Victory at Last. By E. G. May. (Elliot Stock.)—It requires
something like genius, or, at any rate, a kind of talent which is far from common, to write a story for children and young people which shall be distinguished by an unmistakable and effective religious tone, and shall nevertheless be entirely free from the inartistic and repellent vice of preachiness. It cannot be honestly said that this gift is possessed by Mrs., or Miss, E. G. May. Her intentions are evidently good, and she shows her entire freedom from the narrowness which often characterises books of this kind by her winning portrait of the kindly, chivalrous, and noble Colonel Kingsley, who, so far from being a professing Christian," is absolutely devoid of all religious faith whatever; but the descriptions of Ernestine's doctrinal con- versations with Gwendoline have a certain air of strain and unreality. This, at any rate, is our feeling ; but many books which are much more aggressively didactic than Victory at Last, are widely popular; and the mere story is interesting in itself, and is told in a pleasant, attractive style.
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