My First Curacy. By Ingellea Polkinghorne. (Christian Common.
wealth Publishing Company.)—The author's hero seems to have had a good opinion of himself, for within a week of his ordination, he tells a correspondent, not without some satisfaction, that he has put the parish into confusion. It is not wholly unfair, perhaps, to identify the author with his hero, and to conclude that he, too, thinks well of himself, seeing that he gives us two of his discourses in the course of the first sixty pages. Even Mr. George Macdonald does not venture so far, and Mr. Macdonald may venture on what is denied to Mr. Polking- borne. The story thus introduced is not without merit, at least in the earlier portion ; when the plot is developed, it becomes repulsive. The " curate " finds that he is engaged to his own half-sister! That so painful a complication is possible cannot be denied ; but it is equally certain that it is no fit subject for the literary art.
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