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THE CYCLE FOR HEALTH AND FOR HOLIDAYS. BY A DOCTOR AND AN ARCHDEACON.

SIR BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON has been interviewed for the Young Woman on the subject of "Cycling for Girls"; and in the Young Man Archdeacon Sinclair describes a holiday run which he made on his tricycle all the way from London to John o' Groats. In the first of these articles Sir Benjamin Richardson says:--

The greatest benefit that has hitherto sprung from the art of cycling has been the good it has effected on the health of those who have practised the art. I really know of nothing that has been so good for health. The true Cockney has been quite transformed by the art of cycling, and in a very few years will be unknown even in Cockaigne.

As for the new costume for girl-cyclists, Sir Benjamin "likes it," though it might be made "a little more like what we consider feminine." He thinks that a bicycle is better than a tricycle for girls, and says that the physiological question enters very little into the matter, except in regard to overstrain. Women do not bear overstrain so well as men. A girl ought not to ride more than forty miles in one day. For drink, nothing beats weak tea, with or without a little lemon in it. Perfectly pure water, however, is the best possible beverage for cyclists. Sir Benjamin is sure that cycling leads to improved health and strength when not overdone, but he uttered a word of timely warning:

The one disadvantage of cycling is that it does not exercise the whole of the body. It calls into play certain muscles only; and therefore, unless counterbalanced by other exercises, it is apt to cause disproportionate development. Like running and dancing, its chief effect is on the heart and circulation. Rowing affects the breathing, walking and climbing tell on the nervous system, and gymnasium exercises-dumb-bells, etc.more on the muscles. In cycling the motion of the heart is increased and the circulation quickened. It is healthful to quicken the circulation a little, but it can easily be overdone, and that is where the danger comes in. I believe all our great eyclists have broken down through disordered eirculation.

One sees so much leaning forward on the newer types of machine-is not that very injurious?

Undoubtedly. This is a matter on which I have made protest from the beginning. I almost regret that the oldfashioned machine on which the rider sat upright was ever given up. No doubt there are many practical advantages in the new style, but it has led to a position of the body when riding which is unquestionably dangerous.

Speaking from experience, the Venerable Archdeacon Sinclair says that there is nothing pleasanter than travelling at a reasonable pace on a strong, sound cycle with a long journey before you, a pleasant companion, fine weather, and good roads. He and a companion travelled in this way from London to Thurso vid Wick and John o' Groats, a little over 700 miles. Without hurrying at all they took fourteen travelling days, excluding Sundays, and used a double Humber tricycle. The route taken was the Great North Road through the two countries without deviation.

Our luggage consisted simply of changes of flannels and socks, with toilet necessaries, and hung quite comfortably between us. The weather was fairly good during the fortnight, but there was often a good deal of rain ahead of us, which made the roads heavier than we liked. We only got one or two heavy wettings, and it is always easy to get dry again in an inn or a cottage. If I were taking the journey again, I would leave the Great North Road occasionally where it passes by important towns-like Peterborough and York; for since the old coaching days the road has, in some of its remoter lengths, fallen into decay, and the broad and hard highway runs rather to the important cities in its neighbourhood.

MAX O'RELL IN AUSTRALIA.

M. PAUL BLOUET, the genial humourist critic who makes it his special business to tell us how "John Bull and His Island" strikes our foreign visitors, has contributed to the Revue de Paris that portion of his forthcoming book, "John Bull and Co.," dealing with the Australian colonies.

Max O'Rell, during his late lecturing tour round the world, does not seem to have lost his time; and his criticisms, both kindly and severe, are those of a shrewd observer anxious to discover the secret of successful colonisation; and although he does not say so in as many words, he evidently considers Australia superior in many things to the United States.

He gives an attractive picture of the colonial cities. with their fine public buildings, large parks, and neat rows of pleasant homes, where you might easily imagine yourself, he says, in some forgotten corner of far-away England; the more so-and of this the French writer can scarcely be said to approve-that our Australian cousins have remained faithful to the roast beef, boiled potatoes, and plum puddings of the mother country; for Max O'Rell hoped to find on an Australian bill of fare stewed kangaroo, roast cockatoos, and boiled opossum. He laments the Australian abuse of tea, and points out that, did they but know it, the colony might become as great a wine-drinking country as France or Italy. Like most of those who visit Australia, M. Blouet laments the class of immigrant who finds his way there, and hints that the colony might have a very different future if a few thousand sober, hard-working French peasants could be suddenly planted therein. The workman, according to Max O'Rell, is the real sovereign and master of Australia, but of this sovereign the French traveller gives but a poor account. "The Australian workman is an idler, a drunkard, whose life is spent in a perpetual holiday, and who cares nothing about the advancement of his country. He will leave the best paid work to attend a race a hundred miles from home. He is without technical knowledge, and becomes turn and turn about a carpenter, a locksmith, a mason, a gardener, a waggoner, a shearer, and even a schoolmaster." Again, "If Australia were peopled with intelligent and laborious tillers of the soil, she might become in time the granary of the world;" and he pays a just tribute to the German, Swedish, and Chinese settlers.

Max O'Rell considers that the Australian has the gayest and brightest nature of any of the English colonists, but he evidently believes that the whole Australian population is given over to the demon of gambling, and remarks there is no corner of the Bush where a keen and practical interest is not taken in the result of that Australian Derby, the Melbourne Cup.

The author of "John Bull and His Island" compares Australian amusements very favourably with those of the Old World, and gives en passant a well-merited reproach to those Parisian places of amusement where almost every step is made the excuse for a tip or extortionate fee. In the same article M. Blouet touches on several of the problems affecting the Empire, and alludes to the great part played by Mr. Cecil Rhodes in South Africa. These few pages discover their author in a somewhat new light- that of a thoughtful student of contemporary history and a singularly impartial observer.

IN the Bookman, Mr. E. B. Marshall gives an account of "Gerhart Hauptmann," the new German dramatist. It is illustrated by striking portraits.

VICOMTE DE VOGUE.

MADEMOISELLE BLAZE DE BURY, in the Pall Mall Magazine for July, gives a very sympathetic and interesting account of the Vicomte de Vogüé, the Frenchman who has intérpreted the Russian spiritual idea into French. She says:

From Tzarskéselo to Rayenna, whether under the inspiration of Pouchkine or of Dante, whether at Baku or in Rome listening to the chimes of the Angelus, whether basking under the relentlessly blue sky above the Acropolis or among the icefields of Siberia, Vogüe seeks ever the secret springs of life, and studies in mankind the "fever called living." The everlasting human tragedy, wherever it may be enacted, becomes the story of his own life, and he feels, knows, suffers the sufferings of the great human family as if those sufferings were his own. The intense struggle upwards of the living thing called man-so weak and yet so strong, so apparently impotent, so really powerful, so cowardly and yet so bravefills him with pity, with awe, with sympathy, or with enthusiasm, and his feelings are as overwhelming as though he were himself the suffering or conquering hero of whom he is writing. Like Lamartine or Musset, he possesses the same profound appreciation, the same power of expression; and he is to the end of this nineteenth century what they were to its beginning. Like them, he has fired the enthusiasm of the youth of modern France, and the rising generation comes to him for help and hope, and the faith that man must ever need. The old religious formulæ no longer satisfy their craving; the so-called pseudo-realism of the day has led them away from their ideals; and yet youth, looking forward, not back, needs faith and ideals to feed upon. His influence must not be underrated. Alone in France to-day he has had the courage to speak frankly as a great-hearted lay preacher, leaving religion as religion alone, but proving by the very sincerity of his convictions, by the earnestness of his pleading, by the logic of his arguments, by the limpidity of his style, by the range of his experience and human sympathies, that an ideal, a belief, a standard of right and wrong are essential to man as is breath to every living thing. The superb language of this poet-preacher, unequalled to-day in France, has aroused the enthusiasm of the younger generation, as well as the admiration of his older readers; for his sincerity, his experience, his genuine Christianity, are so far beyond discussion that the man is forgotten in the things he has written. It is a power, not an individual, that speaks; and yet it is essentially a man speaking to a fellow-man, undeterred by possible consequences to himself, so long as the truth be known and understood. Without even mentioning the Book, or any name that might antagonise professed or professional sceptics, he has contrived to evolve in the mind of all his readers the conviction that Faith, Hope, and Charity sum up the primary duties of man towards himself and towards his neighbour, and to these he has added duty, the basis of all honour, teaching thereby that love and cheerful resignation are really the essence of all good; teaching besides, by implication, that true beauty involves, demands an ideal, and thus protesting against the worship of materialism.

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The impulse once given, others were found to direct it into special channels. Albert de Mun, the impassioned orator, inspired by the doctrines of Vogue, applied them in a practical way to the advantage of the working classes, for whom he claimed an increase of material comforts, more security, a better class-organisation, and especially the lightening of the burden borne by the woman. The Pasteur" Wagner, author of two remarkable books, "Justice" and "Jeunesse," followed the same trend of thought, less as a preacher than as a philosopher. And yet Vogié stands alone. He can be neither iniitated nor copied. His disciples--perhaps it were wiser to say his active admirers-have understood the principles of his philosophy; and, each according to his powers, has followed in the master's steps, in the attempt to revive a higher ideal among those whom as legislators or churchmen, they are able to reach. The article is illustrated by an excellent portrait of the prose-poet of modern France.

A FRENCH WOMAN ON AMERICAN WOMEN. IN the Revue des Deux Mondes Madame Bentzon describes America as she saw it last year. "On the boat, American society was represented in an abridged form, and would have led to much astonishment and many mistakes on the part of an uninitiated traveller." Finding a group of supercilious people dressed with scrupulous regard to London tailor-made fashions, Madame Bentzon at first supposed that they exemplified the second generation of a large commercial fortune. She was, however, assured that they were of the oldest Knickerbocker lineage of New York, and thus she first became aware of one of the fundamental facts of American democracy-the aristocracy of old families. "The ladies keep strictly apart, the gentlemen occasionally descend from their pedestal to talk to a pretty woman.” Among the average passengers was a young woman extremely well-dressed, and a very pleasant fellow traveller. Just before landing in America Madame Bentzon found out that she was from Louisiana, and had a well salaried post in one of the principal shops of New Orleans. During her holiday she had visited Hungary, from whence had come her ancestors, and had travelled over Germany, finishing up with France.

Madame Bentzon found the features of the New York belles wanting in English regularity, though "some New England faces" made her think of Greek statues retouched by an aesthetic hand. But Western women are of mixed races, and lack distinction. Of the whole bevy of girls on board the ship she considered that if they had been young married woman their behaviour would have seemed in French eyes perfectly "correct." One source of confusion to a French observer is that all ranks of American women dress well, and that the “flirting scenes in hotels, restaurants, and on steamers are often due to the cheerful high spirits of a factory girl out on a holiday; for you cannot in America tell 'Arriet by her clothes.

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At Chicago Madame Bentzon was of course warmly welcomed by the working philanthropists, artists, and literary women who do so much honour to America; but they were more or less astonished when she told them that she had never spoken in public in her life, and did not feel equal to take part in a Conference. observes whimsically that they "seemed as much grieved as were the Turkish ladies when they discovered that Lady Mary Wortley Montague was imprisoned in a corset, or as we ourselves might feel in watching the mutilated feet of a Chinese woman."

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For all the interests of the Woman's Building and for the work of Miss Addams at Hull House, the writer has the warmest and the most intelligent sympathy, and gives an admirable report of a Conference held upon the question of rich versus poor, where the speakers entertained the most opposite convictions.

"THE Political and Economic Importance of the Great Siberian Railway" is set forth in an article in the Engineering Magazine, by Dr. Hermann Schönfeld. This railway, he says, if accomplished, must be counted among the greatest achievements of this century in the way of construction of rail- and water-ways. "With this stupendous work Russia will enter among those nations which give this century its brilliancy and glory for having raised the technical and commercial progress of the human race to an almost incredible standard. Two undertakings of similar dimensions are still left to be accomplished,-i.e., conducting a railway through the whole length of the western hemisphere and the completion of the Panama canal."

THE MAMMOTH STORES OF FRANCE.

THE STORY OF THE BON MARCHÉ.

IN the Revue des Deux Mondes Vicomte Avenel gives some curious details of the great Parisian shops. The writer considers them a great social gain, and a development of democratic genius in which there is little to regret. He says that they replace the immense fairs of the Middle Ages, for in the thirteenth century every wine merchant of the South of France had a special depôt in the fairs held in Champagne. At the Fair of Beaucaire, when Cardinal Richelieu was Minister, the value of the merchandise amounted to six millions of francs (£240,000 sterling). As communications between province and province became easier, the great fair declined, and pedlars wandered from village to village, while in the towns the mercers rose into special importance. They amassed large fortunes, and were allowed (in those days of strict supervision) to sell various other kinds of merchandise, such as jewellery, carpets, and ironmongery. It is curious to learn that every piece of silk and stuff was registered as it left the loom, and that the legal width of silk was gravely deliberated upon by the Council of State.

The great mo lern emporiums of Paris may be said to date from the First Empire, when their names were striking and picturesque. Their signs were "The Iron Mask," "The Devil on Two Sticks," "The Two Magogs." Only one of these has survived to the present day. Under Louis Philippe arose "The Beautiful Farmer's Wife," the "Street Corner," and the "Poor Devil." But the future of these enterprises was still considered so uncertain that when M. Deschamps, who founded the " Ville de Paris," asked his father to entrust him with the paternal savings, the elder man replied, "Not I; I would not lend a draper five shillings."

The rise of Aristide Boucicaut, who founded the "Bon Marché," is well told by M. d'Avenel. So far from being a capitalist, Boucicaut began with hardly any capital; his father was a little hat maker in Bellême, and he himself was a clerk in a large shop in the Rue de Bac, when at forty-two years of age he entered into partnership with a M. Vidau, who had a small shop higher up the same street. The customers were poor, and Boucicaut at first gave away needles and thread to entice people to the shop. Little by little, saving, purchasing, turning over the nimble ninepence, and organising with rare intelligence, he laid the foundation of the enormous business known to all Europe In 1863 he bought out M. Vidau, being assisted to find the necessary sum, not by the Jesuits, as was reported, but by M. Maillard, a French merchant who had made his money in New York. How the great shop grew must be read in M. d'Avenel's paper; and also the wonderful intelligence with which the childless widow of Boucicaut finally distributed the huge fortune made by her husband and herself, arranging that the shares in the business should only be sold to those employed by the business, and no one holder allowed to acquire more than a fixed number.

The "Printemps," near the Gare St. Lazare; the "Belle Jardinière," which oddly enough is the great emporium for men and boys; the "Louvre," which now pays £1,500 a year for the string which is used to tie up its parcels;

the "Samaritaine," near the Pont Neuf-these are the four great rivals of the "Bon Marché." Zola has described such an establishment in his famous novel the Bonheur des Dames ("The Ladies' Joy ").

It is evident that this immense system of distribution which has thoroughly taken possession of the civilised world is susceptible of many abuses. It also offers wonderful facilities for intelligent perfecting in the best sense. And very much in this moral and industrial direction was assuredly achieved by the simple workwoman Marguerite Guérin, who became the wife of Aristide Boucicaut, and to whom, as his widow, he confided all the vast interests which they had jointly built up.

CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM.

THE new number of the Quarterly Review gives the first place to a protest against the Social Christian Union and its doctrines. It begins thus:

Rather more than four years ago the British public was greatly moved by a bold project for curing the ills of society by diverting to the service of secular undertakings a great organisation which owed its existence and its influence to faith in the life eternal.

"General" Booth, in the fascinating and fantastic proposals which, as the ostensible author of "Darkest England and the Way Out," he then made, gave significant expression to a tendency which is active not only in the ranks of the Salvation Army, but also among the members of every Christian denomination, not excepting the Church of England.

General Booth and the Christian Socialist Unionists are, in the opinion of the reviewer, on the wrong tack. He says:

What the people can claim from the Christian ministry is, not political sympathy, but spiritual service. The last, however, involves that frank association with the popular life which is almost inevitably expressed by political sympathy. The essential thing is that the political sympathy should be chastened by loyalty to the supreme spiritual interests of which the clergy are the exponents and guardians The Dean of Ely struck a false note when he said that "Christianity arose out of the common people, and was intended in their interest." It is the essence of heresy thus to appropriate to some the grace that was intended for all. The Gospel is not democratic, it is catholic. There is no virtue in poverty, there is no crime in wealth the poor man and the rich man can but be disciples, to whom the principle of greatness is service. Christianity must not shrivel to a class religion. The normal issues of political and industrial conflict are not in such sense moral that partisanship is obligatory on Christians. It is the cardinal blunder of the Christian Socialists to assume the contrary. Those issues are for the most part morally neutral: the antagonism is between the prejudices and self-interest of classes, not between right and wrong. We think the duty of the clergy is to urge upon both combatants those principles of justice which both are likely to forget. Of one thing we are positive: the clergy fatally hamper their power of spiritual service when they enter the ranks of contending parties. The social value of their position is precisely conditioned by its independence. As partisans they will be popular, but their popularity will be purchased by their power. The influence of the Church upon Society is not the less beneficent because it is indirect.

The Christian method of regeneration in his opinion is based upon the regeneration of the individual, and the regenerated individual influences Society. He trusts that the Christian Socialists will learn this truth in time, and will not allow their cause to be ruined and their great opportunities of usefulness to be wasted by the hotheaded action of the more extreme section of the union.

AN AUSTRALIAN'S IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. BY MISS SPENCE, OF ADELAIDE.

IN Harper's Magazine for July Miss C. H. Spence, of Adelaide, South Australia, describes her impressions of the United States of America, a country which she h.s just been visiting; and her observations are interesting and suggestive. She thinks that Australia is more nearly akin to America than what England can be. This does not prevent her from marvelling at the extraordinary delusions which the Americans indulge in concerning Great Britain and her colonies. She mildly remarks that it is difficult to make the Americans understand how gentle is the bond between the Mother Country and her self-governing colonies. Socially, the United States are more democratic than the Australian Colonies, but politically Australia is more democratic than America. Money is much more powerful in America than in Australia. It is a common belief in America that England and the colonies are under a monarchical and aristocratic rule; but in England the power of the Queen and peers is steadily diminishing, while in America the President and Senate dominate the House of Representatives. Republic is also the most lawyer-ridden country in the world. Fifty-eight out of eighty-five senators are lawyers, and 229 out of 356 members of the House of Representatives belong to the same profession. Miss Spence says that she cannot but look upon this preponderance other than obstructive to all reform. The lawyers are hide-bound, whereas America needs radical reforms. The lawyers are the most serviceable tools of the corporations, rings and trusts, and when any good idea is to be carried out they stifle it under the cry that it is unconstitutional. By a curious paradox the laws of the country where there are most lawyers are worst carried out. The conservatism of the average American is the greatest obstacle to progress, and what with their written constitution and with their lawyer-ridden legislature, she evidently feels that Australia has little to envy in America.

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On the other hand, she is delighted with the versatility of the American people, which is their most striking characteristic, and with the social equality which fosters it. She is chiefly interested in the American women. She thinks that American manners are franker than English, and the women have a fine intelligence and greater clearness of perception. The following is a rather acute and suggestive observation:

It seems to me as if women are becoming the more educated sex in America, not so much because the high-schools and universities are open to them as because they find such training indispensable for the avocations they prefer. It does not need the higher culture to buy and sell, to watch fluctuations in prices of goods, of stocks and shares, to corner the market, or to arrange for a pool. But these are masculine fields, and they are the most lucrative fields.

Miss Spence is much impressed with the beautiful family relations which she has seen in forty American homes which she visited. She notices that the children are few, but those that are allowed to come into the world are charming. She does not think that American girls are as adventurous in the matter of travel and outdoor exercise as their English cousins, but they have more free intercourse with men. American girls are as much ashamed of doing nothing to earn their living as young

men ought to be. More Australian girls stay at home to look after the household work, whereas in America the withdrawal of the best elements of American womanhood from domestic work is a serious matter. American men have not grasped the principles of co-operative distribu tion and consumption as Englishmen and Scotchmen have done. They are leaving it to the women. They are also leaving to them the reading of books; men only have time for the newspapers. The American women, even the suffragists, do not study politics closely, and in this respect they differ from the educated Englishwoman. Miss Spence notes that there is no comparison whatever between the purity of elections and the security of the Civil Service, and the honesty of the administration in America and in England. Woman suffrage, she thinks, would be reactionary at first, but it would tend to purify politics. Like every one else who looks at America to-day, she is much impressed at the enormous power of the corporations over railroads and telegraphs, which is a constant peril to liberty. The following suggestion does not seem to have occurred to any one but Miss Spence, whose paper, although brief, is very vivacious and full of interesting remarks:

I may be looking a long way ahead, but perhaps in the future the two Houses may be a Parliament of men elected by men and a council of women chosen by women. There is nothing which the classes can contribute to the masses so valuable as the best thought of woman to aid the best thought of man.

NOVELTIES IN WOMAN'S WORK.

ELIZABETH L. BANKS writes an interesting paper in Cassell's Family Magazine for July on “New Paid Occupations for Women." A New York girl, who found herself a penniless orphan, after having lived in luxury, obtained the means of making a good livelihood by combing, brushing, and exercising the dogs of her acquaintances, for a dollar a week each. Others followed her example, and it is now said that there are over a hundred young women in New York who make a very snug income in this way. They wash the faces and paws of the pet dogs, brush and comb them, give them their breakfast, and then take them for an hour's constitutional. Another novelty is that of breaking-in new boots. A lady and her two daughters undertake to wear boots of a certain size for a few hours daily for a week at the rate of a shilling a pair. By this means they always go about in new boots, and the ultimate owners find them easy to the feet. An Englishwoman of title is making a good income by table decorating. Her work is so much in demand that she has engaged an assistant to help her in the less elaborate decoration. She is paid from two to four shillings an hour. Another novelty is that of the lady duster, who is employed to dust the best furniture and bric-a-brac. Window draping is another means of making a living. Lady cooks are not so much of a novelty. Gentlewomen are also employed in washing and putting away china and plate, washing and mending fine lace, painting door panels, and in placing dados. Smart women in town undertake the shopping of their country sisters at a commission of ten per cent. An Englishwoman in London makes a living by selecting suitable apartments for those intending to visit the metropolis at a fee of five per cent. of the first month's terms. The latest addition to a fashionable dressmaking establishment is a French girl who acts as a suggester for the benefit of the customers.

MISS WESTON.

THE FRIEND OF THE BLUEJACKET.

THE Young Woman for June published, as one of its leading features, an account of Miss Agnes A. E. Weston, one of the women who have won a foremost place among the philanthropists of our time. It is probable that Miss Weston has contributed as much to the fighting force of our navy as any human being, and our bluejackets could better spare a Lord of the Admiralty than they could spare the lady of the Sailors' Rest. Miss Weston gives an interesting account of how she came to take up the question:

Twenty-seven years ago, when I was in my own home at Bath, I knew some of the soldiers there, and wrote to one who was going out to India. He was

very pleased at this, and on the ship showed the letter to the sick-berth steward, who said, "I would give anything if I could get a letter like that sometimes! Da you think that lady would write to me?" The soldier told him that as I wrote to a redcoat he didn't see why I shouldn't write to a bluejacket. When the sailor got a letter from me he was astonished and surprised, he has since said, that anybody should write to him, and went into a quiet corner, read the letter, and thanked God for giving him a friend." The man afterwards left the navy, went into the surgery at Portsmouth dockyard, and when his time was up joined the Medical Mission at Liverpool. Friends there were so struck by his ability that they enabled him to go to America to study medicine. He took his diploma, and is now Dr. George Dowkontt, head of the Medical Mission in New York.

"That was my first bluejacket friend." said his benefactor," and we still correspond."

"And from that beginning has grown the Royal Naval Temperance Society?"

Afloat, and also among the American navy. Guess the weight of the literature-temperance, gospel, and anti-infidel, for we use all kinds-that we sent out from Portsmouth last year? Twenty tons! Our motto is: "For the glory of God and the good of the service." The work is becoming much more difficult and important, because just now the navy is being greatly augmented.

It is interesting to note that Miss Weston has a very strong conviction as to the need of maintaining a truly imperial navy. In reply to a question from her interviewer, she said she considered the navy was much undermanned. There were ten thousand more men needed than what were at present in the service to keep the ships going. Miss Weston can comfort herself, however, by re

MISS WESTON.

(From a photograph by Debenham, Southsea.)

"Yes. He supplied the names of other men, and in that little simple way we went on, until my correspondents got so numerous that I started a printed letter. But I still write to thousands of men individually-of course I have three secretaries to help me. At the start, when the men came home, they were very anxious to see me,-seemed to think I was a sort of myth,- -so I went to Devonport and Portsmouth to meet them."

Every one in Portsmouth and Devonport knows of Miss Weston's work. Nor is it at these two headquarters alone that her praise is in everybody's mouth.

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We have a branch of the Royal Naval Temperance Society on board every ship in Her Majesty's service, including the torpedo boats. We publish monthly an official organ, called Ashore and Afloat, which is edited by Miss Wintz, my lifelong friend and invaluable colleague. Last year the circulationchiefly in the Royal Navy, but also to some extent among the merchant seamen-was 407,895. For years I brought out a monthly letter for the men; now I write one to the boys as well; 532,050 copies were circulated 1 st year with Ashore and

flecting that while she cannot add a bluejacket to the muster roll of old England, she has contributed mightily towards making those who are already on board ship much more efficient than they would have been otherwise. One sober sailor is worth two drunken ones any day, and Miss Weston has made many sober who without her would have gone down to drunkards' graves.

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JOB AS INDIVIDUALIST.

THE New World contains several high-class articles. Dr. Holtzmann, of Strassburg, pronounces a warm but discriminating eulogy on Baur's work in New Testament criticism, and while allowing that Ritschl has pierced the Tübingen ranks here and there, protests against the fashion of supposing Baur to be obsolete. Professor Duhm treats of the book of Job, the date of which he places after the Exile. The error of Job Dr. Duhm finds to lie in

The one-sided individualism which looks for a manifestation of the justice of God in every single case of human virtue or wickedness. . . . He thinks that God can treat an individual entirely as an individual, without reference to the whole sphere of His dominion. It is a noble, but one-sided, individualism which is here involved in enigmas and struggles in distresses. The friends of Job are also individualists. They, too, judge every case by itself, and not according to the great connection of things.

The poet plainly wishes us to turn our eyes from the single instance to the whole of divine creation and providence.

The chief matter in the solution of the problem is not, however, the speech of God, but His appearance: Job sees Him. "To be personally conscious of God-this is the beginning and the end of all true religion and the blessedness of the truly religious man, though his flesh and his heart fail." There are other articles of value to theologians and kindred specialists.

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