ica; a volume called "Hawaiian Yesterdays" by Dr. Lyman of Chicago, a missionary's son who knew the islands in the old days; an important work on "The Future Life"; and a book of Shakespeare essays by Maurice F. Egan.

Among the literary centenaries of 1906-beside the bi-centenary of Franklin's birth which was celebrated January 17th-are the bicentenary of the death of John Evelyn, Feb. 27th; the centenaries of the birth of John Stuart Mill, May 20th; John Sterling, July 20th, and Agnes Strickland, August 19th. Among the chief commemorations will be the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Columbus, on May 20, which will probably create an extensive literature of its own, and the tercentenary, on June 6th, of the birth of the greatest dramatic poet of France, Pierre Corneille.

A. C. McClurg & Co. announce that they have just completed arrangements for the publication, in conjunction with Mr. John Murray of London, of a work of more than ordinary interest. This is Molmenti's "Venice: Its Individual Growth from the Earliest Beginnings to the Fall of the Republic," now appearing in Italy under the imprint of the Instituto Italiano d'Arti Grafichi. The work will be issued in three sections of two volumes each, the first entitled "Venice in the Middle Ages," the second "Venice in the Golden Age," and the third "The Decadence of Venice." Each volume will contain forty full-page plates and a frontispiece in full color printed in Italy.

The analysis of books published during 1905 in England, issued by the Publishers' Circular, shows a total of 8252, as against 8334 in 1904. Theology has increased-745 volumes against 666.

Educational works show a de

crease of 102; and there has been a lesser issue also of political and commercial books and reprinted novels. The new novels are 1733, as against 1731, so that the figure remains curiously steady. The totals of history and biography, and books on the arts and sciences, are also virtually unchanged. In belles-lettres the books reach 381, as against 220 last year, a considerable advance. Poetry and drama, and geography and travel, also show a slight increase.

The Dickensian naturally takes pleasure in reflecting that since Shakespeare, no writer has "made language" to the extent that Dickens has done, and the number of common colloquialisms taken from his novels, and which everybody uses every day, is the outstanding proof of the success with which he has appealed to the imagination of the nation. "How often," it remarks, "one hears 'Barkis is willin',' 'Beware of widders,' 'Oliver Twist asks for more,' 'Codlin's the friend, not Short,' 'I don't believe there's no sich person,' 'Let me put my lips to it when I am so dispoged,' 'Waiting for something to turn up,' 'A trifle wearing,' 'The law is a ass,' 'In a Pickwickian sense,' "The demnition bow-wows,' 'A swellin' wisibly afore my wery eyes,' 'It's of no consequence,' 'Demned, damp, moist, unpleasant body,' 'Is the old min frindly?' 'Discipline must be maintained,' 'Brought up by hand,' 'When found, make a note on,' and so on! Not a few actual words have come from Dickens to the dictionary 'Podsnappery,' 'Pickwickian,' 'Pecksniffian,' 'Bumbledom,' 'Circumlocution,' and many others. Dolly Varden, the pretty heroine of Barnaby Rudge, has given her name to a hat; while Mrs. Leo Hunter, The Artful Dodger, Uriah Heep, Bill Sikes, and Mrs. Jarley have become common generic terms."

Than the least drop of Spring's least shower.

That easeful life alone is gain,

That prayer, love, art, and fame are vain,

In short, 'twere wiser to sit still,
To ply a mild subservient quill,
Or better, neither read, nor write,
Nor love, nor hate, nor pray, not fight,
No mortal save ourselves to please,
But eat and drink, and take our ease,
Rest and be thankful, aye, or rest
And not be thankful. Share no jest,
No heights to climb, no depths to
sound,

But sit, sit, sit, till we be found,
Sans teeth, or taste, or wit or will,
White-haired or bald, yet sitting still,
God help us! in our dim old age,
Like "Polly," in a well-warmed cage!

Well! well! Your creed, if dull, seems sound.

It stands, I own, on long-tried ground,
Clearer, I fear, its scope you see
Than mine, alas! is seen by me.
And yet for there hath been a “yet”
Since man first did his kind beget-
A "yet" this time of scope immense,
Which covers the whole world of sense,
Of sense, aye, and of spirit too,

All that this circumambient blue
O'er-arches; order, species, nation,
Our world-wide, sentient creation.

For see! E'en "Polly" has her place,
Not wholly mean, I deem, her case,
Behind her mistress and her cage,
Her sugar, and her wicker stage,
She hath, methinks, a master too-
The same that owneth me and you!
The hand that guards her foolish life
Swings the broad scales of peace and
.. strife,

Reshapes the arch of change afar,
Renews the sun, and steers the star.
Then if from Him, as some still deem,

Comes all we see, and most we dream,
If nothing 'scapes that thinking eye
Under the blue or cloud-filled sky,
If He who laid down land and sea
Still feeds the shrimp and trains the
bee,

Observes which way the squirrels bound,

Measures the strength of horse and hound,

Follows the hawk-moth's devious chase,
The lacefly's dainty flitting grace;
Down Ocean's valleys tracks the seal,
A mile below yon lumbering keel;
Perceives the blue vellela frail
Lift from the brine its glassy sail;
Reckons the hydroid's countless bells.
The coral polyp's myriad cells-
In one immortal grasp immense
Gathers all things of life and sense-
May He not, oh my prescient friend,
To your and my poor needs attend?
Emily Lawless.

The Outlook.

THE WOOL-GATHERER. Where hast thou been in the wind and rain?

"Gathering wool on a far plain.

"Four shepherds keep those flocks afar In pastures where no hedgerows are.

"They give no tithe, they take no hire, They warm their hands at no man's fire.

"When one has driven the flocks all day,

At no far fold they make their stay.

"For one comes hot-foot o'er the plain And drives them hurrying back again.

"Though the yield should fill the world's wains full,

Never to market comes the wool.

"They cast it all, those wastrel herds, To naked stars and screaming birds.

"It makes no rug nor coat of frieze; It makes men shrouds in stormy seas." C. Fox Smith.

The Academy.

In Gospel language the age and the end of the age does not signify the end and the beginning of a century, but the end of one view of life, of one faith, of one method of social intercourse between men and the commencement of another view of life, another faith, another method of SOcial intercourse. In the Gospel it is said that during the transition from one age to another all kinds of calamities shall take place treacheries, frauds, cruelties, and wars, and that owing to lawlessness love will slacken. I understand these words not as a supernatural prophecy, but as an indication that when the faith, the form of life in which men lived, is being replaced by another, when that which is outlived and old is falling off and being replaced by the new; then great disturbances, cruelties, frauds, treacheries, and every kind of lawlessness must unavoidably take place, and in consequence of this lawlessness love, the most important and necessary quality for the social life of men, must slacken. This is what is now taking place not only in Russia but in all the Christian world. In Russia it has only manifested itself more vividly and openly, but in all Christendom the same is going on only in a concealed or latent state. I think that at present-at this very time-the life of the Christian nations is near to the limit dividing the old epoch which

I.

is ending from the new which is beginning. I think that now at this very time that great revolution has begun which for almost 2000 years has been preparing in all Christendom, a revolution consisting in the substitution of true Christianity and founded upon it the recognition of the equality of all and of that true liberty natural to all rational beings, for a distorted Christianity and the power of one portion of mankind and the slavery of another founded upon that. The external symptoms of this I see in the strenuous struggle between classes in all nations, in the cold cruelty of the wealthy, the exasperation and despair of the poor, the insane, senseless, ever increasing armaments of all States against each other, the spread of the unrealizable teaching of socialism, dreadful in its despotism and wonderful in its superficiality; in the futility and stupidity of the idle discussions and examinations upheld as the most important mental activity called science; in the morbid depravation and emptiness of art in all its manifestations; and above all, not only the absence of any religion in the leading spheres but in the deliberate negation of all religion, and by the substitution of the legality of the oppression of the weak by the strong, and, therefore, in the complete absence of any rational guiding principles in life. Such are

the general symptoms of the approach

ing revolution, or rather of that preparedness for revolution, which the Christian nations have attained. The temporary historical symptoms, or the final push which must begin the revolution, is the Russo-Japanese War just terminated, and along with that the revolutionary movement which has now burst out, and never before existed, amongst the Russian people.

The cause of the defeat of the Russian army and fleet by the Japanese is attributed to unfortunate accidental circumstances, to the abuses of Russian statesmen, the cause of the revolutionary movement in Russia is attributed to the bad government, to the increased activity of the revolutionists; and the result of these events appears in the eyes of Russian as well as foreign politicians to consist in the weakening of Russia, in a displacement of the centre of gravity in international relations, and in the alteration of the form of government of the Russian State. But I think that these events have a much more important significance. The rout of the Russian army and fleet, the rout of the Russian State organization, is not merely the rout of the army, the fleet, and of the Russian State, but the symptoms of the beginning of the destruction of the Russian State. The destruction of the Russian State in its turn is, in my opinion, a sign of the beginning of the destruction of the whole of the false Christian civilization. It is the end of the old and the beginning of the new age.

That which has brought Christian nations to the position in which they now are began long ago. It began from the time when Christianity was recognized as a State religion-a State founded upon coercion, demanding for its existence complete obedience to its laws in preference to the religious law; a State unable to exist without executions, armies, and wars; a State attributing almost divine authority to

its rulers; a State extolling wealth and power. And such an institution in the persons of its rulers and subjects professes to accept the Christian religion which proclaims complete equality and freedom amongst men, recognizes one law of God as higher than all other laws-a religion which not only repudiates all coercion, all retribution, executions, and wars, but also enjoins love to one's enemies, which extols not power and wealth, but meekness and poverty-such an institution in the persons of its heathen rulers accepted this Christian religion not in its true sense, but in that distorted form according to which the Pagan organization of life continues to be possible. Both the rulers and their counsellors in most cases completely fail to understand the essence of true Christianity, and are quite sincerely revolted against those who profess and preach Christianity in its true meaning, and with a quiet conscience they execute and banish them and forbid them to preach Christianity in its true sense. The priesthood forbids the reading of the Gospels, and arrogates to itself alone the right of explaining Holy Writ; it invents complicated sophisms justifying the impossible union of the State and Christianity, and institutes solemn rites for the hypnotization of the people. And for ages the majority of men live regarding themselves as Christians without even suspecting a hundredth part of the meaning of true Christianity. Yet, however great was the prestige of the State, however long was the duration of its triumph, however cruelly Christianity was suppressed, it was impossible to stifle the truth once expressed which disclosed to man his soul, and constitutes the essence of Christianity. The longer such a position continued the clearer became the contradiction between the Christian teaching of meekness and love and the State an institution of pride and co