WANTED: A BRITISH IMPERIAL DOLLAR. THE Currency of the British Empire is in a sad state of chaos and crisis, according to Dr. J. P. Val d'Eremao's account of it in the Asiatic Quarterly. Not India merely, but our Colonies further East, West Africa and the West Indies are "all inconvenienced by the present system, or rather want of system, in Imperial coinage." Within the dominions of the one sovereign, there are no less than nine different systems of currency.

NINE SYSTEMS OF CURRENCY IN THE EMPIRE.

The writer divides the Empire into the following groups, according to the currency they employ :

1. British Gold Standard (£ s. d.)—(1) The British Islands. (2) The Australian Colonies; Tasmania, New Zealand, and Fiji. (3) S. Africa, i.e., The Cape Colony and Natal, with their dependencies, including the S. Africa Co.'s territory. 4. Off-lying minor places: St. Helena, Malta, Bermuda, the Falkland Islands.

2. Special Gold Standard.-Newfoundland. Newfoundland has a special gold coin all to itself-the gold double dollar.

3. Foreign Gold Standard.-(1) Canada (United States gold dollar and its multiples). (2) Gibraltar (Spanish gold and silver). (3) Many West India Islands (U. S. gold).

4. Legally British gold, practically foreign coins.-Most of our West India possessions.

5. The Mexican dollar.-(1) Hong Kong. (2) Straits Settlements.

6. The Guatemalan dollar.-British Honduras.

7. French silver.-West Coast of Africa, especially Gambia. 8. British and foreign gold.—Cyprus (French and Turkish gold).

9. The Rupec. (1) India. (2) Ceylon. (3) Mauritius. The way out of this muddle is suggested by the fact that among these various coinages

There is a certain denomination of money which within an easily remediable difference is common to them all. This is the equivalent of the United States silver dollar. It is nominally the equal of the various "dollars" of Central and South America; and its near equivalents are our double florin, the French 5-franc piece, two Indian Rupees, and the Newfoundland half-gold double dollar.

RE-NAME THE DOUBLE FLORIN.

Such a coin minted in India for the Eastern half of our Empire, and in London for the Western half, would restore order. Already we have the thing, but we perversely call it a "double florin " instead of a dollar.

It cannot surely do any possible harm to England to change the names of two of its coins-the double florin to the dollar, and the florin to the half-dollar; but it certainly would benefit greatly the colonies which in any way deal with or use dollars of any kind, to have an honest home-made British dollar of guaranteed weight and fineness, instead of their being at the mercy, as they are now, of foreign countries for their supply of coins, and trusting to foreign mints for the intrinsic value of what they get. Various British colonies have specifically asked for a British dollar. A British dollar is, in fact, the sole means for establishing a common British currency throughout the empire: it is a means as thorough as it is easily practicable; and a corresponding gold dollar equalling one-fifth of a pound sterling would link gold and silver together on a sure and satisfactory basis, without any empiric changes in our time-honoured currency.

Possibly the simple change of name from double florin to dollar would prove a new and serviceable link between the English-speaking Empire and the English-speaking Republic.

THE Sunday Magazine has begun a new feature, entitled "Our What-Not," which is a more miscellaneous collection of occasional notes than those which are to be found in the monthly summary.

THE DEAF AND DUMB.

DR. W. H. HUBBARD writes in the Leisure Hour upon Deaf Mutism. His article is brief but interesting. St. Augustine excluded the deaf from the church on the ground that faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Dr. Hubbard says he thinks it would be possible to breed a race of deaf mutes by the constant intermarriage of the deaf-born. When one parent is deafborn and the other has perfect hearing, one child in 135 is deaf. When both parents are deaf, one child in every twenty is also deaf. The following information as to the number and distribution of these afflicted creatures is worth quoting:

It is estimated that there are at the present time more than a million of this defective race throughout the world, and over two hundred thousand of these are in Europe. According to the census enumeration for 1851 (the first taken of them as a separate class), in England and Wales there were 10,314-one in every 1738 18 of the population. By the census of 1891 they numbered 14,193-or one in every 2043-47. (This proportionate decrease is chiefly due to advanced medical science and improved sanitation.) Locality depends largely upon the physical features of the country, and the habits of the people. They are more numerous in dark, damp, and mountainous regions than in level countries. In Switzerland, for instance, there are 245 in every 10,000 of the population, while in the Netherlands there are only 3.35 in the same amount of population. (This is mainly due to Cretinism, a physical and mental degeneracy which is endemic in Switzerland and absent in flat countries.) They are more numerous in rural districts than in cities. The poor are more frequently afflicted than the rich and they are incomparably more numerous in Israelitish than in Christian communities. These last three circumstances are plainly owing to two conditions: to consanguineous marriages and heredity. It has been mooted and accepted as possible, by scientists devoted to the subject, that by constant intermarriage of the deaf-born, a distinct-a nonspeaking-variety of the human race would result. This hypothesis seems favoured by the following facts and figures. When one parent is congenitally deaf, and the other has perfect hearing, the proportion of deaf offspring is as 1 to 135. In instances of both parents being congenitally deaf, the proportion of deaf children is as 1 to 20.

How to Save our Wild Birds.

THE root of the evil which threatens many rare species of British birds with speedy extinction is found by Sir Herbert Maxwell, writing in Blackwood, in the professional collector of birds' eggs. Of his destructive pursuit "the instinct of annexation and the excitement of competition are in most cases the ruling incentive." "Even more mischievous is the eagerness for having stuffed specimens." Sir Herbert sorrowfully reflects that Parliamentary action cannot stop these things. Sir Edward Grey's Bill, by making the molestation of certain species penal, would have darkened the air with birds of prey, and made grouse, partridges, and lambs considerably scarce. To give power to County Councils to protect certain areas appears to the writer to be unworkable. Protection either of species or area would multiply undesirable varieties. Sir Herbert comes to the conclusion that would delight the heart of Mr. Auberon Herbert and his school-that the end is to be gained not by State compulsion, but by moral suasion, aided by such a missionary enterprise as the Wild Birds Protection Society, whose secretary, Mrs. F. E. Lemon Hillcrest, Redhill, Surrey, enrols as members every one forwarding half-a-crown subscription. The article concludes with a strong protest against the cruelty of keeping birds in cages.

THE DAILY NEWS, THE NEW YORK TRIBUNE, AND MR. SMALLEY.

IN the first of the " Chapters in Journalism" which Mr. George W. Smalley is contributing to Harper's Magazine, he tells (in the August number) the story of the share which he, as the representative in London of the New York Tribune, had in setting the example during the Franco-German war of using the telegraph for war-correspondence purposes. Hitherto the Daily News has by every one been considered the pioneer in this respect, but Mr. Smalley shows that the whole credit of the undertaking belongs to the paper which he represents. The war had broken out suddenly and unexpectedly, finding the great newspaper offices of London and New York quite unprepared. The greatest difficulty was experienced in getting correspondents into the field, and moreover Mr. Smalley saw at once "that any single American paper, no matter how well served in the field by its own correspondents, would be heavily handicapped by its want of access to the general news services which every great London journal had at its disposal."

MR. ROBINSON'S REFUSAL

Reflecting much on these matters, I finally went to Mr. Robinson, the manager of the Daily News, and laid my views before him. I told him frankly what we needed-that we asked nothing less than that he should put his office at our disposal, conceding to us the privilege of seeing news, proofs, and everything else, at all hours, whether relating to the war or otherwise. In return we offered him the results of our special service. I told him what we proposed, whom we were sending into the field, what our plans were, what we expected and hoped to accomplish. I pointed out to him that we had behind us the four years' experience of our own war, during which news had been collected on a scale and by methods before unknown, and I said we meant to apply the same or similar methods here, and to adapt our American practices to European fields. I said we were prepared to spend a good deal of money, and to use the telegraph far more freely than was the custom here, and in a different way. I explained that we did not propose the arrangement for the sake of economy, nor with any wish that either paper should reduce its expenses in reliance on the other. What I meant was that he, on his side, should organise his correspondence exactly as if we did not exist, that we, on our side, should do the same with ours, and that each journal should have the full benefit of the double service. All our telegrams and letters were to be supplied to him in duplicate on their way to New York, and his and ours were to be printed simultaneously in New York and London. Mr. Robinson listened attentively to this statement, which seemed to make little impression on him, asked a few questions as if for civility's sake, and ended by rejecting my proposal altogether. He saw no advantage in it, he said, and could not perceive that the Daily News would gain anything of consequence by accepting it.

-AND HIS CHANGE OF MIND.

But Mr. Smalley knew better than to take no for an answer. He got Mr. Robinson's leave to discuss the matter with Mr. Frank Hill, the editor of the paper, and Mr. Hill" said without hesitation that he would see Mr.

Robinson and urge him to accept." "He knew his way to Mr. Robinson's mind much better than I did, and the result of his intervention was that Mr. Robinson reconsidered the matter, and accepted."

"Mr. Hill's sagacity was vindicated almost at once." Mr. Holt White, a Tribune correspondent, had pushed forward rapidly enough to see the first engagement on the north-eastern frontier of France, " and, in pursuance

of his instructions, telegraphed his account of that action direct to London-about a column altogether."

That despatch marks the parting of the ways between the old and the new journalism of England-between the days when the telegraph was used only for short summaries of news and the days when despatches became letters, and every thing of any real consequence, and much that was of none, was sent by wire.

The despatch reached Mr. Smalley early in the evening. Making a fair copy, he went at once to the Daily News office, only to be told that Mr. Robinson had gone home and Mr. Hill had not come in.

THE FIRST FRUITS.

I asked to see the editor in charge, and I handed him the despatch. He knew but very imperfectly the agreement we had come to, and he did not know at all what to make of the despatch. He asked more than once if I meant to say that it had come by telegraph. I assured him it had. "The whole of it?" 66 Yes the whole of it." He was incredulous. He remarked that it was not written on telegraphic forms. I told him I had myself copied it from the forms. He was perfectly polite, but he evidently wanted to see the forms; and as, anticipating some such question, I had brought them with me, I produced them. He looked at them as if I had produced a transcript from an Assyrian tablet. Finally he said he thought he might go so far as to have the despatch put in type, and Mr. Hill would determine what should be done with it. I had done my part, and I left. I confess I opened the Daily News next morning with curiosity. There was the despatch, and there was, moreover, a leading editorial, rather longer, I believe, than the despatch, commenting on it, and inviting the attention of the reader to this novel, and indeed entirely unprecedented, piece of enterprise in European war news. From that time on there was no further question in Mr. Robinson's mind as to the value of the alliance with the Tribune. Despatches poured in. We were admirably served by the men we had with the French and German armies, and during that memorable six weeks which ended with the battle of Sedan, the Tribune in New York and the Daily News in London were far ahead of all other journals. So much was admitted. From the beginning the alliance was useful to us, for the reasons given above; but for a considerable time it was, if I may say so, still more useful to our partner. With the exception of the account of the battle of Gravelotte, the larger part of the war news was ours, and the system was ours. Mr. Robinson was a very capable but it took time to get his forces into working order.

man,

A COMPLIMENT FROM THE "TIMES"! Naturally this new and striking departure in war news made the greatest sensation among journalists, and upon the Daily News publishing "the first and, for a long time, the only account of the capitulation of Metz," the Times, copying the despatch the next morning in full, said:

"We are indebted to the Daily News for the following excellent account of the surrender of Metz, and we congratulate our contemporary on the enterprise and ability of its correspondent." That also was without precedent, and such a tribute from the Times made no little stir in the world of journalism. It is to be understood, of course, that both the Tribune and the Daily News regarded all these despatches and letters as common property, and neither credited them or any of them to the other. Very soon there grew up a legend about this Metz narrative. It was attributed to Mr. Archibald Forbes. No higher compliment could be paid to it or to its author. Forbes's renown was then in its early growth, but he was already widely known alike for the solidity and brilliancy and military value of his writing, and for his almost matchless energy in the field. He had nothing whatever to do with this Metz despatch, but it is no wonder that outsiders credited him with a particularly good and difficult piece of work.

Mr.

The incident had a tragic sequel. The correspondent who had brought the despatch from Metz, a young

German-American, Mr. Gustav Müller, was naturally elated with his success, and willing, Mr. Smalley had no doubt, to repeat it.

I asked him to return to his post at once; gave him, as was usual, a large sum of money; we said good-bye, and he walked out of the office in Pall Mall. From that day to this I have never heard of nor from him. He vanished utterly into space. As he had every inducement to continue his career, I always supposed, and still suppose, that he was either shot in some skirmish, or murdered by some of the plundering bands always hanging on the rear of an army. The inquiries made at the time came to nothing, and it is too late to expect the secret to disclose itself, but I should still be much obliged to anybody who could give me a clue to the fate of Gustav Müller.

WOMEN'S MISSION AMONG THE MOORS. MR. WILLIAM SHARP, in the Atlantic Monthly for August, has a very interesting paper on "Cardinal Lavigerie's work in North Africa." From this it appears that the Cardinal's chief work was the introduction of women into the mission field of Algeria.

It will however interest many readers to know that this mission work in Kabylia, as indeed elsewhere throughout Franco-Moslem territories, is due even more to the Sisters of Our Lady of African Missions than to the indefatigable and unselfish labours of the White Fathers, praiseworthy and resultant in innumerable good works as the efforts of these apostolic emissaries have been and are.

On his elevation to the see of Algiers-to be more exact, on his voluntary and self-sacrificing transfer thither from his wealthier and more comfortable see of Nancy-Mgr. Lavigerie almost from the first foresaw the need of women missionaries to carry out his schemes of evangelisation and social and domestic regeneration. His plans were regarded dubiously even by many of his fellow-bishops and higher clergy, and a large section of the public openly protested against the idea of Christian women being sent into regions where their honour would not be safe for a day.

The archbishop had that supreme quality of genius, controlled impatience. Within a quarter of a century he is said to have declared once to his Holiness, the late Pope, " French Africa will be civilised by women."

From the moment he explained publicly the need for women missioners, volunteers were ready. The first response to his appeal came from his old diocese of Nancy-from the wellknown and venerable community of the Sisters of St. Charles. A novitiate was formed that year (1868) at Kouba.

For a few years the obvious results were sufficiently humble to give some colour to the derision or misrepresentation of the covertly malicious, the openly hostile, and the indifferent. But at last even the hostile had to admit that a labour of extraordinary importance, whether tending to ultimate good or ultimate evil, was being fulfilled throughout Algeria, and even among the intractable Kabyles and the haughtily resentful Arabs and Moors. Now, the African Sisters, as they are called succinctly, are a recognised power in the land; and even the most bigoted anti-religionist would hesitate to aver that their influence is not wholly for good.

Among the Arabs there was and is a spirit of wonder and admiration for the dauntless courage, the self-sacrificing devotion, the medical knowledge and skill, the tenderness and saintly steadfastness of these heroic women. Hundreds have been brought to a different attitude entirely through observation of the Sœurs de Notre Dame d'Afrique. In the words of the eminent Jesuit whom I have already quoted, "The moral superiority of these women, their self-denying kindness, their courage and devotion deeply impressed the unbelievers, who gazed at them with astonishment and admiration, as if they belonged to a different order of beings, and were something more than human."

Not very long ago, no European women were able to appear in Sidi-Okba, even with an escort, without having to run the risk of insult, and even violence. Well, the African Sisters have not only gone to this unlikely place, but have thriven

there. In the face of threats, insults, and passive (and occasionally active) opposition they have persevered, and are now winning an ever-increasing reward.

From a White Father in Biskra I learned that the work so silently and unostentatiously done by these African Sisters, is of so great importance that if, for any reason, it were impossible for both the White Fathers and the White Sisters to remain there as missioners, the Fathers would unquestionably have to give way.

"In a word," he added, "we are the pioneers, forever on the march after receding boundaries; the Sisters are the first dauntless and indefatigable settlers, who bring the practically virgin soil into a prosperous condition, full of promise for a wonderful and near future."

I asked if there were many mischances in the career of those devoted women.

"Few," he replied: "strangely enough, fewer than with the White Fathers. We have had many martyrs to savage violence, to the perils and privations of desert life. The Sisters have had martyrs also, but these have lost their lives in ways little different from what would have beset them in any other foreign clime. As for endurance, both of climatic strain and privations generally, I have come to the conclusion that women can undergo more than men; that is, if they have anything like fair health, are acting in concert, and are sustained by religious fervour. They do not, as a rule, act so well on their own initiative; they cannot, naturally, do pioneer work. so well as men; and though they have superior moral courage, they are unable to face certain things, in particular absolute loneliness, isolation, remoteness. Many a White Father would instinctively shrink from the task fearlessly set themselves by some of the more daring Sisters; yet these very heroines would be quite unable to cope with some hazards almost inevitable in the career of one of our missioners."

Personally, I think the greatest work is being achieved by the Roman Catholic Church, and in particular by the institutions and societies inaugurated, and the specially trained emissaries sent forth by Cardinal Lavigerie.

THE ORIGIN OF MR. CARLYLE'S BLUMINE. ELIZABETH MERCER, in the Westminster Review, contributes a few pages in which she throws some light upon the lady whom Mr. Carlyle first loved, and whom he immortalised as Blumine in "Sartor Resartus." It seems that Blumine was a Miss Kirkpatrick. She was

The daughter of a Begum at Hyderabad, a Persian princess by descent, who married Colonel Kirkpatrick, an English officer, holding a high post at the Court there. Her hair, which Carlyle describes as "bronze-red," was, she said, peculiar to the Persian royal family. In person she was far more foreign than English, and it was this rare combination of Eastern grace and beauty, with the highest English culture, which made her so very charming.

Elizabeth Mercer writes:

I was connected with Mrs. Phillipps (Blumine), my first cousin having married her niece, Christine Kirkpatrick, one of the three daughters of her only brother, Colonel William Kirkpatrick. This led to our first acquaintance, when circumstances took me as a girl to Torquay in the year 1847. Captain and Mrs. Phillipps were then residing at a charming place called the "Warberry." She was arranging books in the library one morning, when she turned to me and said

"Lizzie, have you ever read Sartor Resartus' by Carlyle?" "No, I had not."

"Well, get it, and read the Romance.' I am the heroine, and every word of it is true. He was then tutor to my cousin. Charles Buller, and had made no name for himself; so of course I was told that any such an idea could not be thought of for a moment. What could I do, with every one against it? Now any one might be proud to be his wife, and he has married a woman quite beneath him."

This was all she said, and the subject was never alluded to again.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE FOR THE UNEMPLOYED.

A HINT FROM MASSACHUSETTS.

The

IN the Annals of the American Academy there is a very excellent paper by J. G. Brooks of Cambridge, Mass., in which he discusses charity and the unemployed. first part of the article is devoted to an examination of the new social_feeling which has taken possession of democracy. Mr. Brooks points out that the passion for equality of opportunity has come to stay. He then passes on to describe the position in England, France, and Denmark. Humanity on every side is in revolt against the old aristrocratic doctrine of charity. King Demos has at last got in his word, and politicians and economists agree with Socialists in believing that the older forms of charity must be remo lelled.

Hence whatever else may be forgotten, this background of democratic sentiment must be taken into account. The idea of the right to work has taken deep root, and the agitation which it has created will make the problem simple by bringing the conditions of the problem into consciousness. The day has passed when it is possible, or even advisable, that the well-to-do class should be allowed to settle that question. Labour itself must undertake the responsibilities and acquire the education that is to be got in sharing in the common responsibilities of the administration of relief. The next great step in charity work is the democratisation of the administration. Socialists and trades unionists must be pressed into the service of the boards of guardians and relief authorities. In Boston women have been put upon the board of overseers, and this change, which was ridiculed a few years ago as being promoted by absurd doctrinaire sentiment, has doubled the strength and efficiency of the Boston board. Boston, when the committee for the relief of the unemployed was asked to admit one or two trades unionists among its members, refused.

Yet

After you have democratised your machinery, what will you do with it? Mr. Brooks asserts that the first thing is to discriminate and to register all those who are out of work. Work should be provided, not so much as work, but as a test. Wood-yards, street work, tailoring and sewing, the thorough cleaning of ports and alleys, can be employed for this purpose. The right to work can be recognised by the city if the authorities are allowed to control all conditions of place, wages, etc., in which work is given. After having registered the unemployed and established a work test which will drive off four-fifths of the loafers, what is to be done with the remaining genuine out-of-works? Mr. Brooks is against creating public work in order to keep them employed -you do not get thirty cents' worth of result for a dollar's expenditure-but recommends that they should be sent to some training-school, where they could learn to do something of which society is in need and would be willing to pay for. As for the loafers, he would send them to a penal industrial colony. Mr. Brooks thus sums up his proposals:

(1.) Employment bureaus distributed over county and city districts with investigation so organised that it can do its work before it is too late to manage the applicants.

(2.) Adequate graded work tests that shall convince the public that the applicant has been taken fairly at his word and offered what he claims to be seeking-work. Such work tests separate the best in every variety from those for whom something may be done, because of the will to do something. (3.) Trade schools (agriculture included) to which those can be sent who have accepted the tests and proved their willingness, but lack of skill and capacity.

(4.) Places of discipline and training (farm colonies and workshops), to which those who are able, but deliberately refuse to work, can be sent as to a prison, where they shall be kept until they prove their willingness and ability to earn an honest livelihood.

If slowly and cautiously we were to work our way toward an organisation of these four measures, that should become part of a common discipline, it seems to me fair to hope that we should begin to act upon public opinion so as to secure its cooperation.

66

CHILD LABOUR IN THE UNITED STATES.

THE Symposium on "Child Labour in America" in the Arena for June is very painful reading. It supplies the chapter and verse for what I said in the article o Coxeyism"-that Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Cry of the Children" is up to date in America to-day. In proof whereof take the following extract from the paper by the secretary of the New York Working Women's Society:

Few realise what children employed in factories must en lure. In our textile factories children walk twenty miles a day. Two-thirds of the yarn manufactured in this country is spun by children under sixteen years of age. In our thread mills children walk nearly as many miles. In button factories children eyelet twenty gross of buttons a day. In our great feather factories, all through the hot weather children stand ten hours daily steaming feathers over pipes from which volumes of hot vapour are constantly escaping. Our postmen and policemen work but eight hours daily, and have the benefit of fresh air and sunshine; but the children of tender years are constantly running to and fro in the vitiated atmosphere of our mercantile establishments, from ten Those to sixteen hours daily. employed as stock girls are seldom allowed to use the elevators, and are all day bearing heavy burdens up and down long flights of stairs. The average wages of these children is but $1.60 per week, and they are fined for absence, tardiness, and all mistakes. It is frequently the case that children are promoted to the position of saleswomen, yet receive the wages of cash-girls. Many merchants claim that they cannot conduct business without a system of fines, because of the indifference of employees to their work; but the very system, the constant surveillance of floor-walkers and superintendents, the stern exactions of business, are incentives to indifference. The majority of these children are engaged for low wages because they are incapable of performing the duties required of them, and then fined for their inability.

Why the Birth-rate Decreases.

THE fact that the birth-rate is decreasing in America leads Mr. J. L. Brownell, in the Annals of the American Academy for June, to draw up a most elaborate paper crammed with statistics compiled from the census returns, in which he discusses the cause of this phenomenon. His conclusions are as follows:-

1. Whether or not it be true that the means spoken of by Dr. Billings, M. Dumont, M. Levasseur, and Dr. Edson have become an important factor in the diminishing birth-rate of civilised countries, it is evident that it is not the only factor, and that, quite apart from voluntary prevention, there is a distinct problem to be investigated. This is shown by the fact that the white and the coloured birth-rate vary together.

2. Mr. Spencer's generalisation that the birth-rate diminishes as the rate of individual evolution increases is confirmed by a comparison of the birth-rates with the death-rates from nervous diseases, and also with the density of population, the values of agricultural and manufactured products, and the mortgage indebtedness.

3. The Malthusian theory in general, that population tends to increase faster than the means of subsistence, is not true of the United States at the present time. In the regions where wealth increases most rapidly, the population increases most slowly.

MR. HOLMAN HUNT AND A FREE SUNDAY.
THE ARTIST'S IDEA OF CHRIST.

AN excellent portrait of the great painter, which is here reproduced, prefaces his paper in the Humanitarian on Sunday Observance." His arguments for a freer Sunday will attract less attention than his delineation of the character of Christ. Mr. Hunt describes the present Sunday law as a piece of "tyrannical persecution," but is careful to say, It is the falsehood of extreme rigour

we wish to escape from now, but the falsehood of extreme latitude we should just as much object to." For the maintenance of the present law

the arguments I have heard are all religious; now I advocate a change, let me declare, on Christian grounds. In Jesus Christ I recognise our supreme Lord, for after having looked abroad on all the world, I find no wisdom, love, or heroism like to that He showed. As an artist I am tempted to wander one phrase aside, and add that He was truly the Divine artist, for Art is discriminating Love, and His love was divinely comprehensive. The reflection of

Him in modern morose Puritanism is surely nothing but a cruel distortion of the image of the gentle-hearted Messiah, who uttered, "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin; yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these "; who, in the contrast that He draws between Himself and John the Baptist, takes the character of the fluteplayer in the marketplace, playing to the listless that they might dance, in contrast to the other, who mourned unto them while yet they had not wept. He was the convivial prophet, who came eating and drinking, a

the harvest), are not convincing proofs of His repudiation of forcible authority; and that His preference for the experienced in the world's battle of life (even though these were not unspotted in the social strife), over those who stood apart from the turmoil, and used life as though it were for isolated and selfish sanctimoniousness.-we ought not to ignore His everrepeated utterances against making His kingdom an overbearing one.... When He adds, "Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," the ulterior mercy is revealed. that, waste and ruin continuing to our selfish affections, and the separation of the dross from the pure metal still going on, there must at last be repentance, and with that salvation. Christ was beneficent and consistent all through.

If we forbid the study of science and art in our galleries and museums on a Sunday, "we should certainly lay ourselves open to the charge of not believing in the ultimate perfection and triumph of our Lord's principles."

The further the wanderers without the fold become acquainted with

the mysteries of Nature and Art, the nearer they will be in spirit to true wisdom. . . I believe that every full-minded person who goes to a museum, and makes himself acquainted with the evidence existing there of the links in the order of Creation, and of their relation to earlier and later facts, has instinctively increased in him the certainty of the Author's existence, and of his grandeur and of his all-sufficiency to bring about justice and love at the last.

Patience, too, is taught by the best works of nature and of art in our museums. Mr. Hunt thinks "Christian ought to have nothing but confidence in affording opportunity to the busy man to refresh body and soul on Sunday" with " innocent and instructive recreation." He laments that "we Christians, in our rigidity, have done much to drive honest but impatient men to abjure religion altogether."

wedding guest, a friend of publicans and sinners, who loved little children, who instructed the ignorant-ever patiently and hopefully, although only seeing a far-off leavening of ignorance; who healed the sick, who made whole the lame and the blind, who asked more than once whether it was not lawful to do good on the Sabbath-day; doing these ingratiating acts as a means, the surest of all, of converting sinners, even the most degraded, to new hope and the bliss of untried righteousness. "I have come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it more abundantly."

But supposing that the examples of Christ's love of beauty and of uncrippled happiness and pleasure, which He displayed as a means of winning the erring to a surer desire and attainment of perfection (as the ripening beams of the sun hasten