CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Making His Wag. By J. Macdonald Oxley. (T. Nelson and Sons.)—This is one of the American stories for boys which Mr. Oxley has shown such an aptitude for producing. But it can hardly be considered one of his best, although it is in every way conscientious. "The sense of goodness" in it is at times a trifle too "awful." Donald Grant, the son of a carpenter in the settle- ment of Riverdale, "some six miles inland from where the lower North River mingles its sweet brown flood with the salt blue tide of Bayview Harbour in the Province of Acadia," seems modelled almost too obviously upon the admirable Scotch boy, of tradition, perhaps, rather than of reality, whose parents cherish for him the
ambition that he may "wag his head" in a pulpit. "Making his way" means his carrying all before him in the " settlement " school, in tho larger seminary to which be goes after leaving it, and at college. Finally Donald develops—it would be scarcely correct to say blossoms—from teacher into minister, also in the good old Scotch style. The effect of the whole is rather wearisome, yet boys will admire the courage and physical vigour of Donald Urant, which latter quality is exhibited in his fight with certain mis- chievous "Harbour" lads who question his authority when he is placed over them as a teacher, because he is about the same age as they are.
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