17 DECEMBER 1864, Page 20

Tossed on the Waves. By Edwin Hodder. (Jackson, Walford, and

Hodder.)—This is a fair boys' book, not calling for any especial criticism so far as it is a story. With the religious theory which it forces on the attention, namely, that it is a mark of Christian sincerity to "engage in prayer" publicly, we have no sympathy, and think that forcing the idea on children is less likely to lead them to piety than to disgust them with it. At all events, when a clergyman of the Church of England is represented as being so affected by reading the Burial Service that in the midst of it he is "unable to confine his living thoughts," and "breaks forth into unfettered speech with God," the theory is carried to an extravagant pitch.