in "Ryecroft," is here among his characters, speaking of the things he has known, with the vexed courage of resignation.

Naturally a man of independent and rather scornful spirit, he had suffered much from defeated ambition, from disillusions of many kinds, from subjection to grim necessity; the result of it, at the time of which I am speaking, was, certainly not a broken spirit, but a mind and temper so sternly disciplined, that, in ordinary intercourse with him, one did not know but that he led a calm, contented life.

But the calm is only a superficial assumption. Underneath it is always surging that "mild indignation against the tenor of his age," mild indeed, but tenderly pathetic, with a sense of lost possibilities and averted hopes. Why, he seems to say, should this poor, vain girl, decked out in shabby finery, have the soul of a melodramatic heroine in the body of a milliner's assistant? Why should this true laborer in the field of art be forced to debase his talents at the whim of a selfish and frivolous wife, and at last to give his life as well as his ambition to glut a still dissatisfied vanity? Why should all the world be full of the sighing of the prisoners of the soul, who find no respite and no rest in the perpetual seeking for the never found? And there is no answer but his own inquiry. Why? And yet, of course, this is not the whole philosophy of life; nor, if the artist had seen the life around him through the medium of a less sensitive temperament than his own, would he have found it to be seething only with sorrow and doubt. The old woman on the farm, who looked over the fence into her pig-sty, and exclaimed with benediction: "Well, I am sure we have all much to be thankful for! God A'mighty might a' made us all pigs!"-this simple philosopher of the backyard was, after all, viewing the situation entirely from

her own point of view, and not at all from the pigs'. They, no doubt-good, easy bodies-were well contented with their ditch, and would have thought the bustling, rattling life of the kitchen and the dairy the very depth of irritating discomfort. Life, after all, has always its double aspect; not every one has his hidden ideals. Those who move amid middle-class English life will readily admit that in many of the uniform and unideal villas of a London suburb there is one member of the family (generally a girl) who has ambitions above her station, and a capaccity for idealism which cannot be satisfied with third-rate dances and mild flirtations in the lecture-room. But for every one such imprisoned spirit, "beating in the yoid its luminous wings in vain," there will be a dozen plump, contented persons, to whom the certainty of roast beef on Sunday, and the possible excitement of a smile from the curate will abundantly satisfy from week's end to week's end. And, if we go a little lower in the scale, we know that those kindly philanthropists who establish pleasant and well-ordered "Homes" for the children of the East End tell us continually that the life of the streets is so fascinating and of such rare enchantment to its own sons and daughters, that most of them, after trying the creature comforts of the refuge for a little while, yearn to go back to the old garish lights, and break loose at last to take up again the precarious, exciting odyssey of the street arab. This side of the question George Gissing could not see, because, realist as he was in the practice of art, he was at heart an idealist of idealists; so truly so, indeed, that he presents but one more example of that singular paradox of the artistic life, which is for- . ever setting the artist, conscientiously and with every access of sincerity, upon the very opposite path to that to which his inclination would naturally

seem to lead him. But the paths join at last. For only one who had a sense of the meaning of things beyond their common implication could draw them as they are. Some "wandering air of the unsaid" must traverse even the most definite and actual of human sayings.

In that exquisite volume of travel, "By the Ionian Sea," we seem to feel the genius of its author stretching out hands towards the further shore, and gradually assuming that mantle of romance with which his latest, and, it is to be feared, unfinished work is said to be altogether clothed. In the last days of his life George Gissing was permitted to taste some of that restfulness

and ease for which he had all his life longed so tenderly; and the reflection of this gentle sunset-glow had begun to color his later work. Suppose the days of comfort had been prolonged, would they have turned his genius to new uses, teaching him some of that easier confidence which the days of tribulation (and they were many) had silenced in a sort of dumb despair? Who can say? But, standing with him by the waters that he loved, we seem to hear an unfamiliar echo in his voice, an echo that sounds like a farewell to the streets and alleys he had traversed for so long.

assment. Alone and quiet, I heard the washing of the waves; I saw the even

ing fall on the cloud-wreathed Etna, the twinkling lights came forth upon Scylla and Charybdis; and, as I looked my last towards the Ionian Sea, I wished it were mine to wander endlessly amid the silence of the ancient world, to-day and all its sounds forgotten."

To-day and all its sounds forgotten! It is the pathos of so much of the artistic life that these importunate sounds can never be forgotten, that they ring in the ears of the artist till the very melody of the Muses' Hill is drowned in the thundering echoes of the Strand. To-day and all its sounds made up the medley of George Gissing's life, and roll, like a grumbling undercurrent,

beneath the surface of all his work. The one thing wanting in that work, indeed-wanting not only to its popularity but also to its artistic perfection -was just an hour's respite from the insistent voices of the street, just a day's holiday, shall we say? among the shepherds upon the Delectable Mountains. And the final note of pathos in his story is simply the suggestion that the hour of respite had arrived, and that the House Beautiful itself was in sight, at the very moment when the rest that comes unsought wrote its cold, inevitable "Finis" across his life and work. The hour of his death seems almost, as it were, in cruel keep

The Fortnightly Review.

ambition was still unsatisfied; the last word was yet to say.

Arthur Waugh.

ANGLO-SAXONS

Among the many reports and notices of the meetings held in celebration of the centenary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, comparatively few have drawn attention to a point which surely deserves the closest and most earnest consideration. That is the importance which is attached to the work of the Society, and the help which has been given to the Society's objects, by the people of North America, the English-speaking races of the New World. It is, of course, true that the example of the handful of Englishmen who founded the Bible Society a hundred years ago has been followed by citizens of Continental nations; there were messages of congratulation and good wishes sent to the Society on Tuesday and Wednesday, for instance, from the Bible Societies of Sweden, Prussia, Russia, and Denmark, besides addresses received from Finland, Paris, Belgium, and Italy. But the chief support which was given on Tuesday and Wednesday to the Society was, as it has always been, essentially AngloSaxon. The Upper Canada Bible Society, through their delegate, Dr. Hoyles, of Toronto, handed the President of the British and Foreign Bible Society a cheque for £2,000 "as a birthday gift," and expressed the hope that an additional £10,000 would be forthcoming. But it was left to the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Puritans to send the Ambassador of the United States to bring a message from Mr. Roosevelt, conveying to the British and Foreign Bible Society "my hearty congratulations on their centenary, and my earnest good wishes for the continued success of their great work." It is surely a message which conveys

a far deeper meaning, and suggests far greater possibilities for the future of the great nations of the world, than might be read into it at first sight by men who are careless or merely contented.

For what has been the history of the American Bible Society, for which Mr. Choate spoke, and what is the real significance of the fact that the driving energy behind the work of the distribution of the Bible has always been Anglo-Saxon? Mr. Choate spoke with feeling of the beginnings of the infant State founded by the first British colonists in America. "They carried King James's Bible with them as their best possession, the only one of lasting value, and their only readable book. In the Bible they found not only their religion, but their literature, their blographies, their voyages and travels, and their poetry,-poetry such as no poets had since produced. The people of New England in the first generations were the most Biblical community on the face of the earth; their laws, customs, language, and habits were founded on the Bible, and they made it the sole guide of their lives." And what has been the record of "the most Biblical community on the face of the earth" during the years that have come after "the first generations"? · The American Bible Society has set itself "the immense task of keeping a population of eighty millions supplied with a Bible in every home, and has also to meet the needs of eight hundred thousand immigrants coming in every year; yet it does almost as much for foreign lands as for its own country." In conclusion, Mr. Choate spoke finely of the mission of his country and ours

"for the promotion of civilization, order, religion, peace, and duty." "He believed, and he thought the Bible Societies united in the belief, that the only sure guarantee of peace was the moral influence of public opinion. If the public opinion of each nation behind the Government was for peace, there would be no war. In this our two nations ought to set the finest examples, and he believed other nations would follow. Public opinion should be based on the Book which said nothing to the world but a message of peace and goodwill. He believed in co-operation in every possible good work between the peoples of our two countries;" and why should not that cooperation exist and work for good, he asked, when those two countries had "one God, one Bible, one language, and one destiny"?

We have quoted Mr. Choate's admirable speech at some length, as it certainly deserves to be quoted. For it supplies, surely, the most luminous of comments on the question we have asked,—What is the significance of the fact that the driving energy behind the work of the distribution of the Bible has always been Anglo-Saxon? Is not the answer that the destiny of the world is in the Anglo-Saxon hands that hold the Bible? All the great European nations, since the Middle Ages, have had the Bible to give, if they chose, to the other nations. Yet, by some ordination of the great Plan which we, "seeing through a glass darkly," can only try to understand, it has happened that the Anglo-Saxon nations have been the chosen distributors of the great Book of the world. If you are to believe in any ordered progress at all towards "the one, far-off, Divine event," must you not believe that the destinies of the world-"a swarm of ants in the light of a million million of suns"-have been purposely entrusted to the nations that read the Bible?

Of what other book can it be said that during a century there have been printed a hundred and fifty million copies in practically every language spoken by mankind. What other book puts before its readers so insistent a command, so earnestly obeyed, as that of the greatest Teacher whose voice has rung in men's ears,-"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature"? Not the devoutest follower of Mahomet, not the most pious disciple of Buddha or Confucius, could find any answer but one to that question. The conquering races of the East model their civilization on that of the Western race whose polity is broad-based upon the teaching of what they hold to be the Testament, the revealed Will of the author of the Design of which they are a part, thereby admitting this, at least, that the Book of the West has given more to its readers than the books of the East. The Koran remeans untranslated, perhaps untranslatable,-a message, it must not be doubted, of strength and power, with its own place in the great scheme of the Designer's Will as revealed to men; but not the great Message intended to lead mankind at last to the "peace which passeth all understanding," the "Sabaoth and the port of all men's labors and peregrinations."

But if it is admitted that the progress of the world is in reality written in the progress of the nations using the same Bible and worshipping the same God, yet, it has been asked, might not the Message which for three hundred years has been given to the Englishspeaking nations-to be translated into the languages of other countries less happy-be written more shortly, more clearly, more consistently, in a word, in a form more acceptable to listener and preacher alike? Might not much that has seemed to some irrelevant, much that can but be called ugly, be excised from the Book, so as to leave

a residue that all can accept, that all can read without questioning or pain, that will speak of nothing which is not pure and holy and true. The answer is that the Book as a whole has been put to a test to which no other book has been put, and has stood it. The Book is a whole; the whole of life is in it,-peace and war, grandeur and ugliness. There are uglinesses in the Bible; but it was the same man who stood guilty before Nathan that wrote of the God he worshipped: "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies."

It was a hundred years ago that a few men, meeting together in the greatest of English cities, founded a Society which has since collected £14,000,000 with which to further one single work, -the dissemination among the reading peoples of the greatest Book in the world, the "preaching of the gospel to every creature." Could a wider prospect be opened before any such Society than that which was suggested by the The Spectator.

speech of the Ambassador of the AngloSaxon nation which, next to ourselves, stands first for the propagation of the teaching of the Bible? The American Ambassador was thanked for "having raised in the hearts of the Society a great hope which had perhaps lain dormant too long,-the hope of working together for the peace of the world. A hundred years ago when Napoleon's genius threw a huge shadow on the world, such a thought would not have found utterance. But a hundred years ago the Anglo-Saxon mind had not-what it possesses to-day-the preponderance of the thought of the world. It does possess that preponderance of thought today,-owing it, to what? The nations who have stood for the Bible, and who are now leading the world, though in a thousand ways so unworthy and so unrepentant, can read at least without the deep reproach that fell on the "house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel," Isaiah's bitter lament, "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river."

I cannot close these wandering reminiscences of distant days without a brief mention of the famous snowstorm of 1867, at which I assisted.

I must say a prefatory word or two about the climate-as far as my three years' experience went-in order to explain the full force of the disaster that fall of snow wrought. The winters were short and delicious, except for an occasional week of wet weather, which, however, was always regarded by the sheep-farmer as excellent for filling up

the creeks, making the grass grow, and being everything that was natural and desirable. When it did not rain, the winter weather was simply enchanting, although one had to be prepared for its sudden caprices, for weather is weather even at the antipodes, and consequently unreliable. Sometimes we started on an ideally exquisite morning for a long ride on some station business. The air would be still and delicious, fresh and exhilarating to a degree hardly to be understood; the sun brilliant and