converted, weary teachers of religion were filled with fresh courage and hopefulness, and there was a great turning of thoughts and hearts Godward. Mr. Tyndall and Mr. Huxley and Mr. Herbert Spencer were not very much in men's minds while Mr. Moody was around. One thing was very certain, viz. the people wanted something that Mr. Moody had to bestow, and they "went for it."

Since the return of Mr. Moody to America, with his companion, Mr. Sankey, the interviewers have ascertained from both of those gentlemen that the work they have seemed to do has not been done by them at all, but by the Spirit of the Almighty. It looks like it, we confess. Either the truth which Mr. Moody preached was wonderfully needed, and wonderfully adapted to human want; either the multitudes were starving for the bread of their souls' life, or there was some force above Mr. Moody's modest means which must be held accountable for the stupendous results. This is a scientific age. England is a scientific country. The great lights of science now engaged in uprooting the popular faith in Christianity live there. Sir Henry Thompson and the prayer-gauge originated there. Here is a nut for them to crack. Was there enough in Mr. Moody's eloquence, or personal influence, to account for the effect produced? Would it not be very unscientific to regard these little means sufficient to account for these results? It is a fair question, and it deserves a candid answer. Until we get this answer, people who have nothing but common sense to guide them must repose upon the conviction that the power which Mr. Moody seemed to wield was in the truth he promulgated, or that it emanated from a source which he recognized as the Spirit of God.

But not alone have the scientists received a lesson from the wonderful results of Mr. Moody's simple preaching. The Christian ministry, all over the world, have found instruction in it which ought to last them during their life-time. As nearly as we can ascertain by reading the reports, Mr. Moody has not paid very much attention to the preaching of Judaism-involving a theism and a system of doctrine which Christ came to set aside and supersede. He has not paid very much attention to Old Testament theology, in short. Paul resolved that he wouldn't know anything but Jesus Christ, and we are inclined to think that Mr. Moody doesn't know anything but Jesus Christ. It is a fortunate ignorance for him, and for the world. Our preachers, as a rule, know so many things besides the Master; they have wrought up such a complicated scheme, based on a thousand other things besides Jesus Christ, that they confess they don't understand it themselves. The man who offered a pair of skates to the boy who would learn the catechism, and a four-story house, with a brown stone front, if he could understand it, risked nothing beyond the fancy hardware; and yet we are assured that the path of life is so plain, that a wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein. And, considering the fact that Christ is the veritable "Word of God"-that he is, in himself alone, "the Way, the Truth, and the

Life," and considering also the use that has been made of the Bible in complicating and loading down his simple religion with the theological inventions of men, it may legitimately be questioned whether the progress of Christianity has not been hindered by our possession of all the sacred books outside of the evangelical histories.

At any rate, we see what has come to Mr. Moody from preaching without much learning, without much theology, and without much complicated machinery, the truth as it is in Jesus Christ. A salvation and a cure he has somehow and somewhere found in the life, death, and teachings of this wonderful historical personage. For the simple story of this personage, he has found more listeners than could count his words-attentive, breathless, hungry, thirsty, believing. They have flocked to the refuge he has opened for them like doves to their windows. He has helped to start tens of thousands in the true way of life. He has done well not to be proud of his work. He has done well to refuse the wealth they were ready to bestow upon him. In this, he has exemplified the religion of his Master, and shown a just appreciation of the real sources of the power which he has been enabled to exert.

Against such demonstrations of the power of Christ and Christianity as are afforded by the London meetings, infidelity can make no headway. They prove that man wants religion, and that when he finds what he wants, in its purity and simplicity, he will get it. They prove that Christianity only needs to be preached in purity and simplicity to win the triumphs for which the Church has looked and prayed so long. The cure for the moral evils of the world is just as demonstrably in the Christian religion as the elements of vegetable life are in the soil. Penitence, forgiveness, reformation, the substitution of love for selfishness as the governing principle of life, piety toward God, and good-will to men-in short, the adoption of Christ as Savior, King, exemplar, teacher-this is Christianity-the whole of it. Christianity reveals the fatherhood of God, and men want a father. Christianity reforms society and governments by reforming their constituents, and there is not a moral evil from which the world suffers that is not demonstrably curable by it. If there is any man who cannot find its divinity and its authority in this fact, we pity his blindness.

We believe that Mr. Moody has done a great deal of good directly to those who have come to him for impulse and instruction; but the indirect results of his preaching, upon the Christian teachers of the world, ought to multiply his influence a hundred fold. The simple, vital truth as it is in Jesus Christ, and not as it is in Moses, or Daniel, or Jeremiah, or anybody else, for that matter, is what the world wants. And when the Christian world gets down to that, it will get so near together that it will be ashamed of, and laugh at, its own divisions. It is nonsense to suppose that the Divine Spirit is any more willing to bless Mr. Moody's work than that of any other man, provided the work done is the same. The fact that his work has prospered more

American Honesty.

ANY man who has traveled in Europe knows what the temptation is to buy and bring home articles that can be procured more cheaply there than in America, under the expectation that the customs officers will let them in free of duty; and every observer knows that millions of dollars' worth of goods are imported annually in this way that pay no revenue to the Government. It is notorious, too, that many of our citizens go to Canada to buy clothing, and wear it home for the purpose of cheating the Government. Men of wealth and luxuriously living women, who would scorn to deal dishonorably by their neighbors, rejoice in the privilege of cheating their own Government, and boast of their success in doing so. They do not even suspect that they are doing wrong in this thing. They have no idea that they are acting meanly or dishonestly. They look upon this genteel kind of smuggling as a smart and harmless trick, and display to their friends the results of their shrewdness with pride and self-gratulation. We may find among these smugglers thousands who look upon the corruptions of politicians with indignation, yet not one of them could succeed in his smuggling enterprises save through the unfaithfulness of public officers, whom they reward for their treachery with a gift.

Would it not be well for us to remember, before we condemn the dishonesty which is so prevalent in the public service, that the politicians and officeholders are, on the whole, as honest as the people are? All that either of them seem to need is a temptation to dishonesty to make them dishonest. The office-holder takes advantage of his position to cheat his Government, and every genteel smuggler who lands from a European vessel, or crosses the Canada line, does the same thing from the same motive. The radical trouble, with people and politicians alike, is the entertainment of the idea that stealing from the Government is not stealing at all— that a man has a right to get out of his Government all that he can without detection. They have not only brought their consciences into harmony with this idea, but they willfully break the law of the land. In short, for the sake of a trifling advantage in the purchase of goods, they are willing to deceive, to tempt public officers to forswear themselves, to break the laws of their country, and to deprive the Government that protects them of a portion of the means by which it sustains itself in that service.

It is a startling fact that there is never a train wrecked without pickpockets on board, who immediately proceed to plunder the helpless passengers.

have picked a pocket in their lives before, but the temptation develops the thief. There is never a battle fought in any place where there are not men ready to plunder the slain. The devil, or the wild beast, has been there all the time, only waiting for an invitation to come out. Men look on and see a great city badly managed-see mayors and aldermen and politicians engaged in stealing and growing rich on corruption; but these men find thousands ready on all sides to engage in corrupt contracts, to render false bills of service, and to aid them in all rascally ways to fill their pockets with spoil. The men whom we send to our Legislatures to represent us seem quite willing to become the tools of corrupt men, and it is marvelous to see with what joy the residents of any locality receive the patronage of the Government, whether needed or not. That member of Congress who secures to his district the expenditure of Government money for the building of any "improvement," no matter how absurdly unnecessary, does much to secure his re-election. There is no denying the fact that the people are just as fond of spoil as the politicians are.

We find fault with the management of corporations, but all our corporations have virtuous stockholders. Did anybody ever hear of these stockholders relinquishing any advantage derived from dishonest management? Do they protest against receiving dividends of scrip coming from watered stock? Do they not shut their eyes to "irregularities," so long as they are profitable, and do not compromise their interests before the law? There is not a corporation of any importance in America which is not regarded as a fair subject for plunder by a large portion of the community. If a piece of land is wanted by a corporation, it is placed at once at the highest price. Any price that can be got out of a corporation for anything is considered a fair price. Corporations are the subjects of the pettiest and absurdest claims from all sorts of men. hang upon some of them like leeches, sucking their very life blood out of them.

Men

And now, what do all these facts lead to? Simply to the conclusion that dishonesty in our Government and dishonesty in all our corporate concerns is based on the loose ideas of honesty entertained by our people. We have somehow learned to make a difference between those obligations which we owe to one another as men, and those which we owe to the Government and to corporations. These ideas are not a whit more prevalent among office-holders and directors than they are among voters and stockholders. Men are not materially changed by being clothed with office and power. The radically honest man is just as honest in office as he is out of it. Corrupt men are the offspring of a corrupt society. We all need straightening up. The lines of our morality all need to be drawn tighter. There is not a man who is willing to smuggle, and to see customs officers betray their trust while he does it; willing to receive the results of the sharp practice of directors of corporations in which he has an interest; willing to receive the patronage of the Govern

ment in the execution of schemes not based in absolute necessity; willing to take an exorbitant price for a piece of property sold to the Government or to a corporation, who is fit to be trusted with office. When we have said this, we have given the explanation of all our public and corporate corruption, and shown why it is so difficult to get any great trust

managed honestly. All this official corruption is based on popular corruption-loose ideas of honesty as they are held by the popular mind; and we can hope for no reform until we are better based as a people in the everlasting principles of equity and right-doing. If we would have the stream clear, we must cleanse the fountain.

ANY one who has had the opportunity of seeing the manuscripts which have been offered to a periodical, or a publishing-house of any kind, will remember that a large number of these manuscripts were chiefly "declined" because of their sentimentality. The curious thing about it is, that the sentimentality is not confined to the writings of sick persons and young children, but is found in the sketches, stories, or essays of adults in good bodily health, of people who are not without practice in "composition," of persons whose business it is to teach others, and especially the young, how to write. We should be pleased to base these desultory observations upon a collection of papers contributed by the Professors of Rhetoric, of English Literature, and the like, in our seminaries and colleges. Such a collection, if we mistake not, would have a vast deal of sentimentality sugared through it. It would have a great deal of that kind of gush, more or less stately and grammatical, which it is of some consequence that young people should be taught to avoid, both in their private and printed communications. After reading what Charles Francis Adams so forcibly said in his Amherst address, on what should be taught in the higher institutions of learning, we wished that some one would make an equally impressive harangue on this precise point of teaching teachers not to teach sentimental writing.

If it is true that everybody is born with a tendency toward sentimentalism, which requires a great deal of drill to overcome, then, of course, it is important to begin this drill in youth. Here, it will be seen, is work for teachers, and for writers of children's books.

The other day we came upon a French book for children, which is a case in point. Behold the early history of Mademoiselle Mouvette, by P. J. Stahl, with designs by Lorentz Froelich! Now be it known that Mlle. Mouvette was not six weeks old before she had already given anxiety to her family by the turbulence of her character. In fact she was not a little girl; she was an eel. Her nurse declared that her veins were full-not of blood but of quicksilver. It was impossible to hold her. Try it, said the nurse to her mother. Her mother did try it, and in a moment Mlle. Mouvette was on the floor. In the picture you may see this young lady as she appeared upon touching the carpet. Her small, but active legs are bound up, chrysalis fashion; her

cap is pulled down on one side of her head; her arms are lifted in the air in the most spirited manner, and her face wears a very intelligent and mischievous expression.

One day Mlle. Mouvette was found on the floor at the foot of the bed, her extremely small nose giving sign of what is known in the ring as "punishment." Ah! even sleep cannot repress her extraordinary vivacity—even in her sleep she leaped like a fish. It is necessary to see the portraiture of Mouvette when discovered lying there on the floor at the foot of the bed, which she has left in so sudden and singular a manner: le nez tout en sang— but the face bright and contented notwithstanding. For Mouvette is a shining example to every person in misfortune. All the world can hear her laugh-not one can say that he has ever heard her weep!

But

We cannot follow all her fascinating story. we must not fail to note her affection for the fire, from which no jumping-jack, no pasteboard dog that goes ouah! ouah! could distract her. "The fire, the fire! nothing pleased her but the fire!"-into which she at last tumbled, only to emerge cheerful and chipper as ever. We can only allude to her wonderful ladder-feat, when she climbed into the gutter among the swallows and pigeons, who, of course, thought her some new kind of bird; to her fall into the thorny rose-bush; her escape from her bonne in the garden of the Tuileries; the robbery there of her necklace, ear-rings, and muff, by an old rogue of a woman who pretends that it is in order to keep them from tempting some passing thief; her rescue by a sergeant de ville; her appearance before the commissary of police, who takes her to her house, and dramatically restores her to her weeping parents. But how fresh and natural and sprightly the whole delightful story; how graphic every touch of pen and pencil; how admirable the delicate suggestion of naïveté in the description of the chattering bonnes in the garden of the Tuileries. Even the old thief-there is a vein of satire, a veritable dramatic quality in her little speech to the lost Mouvette. And then the moral purpose is so well sustainedwithout cant or sentimentalism, or over-solemnity, or stupidity of any kind; the anguish of the unhappy Rosalie, through whose inattention the child is lost; the distress of her parents; her own fright and misery and shame; the tear that steals down her cheeks, and seems to be about to drop into her spoon as she

eats her hurried dinner far up under the Mansard roof of the commissary; her evening prayer, unaided by the kisses of her mother; her final reformation, when she turns all the remarkable energy of her character into the exercise of sewing-as so well illustrated by M. Froelich in the last engraving; none of these points are omitted, and there are many others-gentle, touching, and admonitory. It was interesting for us to remark the gravity with which this story of Mouvette was read by our bright little French friend, whose father had brought her the book. It was interesting, also, to see the tears that her good grand'maman shed when she read of the happy return of Mouvette to her father and mother.

If we take an instance from the French, it is not because there is a lack of like instances in American books and periodicals.

Is it necessary to draw a comparison between such literature for the young and the sentimental stuff that publishers find it profitable to supply to the family and Sunday-school library? In this same farm-house where we met this summer with the delicious chronicle of Mlle. Mouvette, we found upon the parlor table a Sunday-school hymn and tune book, published by a firm whose works of this kind sell, according to their own proud boast, by the hundred thousand. This little book was declared, both by its title and preface, to be a select and especial collection. That very many of these select verses were brainless and unbeautiful was not so much a matter of regret as that so many of them should be tinctured with a mawkish sentimentality. It was appalling to contemplate the mass of sweetish, sickening nonsense thus forced into the mouths of we know not how many hundreds of thousands of innocent little children all over this Christian land; forced into their mouths by their teachers, mind you; by those who should be busy in protecting them from such an outrage.

When one comes to criticise sentimentality in connection with religious exercises, one comes upon delicate ground. But we suppose there is little doubt that just in so much as the element of sentimentality enters into these exercises, whether they are carried on in the regular course of church services, or in unusual ways, just in so far are these exercises unhealthy; for sentimentality is not a mere point of dilettanteism. There is an acknowledged distinction between sentiment and sentimentality. The dictionaries only partially acknowledge the distinction; but to say that a piece of writing has senti

SENTIMENTALITY is an element of disintegration in every work of art into which it is permitted to enter. If the books of the Bible had not been free from it, they would not have lasted till this day. No piece of sentimental writing has come down to us from the far past; and no work of literary or other art of our own day, no matter how wide its present vogue, can exist long if it has this poison in its blood. It is truth that lives, not falsehood. We may look with keen regret upon the fading away of reputations dear to us; we may deprecate the lessening acceptance, both with ourselves and others, of some contemporaneous book which had a lesson for us-that once held us by a charm not altogether sentimental; but the law is inexorable. The instances which will occur to the reader of works in which there is the sentimental quality, but which still have held their own quite well, and promise a longer life than is consistent with the foregoing remarks-these apparent exceptions may possibly prove the rule, for it may be in spite of their sentimentality, and by reason of other vital and overpowering qualities, that they retain the consideration of mankind. The poison, then, is a mere surface matter-it has not entered the blood.

It will be at once perceived that here is an excellent opportunity for a Professor of Rhetoric to write a vigorous essay on the sentimentality of the press, and especially of the popular magazines. He or she will, we trust, not neglect to make this point, namely, that there are things as bad as, if not worse than, sentimentality, and one of these things is an assumption of superior taste, and of a more robust intellectual habit. And furthermore, that perhaps the most virulent sort of sentimentality is the affectation of being unsentimental.

The Boys' Room.

Too little attention is paid by young people, when buying or building a house, to the future requirements of the babies still in their cribs. The time passes more quickly than they thought. Bob and Joe and Tom are soon big burly lads, apt to

shoulder and kick each other if brought into too close contact; and Nelly and Bess, young ladies, each with her array of bosom friends, books, loveletters and crimping-irons; and for them all there are but the two small chambers, one of which has often to be vacated when a guest arrives. The boys

in most cases fare worse than any other members of the family. Their sisters' chamber is dainty and prettily furnished, while they are huddled into the garret or whatever other uncomfortable cubby-hole offers itself in which they can "rough it;" in the case of farmer's sons this apartment often is the loft of the carriage-house. Now, if a boy's tendency is stronger than a girl's to be disorderly, untidy in his habits, and lacking in personal reserve or a love for the beautiful, it is the more necessary that he should be taught these things from his earliest childhood. Much of the want of refinement, the nervous debility and other evils of both body and mind which inhere to Americans, are caused by the habit of crowding boys together into ill-ventilated, ugly, meagerly furnished chambers. No weak, nervous child can sleep with one of stronger physique without suffering a loss of nervous vitality and power. Each child in a family should have its own bed, and at the proper age its own chamber; beds and chambers to be clean, orderly, and as prettily furnished as the parents' means will allow. Especially is this a necessity with the daughters of a house. Every mother will remember how dear to herself, in her girlish days, was the chance of seclusion-the chest of drawers where she could store away her laces, ribbons and other dearer trifles; the locked desk with the diary inside; the white chamber, with its snowy curtains, where she could hang her dried ferns and photographs, and sit alone to ponder over her compositions, or read her Bible. A boy has his fancies, tastes, hobbies, as well as a girl. He may not want seclusion, but he does want elbow-room, and he ought to have it. Bob is a mighty fisherman, and clutters up the one closet with poles and lines, hooks, and books of flies. Jim has reached the autograph stage, and must have a desk and quires of paper with which to assault everybody mentioned in the newspapers, from Longfellow to Buffalo Bill. Tom has a mass of old rubbish collected at junk-shops, having caught the curiophobia from his mother; and Bill heaps on top of all, his balls, bats, old shoes, and half-eaten apples.

Of course it is expensive to give to each boy room for his hobbies and belongings, but, after all, it will not cost half as much as to refurnish the drawingroom with Turkish rugs and furniture from Sypher's. And do we owe most to our neighbors, or our boys? Whose tastes, habits of order, cleanliness, delicacy, ought we to cultivate?

We wish, however, especially to urge upon mothers the propriety of giving up to the boys, as soon as they reach the age of twelve or fourteen, one room (not a bedchamber), for whose (reasonably) good order they shall be responsible, and which they shall consider wholly their own. The floor should be uncarpeted, of oiled wood; the furniture of the same material. Let it be papered, curtained, decorated according to the boys' own fancy; if the taste is bad, they will be interested after a while in correcting it. There should be plain book-cases, a big solid table in the center, by all means an open fire, and room after that for Joe's printing-press, or Charley's box of tools, or Sam's VOL. XI.-9.

cabinet of minerals; for chess and checker boards, or any other game which is deemed proper. To this room the boys should be allowed to invite their friends, and learn how to be hospitable hosts even to the extent of an innocent little feast now and then. Father, mother, and sisters should refrain from entering it except as guests; and our word for it, they will be doubly honored and welcomed when they do come.

Somebody will ask, no doubt, what is the use of pampering boys in this way, or of catering to them with games and company? Simply because they will have the amusement, the games and company somehow and somewhere; and if not under their father's roof with such quiet surroundings as befit those who are to be bred as gentlemen, the games may be gambling, and the company and suppers those which the nearest tavern affords. As for the cost, no money is ill spent which develops in a right direction a boy's healthy character or idiosyncrasies at the most perilous period of his life, or which helps to soften and humanize him, and to make more dear and attractive his home and family. If it can be ill spared, let it be withdrawn for this purpose from dress, household luxury, the sum laid by for a rainy day-even from other charities and duties. We do not wish to help the lad sow his wild oats, but to take care that the oats are not wild, and are thoroughly well sown.

Daily Charities.

THERE is a queer, one-sided notion of charity which a very large number of people, especially religious, conscientious women of small means, are apt to adopt, and to carry out rigidly in their daily domestic lives. It is, that duty requires them to save money in every legitimate way, and then give a certain amount to the church or to the poor. A certain little woman that we know inexorably sets aside a tenth of her small income for charity,-a most admirable resolve, as everybody will acknowledge. But, in order to increase this tithe, she lays burdens on herself, her husband and her servants, hard to bear. Diet in her system is reduced to its plainest and least tempting conditions; economy is brought to bear on the quality of the meat, its seasoning-the very coal, and the time required for its preparation. The boys sit down day after day the year round to the bare, uninviting table with its coarse cloth and meager dishes of oatmeal porridge, and stewed apples, or chops and potatoes, which they know have been counted before they were boiled. Their mother wonders why their appetites flag, and why her dinner-table is never the pleasant, jolly place of meeting which the boys declare their Aunt Rousby's to be. She "will not think so ill of her sons," she declares, "as to believe that their tempers would be improved, or their love for their mother quickened, by occasional gratification of their stomachs," or, as she puts it, "their carnal appetites." But the fact remains that the Rousby boys are rosy and happy, and as long as they live will remember mother's custards or chicken pie as a way in which she showed her love for them, while