Ben returned no answer. He gave a little nod to Mrs. Craig, and then hastily slammed the door behind him.

"Oh! mamma, I am so glad," exclaimed Violet, almost before the door was shut. "But I should like to do something to please poor Ben, to make up to him for his dog."

"Do you remember what you said when I wanted to make up to you for the canary which the cat had eaten?

Violet blushed and was silent. She felt that her wish had been ungenerous, but she did not quite like being compared to a cat, and she told herself that the dog's comfort was her first object, and so it was. Perhaps I may as well mention here, that Mrs. Craig did several things to please Ben. She sent food and medicine for his sick sister, and clothes for himself and his little brothers. Ben was grateful for her kindness, but he still mourned the loss of his little pet.

Under Dr. Brewster's skilful treatment and Violet's tender nursing, Tan got on wonderfully well. Not only were his legs soon serviceable again, but his black and tan coat shone with a gloss it had never known before, and his wistful face assumed a happier expression. He never could be a pretty dog, but he became rather pleasant-looking, and was full of funny little affectionate tricks. All day long he trotted after Violet. In her mother's sick-room, where the child was so perfect a nurse, Tan would sit for hours watching her, but never obtruding himself by sound or movement. During lessons he would

sleep quietly on Violet's knee, happy because her hand would often stray down to caress him. He walked out with her every day, and they ran

This was how she used to talk in grave but childish fashion, and Tan would wag his wiry little tail, and rub himself against her, and tell in his dumb dog-like way, as clearly as words could have said it, that he did most dearly love her. Things went on in this way for several months. Tan was very happy, Violet showed no sign of weariness, and Mrs. Craig ceased to watch her so carefully as at first. But nothing, however pleasant, can go on for ever, and change came to Tan one bright day in May, in the shape of a square basket, carefully tied up, and addressed to Violet. There came from inside the basket every now and then a short, sharp bark. Violet opened the basket, and out jumped the prettiest little Maltese dog that you can imagine. It was of very soft dun colour, shading into white, with long silky hair, drooping ears, and a feathery tale. It had been sent to Violet by a gentleman who, having noticed her affection for Tan, had had the happy thought of sending her a more worthy object. Violet's face flushed with pleasure. She took the little thing in her arms and cuddled it warmly, and carried it at once to her mother.

"See, mamma," she said, joyfully, "see what Mr. Foster has sent to me! Is it not a beauty?

Tan had followed her into Mrs. Craig's room with a hanging head, and his tail between his legs. He now watched in silence the caresses that his mistress was lavishing on this new dog.

"Look beside you, Violet," said Mrs. Craig, quietly, and Violet looked down at Tan. In a moment she had popped Beauty in the bed, and seized her old pet in her arms.

66

My own little Tan," she said, kissing him as she spoke, "don't you like me to pet another dog? My silly little sweet, are you jealous? No, no, you need not be. I shall love you just the same;

fifty Beauties could not alter your place. No one can ever have that." Tan was comforted. He be. lieved Violet's words, and was quite happy again. Indeed, he was rather happier, for he watched Violet showering caresses on the new dog, and yet she had said that Beauty could never have his place. How much, then, must she love him! (To be concluded.)

ROUND

THE

A CHAT ABOUT OUR BOOKS. THERE is no book published in recent times that deserves a larger circulation among all classes of the present day, than Principal Fairbairn's Religion in History and in the Life of To-day.' Nor can we imagine one that is more calculated to do good in the present aspect of society towards religion-good not only to those to whom it is especially addressed, but good to our clergy and the officials of religion, if we may make use of the phrase. The little volume consists of addresses which

PRINCIPAL FAIRBAIRN

delivered in the course of last winter to the workingmen of Bradford, and we can give no better advice to those of the clergy in all our churches, who have to deal with the working classes, than that they should "boil down" these lectures, and, fired with their spirit, put them into their own words, and thus give all those within reach of their influence the benefit of them. This, perhaps, would be a better way of stimulating an interest in the subjects of which they treat so well than by any recommendation of the lectures themselves, some of which may be a little beyond the reach of those to whom they are addressed. Patient study by any one of the thought in the volume will, however, be amply rewarded. The same remark is applicable to the new book by

PRINCIPAL TULLOCH.2

The least that an author can ask of those who wish to understand him, is patience and an earnest effort after comprehension. What Principal Fairbairn says on this subject is well worthy of being laid to heart by all, especially by those who are given to criticise teaching and preaching, and to think that the fault always lies at the door of the expositor, when the expositor is not comprehended. "It is a hard matter to make intelligible abstract and abstruse things. You are, many of you, men accustomed to manual toil; I tomed to toil mental. I should be very much astonished and bewildered at the simple processes of your daily work. You would have need to be patient in explaining the matter to me; and I often might be so stupid as not to understand the veriest rudiments of your craft. And so you may not at once see the issues

am accus

FIRESIDE.

and modes of a mental craft, that has occupied a man for many years more hours a day than any trades' union would allow him to work, has kept him hard at it in the early morning, at noon and at night, until his subject may have become so much a matter of daily expression and association to him, that he is unable really to estimate the difficulty of comprehension on the part of others not accustomed to the same methods and the same themes." And yet both Principal Fairbairn and Principal Tulloch are singularly luminous and intelligible in their exposition of abstract thought. What the former says of

CO

is true of himself and Principal Tulloch. "In his hands theology, as it were, seemed to melt into religion. We got out of the region of the abstract, the merely doctrinal, came into the region of the concrete, of the living, and a region where religion was extensive with life and mind, concerned not simply with salvation and the future, but with all that touched or affected man." Two sayings of Dr. Bathgate's, as quoted in this memoir, deserve letters of gold. All spiritual truth in the Bible, in Creation, in Providence, in Man, in God, anywhere, everywhere, is by the Holy Spirit. That with me is an axiom." Again, "I abhor moral confusion; the RING of an untrue man is to me the most horrid sound to be heard on the face of this earth! I do not believe there are such things as moral trifles."

66

From an admirable little volume of sermons' we take this extract on

THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST.

"The sin of Paul must have been the unpardonable one the resolute refusal to surrender the spirit of our life into God's hands, that we may be formed and helped by Him; the hardening of the heart against the small encroachment of good affections and kindly sympathies; the peremptory determination to have our own way in spite of the temporary glimpses of a better way than ours that break upon our minds; the hard, persistent, dogged attitude of resistance, to the defiance of the workings of our better self; that is the only sin I can think of which can keep God for ever and always away. The cherishing of the Satanic temper is the sin against the Holy Ghost, which can

3 "Progressive Religion," sermons and selections from the manuscripts of William Bathgate, D.D., author of "Christ and Man." Glasgow: James Maclehose & Son, St. Vincent Street.

"God, the Moral Force in Human Life," by James Forfar, minister of Martyrs', Glasgow. Glasgow: Hugh Hopkins.

never be forgiven, for it is incompatible with the conditions on which forgiveness is granted."

To all lovers of

POETRY

we cordially recommend Dr. Walter C. Smith's new poem. It is full of the same charm, the same tenderness, the same insight into the workings of the human heart, that have made his other volumes so popular. How pretty and musical is the ring about this love ode:

"What has come over the sunshine?

It is like a dream of bliss.
What has come over the pine-woods?
Was ever a day like this?
O, white-throat swallow flicking
The loch with long wing-tips,
Hear you the low, sweet laughter
Comes rippling from its lips?
"What has come over the waters?
What has come over the trees?
Never were rills and fountains
So merrily voiced as these.

O, throstle, softly piping

High on the topmost bough,
I hear a new song singing,
Is it my heart, or thou?"

6

What a charming study for the summer months may be made of the four volumes of selections from the works of Robert Browning and his wife. The first series of selections from Robert Browning are dedicated to Alfred Tennyson, "in poetry illustrious and consummate; in friendship noble and sincere." No poet is more worthy of being read "Round the Fireside" than Mrs. Browning, who, as Mr. W. T. Arnold has said, "has added a charm to motherhood only less than that added by Raffaele himself." And has she not earned the benediction of unhappy childhood everywhere by "The Cry of the Children," "A Song for the Ragged Schools of London," and many other beautiful and tender verses?

LUX BENIGNA.

"LEAD, kindly light!"

The pleading hymn went up,

Filling the great church with the pulse of pray'r;
The mighty music through the arches swept,
A thousand voices trembled on the air.

Lo! through the outer door a woman crept, Climbed upward in the shadow of the stair, There, in the dim light knelt and wildly wept, And sobbed, from out the depths of her despair, "Lead, kindly light."

"Lead, kindly light!" Again the hymn uprose,

Swelled out, and rolled in throbbings full and high,
And happy faces beamed with visions bright;
Out in the dusk went up one lonely cry,

A cry that broke from lips all wan and white :
Oh, breaking heart, the day is drawing nigh
Across the sin and sorrow of the night,
The deathless dawn will quicken by and by,-
"Lead, kindly light."

"Kildrostan:" a dramatic poem. By Walter C. Smith. Glasgow: Maclehose.

6.64 Selections from the Poetical Works of Robert Browning." First and second series.

"A Selection_from_the_Poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning." London: Smith, Elder & Co., 15 Waterloo Place. 1884.

8

JAMES STRANG.

THE TEACHING OF OUR POETS. DR. LECKIE, minister of the United Presbyterian Church at Ibrox, has just issued a thoughtful volume of sermons, which are pervaded by a tone that is at once liberal and earnest. In an interesting sermon on the present phases of unbelief, after touching on the strongly ethical character of much of the literature of the time, he justly claims that though, perhaps, none of them are strictly orthodox, "the best poets are among the best friends of religion in our day," and says, "The poetry of our time is, as a whole, eminently opposed to Materialism." Tennyson, Browning, Lewis Morris (author of the "Songs of Two Worlds"), and our own townsman, Robert Buchanan, are among our most potent allies. They show the spiritual element in nature and in man. think it is by chance that at the very time when science is often inclined to say "There is nothing but what I measure and count and weigh," there should arise a class of poets who, more than at any other time, and in strains, I believe, as deep and lofty and sweet as those of any time, should say, ay, and prove it to the heart of man, 66 Ah, friends, there is much more--there is an infinite and eternal behind the main value of these things that you are weighing and measuring is as pictures of that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived? The poets show man how deep and strange his own life in its joys and sorrows is, and how grand the universe is, and Materialism becomes incredible."

HENRY IRVING.

Do you

MR. WILLIAM HODGSON, of the Fifeshire Journal, has begun a most interesting series of "Sketches, Personal and Pensive," in his own paper, which he conducts with so much ability. There are some delightful recollections of Charles Gibbon, and this account of the youthful days of our great actor cannot fail to be read with interest "Round the Fireside."

"It is midnight, in the year 1858, in the supper room of a hotel in Wilson Street, Glasgow. Captain Crawford's it then was, but now is no more. Around the table allowed by the authorities for the purpose, mindful of the new Forbes Mackenzie Act, is frequently a din of friendly voices and the laughter of hearty natures. They are those of newspaper people with work yet to do, and of actors with work just done. They have come hither for the indispensable professional meal under the auspices of club life. Beside me sits a young man with long, glossy, black hair, liquid eyes of subdued fire, and a great richness of features, which, you observe, are in preferred repose.

"Sermons," by Joseph Leckie, D.D., Ibrox, Glasgow. Glasgow: James Maclehose & Son, Publishers to the University.

We two are the youngest people in the group; and our pleasure it is as the evenings suit to listen quietly, and add our timid approbations to the witty repartee as it flashes along, or to the drollery that is tossed about. We have so intimately cottoned together as to know that this same young man has no disposition to talk except in the monosyllable, and in the brief but genial remark when it is challenged. He has cut no figure at all on the stage in Dunlop Street: an Indian prince in the melodrama of the Taking of Lucknow; or, Dinna ye Hear It? has been the great achievement in the barbaric pearl and gold of the Dunlop Street properties. On the boards there, as in this cozy supper room, in which there are men of made reputations (Toole, for instance), he is modestly pleased to take the withdrawal seat beside me. As is habitual with mortals, who are constantly having their destinies wrought out for them, their own share subdued in that decree, the severance comes. This unobtrusive,

strikingly-figured young man goes away south with that indomitable purpose in his soul which he had never revealed in all our confidences. Our parting was without ceremony. It was without knowledge, for the notice to sever came suddenly, and amid pre-occupations, I rather think, on my side. It was well it was so, for we were deeply attached; and Providence, I have often thought, is kindest when not consulting us that there shall be any ceremonious farewell. Four years ago, in Dundee, I re-shook that young man's hand; no longer young, its owner no longer unknown; no longer having raveny hair; no longer in the back seat; but now the hand of the renowned Henry Irving! There was change, indeed; but not in heart, nor manner, nor unreserved smile. Much had occurred in the interval to both of us; but nothing to turn either his head or heart from the companion in Glasgow when all the world was before the two, and the odds tremendous against the one."

GLASGOW HUMANE SOCIETY. WHATEVER may be thought of the present condition of society, as compared with some periods of the past, it can at all events be said with all safety that at no former period have such efforts been made in order to promote the social and physical welfare of the whole community. Apart altogether from churches, schools, and poorhouses, there are on all hands societies and institutions bearing upon every department of human ills, and to the practical working of which ladies and gentlemen in high social position not only contribute money but cheerfully devote much time and labour.

Among these institutions not the least useful and praiseworthy is that class known as Humane Societies, the special object of which is to save life from drowning. They are now common to most cities and places where there is much traffic by water, but the one we now refer to is the local institution. That Glasgow requires such a society we have only to note the extensive harbour, and the immense traffic consequent on shipbuilding, and the loading and unloading of hundreds of vessels of all sizes, demanding the constant services of thousands of the citizens. Under such circumstances accidents must be regarded as unavoidable; but although the greater number of immersions occur at the harbour, there have

been, and still continue to be, considerable numbers at the Green, which is a favourite resort for recreation and bathing. The fact that about 70 human beings lose their lives every year in that part of the river extending from the east to the west of the city is a very serious matter, and of itself sufficient to enlist the sympathies of the entire community in support of the Humane Society. Besides the loss of so many lives, at least an equal number make narrow escapes, and towards the rescuing of whom the Society, by its direct agencies and influence, no doubt materially contributes.

The Directors' report for the past year states the number of submersions to have been 140, and of these no fewer than 60 lost their lives; a mortality great indeed, yet happily showing a decrease of 10 under the average of the preceding ten years, during which period the large number of 800 met their deaths by drowning.

The Society was instituted in 1799, so that it is now on the borders of becoming a centenarian. At that early period the harbour traffic was comparatively trivial, but fishing by both rod and net was an important local industry, and to persons so engaged, together with bathers and waders, accidents were chiefly confined. As the Society has all along been solely dependent for support on voluntary subscriptions and donations, it had for many years a hard struggle to sustain, but, by effort and perseverance, it gradually overcame its difficulties. The Society's house at the Green was originally a washing-house of one storey, but in 1798 the then Directors, having got possession of it, were enabled to add a storey, which became the dwellinghouse of the keeper, who had charge of the apparatus necessary for rescue and resuscitation. It is here out of place to dwell farther upon the Society's history. The success and usefulness of such an institution must in a great measure depend upon the suitability of the chief officer, who requires to be a man of correct habits, robust constitution, and firm nerve, for, as truly stated in the report, "his duties are dangerous and often disagreeable; " he must also be possessed of a thorough knowledge of the best means of treatment in cases of suspended animation, as that has to be carried out under his instructions. Such an officer the Society has been fortunate in securing, and of whose services it has had the benefit many years. Besides the individual efforts of this chief officer and assistants, the influence of the Society is beneficially felt in the fact that meritorious conduct in saving life by persons other than the Society's agents is, when reported to the Directors, rewarded with the Society's honorary medal or certificate, and also by money awards. Such a Society deserves liberal support, and it is pleasing to see by the financial statement that the funds are in a satisfactory condition.

It may also be mentioned that besides accidents in the river there are, unhappily, many cases of attempted suicide, not a few of which have a fatal termination; but others are rescued and properly attended to. Besides, during frosts the Society has officers with suitable apparatus placed at such lochs and ponds as are frequented by skaters and others, and where danger is to be apprehended. From all these considerations it must be apparent to every one that this institution occupies an important position among the existing philanthropies, and is well entitled to the term "Humane."