scientific aspect of the work, have been subordinated in relative prominence. (The Macmillan Company, New York.)

Dr. W. J. Rolfe, in Shakespeare the Boy, has reconstructed, with marvelous patience and a skill belonging only to a thorough Shakespearean scholar, the youthful life of the great dramatist. As is well known, the objective material open to Dr. Rolfe was very slight indeed, but from scores of allusions in the plays themselves the author has been able to work out most satisfactorily an account of what the boy Shakespeare must have seen and known. Some of these articles. originally appeared in "The Youth's Companion," but very much new matter has been added. The book is written for the reading of boys, but will interest older people. It is well illustrated. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

In Literary Landmarks of Venice Mr. Laurence Hutton has done for the "Queen of the Adriatic" what he formerly did so satisfactorily for London and Edinburgh. To use his own words, his volume is "intended to be a record of the Animated Residences of Genius which are still existing in Venice." Naturally the material is not as abundant as in Mr. Hutton's former volumes of "Literary Landmarks." It is, however, extremely interesting in its character, and the information which Mr. Hutton has collected with his usual accuracy and care is presented in a thoroughly readable form. The book is charmingly illustrated. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)

Mrs. Margaret Sangster always writes with sympathetic feeling. In the volume of little talks entitled With My Neighbors she enters into the home and personal side of the life of women and young girls, and, with her accustomed charm of style, talks in a most friendly, suggestive, and often inspiring way. The book is one which must do much good, and is the more valuable because it is absolutely free from pretentiousness or assumption of superiority. (Harper & Brothers, New York.)From the same firm comes Mr. Will Carleton's The Old Infant, and Similar Stories. We confess that the humor of these stories seems to us drawn out very thin.Mr. George A. Hibbard has aptly described Lenox in the series of little books relating to American summer resorts, published by Charles Scribner's Sons, of this city. The characteristic pleasures of the place are described briefly, and excellent illustrations accompany the text.- -Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons have added Washington Irving's Columbus to their excellent series on "The Heroes of the Nation."- -Three Old Maids in Hawaii is a book of travel by Ellen B. Maxwell. There is a good deal of useful information contained in the book, but we are inclined to think that it would have been more acceptable to most readers if the slight form of fiction had not been attempted. (Eaton & Mains, New York.)

The Christian Democracy: A History of its Suppression and Revival, by John McDowell Leavitt, D.D.,LL.D., reviews the gradual transformation of the Church from a brotherhood to an ecclesiastical despotism, and its gradual change during the last few centuries from an ecclesiastical despotism toward a brotherhood. In a chapter upon Anglicanism the author criticises keenly the claims of the Protestant.