display of their acquaintance with the dictionary. What cottage-child would not be hopelessly bewildered by the description of dogs which bark little gala salvos,' of guineahens which utter strange muezzin cries. This style of expression is, however, a small blemish when compared with the graver defects of which we have treated.

Are

Are these faults universal? we driven to the conclusion that 'if wearied out by milk-and-water theology, we determine to have at least one volume from which it shall perforce be excluded, the only safe course is to choose a story about animals;' that 'the species of children's literature at present current is a disgrace to the age of mental and moral culture in which we live'? In our judgment the case is happily far otherwise. There are multitudes of books whose style and tendency we repudiate, but the public is not left without an alternative: cheap books of a healthy moral tone, or of an avowedly religious design, skilfully and effectively executed, are easily obtainable. Children commonly divide their library into two classes———— Sunday' and 'week-day' books. Under the first head we place those volumes which direct the thoughts to distinct Scripture teaching and to his personal relation to God. These are the child's devotional books, which should be with all possible care suited to his capacity. Excellent books of this class are the numerous stories by the authoress of Jessica's First Prayer-itself an admirable sample. We know none better than The Fishers of Derby Haven, Pilgrim Street and The Children of Cloverley. These, like all the writings of Hesba Stretton, dealing with religion, as mingled with the daily life of children, abound with interesting incident and touchingly natural conver

sations.

child's

There are also many good stories

written apparently expressly for cottage homes, as the majority of them treat of humble life, and are remarkable for the absence of prosiness. Nor must we omit to notice the numerous class of memoirs of boys and girls considered by their friends 'remarkable' for early piety. Some few of these, such as Little Henry and his Bearer, are calculated to arouse the child's sympathy, interest and emulation. The majority, it is to be feared, from their extravagant adulation, and mention only of the distinctively religious traits of the child's character, are apt to inspire a feeling of distaste similar to that aroused by the model hero of the story-book. Moreover, some of them tend to foster that mistaken notion, so prevalent amongst children, that young people who give themselves to God must needs die early.

Then there are numerous volumes of conversations with children on religious subjects. These are by no means to be despised, for there is a certain charm in the dialogue form. The only fear is lest the language of the elders should be so abstruse, and the remarks of the children so precocious, that young readers should be tempted to skip the conversations, and regale themselves only with the scanty bits of narrative which are interspersed.

Before leaving the subject of distinctively religious books, it may be well to remind our readers that a volume interlarded with religious reflections is not, of necessity, a healthy one. How many of our young people have imbibed the sentimental, frivolous emptiness of American story-books, under the impression that they were stimulating their piety!

Week-day books should not be without some distinct and earnest purpose. They may inculcate moral lessons of the highest value, yet so associated with the work-a-day world that they may well be laid aside on

Vatican must be shut up. It is no use dwelling on this part of M. Réveillaud's brochure; it is an echo of the well-known views of MM. Michelet, Quinet, etc.; it is the old liberal theory re-stated and developed with considerable eloquence.

Our revolutionary friends immediately answer by shouts of 'Hear, hear!' to this outspoken declaration, and they exclaim that the wholesome diffusion of materialist, positivist and evolutionist theories, will soon destroy for ever the power not only of the priesthood, but of all religion. Let the State throw itself honestly in the direction of atheism, let it provide officially for the teaching of determinist philosophy, and the battle will be won. It is here that our author unhesitatingly separates himself from the champions of free-thought. Clericalism, he says, is gaining so much ground, if its progress since 1870 is so alarming, the fault entirely lies with you. Do what you will, man will not believe that he is merely a wheel in the mechanism of the universe, a cunningly-devised piece of matter whose existence is limited to this life, a being without any hope for hereafter. A few savans may drive themselves into the notion that Epicurus and Professor Clifford have the 'promise of the life that now is'; but mankind in general will never accept such absurdities, and rather than have infidelity forced down its throat, it will throw itself into the arms of those who proclaim the life that is to come, even though their catechism is backed by the excommunications major and minor, purgatory and the Syllabus. Our librespenseurs nothing daunted, suggest, as Voltaire did a hundred years ago, that perhaps the Revolutionary Government might tolerate religion amongst the lower classes, with the confident hope of seeing the progress of education triumphing at an early period over those old women's fables:

the existence of the soul, immortality and retribution on the other side of the grave. Yes, a religion is necessary for the people; but we, the literate, the learned, the critics, the chemists, naturalists and physicists know better.' Here, again, M. Réveillaud interrupts the dilettanti of unbelief: the phrase about the common people requiring a religion, he observes, is sheer, unmitigated nonsense; if religion is necessary for the poor, it is no less so for the rich; if it is a useless element of morality in the case of philosophers, it cannot logically be brought to bear upon the conduct of the ignorant and uneducated. We must have all or nothing.

It is not the first time that philosophy, falsely so called, has had the ambition of providing for the spiritual wants of scholars and thinkers. We are quite old enough to remember the crusade headed by M. Cousin and by the University of France in favour of a refined species of rationalism, which, borrowing the elements of its system from idealists and sensationalists, from mystics and pantheists, holding the right hand of fellowship to Spinoza, Locke, Diderot, Descartes and Lord Bacon, at the same time aimed at nullifying the doctrines of the Encyclopédie and at outbidding Christianity in the mind of the intellectual portion of the community. What has been the result of this movement every one knows. There is, at any rate, something tangible in the brutal statements of the materialists; there is nothing practical, nothing that pays, in all the declamations of MM. Cousin, Jouffroy, etc.; and hemmed in between the dissectingroom and the Vatican, between the chemist's crucible and the confessional, eclecticism speedily disappeared.

M. Réveillaud's conclusion, then, is that not an elimination, but a revival of religion is what France needs most at present. It is all very well to suppress the Papacy, but something

must be put in its stead: a Church, a form of worship, a liturgy are absolutely necessary, and they need not have the remotest connection with Clericalism. Is it indispensable that we should create a new Church? No, the various Protestant communities scattered over all the land already supply the religious centres; and the only thing required is that Frenchmen should join one of these centres,the one best in agreement with their respective wants, and realizing most satisfactorily their views on the problem of religion.

Such is as brief and yet as complete a résumé as we could give the

pamphlet for which we are indebted to M. Réveillaud. We cannot, of course, accept all his conclusions, and we distinctly refuse to acknowledge the merits of universal suffrage; but, as we said at the beginning of this article, the phenomenon of an appeal in behalf of religion being made by a free-thinker is sufficiently remarkable to arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless, and we can only hope that M. Réveillaud's example will be soon and universally followed. The happiness of France is at stake; nay, ours too jam proximus ardet Ucalegon.

IMMEDIATELY before the ascent of Hermon the Surveying party paid a visit to the ruins of Baalbek. Six weather-beaten columns alone survive of the famous temple of the sun. They are seventy-five feet high, and seven feet and a half in diameter; while the cornice has the astonishing weight of nearly four tons to the square foot. Cleopatra's needle and the other Egyptian obelisks are monolithic, and hence, as recently on the Thames Embankment, might be swung into position; but the columns at Baalbek are jointed with metal cores, and it is so difficult to understand how one section of the columns could be fastened on another as almost to excuse the Arabian legends of the giant-spirits. The beautiful temple of Jupiter seems to be almost perfect; but the greatest marvel in all the ruins is the fortress wall. The third course of this wall consists of three huge blocks of stone, each sixty-three feet long. A fourth stone, sixty-eight feet long-large enough, that is, to make one side of a

to

good Methodist chapel-and fourteen feet thick, lies waiting in the quarry for the next builder who can employ it. A few more such ancient wonders as this will make us feel that Mr. Carlyle is right when he exclaims,-after contrasting old and modern houses,-'Not a house—this of mine but a congeries of plastered bandboxes.'

When the health of the party had been re-established by the cool air of Lebanon, Mr. Conder returned to the shore of the Mediterranean. One day's journey brought the party to Beyrout; thence the journey to Jaffa demanded five days of hard riding. The distance between the two towns is only one hundred and forty-four miles, but when we read that ten hours and a half were needed for riding forty-four miles, we shall feel that Mr. Conder was permitted to see the roads before they were made.' The next scene of labour was Samson's country, the territory of Dan. This district consists of a long ridge of hills about two thou

sand feet high, sloping down from the highlands of Central Judah, with numerous spurs branching off to the North and South. West of the Survey camp was Bethshemesh, where the ark of the Lord was neglected and profaned; Eastward was Bether, where the followers of the false Christ, Barchocheba, met with terrible destruction. The site of the camp may perhaps be identified with the rock Etam, in which Samson took refuge from the Philistines. We read in Judges that after Samson had set the cornfields on fire, he withdrew to the top of the rock Etam'; but the best commentaries say that we ought to read, 'The cleft of the rock Etam.' Etymologically, Etam is said to mean 'a wild beast's lair,' and so it may well be a name which frequently occurs. Two, if not three, places with this name are mentioned in the Old Testament, and one of them, Etam near Bethlehem, has been held by some of the ablest writers on the topography of the Holy Land to be the hiding-place of Samson. Dean Stanley, however, with the fine sagacity and keen eye for geographical peculiarities apparent in almost every page of his book, conjectures that this rock will be found West of Bethlehem, at some point which overlooks the broad cornfields of Philistia.

Now the Survey camp was fixed at Beit 'Atâb, a valley half a mile across, filled with luxuriant corn and a pebbly torrent. To the South was Timnah, where Samson slew the lion; on the North, Eshtaol, where he made his home; on the edge of the mountains is Dein Abân, which has long been supposed to mark the site of Ebenezer; and in the neighbouring vale of Sorek was the residence of Delilah. 'Here, then, we are in Samson's country, and close to Zorah, where we should naturally look for the rock Etam.' Mr. Conder appears to make it at least probable that the modern, Atab is the ancient Etam.

'It is pre-eminently a rock, a knoll of hard limestone, without a handful of arable soil, standing, above deep ravines, by three springs. The spot is also one that has long been a hiding-place, and the requirements of the Bible story are met in a remarkable way; for the word rendered "top of the rock," is in reality cleft or chasm; and such a chasm exists here,-a long, narrow cavern such as Samson might well have gone down into. This remarkable cave of refuge is two hundred and fifty feet long, eighteen feet wide and five to eight feet high. The identification thus proposed for the rock Etam is, I believe, quite a new one; and it cannot, I think, fail to be accounted satisfactory, if we consider the modern name, the position and the existence of this remarkable chasm.'

Possibly, when it is fully realized that we have here an attempt to fix upon the precise spot where a Danite chief took refuge some three thousand years ago, some readers may be ready to ask, 'What constitutes an identification?' As a recent party went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, the dragoman 'identified' the exact turn in the road in which the Good Samaritan found the traveller who had fallen among thieves. Now, it may be reasonably asked whether there is not something similar to this in the endeavour to identify the rock Etam? In answer to this question, Mr. Conder lays down three principles which tend to reassure us. The three requisites for a satisfactory identification are, first, the suitability of the position to all the known accounts of the place; second, the preservation of all the radical parts of the name; and, third, in the loss of the name, we require definite indications, such as measured distances. Names of the geographical features of a country, such as rivers or mountains, possess an amazing vitality; and often appear able to defy alike the violence of conquest and the slow alterations of time. Thus in our own country, inhabited by one of the mobile and migratory races of the West, in spite of 'Saxon, or Danish, or Norman,' we have Avon,