C UR RENT LITERATURE.
A Winter in Algeria. By Mrs. G. Albert Rogers. (Sampson.)—Mrs. Rogers is apparently the wife of a clergyman of the worst Clapham type, whose first idea in Algeria is to protest against Mohammedanism and Rome with about equal virulence, and whose system of thought will be fairly understood from the following paragraph. She had an idea of converting a Zouave, who unfortunately could not read. With the sharpness of his class, however, he picked out his letters very fast, but a day or two after his first lesson he received the route for Mexico :— When I offered him a New Testament, on condition that he would try and learn to read it, he said that it was just. what he had been longing to ask for, and that he was sure now he could easily get some one to
teach him. Only yesterday hs, was sure it was impossible to learn. I felt at the time, when ho showed such quickness "in distinguishing the letters, that it was in answer to prayer, but I little thought I should never have another opportunity of reading with and talking to him. 'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might,' is surely a lesson which each day's experience engraves upon the heart." She was in the habit of distributing tracts in railway trains, and remarks on a Trappist who covered his face and prostrated himself lest he should see her, that " these mortifications and self-imposed pains and restrictions
are all undertaken with the vain hope of meriting heaven ! As well might the builders of Babel of old expect to make their tower soar up
into the presence of God, as these zealous but deluded men thus attempt to weave their own fig-leaf righteousness." Saturated with views of this kind, Mrs. Rogers has of course little to tell us about Algeria which may not be gathered from any of the many volumes already published about the dependency, and her book will attract only those who think all literary defects excused by rigid Calvinism and a belief in simples.
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