ROUND THE HOME OF A YORKSHIRE PARSON.
Round the Home of a YorkAirs Parson. By the Rev. A. N. Cooper. (A. Brown and Sons. 38. &L)—The "Yorkshire Parson's Home" is Filey, and his recollections are, to a certain extent, coloured by the peculiar circumstances of the case. Filey is a delightful seaside resort, crowded for a brief season in summer, and its life is not a little dominated by that fact. Mr. Cooper finds himself utilised as a lodging-house agent, a common experi- ence, we fancy, among parsons similarly situated. He devotes a chapter to this aspect of his work, and shows himself equally good-humoured and amusing. Very odd applications are made to him. A curate suffering from an affection of the throat which prevents him from preaching more than ten minutes at a time offers himself as an inmate,—a month at the seaside might cure him. The vicar replies that he had better remain uncured. He had known a curate similarly afflicted who had had two offers of a living in one week. A lady offers to sing for two guineas a night in a cab at the doors of the principal hotels, balance after paying expenses to go to the local lifeboat. Another lady has a mission to the blind: she will put them in the way of earning a living by selling tea, "her tea." "A Watering-Place in Winter," "An August Visitor" (when a mine-owner takes one of his own employes for a Prince), are the titles of other chapters. There is a very interesting story of a. half-sovereign in the offertory plate called "An Unfounded Suspicion." In this case a woman asked for a half-sovereign which she had put into the plate as a sixpence to be returned to hex. It was done, and she brought it back in the evening by her husband's desire. The collection was for hospitals, and the money could not, he thought, be better used. Altogether, this is a very readable, book. We cannot agree with Mr. Cooper that the "Roman Catholics on the Continent are too well instructed" to believe "in ghosts and such affrighting fancies." What about the almost universal belief in the "evil eye" ? Is there not an authorieecl service for Exorcism?
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