tion of Italy, Germany, and our Own Canadian commonwealth. Yet Norway has determined to cut loose from her larger and wealthier partner. It surely would have been better to have formed a union with Denmark. The smaller countries are always in peril of their predatory and unscrupulous larger neighbors. Having gobbled up Finland, Russia may attempt to make a meal of Norway to secure an Atlantic port. Germany has already taken SchleswigHolstein from Denmark, and menaces the independence of Belgium. Probably, however, the arbitration treaty which refers all future causes of difference to the Hague tribunal will enable Norway and Sweden to get on better as independent kingdoms. Sweden has acted with great self-restraint, and what might have caused a bitter and fratricidal war has been happily adjusted in peace.

statesman who, by cheapening postage, has strengthened the ties of family affection and linked the farflung members of the British Empire in closer bonds of union. It is well known that he discharged his onerous duties and made his long journeys to the very antipodes when suffering severely from rheumatism. Though a man of wealth, he has toiled like an office clerk. We hope that he will be able to serve his native country in some less exacting line of duty. His retirement at this juncture is more to be regretted, as there seems to be an earnest purpose to have penny postage throughout the whole Empire. We believe the reduction of the newspaper postage as well would greatly aid in the development of the imperial spirit throughout the forty colonies of the great "mother of nations."

A VETERAN SENATOR.

The death of Senator Wark removed the oldest parliamentarian in the world. He was born in Ireland in 1804. His life spanned the long interval of over a century-to be exact, one hundred and one years and a half. He lived in five reigns, those of George III., George IV., William IV., Queen Victoria, and King Edward. What changes in the realm of science, politics, art, civil and religious progress and civilization the old man witnessed. He continued almost to the last to discharge his parliamentary duties, and was alert in both body and mind. His long life and good health are largely attributable to his strict temperance habits, to his principles which safeguarded his health of body and mind. He was deeply interested in all social and moral reforms, an active and earnest member of the Presbyterian Church, of which he was an ornament.

This is the time for selecting the reading for the household for the long winter evenings. These hours of leisure may be made a blessing or a curse according to the judgment used in this selection. If the sensation story paper or magazine, the sporting news and scandal-mongering yellow press be the staple on which the family feed, moral and mental impoverishment and debility will follow, if no more harmful result ensues. It will be a miracle if mental and moral degeneration do not follow inoculation with the virus of these perilous evils. Poison

in the food would be jealously excluded. Shall a far worse poison of the mind and soul be permitted in that upon which the family shall feed ?

A YEAR OF GRACE.

One of the best tests of the religious life of any church or people is its rela

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tion to the cause of missions. As never before the last words of the Saviour, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," are being heard and heeded by his followers. More and more the doors of opportunity are open wide in every land, more and more the Church is girding up its loins to essay the mighty duties of the future. The last year in the history of our own Church has been emphatically a year of grace. In every department of its work there has been progress, but nowhere is this progress so marked as in its missionary department. It has been indeed a record year. The Missionary Report for the year says: "There has been a substantial increase in every Conference, and in nearly every district. The missionary spirit seems to have permeated the whole Church, Sunday-schools, Epworth Leagues, and the congregations generally have responded nobly to the call of the

Board, and the result is an income for the year ended June 30th, 1905, of $385,741, an increase of nearly $42,000 over the preceding year.

"In addition to the large income reported for the past year, contributions have been received towards the college to be erected in Chentu, West China, amounting to $5,651, and for the new hospital in the same city, $5,285. Adding the sums actually paid to the gross income of $385,741, we have a grand total for missions for 1904-5 or $396,677."

The rallying cry for the near future is Half a Million for Missions. We remember when half this sum was considered a very large amount. But with an earnest effort, a little more self-denial, a larger faith, this can be reached within a year. It is a crisis in the history of our Church and of our country. There is a tide in the affairs of nations as well as of men which, taken at its flood, leads on to fortune.

Not the mining of more gold, not the broadening areas of our wheat-fields, but the laying broad and deep and stable the foundations of a Christian commonwealth-this is the supreme duty of the hour.

A PREVENTIVE OF INSANITY.

Dr. T. B. Hyslop, the famous authority on mental diseases and superintendent of Bethlehem Royal Hospital, at the recent meeting of the British Medical Association, said that in all his dealings with the insane he discovered that there were few among them who are in the habit of praying. He regards prayer as the best preventive of insanity. Referring to the fact that insanity is sometimes attributed to religious excitement, he says "no religion and no sense of moral obligation are much more frequently the source of insanity, through the indulgences to which they lead."

THE UNION OF ENGLISH METHODISM. Methodist reunion in England seems nearer materialization.

Says The Christian Advocate: "Three of the smaller bodies-the United Methodist Free Churches, Methodist New Connection, and Bible Christian Churchesafter being in negotiation for several years, have drafted a scheme of union. The Conference, meeting annually, is to be composed of about three hundred members, equally divided as lay and clerical. Four years is named as the general period

of a minister's stay. By two-thirds vote of Quarterly Meeting this may be extended for a fifth, sixth, or seventh year; beyond that the sanction of Conference is required."

Out of three hundred votes only five were cast against the basis of union. The draft of the constitution has been sent to the circuits for action. If it is met with the unanimity which the Conference forecasts, the union will forthwith be consummated.

OUR DEACONESSES.

The Deaconess Movement has been of very great advantage to our Church in Canada. At the first it was looked upon somewhat askance, and in a critical spirit, but it has changed its critics into warm friends, and won the sympathy and co-operation of our best churches and people. This has been largely the result of the tactful and consecrated zeal of Miss Jean Scott, its superintendent from the beginning, who has been a welcome gift from American to Canadian Methodism.

The Deaconess Movement has created new and nobler ideas of womanhood and of Christian service among our people. It has attracted to its ranks some of the most devoted women of Canadian Methodism. It has been of vast service in our Christian philanthropies, and in our Church organization, especially in visitation among the sinning, the suffering, and the sorrowing. Its training-school has given an opportunity of Christian culture and preparation for home and foreign missionary work to a very large number of the best daughters of Canadian Methodism several of them daughters of the parsonage and some of them prize medalists in our universities.

Our work extends from Newfoundland, far out in the Atlantic, to the midcontinent city of Winnipeg, and to the shores of the Pacific. Anything that will give unity and solidarity to the widely scattered units will, I believe, be greatly to the advantage of the Deaconess Movement; will remove in some degree the sense of isolation; will create that feeling of sisterhood, and facilitate courses of reading and study.

The Rev. Mark Guy Pearse, who was long the co-laborer with the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, in the London West Central Mission, advocated strongly some organization of the sisterhood, and preferred the word "sister" to any other

designation. The fact that Roman Catholic organizations use the word is not, to our mind, any reason why Protestants should not also employ it, if it be in itself a good thing. It would recommend itself to the poor and lonely, forsaken and forgotten, and aid the deaconesses in their noble work.

We pray that the blessing of God may rest upon this splendid department of Christian work, which God seems to have called into existence at the very time when it was most needed, both in its objective result and in its subjective influence upon the minds of Christian

women.

FALLEN LEADERS.

The grim reaper has mown a wide swath in some of our Canadian churches in recent months, but in none that we know so wide as that in the Carlton Street Church, Toronto. Within about a

year some eight of its standard-bearers have been cut down the venerable Senator Aikins, three faithful men all bearing the same cognomen, Joseph McCausland, Joseph Lawson, and Joseph Sutcliffe. To these must be added the honored names of Edward Morphy, George Boxall, George McBurney, and Arthur Sinclair. But the removal of these pillars in the house of God shakes not that goodly edifice; others arise to take their place and bear the burdens which they had borne. Truly God buries his workmen but carries on his work. All these were under the pastorate of Dr. J. V. Smith, and in his new charge occurs the recent death of Mr. John Millar, late Deputy Minister of Education, a man known and honored throughout this land as a distinguished educationist, an accomplished writer who has frequently contributed to these pages, and in his religious life an Israelite indeed in whom was no guile.

The Jewish Encyclopædia." Vol. X. Philipson-Samoscz. New York and London Funk & Wagnalls Company. 1905. Price, $6.

It is impossible to regard the appearance of the successive volumes of this great work with other than a sentiment of profound admiration for the patient and exhaustive labor of Dr. Isidore Singer, the general editor, and his co-laborers. They have gone into every field of literary and historical research, they have examined the archives and official records of every civilized nation to find what Jews have contributed to the arts and sciences, to the sum of human life and thought. They have given us this most comprehensive and accurate survey of Jewish history, biography, literature, biblical and Talmudic lore, religion, philosophy and jurisprudence. The editors are now aiming to have the work completed on the anniversary of the arrival of the first Jewish colonists in America two hundred and fifty years ago.

The present volume opens with the "earliest portrait of a Jew," painted by Rembrandt in 1632. In the article on Rembrandt the interest taken by the great painter in the Jews of Amsterdam is recalled and a list is given of his portraits and other works of biblical and Jewish interest. This volume contains no less than four hundred and seventyfour biographies representing ninety-four professions and thirty different countries. It will be seen that the encyclopædia is a veritable Who's Who" of Jewish men

of mark. While in point of numbers the rabbis lead, it is remarkable that a very large number of these notable men were, or are physicians and writers on medicine. As a matter of fact, until recently the medical profession was about the only one open to Jews in many European countries. Literature, art and music also claim many distinguished names.

Perhaps the greatest interest in this volume will attach to the long and interesting articles on the history of the Jews in Portugal, Russia and Poland, and in the cities of Rome, Prague, Pisa, St. Petersburg, etc. These valuable records are brought down to the most recent times, and such cities of the New World

as Pittsburg, Plymouth, Quebec, etc., have also appropriate treatment.

It is to the shame of Russian Christianity and civilization that the latest period of her history should have been marked by the most cruel and rigorous oppression of her Jewish subjects. It is said that of the legal enactments concerning the Jews framed in Russia from 1649 to 1881, no less than six hundred, or onehalf of the total number, belong to the reign of Nicholas I. (1825-1855). The policy then begun has borne bitter fruit and has left a stain that can never be effaced upon the fair name of the Russian people.

The sketches of Rabbinical legend and folk-lore continue to be of great interest. Many Jewish proverbs are recorded in this volume, some of which are both quaint and wise, e.g., "The character of a man may be recognized by three things -his cup, his purse, and his anger." "When wine enters in the secret slips out." "A lie has no feet." 'Truth is the seal of God."

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The excellent article on "Punctuation," by Prof. Wilhelm Bacher, of Budapest, gives the little known history in concise form of the Hebrew vowel points. Another article of great value is the sane and clear statement of Prof. Konig on the subject of biblical poetry and recent metrical theories. J. F. McL.

Author

"New Forces in Old China." An Unwelcome but Inevitable Awakening. By Arthur Judson Brown. of "The New Era in the Philippines." New York, Chicago, Toronto: Fleming H. Revell Co. Pp. 382. Price, $1.50.

The centre of gravity is quickly shifting in eastern Asia. Under the tutelage of the island empire of Japan and the safeguard of the Anglo-Japanese treaty, the great empire of China will soon witness the most astounding development of its whole history. The three great transforming forces operating in conservative old China our author describes as Western trade, Western politics, and Western religion. “There is something," he says, "fascinating, and at the same time something appalling, in the spectacle of a