explanation of this is at once so satisfactory and clea charge of an "outbreak of unwarrantable anger a ness," cannot be sustained. I will give his account cident. He says: "The choice of Bethel by Jeroboa headquarters of the calf-worship, the seat of a gra built in opposition to that at Jerusalem, and of a roy had at once flattered and enriched the inhabitants, an their fierce and interested hatred to those who, like t ets, denounced the royal action. The citizens had E would appear, almost the counterparts of the bigoted medans of Safed or Nablus, who at this day insult attack any Christian stranger who enters their limits, children cursing the 'infidel' as he passes. As E making his way up the hill to the town, such an out fanatical hatred greeted him. A band of young children hurled opprobrious epithets at him as the r tative of an ancient faith which they had abandoned. to them only a 'bald-head,' i. e., in the old Hebrew vo a leper, for baldness was a great sign of leprosy, a ta bodying concentrated hatred and aversion. But it religion that was his leprosy in their eyes, for he wa his early prime, with nearly fifty years of life before h physical baldness is not to be thought of." It was bu and surely a needed exemplary punishment that me young blasphemers, and its infliction here by the v Elisha, but shows us that his was a nature round strong, that was made up of tenderness and love, b or regulated by stern principles, which caused him t man who "knew nothing of the fear of man." H his charity, his tenderness, his kind disposition, his gen of temper, were characteristic of him above all the sa the Old Testament, so that he resembled Christ in thwell as in the miracles of healing the leper, raising a man, increasing the loaves; and hence Elisha is a cha that commends itself to the world, especially waen stud connection with and in contrast to the sternness (

Old Testament dispensation-strong, as his miracles show, yet gentle, lovable, tender.* How like Christ! He, too, was great in power, and yet He is above all the Lamb of God. The great forces that are to regenerate this sin-cursed earth, that are to break the hearts of stone, that are to lead men to holiness and to God, that are to uplift fallen humanity, are not physical, but spiritual; and hence force of moral and religious character, rather than mere daring, or exhibitions of venturesome spirit, are to be sought after; and they who possess the former are the truly valiant men. The tiger is only fierce and cruel; we call him not valiant. But he is valiant who in love and firmness dares always and everywhere do the right. DENVER, COLORADO.

*The value of all true preaching and teaching of God's word lies not in lulling a congregation or a people to sleep with smooth flowing periods of soporific words, but in faithfully proclaiming the whole counsel of God, whether that counsel is a message of peace, or a voice of alarm. Justice and love, are to blend in all preaching, if it is to be the preaching that God commands. It was Joseph Cook who said, in the best analysis of Henry Ward Beecher's character ever offered to the public: "According to what careful scholars regard as sound thought, the love of God and the justice of God are quadrants in one circle: they run into each other. When you make these quadrants co-ordinate, each as authoritative as the other, you may build on them a tower that leads to godliness. When you drop the quadrant of justice and let it underlap the quadrant of love, you let out a river of gush. There is a gospel that makes iron-sides. Mr. Beecher "—a -are there, alas! not too many like him?" unfortunately preached too often another gospel which makes hardly more than jolly-sides." The tendency of man is to extremes or one-sidedness. Strange enough, in preaching this is peculiarly the case. 'Tis the most difficult of tasks to strike a happy mean, or to be rounded in thought. Happy is he who by honest effort attains at least near approaches to this latter!

VI.

IS THE MODERN NOVEL A WORK OF

BY PROF. R. C.-SCHIEDT.

THE novel has become the all-absorbing power o literature. It threatens like the rod of Aaron to d rival forms of written thought. Even treatises on politics or theology dare not venture abroad except u charming cover of a love-story; and the very fact tha body in these days read leads to the conclusion tha fiction constitutes the mental food of the world. H novel is used as a means to revolutionize society; th startling dogmas are proclaimed, new and strange organ are formed, and a new codex of morals is prescribed any discussion that touches on art of. this kind is prac discussion about manners and morals of our daily life. therefore perplexed how to define the character of mod tion as bred by modern science and modern democrac advocates assure us that it holds its citizenship in the nity of the fine arts with as much dignity as it ever wa by its predecessor, the romance. And yet we must ackno that there is a broad chasm between the polite literature past one hundred years and that which precedes, beg with Homer and including Walter Scott. If we compa simplicity of Homer with the work of the sculptor, the g Shakespeare and the tender coloring of Dante with the reflex of the painter, we can only predicate of the moder tistic fiction the mechanism of the camera which gives the field of vision in its exact proportion and in its fulne detail. The actualities of life with which it exclusively

do not lead upward to the ideal of our humanity, but downward to the lowest degree of the existing caricatures of our fallen nature.

Yet idealism alone can be called the "Very Art," or the truth of art. "Actual human nature is every moral baseness," says Schiller; "but true human nature can only be noble." However, such men as Spielhagen, Zola, Henry James, W. D. Howells and others, who take pleasure in passing criticism on their own art,—a thing which neither Dickens nor Scott ever would have done,-seem to have forgotten this broad distinction between themselves and their predecessors, although their theories imply a vast superiority of the modern novel, or, at least, considerable progress in the development of artistic fiction. Their claim would be readily granted if confined to the technique of their works. Every one acknowledges the progress in the technique from Benozzo Gozzoli to the Caracci; but no one will therefore admit that the aesthetic value of the Galeria Farnese, with its exhibition of extraordinary skill, is in the least superior to a single fresco of the Campo Santo, with all its defects in drawing and perspective. However, the claim of our modern writers not only refers to the technique, but especially to the essence of their productions. Mr. Howells says: "The modern novel is finer than its predecessor;" and if we interpret him rightly, he emphasizes the much greater care devoted to the study of passions and emotions, the finer shading of characters and a more profound knowledge of society and its influence upon the individual. He and his cotemporaries seem to be ignorant of the fact that the art of the past only gives the essential, but at the same time all that is essential. It seems to be characteristic especially of American writers to ignore the prerogatives of the past and to set aside all consideration for right proportions. In their estimation Dickens and Thackeray belong to an old-fashioned antiquity. Even Mr. Henry James, though educated in a classic atmosphere, expresses such an admiration and enthusiasm for M. Aphonse Daudet, that he leaves the reader under the impres

Sua mmacire julements are lauded as highly I virgras, a realty, they rest upon a complete san ang if fariamental principles. These modern 1er sabi veure marine's bears" than their oppo DE NATU, Der hare bomed behind them the b stats de must between nature and our civilization

ei a de supery of a ecuntry home, far a the minat lề newspapers, vint for a moment h Use Ter▼een me -Vac of Wakefeld” and “Num but the art centeman er lay, well versed Jazer etmiras and terugby sequinted with the rews të modern society, would hardly prefer the pur Same naramng band of M. Daudet.

gemme ↑ lis za 18 coat of arms the birth of Mine JOE" PT2en bes not seem to be the result of th J008 & 1. Formerly men were aware that t $ doge zenesta their garments: 1-day this fact seems Te krew that car tress, ie, our civiliz extrendy Samplestel and we imagine the more com de mere valiacle. Therefore the massing of detail elarsetaries, har berature and corresponds to our s Max Amersorg.al statmy of human nature, so: pa'r personges frand in M. Zels and Man Smer ne pair parabological as characteristic of G J. Tampere, ere, is entirely foreign to the works of The sine complication must be predicated style: a ser es, every technique, are forced into s all archasms and necky sus are collected; strange an thing antitheses are usel, in order to make the desc