or Gaulish-antiquities; the other, as in this monograph, gathers from them a tribute to the wider teachings of history and its science.

Some notion of his far-reaching and suggestive remarks on the general bearing of his subject should, if possible, be given to our readers in Mr. Borlase's own words, such as will be found in part at p. 56: "We must never forget that Christianity is an oriental religion cast in an oriental mould; that its birth was marked by no cataclysm severing East from West, that no barrier was then fixed in the tide of culture continuously flowing from Asia into Europe, and that it was not till it had existed long years in the world that its influence on society and the reaction of society upon it, stamped it with outward characteristics of its own and caused it to assume the form it

wears to-day. It should be no matter of surprise if we recognise in its earlier phases incidents which we know still belong to a still-existing Orient stubbornly conservative of its ancient forms, an Orient more remote than Asia Minor or Palestine; if we should find, as we do find, the story of Sakya Muni clothed in a Christian garb; if we should dig up on the banks of the Indus representations in stone of events in the life of that great teacher pourtrayed in a style of art identical with that found in the catacombs at Rome." It is just in this way that the subject of this essay receives-and gives in return-so much of elucidation from other subjects, such as the survival of faiths, or the adoption of one faith by another, or the education of the race and its larger civilisation; for all which we must send our readers to the essay itself, only remarking that they will also find there a section on Christianity in Ireland, and on the Pagan superstitions, inter

mingled with the teachings of the saints, deserving careful attention for its still wider bearing.

The Cornish stone worship, and well worship, is another survival to the present day of that marvellous unity in old faiths, brought face to face with Christianity, which has joined East and West in one. The Sanctifying Stone still remains between Sennen and the cliff at the Land's End, through the gap of which whoever passes receives benefits, the nature of which is remembered by the farming man who guided us to it this present autumn; the St. Piran's Well, where, at least till lately, children were passed through the cleft of the rock, and, taking the water, were believed cured of the rickets; the divining by bubbles raised when dropping crooked pins into the well of St. Madderne; the hanging rags on thorns in the iuclosure of the Madron Well, just as among the Yezedees of Persia, or just as, so Mr. Borlase tells us, (p. 52), “in Japan it is still a constant usage in the interior of the island of Niphon; I have myself witnessed pilgrims tying strips of cloth or paper on visiting some sacred spring." All this, and much more. which points to sun-worship and the worship of Belus, not to speak of Pigsy stones, still haunted by fairies; all this, as Mr. Borlase so instructively brings it out, is another and a further lesson in the lingering on not merely of old superstitions but of the older ineradicable potent Fetichism, and of the beliefs springing from it. It is the manner in which Christianity was treated by the Keltic mind in the British Isles, and the comparisons it affords, that give such high interest to Mr. Borlase's present essay, though only in supplement to his presidential address to the last meeting of the Cornwall Royal Institution; and we commend

both to the careful consideration of our readers. We suppose, by his name, Mr. Borlase has an almost hereditary right to be the historian of Cornish antiquities. If so, we admire the more the modern cast of thought with which he has adorned his studies.

The Beginnings. By the Author of "New Pages of Natural History," 1869; "The Circle of Light, or Dhawalegeri," 1869; "The Interior of the Earth," 1870; "Incidents in the Biography of Dust." 1877. London: Trübner, 1878.

When a writer, citing three lines of his own composal, as to which it is indiscoverable whether they are intended for verse or for prose, tells us "I wrote thus, from a long and close observation of nature, under cosmical laws," he intimates his own familiarity, of course, with at least the rudiments of mechanical knowledge. But when further, in a book proposing to instruct the world "on the beginning of the earth," we find the sentence following, we see that there is a more modest "beginning" which has yet to be made by Mr. Malet: "As the light caused a movement on the whole body of waters, so the waters acted on their bed. No one can say where the general level of that early bed was. But as it deepened from the ever-acting erosion of the waters, they were of necessity gathered unto one place, and the bed which they had rested on became dry land." This, no doubt, explains the beginnings.

Mr. Malet takes exception to the very gentle hint which we endeavoured to give him in a notice of his previous lucubration about dust, that it is a pity to go to the expense of paper and print without having at least an intelligible idea to communicate. Beyond а shallow carping at Laplace, Sir William Thomson, and several other well

known writers, and the intimation of his conviction that he, Mr. Malet, can explain everything, we fail to find any definite idea in the book. We will, therefore, let the writer speak for himself-only saying that if it be thought that the gem we select suffers from want of setting, its merit as an individual jewel is quite on a par with that of the general character of the work.

"We attempt to generalise the position of creation in the following brief epilogue: Creator. Go forth, my Light, and from the space around,

book as at once of unquestioned orthodoxy, for which Mr. Blunt's other works are an ample guarantee, and as also fairly abreast with the present needs of Bible readers. At this gift-book season it is just the "Bible" a father would desire to give to his son, just the book a young man should desire to have, Volume I. only is yet published. With the Pentateuch it takes from the book of Genesis down to the book of Esther.

causes

The nationality of the Jews is perhaps the strongest and the most enduring in all history, and the study of the which led up to it, and which also secured it, will always be of highest interest. The sacred books of the Jews are the records of the nation's life, and athwart that rigid and exclusive nationality are stretched far-reaching precepts of civilisation and brotherly kindness for all men and for all time. Deuteronomy has its strong and fierce injunctions for the extirpation of evil doers, whether as the nations around or as the men who did evil; and yet we read therewith, what Mr. Blunt's note (p. 236) calls on us to recognise, "the first example of humane principles in

war:

" "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it; it shall be if it make answer of peace

if

it will make no peace, but will make war, then shalt thou besiege it:" (Deut. v. 20.) Still further follows the wise provision by which fruit trees were not to be cut down even to supply wood for engines of war in a long siege, but only such trees as were of no use for food. The law as to captives is another example of humane civilisation. So, in another way, is the law of the leper, with its salutary regulations for the isolation of contagious diseases. The story of Nabal and David, one of the earliest examples

of conflict between capital and labour, certainly, to modern notions, leaves Nabal very much in the right; and yet as certainly the writer of the story in the book of Samuel considers him signally in the wrong, and that "folly was with him." David and his six hundred men to modern ideas is very much a brigand chief, living by plunder, and levying blackmail for exemption from it. The annotation (p. 351) rereminds us how to correct this wrong version of facts: "David stood in need of supplies; he and his men had protected the property of Nabal, and it was quite in accordance with oriental habits that he should send to the prosperous man in the good day of his sheepshearing to ask a gift of food in requital of the obligation."

But the annotations have a higher than historical value, and a value beyond even that of elucidation; an ethical teaching is brought out in very few words: for instance by the note on the story of Naaman and his contempt for the Jordan to which the wise little maid bid him resort, see p. 447 :— "These are words of wide application to the Christian life, pointing to tests of obedience which seem trifling, but are crucial; and to acts of faith where the means seem insufficient for the end; temptations often illustrate the first, and sacramental acts the second." Just so. It is a lesson too for the value of little things, and the importance of habits; a lesson that it is easier to do a great thing than a small one, paradox as it may seem; easier that is to gird up the mind and the will to resolve on some effort, than to maintain both in that attitude, which makes the thing itself easy without effort till it becomes habitual. Total abstinence for example is often actually easier than temperance, though the habit of temperance were the better

thing. But the space at our disposal forbids us to give further quotations to show the full information and the admirable teaching which this work offers. We send our readers to the book itself. The history of the Jews should be studied in their own records, and the obscurity which great antiquity in part has brought upon them, and no less the sacro-sanct character itself which has environed them, makes it expedient to gather together whatever may bring light to the investigation. In contemporaneous illustration, Egyptian and Assyrian for instance, Mr. Blunt has been particularly happy. We close this notice of his book with every commendation of it, as well supplying a want to the student, and at the same time providing for his edification while thus searching the Scriptures.

Ups and Downs: a Story of Australian Life. By Rolf Boldrewood. S. W. Silver and Co., London.

One occasionally meets men in this old England, where everyone is worked more than he likes, who seem to have a positive craving for active labour. They are generally bronzed, handsome, athletic; they talk of seeing life as if it were something only to be accomplished in a far-away region-as if "life" were a romantic element of existence which could only be found far from the haunts of civilisation. The man who talks in this way generally turns out to have been a sheep farmer in Australia. He

Let us

despises everything in England as being devoid of excitement. If he wants employment he advertises for something "which involves an active open-air life." hope he will get it, we may say generously when we see such advertisements. If he has made a fortune and returned to old Eng

land to spend it, he gets sick of the monotony of secured wealth. Said one such gentleman in our hearing, "Oh, yes; I have plenty of peaches under glass, and they always get ripe. I thought of throwing stones this summer and breaking some of the glass, for a change. Nothing ever happens here; now, in Australia, when the floods were out, I used to put sticks in the garden walks to mark the rising of the water, and calculate how soon the house would be flooded. There was some excite

ment in that."

It is a little difficult for quiet home dwellers, who would feel it a serious matter if their peaches did not ripen, to understand such a speech. The quietly-told, realistic picture of the life of an Australian sheep farmer contained in this little book " Ups and Downs gives some idea of the curious form of excitement which lies in what seems so prosaic an occupation.

Jack, the hero of the volume, is a very ordinary young man; he might have been Tom, Dick, or Harry, for any difference it would have made. But he possesses strength and an active disposition, and enough money to speculate in sheep. These qualifications are

sufficient for the hero of such a story. He is not only capable of, but his "health is sweetened by," the "constant labour;" and he thinks himself in luck if a decent neighbour lives within fifty miles. He can ride, too, in the Australian

sense.

"In a general way," says our author, "it might be thought that a ride of forty miles, exclusive of two or three hours'

galloping, at camp, was a fair day's work. So it would have appeared, doubtless, to the author of Guy Livingstone,' who in one. of his novels describes the hero and his good steed as being in a

condition of extreme exhaustion after a ride of thirty miles. Whyte Melville, too, who handles equally well pen, brand, and bridle, finds the horses of Gilbert and his friend in Good for Nothing,' or 'All Down Hill,' reduced to such an 'enfeebled condition' by backs, consequent upon one day's kangaroo hunting, that they are compelled to send a messenger for fresh horses a hundred miles or more to Sydney, and to await his return in camp.

sore

"With all deference to, and sympathy with, the humanity which probably prompted so mercifully moderate a chronicle, we must assert that to these gifted writers little is known of the astonishing feats of speed and endurance performed by the ordinary Australian horse.

"Hawkesbury, indeed, rather grumbled when the party arrived at Gondaree at what he considered an indifferent day's work. He, his men, and their horses would have thought it nothing worth making a song aboot,' as Rob Roy says, to have ridden to Bimbalong, camped the cattle, cut out' or drafted, on horseback, a couple of hundred head of fat bullocks, and to have brought the lot safe to Gondaree stockyard by moonlight.

This

would have involved about twenty hours' riding, a large proportion of the work being done at full gallop, and during the hottest part of the day. But they had done it many a time and often. And neither the grass-fed horse, the cattle, nor the careless horsemen were a whit the worse for it."

A fair specimen is given of the excitement which a flood brings with it in this adventure of John Redgrave and M'Nab, his overseer. "An hour before dawn he sprang suddenly up and shouted to

"Get up, man, and listen. I thought I could not be mistaken. The river has got us this time.'

"I hear,' said M'Nab, standing at the window, with all his senses about him. It can't be the river; and yet, what else can it be?'

"I know,' cried Jack; 'it's the water pouring into the back creek when it leaves the river. There must be an awful flood coming down, or it could never make all that row. The last time it filled up as smoothly as a backwater lagoon. Listen again!'

"The two men stood, half-clad as they were, in the darkness, ever deepest before dawn, while louder, and more distinctly, they heard the fall, the roar, the rush of the wild waters of an angry flood down a deep and empty channel. A very deep excavation had been scooped of old by the Warroo at the commencement of the anabranch, which, leaving the river at an angle, followed its course for miles, sometimes at a considerable distance, before it re-entered it.

"My conscience!' said M'Nab, I never heard the like of that before-in these parts, that is. I would give a year's wage I hadn't crossed those weaners back. I only did it a day or two since. May the Devil - but swearing never so much as lifted a pound of any man's burden yet. We'll not be swung clear of this grip of his claws by calling on him.'

"With this anti-Manichæan assertion, M'Nab went forth, and stumbled about the paddock till he managed to get his own and Jack's horse into the yard. These he saddled and had ready by the first streak of dawn. Then they mounted and rode towards the back of the river paddock.

room.

dull-coloured sheet of water, long