The Leisure Hour (R.T.S., 7s. 6d.) contains as much good
read- ing as one is likely to find in a single volume. The mere quantity— eleven hundred pages—is in excess of most competing magazines. The quality admits less easily of comparison. We have seen the Leisure Hour, however, for not a few years, and our experience of it has been uniformly favourable. This volume opens with a tale by Sir Walter Beeant, "The Alabaster Box," a story dealing with the " condition of the people" question. It will be useful to read along with it a striking paper, "Housing the Poor," by the Rev. C. Fleming Williams, one of the Aldermen of the London County Council. The situation is formidable, not to say alarming, and the problem cannot be solved, any more than the rural housing problem can, on the supply and demand principles. Among the other stories is "Tom Wallis," by Mr. Louis Becke, of which we have spoken elsewhere. But fiction does not preponderate in the Leisure Hour. "Science and Discovery" occupy a considerable part of the magazine. There must be about a hundred papers, of
course short. "Oversee Notes," dealing with our Colonies and with
foreign countries, must not be forgotten. They are a valuable ele- ment in the composition of the magazine.—The Sunday at Home
(same publishers,78. 6d.) has its own place and sphere of interest, and continues to fill it with success. A very reasonable, and, we may say, truly and practically religious, conception of Sunday obser-
vance may be formed out of the contents of this volume. No one not given up to frivolity could complain of any want of variety or narrowness of limitation in the subject to which the attention of the Sunday reader is invited in this volume. The biography and biographical sketches, with the names among others of Arch- bishop Benson, Mr. Moody (the Evangelist I, the Rev. F. Paton Spurgeon, and Bishop Whipple, to speak only of moderns, may be mentioned. There is a section of "Sermons and Devotional Papers," in which we notice a contribution by the Rev. Harry Jones, and a series of "Meditations for Sunday Mornings," by that eminently suggestive writer, Dr. Hugh Macmillan. "Par and Near," with the sub-title of "Notes of the Month," supplies items of missionary and other enterprise. The illustrations are plentiful and good.— Sunday Reading for the Young (Wells Gardner, Darton, and Co., 3s.) is another volume which will be found useful by those who have to deal practically with the diffi- cult Sunday problem. Possibly the limits are a little wide, but that is a matter on which we have neither the inclination nor the ability to lay down any rule. There are "Stories of King Arthur," and a military tale, "With Wellington to Waterloo," and a story of daily life, "The Two Christophers." Among Biblical and like articles we may mention "The Story of Abraham."
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