nal phenomena of Chinese life.

It is painful to have to single out honesty as a special merit in a
missionary work; but the temptation to filch away the good name of a
Pagan community is very formidable, and few even among lay travellers
have done as faithful justice to the Chinese character as Mr. Doolittle.
He fully recognizes the extended charities of the Chinese and their
filial piety; stoutly declares that tight shoeing is not so injurious as
tight lacing, and that Chinese slavery is not so bad as the late
lamented "institution" in America; shows that the religions of that
land, taken at their worst, have none of the deified sensuality of other
ancient mythologies, and that the greatest practical evils, such as
infanticide, are steadily combated by the Chinese themselves. Even on
the most delicate point, the actual condition of missionary enterprises,
the good man tells the precise truth with the most admirable frankness.
To make a single convert cost seven years' labor at Canton, and nine at
Fuhchan, and it was twenty-eight years ere a church was organized. Out
of four hundred million souls, there are as yet less than three thousand
converts, as the result of the labor of two hundred missionaries, after
sixty years of work. Yet Mr. Doolittle, who has spent more than a third
of his life in China, still finds his courage fresh and his zeal
unabated; and every one must look with respect upon a self-devotion so
generous and so sincere.

_Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, a Story of Life in Holland._ By M.
E. DODGE. New York: James O'Kane.

Hans Brinker is a charming domestic story of some three hundred and
fifty pages, which is addressed, indeed, to young people, but which may
be read with pleasure and profit by their elders. The scene is laid in
Holland, a land deserving to be better known than it is; and the writer
evinces a knowledge of the country, and an acquaintance with the spirit
and habits of its stout, independent, estimable people, which must have
been gathered not from books alone, but from living sources.

Graphically, too, is the quaint picture sketched, and with a pleasant
touch of humor. We all know the main features of Dutch scenery; but they
are seldom brought to our notice with livelier effect. Speaking of the
guardian dikes, Mrs. Dodge says:--

"They are high and wide, and the tops of some of them are covered with
buildings and trees. They have even fine public roads upon them, from
which