wished. Tom in the barn, with his class of tiny Sunday scholars seated all round on the hay, and the old horse looking on with equine stolidity, is excellently described; and the train of reasoning worked out through the medium of a three-cent piece by a little child five years of age (given farther on in the book), in order to illustrate the great doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is well worthy of perusal by many a grown-up person. This incident is recorded as a fact. Truly out of the mouths of babes shall come forth wisdom. The illustra

tion facing the title is very effectively drawn, and is of a somewhat higher style of art than is usually to be found in the general run of children's story-books. We have only one fault to find. Why did not Messrs. Nisbet have the book purged of its Americanisms?

SUNDAY LESSONS FOR USE IN FAMILIES AND SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. Compiled by the Rev. Henry B. Browning, M.A., Rector of St. George with St. Paul, Stamford. Pitman.

In the compass of thirty pages, the size of crown octavo, a few of which are devoted to prayers for a Bible-class or Sunday-school, we have a very excellent series of progressive lessons, based on Scripture texts, sketched out under the above title. Of course, it will not be imagined that they are other than mere outlines; but the plan upon which they are drawn up is a most admirable one; and to teachers it cannot but be very suggestive. Here are Mr. Browning's introductory words: "The texts in each lesson are intended to be committed to memory, and frequently repeated. All together form a closely connected series, embracing the cardinal doctrines and general duties of Christianity:-unity and attributes of God the Creator and Preserver; sinfulness of man, and advent of the Redeemer; Divinity of Christ; manhood of Christ, and His suffering experience; His death, resurrection, and ascension; the mission of the Holy Spirit; conviction of sin, repentance, and faith; regeneration and its evidences; Divine grace and human weakness; Christian obedience; means of

grace-Scripture, prayer, sacraments; death and judgment, and the eternal world. The readings are arranged in two sets under each lesson, to meet the requirements of families or schools, in which two Sunday readings are held. In other cases, each set may be separately used, the entire series extending over two years. The Old Testament history extends from Genesis to the end of the Second Book of Kings. The New Testament history includes the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia, in two series of fifty-two chapters each."

COURAGE AND COWARDS; OR, WHO WAS THE BRAVEST? a Book for Girls and Boys. By Selina Gaye, author of "The Maiden of the Iceberg." Nisbet.

Just the sort of title for a book for boys; although certainly the volume contains plenty of the incidents and excitement which will amuse and interest children of the opposite sex. The story is ably conceived and well worked out, and cannot but prove most attractive to young readers; still, we should like to have seen a littlewere it only a little of the courage which has a higher source than that treated of in this handsomely bound book. We are inclined to think, too, that the tale would have lost nothing in effect, had some of the slangy expressions been omitted, and a good deal of the French conversation - notwithstanding its apparently pure Parisian originbeen rendered into plain homely English. The volume, however, contains a wholesome moral; and, in the way of

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getting up," does great credit to the publishers. The illustrations are remarkably good.

SONGS OF PRAISE FOR SUNDAY-SCHOOLS. Selected by a Committee of Sundayschool Teachers. Jarrold & Sons.

Another hymn-book! but it is not the one to which most of us have been looking forward. The present little volume, no doubt, will have its circle of admirers, and it contains some very

excellent "6 songs of praise; but it is not free from certain defects, to discuss which would be altogether beyond the limits of these short notices. That there is need for much judicious omission we think will be readily admitted; for example, take the first hymn in the collection:

ALL nature shows, in various views,

Her great Creator's praise;

The birds they sing, while on the wing,
In soft and pleasing lays.

The trees look gay, and seem to say

There is a God above!

The sun's bright beams, and liquid streams
Say-We are ruled by love.

The bleating flocks, with happy looks,
Say-God deigns us to feed;
Without His power there's not an hour
But we should comforts need.

And if the herds, and trees, and birds
All join to praise God's name,

It must not be that such as we
Forbear to do the same.

DAILY TEXTS FOR CHILDREN. Jackson, Walford & Hodder.

The author of this pretty little book, in the few words of prefatory address to children who may be so fortunate as to have it put into their hands, says:"This little book is intended to help you to learn each day a choice portion of God's holy word, and so to treasure up in your heart some of the precious

jewels of inspired truth." The collection contains very many "precious jewels;" and the cover which enwraps them is as quaint, novel, and attractive as we have seen for some considerable time.

THE

LIGHT IN THE WINDOW; OR, GONE TO SEA. A Memorial of one of God's Hidden Ones. By A. M. F. Partridge.

A very good story (price one penny) to put into the hands of children, boys especially.

WORDS OF CONSOLATION AND COUNSEL, FOR THE TRIED AND SORROWFUL, addressed to those in Sickness, Poverty, Bereavement, Perplexity, Doubt, and Temptation. By the author of "Homely Readings, "Words of Pardon and Hope," "I Will Help Thee," &c. Macintosh.

THE TRUE FUNCTIONS OF ART.Art accomplishes its highest ends when it teaches its votaries to rise from the material to the spiritual; and he is Divinely taught and led who, turning from all other exemplifications of humanity, looks to Him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead.

The love of art is perfectly compatible with the love of God; and he is the truest artist-whether painter, sculptor, or musician-whose soul, expanding to noble proportions by the enthusiastic love of his profession, aims, if possible, to discern the highest type of beauty, to embody his grandest conception, to realize his loftiest ideal; and these he

can only find in the moral and spiritual world.

WOMAN'S TRAINING.-"The benefit of degree examinations for women may be always an open question; but there can be no doubt of their need of training in the routine of domestic management. Not that the one need ever clash with the other; for there is not the smallest foundation for the idea, that if you once suffer women to eat of the tree of knowledge the rest of the family will soon be reduced to the same kind of

aerial and unsatisfactory diet.' But still there seems to be a curious want of

balance in the present system of female middle-class education in this country, which devotes the first seventeen or eighteen years of a girl's life to the process of unfitting her for the most useful duties of future years. So that, at one or two and twenty, when a French or American girl would be quite mistress of the science of domestic economy, an English one is just beginning to stumble through its first rudiments. I do not say that English women are too highly educated. I do not see how this can be; for why should

OBEDIENCE.

not the finely tempered instrument receive the highest possible polish? and why should powers which God has given be permitted to rust in idle sloth? But I do say that, among the middle classes, they are not wisely educated, and that their practical and industrial training is not in proportion to their intellectual. From which fact arise many and serious evils; though how these are to be remedied, on the present modelling of boarding and day schools, is not very easy to see."-Christian Treasury.

If you're told to do a thing,

And mean to do it really,

Never let it be by halves;
Do it fully, freely!

Do not make a poor excuse,
Waiting, weak, unsteady;
All obedience worth the name
Must be prompt and ready.

When father calls, though pleasant be
The play you are pursuing,
Do not say, "I'll come when I

Have finished what I'm doing."

When 'tis said, "You've ate enough,"
Don't reply, "O mother,

Let me have just one cake more,
I will not ask another!"

If you're told to learn a task,
And you should begin it,
Do not tell your teacher, "Yes,
I'm coming in a minute!"
Something waits, and you should now
Begin and go right through it;
Don't think, if it's put off a day,

You will not mind to do it.
Waste not moments, nor your words,
In telling what you could do
Some other time; the present is
For doing what you should do.
Don't do right unwillingly,

And stop to plan and measure; 'Tis working with the heart and soul That makes our duty pleasure.

RUNNING Water.

SLIDING through the verdurous meadows,
Dreaming in the greenwood shadows,
Flying like a feathered arrow

Through the gorges dim and narrow,
Dancing to its own glad tinkle,
There, in many a curl and crinkle,
Rock-imprisoned eddies twinkle,
'Mid white water-lilies sleeping,
Stealthily through thickets creeping-
Many-voiced, the brooklet ever
Wanders onward toward the river.
Musical the infant whisper
Of the little hill-born lisper,
Where on fairy shoon of glass
Timidly it treads the grass;
Musical the tones, though firmer,
Of its dove-like woodland murmur;
Glad its shout and soul-exalting
When o'er rocky barriers vaulting;
Sweet and soft it's liquid gushes,
As it dallies with the rushes-
Thus a living song for ever
Flows the brooklet toward the river.
Blest the life that sweeps along
Brook-like, with a pleasant song;
Gliding through the fields of youth,
Beautiful with Love and Truth;
Striking out in manhood's prime,
Sparkles from the rocks of time;
Making through the shades of age
Calm and solemn pilgrimage;
And, at last, its journey done,
Through the shadow and the sun,
Fearlessly, without a quiver,
Melting in the silent river.

"Is it not so hard, Mrs. I used to be?

"It is not hard now, sir; Christ in my heart, which m thing sweet and pleasant to 1 read my Bible; and, when I crust of bread, I can feel God for His goodness to me.

"For the kingdom of God and drink, but righteousness and joy in the Holy Ghost."

SOMETHING BESIDES MONE -A Frenchman of immen fitted up a most gorgeous Paris. A gentleman who obta to visit it relates that upo the dining-room he found a nificently laid out.

"Your master," he obser maître d'hôtel, "makes W good cheer."

"Alas, sir, my master down to a regular dinner; plate of vegetables is prepared

Here, at least, is food for said the visitor, pointing to th "Alas, sir, my master blind."

"Well," ," resumed the visit tering another room, "he co himself by listening to good m

"Alas, sir, my master heard the music which is pla he goes to bed early in the snatching a few minutes' sleep

"But at all events he e pleasure of walking in that m garden."

THE SEA.-As the sea, if it tossed with the winds, woul even so the godly man, if he exercised with troubles and a would be the worse.

Ir will be generally admitted that, while true and efficient service may be rendered under the promptings of duty with more or less constraint and effort, more delightful and more desirable by far is the activity that flows from a full and cheerful heart. The one resembles the flow of an artificial fountain, precise, regular, stately, but dependent on mechanical arrangements; the other is like the fresh bubbling spring which bounds from the heart of the earth, and which pours forth its life-giving tide with happy murmur all day long, "a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." There are Christians, many Christians, true Christians, who pray and who read their Bible, who fulfil their religious duties, and who go about the work they do for Christ, we will not say reluctantly, but in great measure for conscience' sake. They are not dragged or driven, it is true: but they do not go without a certain pressure; they are, at least, led. In their acts of liberality they show their need of a stimulus applied from without, in the shape perhaps of a well-introduced subscription paper. They wait until called on, and then their gifts are offered with hesitation. They originate no scheme, no method of giving; they never trouble themselves to seek out worthy objects. APRIL, 1868.

Such as these cannot be relied upon to prompt or to take the lead in any movement designed for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. They will follow, perhaps, and work earnestly and well in some line of another man's devising; but they are not like Paul, who struck out new paths, and avoided building on other men's foundations. A great amount of work may be got out of them. They can endure much; but they rarely lead, and all their work, being more or less formal or constrained, will be found, like their own character, to lack sweetness, heart, contagious influence upon their fellows. They are somewhat as the horse or as the mule, who have no secret understanding of their master's will, but must be held in with bit and bridle, not simply guided by the eye.

The true Christian labourer is one that goes cheerfully and heartily to his work, in public or in private. His religion is a life, not a slavery. He prays because he desires to pray; he reads the Bible, gratefully recognising the condescension that communicated authentic heavenly truth to men; he works for Jesus, because he hears incessantly rising in his heart the inquiry, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" He gives of

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