al of soul-kindling eloquence in the pulpit. In this age of dizzy
ballooning in finance and social extravagance, my prayer is: "Oh, for
the revival of old fashioned, sturdy, courageous frugality that 'hath
clean hands and a clean heart, and hath not lifted up its soul to
vanity!'"

"Do you not discover a great advance in educational facilities and in
the enlargement of means to popular knowledge?" To this question I am
happy to give an affirmative reply. Schools and universities are more
richly endowed and our public schools have been greatly improved in many
directions. Among the educated classes, reading clubs and societies for
discussing sociological questions are more numerous, and so are free
lectures among the humbler classes. Books have been multiplied--and at
cheaper prices--to an enormous extent. In my childhood, books adapted to
the reach of children numbered not more than a score or two; now they
are multiplied to a degree that is almost bewildering to the youthful
mind. Newspapers printed for them, such as the _Youth's Companion_ and
the National Society's _Temperance Banner_, were then utterly unknown.
The sacred writer of the ecclesiastics needs not to tell the people of
this generation: "That of making many books there is no end."

It is not, however, a matter for congratulation that so large a portion
of the volumes that are most read are works of fiction. In most of our
public libraries the novels called for are far in excess of all the
other books. Let any one scrutinize the advertising columns of literary
journals, and he will see that the only startling figures are those
which announce the enormous sale of popular works of fiction. I am not
uttering a tirade against any book simply because it is fictitious. Our
Divine Master spoke often in parables; Bunyan's matchless allegories
have guided multitudes of pilgrims towards the Celestial City. Fiction
in the clean hands of that king of romancers, Sir Walter Scott, threw
new light on the history and scenes of the past. Such characters as
"Jennie Deans" and her godly father might have been taken from John
Banyan's portrait gallery; Lady Di Vernon is the ideal of young
womanhood. Fiction has often been a wholesome relief to a good man's
overworked and weary brain. Many of the recent popular novels are
wholesome in their tone and the historical type often instructive. The
chief objection to the best of them is that they excite a distaste in
the minds of th