23 APRIL 1864, Page 21

Sunbeam Stories. By the Author of " A Trap to

Catch a Sunbeam." (Lockwood and Co.)—Once more we venture to ask why it is that children are never to be allowed a story-book in which the story is any- thing more than a vehicle for the introduction of mild piety. Having delivered this unavailing protest, we hasten to admit that we have seldom opened a book of this sort in which the religious topics are introduced less offensively than in this one. And the stories are interest- ing, if you begin with the assumption which almost all novels require, —that people are about fifty times as much governed by their senti- mental emotions as they really are.