Ed. by Miss Sarah Jolly; I remember her former work, the 'Harmony of Education," and that I gave it a favourable notice.

Emm. I do not think quite so well of the present one; it contains many useful remarks, is written in an enlightened spirit, and rightly bases the teacher's vocation on practical piety. But much of it is commonplace, and her style is too hortatory for a lady addressing her sister teachers. You will see what I mean by these lines: "Be not addicted to warm watery fluids, as tea and coffee. Take the cold or tepid bath, in one or other of its forms, at least once a day."

Aug. It sounds like

Graham," or "Buchan." Probably the chapter on health is a compilation.

Emm. Then the authoress might have reconstructed the sentences. "Be not addicted to," does not sound very feminine or elegant.

Mrs. M. Don't be hypercritical, Emmeline.

Emm. No, mamma, I do not want to be; but a book for teachers, by one of themselves, ought for many reasons to be very carefully written.

Mrs. M. Now, Augustus, we wait for your opinion of THE HAND OF GOD IN WAR.* It is by Dr. Tweedie.

Aug. I will read a few sentences to show its object: "Amid all the convulsions and commotions of our age, we should never forget the great work which God is promoting by means of his Church upon earth. That work is the master-idea in the Divine government. To that all is conformed, and by that all is directed. God is redeeming a people to Himself out of the wreck of our fallen world. He is rearing a spiritual temple, slowly setting up new heavens and a new earth. But in working out that mighty moral enterprise methods are adopted, for the most part very different from those which mortal wisdom would devise. Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee; the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain.' In employing that language David explained one of the agencies by which the Supreme accomplished his purpose. All history is full of illustrations of this simple and comprehensive truth. No one who considers the ways of God at all, can have failed to notice how everything is made at last to promote his purposes; how man in his most ambitious soaring, or his most degrading falls, is the Almighty's unwilling but subservient agent. As thousands are leaving our shores, their peaceful homes and blessings, perhaps never to return, all in consequence of an attempt to grasp at an all-controlling power on the part of an imperial deceiver, it

* London: Nelson and Sons,

may be profitable to recall some examples of the great historical law, that the wrath of man always praises God.”

Ed. A very good idea. Whence are the evidences gathered?

Aug. From the Crucifixion, the Roman Conquests, the Albigenses, the Conquest of India, the Pilgrim Fathers, the French Revolution, the Church in the East, and John Bunyan.

Ed. It was the simple but profound maxim of Monica, the mother of Augustine, "that God has not left even evil in disorder," and the saying is about to receive another verification.

Mrs. M. I sincerely hope it is.

Emm. My friend, Catherine Sinclair, is venturing into the cheap line of literature. The "Run and Read Library" has just added her "Sir Edward Graham," under the title of THE MYSTERIOUS MARRIAGE.*

Mrs. M. I wonder why they have altered the title.

Emm. I suppose they think the new one will be more catching to the eye of the great multitude. Of course every body knows what a clever and captivating writer Catherine Sinclair is, so that we have no more to do than to say we are very glad to find she is to be presented in so cheap a form. In this book she has given a pleasing sketch of cheerful manners and amiable motives, of home duties and agreeable occupations. I wish, however, she would not make some of her characters talk such preposterous nonsense. It is frequently too absurd to be even witty.

Ed. I am afraid nonsensical talking characterises the young sadly too much.

Aug. Not the young only, Mr. Editor; do not be too hard upon them. Older people frequently talk very absurdly; and, as they have not the excuse of being young, I am sure they ought not to be giddy.

Ed. Well, without going back to the days of starch and backboards, it is to be wished that a more serious tone pervaded society, whether composed of old or young persons.

Aug. I am afraid, Mr. Editor, you will not think Mons. Jules Leconte writes in a very serious tone. His VOYAGE DE DESAGREMENS A LONDRES reads like a caricature.

Ed. Some caricatures possess more truth than exaggeration.

Aug. I must confess, Leconte does say a great deal which is true, although by no means very complimentary.

* London: Clarke and Co.

Here

is his description of an English house. Would you like to hear it ?

Ed. Yes, if you can make good English of it.

Aug. He says, "You enter. The house, which is not usually wider than two or three ordinary windows, can afford only the narrowest possible space for the stairs. These stairs are usually wooden, and creak dreadfully as you tread upon them. They are covered with a strip of carpet or oilcloth. The windows are adorned with painted blinds. You enter your sitting-room. The floor is, all the year round, covered by a carpet. But this carpet is again covered by bits of other carpet, linen bands, and pieces of oilcloth, and the real carpet is almost hidden. The walls are covered by a blazing paper in imitation of a French pattern. Some friends gave me some engravings in frames, to hang up, but my landlady was frightened at the notion of driving nails into her magnificent paper; so she placed my presents on chairs."

Ed. You will scarcely, Augustus, call this a description of an English house, it is rather of an English lodging-house.

Aug. It is. Then Mons. Jules says that this objection of his landlady accounted for what he had often noticed in England, and had mistaken for carelessness, "viz., that in order to avoid driving nails into the walls, people will stand pictures upon chairs about their rooms. Even for a Rubens or a Lawrence they would not put a nail into paper, even though only of the value of two shillings a piece!"

Mrs. M. This is not quite accurate.

Aug. "Next, an immense table, covered by an immense blue cloth, bordered by an immense fringe, takes up an immense space in my sitting-room. I raise the cover, and find a table

as weighty as a bridge, supported by gigantic columns. It cannot be a table; it must be an entresol. I can scatter my books and papers carelessly over it, even when the vast breakfast tray is upon it, and then extensive desert steppes remain around! Should this table ever become a fossil, it will give some notion to future generations of our colossal furniture. Then there is a lengthy, massive, faded sofa. It has suffered from the influence of the carbon-laden atmosphere. It is hard, and not at all attractive. The eye does not wish to look at it; and the eye is certainly in the right. If people venture to sit upon it, they quickly leave it, wondering if it were originally constructed for a coal-box."

Emm. What a comical idea!

Mrs. M. Poor sofa!

Aug. "Chairs, which require two hands to lift, are placed here and there; but the most curious article of furniture is a

great ebony thing opposite the window. Imagine two towers joined by a platform or terrace, each tower with two stories, and the first story divided in two parts, let us call them two rooms. Under the platform, which is adorned by a solid-looking sculptured balustrade, is a secret passage which, but for its Babylonian proportions, might be called a drawer. From the flat and polished terrace there must be a fine prospect. I never inquired the use of this wooden edifice. It might be either a fortress or an organ."

Emm. It was, no doubt, a side-board.

Aug. Yes, Leconte thinks that if we were all about the size of Polyphemus, he should say it was an ugly sideboard in some cyclopean dining-room. But, at present, he can see no service it can render, unless for a barricade. "The grate is so large that it is impossible to make a little fire in it on a day in June. It requires some exertion to lift the shovel or the tongs. Above this colossal grate is a mirror, but placed so high that I can see nothing but my eyebrows. Two immense bell ropes, with cockades as large as a hat crown, complete this alarming furniture. In the midst of it a man seems a Lilliputian. I need not dwell. upon the details of my bed-room furniture."

Ed. I think not. Well, we must be content to let our lively French neighbours laugh at us. Perhaps we may learn something from their ridicule.

Emm. PRIVATE PRAYER,* Have you looked at this, Mr. Editor?

Ed. No, who has ?

Mrs. M. I have glanced at it. It contains a fortnight's course of prayers for each morning and evening; also, a variety of devotional forms adapted to the season of communion, and to the circumstances of individuals. Some one topic seems to be made the leading sentiment of each prayer.

Ed. Such books may be useful as helps, provided they are not turned into crutches and rendered indispensable.

Mrs. M. These brief and simple prayers are thoroughly evangelical in their tone, and may well serve to guide the thoughts in closet hours, without superseding the free utterances of the devout spirit.

London: Nelson & Sons.

It

HE Kremlin is derived from the Tartar word, Krim or Krem, which signifies a fortress. is situate on the north side of the Moskva, which flows below it; and it is triangular in form. A high wall or fortification surrounds it, with a tower at each angle, besides steeples and watch-towers of various shape and appearance. All the edifices within it are painted white, orange, yellow, blue, green, &c. The singular appearance of the various coloured spires and bulbous domes of the cathedrals and towers in the Kremlin, has struck every traveller, and has generally left an impression of magnificence. The whole of the

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