his is an age of great explorers. Stanley has succeeded to
Livingstone, Nansen to Franklin; but it has been only within
comparatively recent years that women have emulated men in
penetrating to remote regions. Within the decade we have seen Mrs.
Bishop a veteran traveller, visiting south-west Persia; Mrs. French
Sheldon has shown how far beyond the beaten track a woman's
adventurous spirit may lead her; and Miss Mary Kingsley, a niece of
the late Charles Kingsley, has intrepidly explored the interior of
Africa, her scientific observations being welcomed by British
_savants_. In 1896 women, who had long sought the privilege, were
permitted to compete for the diploma of the Royal College of
Surgeons, and in many other walks of usefulness the barriers
excluding women have been removed, with benefit to all concerned. It
is not other than natural that under the reign of a noble woman there
should arise women noble-minded as herself, cherishing ideas of life
and duty lofty as her own, and that their greatest elevation of
purpose should tent to raise the moral standard among the men who
work with them for the uplifting of their fellow subjects. Such signs
of the times may be noticed now, more evident than even ten years
ago.

[Illustration: Professor Huxley. _From a Photograph by the London
Stereoscopic Co_.]

[Illustration: Professor Tyndall. _From a Photograph by Alexander
Bassano, Ltd_.]

The educational progress of the last decade has been very great,
especially as regards the instruction of women; yet the period has
not been noticeably fruitful of literature in the highest sense. In
the world of fiction there is much that looks like degeneration; the
lighter magazines and serials have multiplied past computation, and
form all the reading of not a few persons. To counteract the
unhealthy "modern novel" has arisen the Scottish school, the
"literature of the kailyard," as it has been termed in scorn; yet a
purer air breathes in the pages of J. M. Barrie, "Ian Maclaren," and
Crockett. Their many imitators are in some danger of impairing the
vogue of these masters, but still the tendency of the school is
wholesome. Other artists in fiction assume the part of censors of
society, and write of its doings with a bitterness that may or may
not profit; the unveiling of cancerous sores is of doubtful advantage
to health.

[Illustration: C. H. Spurgeon.]

[Illustration: Dr. Horatius Bonar.]

The death-roll from 1887 to 1897