In the Wilderness. By Adeline Sergeant. (A. Melrose.)—This is one
of the stories that encourage us not to despair of modern fiction, a well-written, thoughtful, wholesome tale. Miss Sergeant's idea is that all souls that have any work in the world of the higher kind to do, go through a period of loneliness, have their sojourns in the wilderness. Her heroine has it and comes out of it not a little purified and strengthened. There is nothing striking about the two men, but the two cousins are fine studies, and so is the elder woman, to whom Janet goes for counsel. We recommend In the Wilderness to our readers without hesitation.
The third in the series of "Odd Volumes" (J. M. Dent and Co.) is Scenes of Rural Life, by Gsorge Morley. Mr. Morley has written more than once about country matters, but he must have been nodding—even as Homer nodded on occasion—when be spoke of barley being "much taller than the tallest peasant's head." The tallest peasant was, say, 6 ft.; "much tailor" might mean 3 ft. more ; but let us say 8ft. Who ever saw barley so high P Is it not about time that the very old " property " of a husband stirred to furious jealousy by seeing his wife kissing an unknown stranger —of course her brother—should be discarded by common consent ? The stories are somewhat poor and pointless.
We have to commend to our readers The Expository Times, edited by the Rev. James Hastings, MA. (T. and T. Clark, Edin- burgh). The table of contents presents, as usual, a goodly array of contributors. Few critics and divines of note are absent, and various schools of thought are represented. Any one who desires to keep abreast of the religious thought and criticism of the day will do well to study this excellent periodical.
In the "Library of Early English Writers" (Swan Sonnen- schein and Co) we have the second volume of Richard Rolle of Hampole, edited by C. Horstmann. Mr. Horstmann puts together whatever can be discovered or even conjectured of Richard Rolle, who was a native of Pickering, and lived in the early part of the fourteenth century. The editor's devotion to his subject is, to say the least, adequate to its merit. Rolle seems to have been a disciple of mysticism, and Mr. Horstmann expounds his views with no little force, though sometimes in somewhat eccentric English. The Leipsic printer has now and then his little bit of fun with our language, as "knocking jokes with the girls."
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