LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18513, 25 March 1922, Page 2

LITERATURE.

TWO VIEWS OF LIFE.* ORIENTAL FAITH AND WESTERN RATIONALISM. By Constant Readeb. I ho Empire’s debt to Oxford can never fie fully repaid. Out of Oxford have come the ideas of religion, the schools of philosophy, the aspects of literature, and the Social reforms which have helped to keep the world sane and have given it the impetus to continual progress. The record of Oxford is a magnificent one which would fill not merely a series of volumes, but an entire library But Oxford is, par excellence, the home of the Scholar-Gipsy, immortalised by Matthew Arnold: Two hundred years are flown Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe, That thou wert wander’d from the studious walls To learn strange arts and join a Gipsyt ribo; And thou from earth art gone Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid—borne country-nook, where o’er thy unknown grave Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, Under a dark, red-fruited yew-troe’s shade. No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! For what wears out the life of mortal men? ’Tis that, from change to change their being roils Tie that repeated shocks, again, again, Exhaust the energy of strongest souls And numb the elastic powers. Till having us’d our nerves with bliss and tear, And tir’d upon a thousand schemes our wit. To the just-pausing Genius we remit Our worn-out life, and are—what we have been. In an essay entitled “Beside the Isis,’’ I an American observer says of Oxford: “One feels here the deepest spell of that history which, although localised on an alien continent, is still the background of his own life.- that history which lives in names ~s familiar as the names of these who stand nearest ns. in thoughts that are our constant companions, in words whoso musio is never silent in our memory.” Continuing, he writes; — To recall the names of the Oxford scholars, from Roger Bacon and Wyclif to Jowett and Pattison, is to revive the most splendid traditions of English learning and to traverse step by step the great stages of the intellectual growth of the modern world ; medievalism with its kindred scholasticism; the Renaissance, with its ardent teachers of the new learning; the Reformation, whose visible witness to liberty and conscience sfands in St, Giles Street; the broad rich movement of recent scholarship associated with a score of famous names. . . . "Well might the poet and scholar who loved and honoured her with his own delicate genius, his own manly independence, add: “And yet steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last mchantments of the Middle Age. who -will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling ,us nearer to the true goal of all of ns, ro the ideal, to perfection —to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?” From Oxford and Oxford men have eome a couple of recent volumes of more than passing interest, — ‘Essays and Addresses,” by Gilbert Murray, and “Hellenism and Christianity,” by Edwyn Bevan. The two books have much m common. Dr Gilbert. Murray, who is Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford University, is perhaps best known ns the translator into English of the plays of tho Greek dramatists. Euripides, Aristophanes. Sophocles, and iEschylns.—versions which had full justice done to them in the fine impersonations of Miss Dorothea Spinney oti the occasion ot her two visits to the dominion. Professor Murray is also a prominent publicist, and is ever to the front on all questions of social and political reform. He has affinity with the Rationalists, and is a pronounced pacifist and an earnest advocate of tile League of Nations. The eissays and addresses included in this volume embody his views on many important subjects. Some of them have already been published in pamphlet form—viz.: jicligio Grammatica,” “Aristophanes and the War Party,” “Satanism and *he World Order,” and "The Stoic Philosophy.” whilst others have appeared in periodicnls and have been published in the proceedings of the societies before whom they were delivered. ihe concluding paragraph of the anllior s preface has a certain significance: — Most, of the papers are recent. One only is twenty years old. The address on National Ideals has been included he'e after some hesitation, because, in spite of a certain crudity, and perhaps ferocity of tone, it seemed to ip® that its expression of the feelings of the Liberal minority during the Boer War afforded an interesting parallel to (lie feelings of the same minority twenty years later, at the close of the Groat War. I will not lay stress on the similarities nor yet on the differences, except one—that now there is a League of Nations and then there was not. To a present, dav reader the last half desperate pa.ges of that paper seem almost like a conscious argument, for the foundation of a League of Nations : but, of course, at that time the name of the League had never been spoken nor the idea conceived except as a fantasy. The papers in the book have a certain sequence. The author avows himself a “ grammaticus.” and “in particular a Greek student.” "Beginning from a study of “letters,” as the record made by the human soul of those moments of life which it has valued most and most longs to preserve, Professor Murray embarks on an attempt to “understand its present adventures and prospects ” Following the opening essay come three papers dealing more or less directly with Greek subjects, “or rather with the light thrown by particular phases of Greek experience upon modern problems of society and conduct and literature.” In the succeeding essays the connection with Greece becomes slighter, and the final discussions are concerned with purely modern questions. Many years have passed since Mr Richard Le Gullienne created a sensation with“ The Religion of a Literary Man ” in imitation of which attempts have been made to specialise in religion for different professions and avocations. 1 Not satisfied with any or all of these. Professor Murray boldly asserts; “There must be such a thing as ‘ Religo Granimatici,’ the special religion of a -‘ Man of Letters.’ ” Ills definition of religion is universal and all embracing: — Man is imprisoned in the external present; and what we call a man’s religion is, to a great extent, the thing that offers him a secret and permanent means of escape from that prison, a breaking of the prison walls which leaves him standing, of course, still in the present, but m a present so enlarged and enfranchised that it is become not a prison but a free world. Religion, even in the narrow sense, is always seeking for “Soteria,” for escape, for some salvation from the terror to come or some deliverance from the body of this death. And men find it, of course, in a thousand ways, with different degrees of ease and of certainty. I am not wishing to praise my talisman at the expense of other talismans. Some find it in theology, some in art. in human affection, in the anodyne of constant work, in that permanent exercise of the inquiring intellect which is commonly called the search for Truth; some find it in carefully cultivated illusions of one sort or another, in passionate faith and undying pugnacities ; some, I believe, find a substitute by simply rejoicing in their prison and living furiously, for good or ill, in the actual moment. And a Scholar, I think, secures his freedom by keeping hold always of the past and treasuring up the beat art of the past, so that in a present that may be angry or sordid he can call back memories of calm or of high passion, in a present that requires resignation or courage ho oan call back the spirit with which men long ago faced the same evils, He draws out of the past high thoughts ana great emotions; he also draws the strength that comes from communism or brotherhood— Blind Thamyris and Wind Maeenides. And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old, come back to comfort another blind poet in his affliction. The Psalms, turned into strange languages, their original meaning often losi. live on as a real influence in human life, a strong and almost always an ennobling influence. T know the figures in the tradition may he unreal, their words may be misinterpreted. But ♦(1) “ F.ssavp and Addresses.” Bv Gilbert Murrav. London; George Allen and Unwin, Ltd. Dunedin: Whitcombs and Torahs (10s fid net.) (7) “ Hellenism and Christianity." By Edwyn, Eeran London; George Allen nml Unwin, Dunedin; Whitcombs and lomha. (.Us M net.)

the communion is quite a real fact. And the student, as he realises it, feels himself one of a long line of torchbearcrs. He attains that which is the most compelling desire of every human being, a work in life which is worth living for and which is not cut short by the accident of his own death. “It is in that sense that I understand ‘Religio,’ ” says Professor Murray. He then goes o<n to consider the proper moaning of “Grmmaticns” and the true business of the "Man of Letters.” He defines the civilisation of the Wesfern world as a “unity of descent and brotherhood,” and while setting forth what he believes to be the faith of a scholar, he sedulously eschews anything which can be interpreted as denial or disrespect towards the religion of others. 'Phis leads up to a characteristic passage:— A Grammaticus who cannot understand other people’s minds is failing in an essential part of his work. The religion of those who follow physical science is a magnificent and life-giving thing.. The “Tradito” would be utterly wrecked without it. It also gives man an escape from the world about him, an escape from the noisy present into a region of facts which are as they are and not as foolish human beings want them to' be; an escape from the commonness of daily happenings into the remote world of high and severely trained imagination; an escape from mortality in the service of a growing and durable purpose, the progressive discovery of truth. I oan understand also the religion of the artist, the religion of the philanthropist, I can understand the religion of those many people, mostly young, who reject alike books and microscopes and easels and committees, and live rejoicing in an actual concrete present which they can ennoble by merely loving it. And the religion of Democracy ? That is just, what I am preaching throughout this discourse. For the cardinal doctrine of that religion is the right of every human soul to enter unhindered except by the limitation of its own powers and desires into the full spiritual heritage of the race. Throughout these essays Professor Murray expounds what Mr G. Lowes Dickinson has aptly termed “the Greek view of life” coupled with the doctrine set forth by Professor Graham Wallas in “Our Social Heritage.” Tills is especially the case in “The Stoic Philosophy,” originally delivered as the Moncure Conway Memorial Lecture, in the course of which Professor Murray said: “The religions known to history fall into two broad classes, religions which are suited for times of good government and religions which are suited for times of bad government ; religions for prosperity or for adversity, religions which accept the world or which fly from the World, which place their hopes in the betterment of human life on this earth, or which look away from it as from a vale of tears.” The parallel between Stoicism and Christianity is tellingly drawn: — Now- to be really successful in the struggle for existence, a religion must suit both sets of circumstances. A religion which fails in adversity, which deserts you just when the world deserts you, would be a very poor affair; on the other hand, it is almost equally fatal for a religion to collapse as sooa as it is successful. Stoicism, like .Christianity, was primarily a religion for the oppressed, a religion of defence and defiance; but like Christu, ,ily it had the requisite power of adaptation. Consistently or inconsistently, it opened fits wings to embrace the needs both of success and of failure. To illustrate what I mean—contrast for a moment the life of an active, practical, philanthropic, modern Bishop, with that of an anchorite like St. Simeon Stylites, living in idleness and filth on the top of a large column; or again contrast the Bishop's ideals with those of the author of the Apocalypse, abandoning himself to visions of a gorgeous reversal of the order of this evil world and the bloody revenges of the blessed. 1 All three are devout Christians ; but the Bishop is working with the world of men, seeking its welfare and helping its practical needs • the other two are rejecting or cursing it. In somewhat the same way we shall find, that our chief extant preachers of Stoicism are, the one a lame and penniless slave to whom worldly success is as nothing, the other an Emperor of Rome, keenly interested in good administration. The concluding essay in this stimulating volume, entitled “Orbis Terrestris.” a lecture delivered to the Geographical Society in 1920, commences in these words: All those of us who have listened to the voices of the great philosophers of antiquity are familiar with their famous conception of the universe as One Great City of Gods and Men. That conception became the formative principle of most of the higher thought of the Roman Empire. It lay at the centre of their ethics, interpreting the. duty of man towards all creation as identical with the duty of a patriotic citizen towards the city or country in whose love and service ho lives. At the centre of their religion, inasmuch as God was the King and Founder of this City, and His will was the cause of its being the force which guided it towards its good. At the centre of their political theory, since the just governor was ho who, losing ail thought ot ids own special interests, made himself the instrument of the divine world-purpose, the “minister of the providence of God.” It held the i educated world at the time of the beginnings of Christianity, and for the most part passed without much change into the shell of the new religion, at least on its more philosophic side. The greater number of our common religious metaphors are apparently derived from it; for instance, the use of ‘high’ and ‘low’ in a metaphorical sense, of ‘providence,’ ‘free will.’ ‘conscience,’ ‘humanity,’ ‘compassion,’ and the like. Professor Murray points .out, that this great ethical conception was accompanied, as most philosophies are, by a certain orthodox or generally accepted theory of the physical universe. He quotes Mr Edwyn Bevan as showing in his book on “Stoics and Sceptics” how, despite the fact that roughly speaking the moral theory was true while the physical theory was demonstrated false, the two theories fitted one another beautifully. Professor Murray writes from the point of view of a rationalist, whe yet perceives the value ot Christianity end is favourably disposed to-s wards it. Mr Edwyn Bevan occupies the place of a liberal churchman, who, admitting the indebtedness of Christianity to rationalism, argues that the rationalising of Christianity which has come from scholarship and scientific research renders it all the more possible os the faith for the world to-day In other words Oriental Faith and Western Rationalism have met and embraced one another, constituting a brotherhood of religion on the basis of which world-reconstruction may safely proceed. It is this which renders Mr Bevan’s new book on “Hellenism and Christianity” so intensely interesting. In his preface Mr Bevan says;---“In the history of manhood during these last few thousand years, in which mankind has begun to have what may bo called in tho more special sense a history, the two predominant factors appear to be, (1) the rise of rational, istio culture, first in tile ancient Greek world and then, in modern European civilisation, and the entrance of the Christian life into tho world nrocesa.” He claims, although the essays now collected were written at different times for various occasions. that they present a mental unity. He first attempts to show the significance of rationalist culture in its relation to Eastern forms of civilisation and apologises for saying nothing about Cliristianitv when describing Western vivilisation, not because he deems Christianity an unimportant element in tho life of mankind, but because in his view the modern West for a large part still requires conversion to Christianity. “Such genuine Christianity as has existed in the West,” he writes, “has no doubt exerted an incalculable influence in different degrees over the whole field, but when men contrast our modern Western civilisation with Eastern civilisation, when they lay stress upon our standards of political life, our intellectual emancipation, our science, our mastery over llte forces of Nature, they are pointing rather to the Hellenic, rationalist, factor in our civilisation than to the Christian.” In the two essays dealing with the ancient Hellen.-m Mr Bevan traverses to some extent the ground covered by Professor Murray. It is when he deals with the entrance of Christianity into the world and traces its growth and development right up to its relation with the rationalistic element in modern culture, (hat the book assumes its chief interest atld value. Mr Bovan sots himself the task to determine what the truth is with regard to the conflict supposed to exist between rationalism and Christianity and to define the position of Christianity to day “after four centuries of glowing rationalism have shaken and sifter! the thoughts of men.” The area of this suppositious conflict and the direction of the definition towards harmonv assumed by Mr Bevan are strikingly illustrated in the essay on "Tha

Problem of E«chology” here published for the first lime. It has direct bearing on recent religious discussions in Dunedin ano throughout the dominion. The essay is of value as illustrating Ih© position to-day occupied by scholarship—a position almost universally endorsed by men of culture and At the_ outsat, of the essay Mr Bevan admits “It is a debatable question how far in the gospels, as they lie before us, we have the words of Christ as He spoke them with His lips, and how far thev have been supplemented from the belief and practice of the primitive community.” lie also writes: It is admitted that during the last hundred years the current view of the world process has been profoundly changed. Looking backward, the modern man no longer believes that the history of man began from a single pair in 4004 8.C., or that the old story of the Garden and the Snake is literal historical fact. Instead of abrupt beginnings, he sees everywhere processes pf gradual development, going back in the human race to an antiquity , so remote as to make everything since the Pyramids recent. Modem theology has accommodated itself to the change, and we no longer find a difficulty in recognising a Divine Purpose m _ development. just aa our fathers saw it in abrupt, creations. A literature_ of Christian thought upon modern lines has grown up and become popular, so that younger Christians of to-day no longer, in looking backward, are perplexed, as their fathers were, with the problem of reconciling “Moses and Geology.” These old difficulties seem to be far behind _ us now. But the change of general view bears not only upon the past, but ujion the future, and while with regard to the past, modern Christianity has achieved a generally accepted reconstruction, much less thought seems to mo to have been given to tho problem, what, reconstruction of the traditional view as to the future does the modern world-view entail ? “The traditional Christian eschatology,” writes Mr Bevan, “represented the coming of Christ in judgment, the coming of the Kingdom in power, as something abrupt and catastrophic, a Divine intervention suddenly breaking in upon a world which, so far from evolving towards the goal, had sunk into even deeper darkness with time.” Mr Bevan declares that modern thought has swerved away from such a conception. “For the final coming of Christ in judgment wo are given a progressive coming of Christ in history, a series of Divine acts of judgment, in Lie fall of Jerusalem, the fall of the Roman Empire, the French Revolution, and so on. The Kingdom of God is now a spiritual and moral condition of mankind to be gradually brought about by human effort. Perhaps the part of Mr Bevan’s exposition calculated to arouse the keenest, controversy relates to prediction or prophecy. “One thing surely is plain. We cannot consider the predictions of the New lestamont apart from the older prophetical literature of Israel.” This leads up to a frank, not to say startling, statement; — To the early Christian, perhaps we might say to Christians generally tip to tho 19th century, the predictive element was the most important thing m Old Testament prophecy. They saw details, which could have been known beforehand by nothing but miraculous revelation stated with unquestionable distinctness. Now, beside the general tendency of the modern world to be shy of prediction as something miraculous, tho result of the actual study of the Old Testament has been to reduce the predictive element in a signal way. To our fathers Cyrus had been prophesied of by name some 150 years before his birth; it is now generally admitted that the chapters of Isaiah which refer to Cyrus were composed in the time of the conqueror. To our fathers, Daniel, living under Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus, had given a detailed sketch of the wars and alliances of Greek kings many centuries later; it is now generally admitted that the Book of Daniel was composed in tho reign of Antioohus Epiphanes. And so on in many instances. It is only natural when modern theology asks us to look upon the Hebrew prophets, not so much as predictors but as preachers of righteousness. Their real office, it is said,' was not to foretell the future, but to declare in the modern phrase moral and spiritual values. The advantage of this view to the modern man is that the gift of spiritual insight given to tlie prophets now becomes not something miraculous, « faculty of immediate clairvoyance, but a gift of insight into spiritual values the same in kind as that possessed by every good man, only raised to an exceptional intensity. There seems no inherent nexus between spiritual goodness and. miraculous prevision: we do not see that, a man in proportion! to his goodness possesses the faculty of foreseeing the future; but we do see that a man in proportion to his goodness has a sensitiveness to spiritual values, and there is therefore no difficulty in the idea of spiritual geniuses, of persons who read the moral and spiritual qualities in the life of their times with exceptional vividness and truth. Allowing that modern research has reduced .the predictive element to much narrower nroportion than formerly, Mr Bevan hesitates to dismiss entirely the predictive element and to treat the Hebrew prophets simply as preachers of righteousness. He is willing to allow the apocalyptic writers a ray of clairvoyance _ in anticipating a Millennium. Summarising the situation at the close of his final essay on “Christianity in the Modem World," Mr Bevan points out that, while the leaders ot the Church have abandoned some of the beliefs attacked by the Rationalists, two generations ago„ “If however," ho writes, “any enemy thinks that Christianity has thereby been brought nearer to extinction, nearer to abandoning its centra* and essential faith, the facts hardly seem to bear out his assurance. It is important to realise that the abandoned beliefs belonged largely to a different category from the beliefs retained. The abandoned beliefs related to scientific and historical facts, and therefore brought Christian tradition upon the territory claimed by Science and History. . . . The beliefs retained relate to a region where neither Natural Science nor History,

but only Philosophy, can exercise control.” Mr Bevan makes a damaging onslaught to the modern rationalist position in tho lowing passage;— Tho effect of this change is that Christianity is no longer within grappling distance of its adversaries as in the old “Moses and Geology” days. were good old days for the “Rationalist”; he could deal his Wows with a light heart and feel them get home. It was an ©asy business, which did not require much thought; a brute fact or two lay always readily at hand to fling. We can understand that the “Rationalist” does not readily adjust himself to the new conditions. He can now close with Christianity only by rising to a region of systematic thought, where the “Rationalist” is not necessarily at home —and in the end you can never get a clean-cut, indubitable, matter-of-fact result ’ such as the old-fashioned Rationalist loved 1 In the old days there seemed to be a number of facts, clearly established by Science, which stood in the way of Christian belief. There are none today —no facts, that is, except, the great obvious fact of Evil, which is a difficulty, not for Christians only, but for any form of religious or optimistic belief —a moral rather than a scientific difficulty. Mr Beva. likens the modem situation to a track from which the obstructions have been removed and on which, if the engine stands ■ still, it is because the inner propelling power is wanting. He hints, indeed, that an inquiry into the quality of the motive power is now pending on the lines of psychology and psycho-analysis, and that the coming conflict is likely to be as keen, if not keener, than that fought out between Rationalism and Orthodoxy. Whatever view be taken of Mr Bevan’s line of argument, there will be little quarrel with his ultimate conclusion, clearly and simply stated:— Argument, generally speaking, in religion can do no more than clear the trade; it cannot make the engine move. One may, I think, divine that if the Christian Church is going to further its cause in the days to come, it will be by exhibiting a certain HP O of life realised in practice. . • ■ The utmost we can do to prove the value of a work of art to any other man is to call his attention to it. And if the Christian Church wants to convince the world of the supreme value of its ideal of love, it can only do so by steadily confronting tho world with the actual thing. The real attraction to a society consists in what we call its special atmosphere. Supposing that the love which shines in certain individual Christian lives became general in Christian society—a quickening of emotion and will which could be called love, not in any pale metaphorical sense, but in literal truth, a force shaping dl conduct and social organisation, heightening all life with an inexhaustible interest and energy—-there would, perhaps, not be much need for books of Christian evidences. A PUBLIC SPEAKER’S HANDBOOK. LESSONS BY MR JOHN RIGG. Whatever else New Zealand is not deficient in, she sadly lacks public speakers that is to say, men and women able to make themselves heard clearly while expressing intelligently, grammatically, and effectively their views on the questions of die day. As a consequence of the absence of effective oratory, the vogue and influence of the public meeting are waning. When the wonderful magnetism of the human voice and tho persuasion of human personality are considered, this is greatly to be deplored. The handbook on “Elocution and Public Speaking” (Christchurch; Andrews, Baty and Co.; 7s 6d net), issued by Mr John Rigg is all the more welcome on this account. Mr Rigg, as is well known, was formerly a member of the Legislative Council, and he now occupies a position as teacher of elocution and public speaking at Banks Commercial College, Wellington. The book contains 16 lessons, properly graded, by means of which Air Rigg claims "a person may educate himself to be a good reader, reciter, and public speaker.” In his preface, Mr Rigg says: — We do not profess to be able to produce orators who may bo capable of swaying large audiences, for much depends on the temperament of the speaker and the opportunities he may have to exercise his ability; but we claim to be able to teach the art of oratory, to assist a good speaker, and to improve to some extent an indifferent one. We do believe that we can train a person of average intelligence so as to enable him to make himself distinctly heard in a large hall, to speak at length without undue fatigue- and to deliver his speech in a manner that will be creditable to himself and acceptable to his audience. Mr Rigg claims for the plan and general treatment of the subject a. meed of originality. He declares that the advice he gives to students is “the result of knowledge acquired in teaching elocution and during a political life of about thirty years —a life, which covers an experience in public speaking that extends from a cart-tail at a street corner to the Legislative Council of New Zealand.” The hook contains lessons in “Correct Breathing,” “Voice Production,” “Pronunciation,” “Pausing,” "Inflection,” “Accented Force and Emphasis,” “Pitcn.Tone, and Modulation of the Voice,” “Public Speaking.” and “Oratory.” so that the ground is exceedingly well covered. Not the least useful feature of the lessons are the “Selected Pieces” which are appended in each section, these including extracts from speeches by Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell. Mr William Jennings Bryan, Mark Antony. Mr Gladstone, Mr John Bright. Patrick Henry, Mr Lloyd George. Mr Joseph Chamberlain, Mr Asquith, Lord Roseberry. and Mr John Rigg himself, the title of the latter being “Avoidance of Financial Panic.” Various genu of litera-

ture, in prose and in poetry, are also’ m« eluded in tie “Selected Pieces.” ... The arrangement adopted "by Mr Bigg 1* an excellent one; the advice given is clearly expressed and sound in judgment and taken altogether, the book is one whichl may be studied with profit by till who aspire to the public platform. BRIEF MENTION. “Sunbeams; A Book of Laughter” (Lots, don: Stanley, Paul and Company, 2s 6d net) contains the cream of the witticisms which from time to time have appeared in the columns of the Sunday Express. A few are hoary with age and some are decidedly “chestnutty” m flavour, but scatfered about are others that are new if not exactly true. The following are quits good': A man went into a bookshop and asked for some books. “I want, ’ said he, “an English translation of Homer’s ‘lliad’ and the ‘Odyssey,’ and Henry James’ ‘Golden Bowl.’ ” “I’ve got the first two,” said the assistant, “but I don’t think there’s an English translation of Henry James. ‘1 think I’ll chuck journalism,” said the editor, “and go in for astronomy.” "Why astronomy ?” “Because the astronomers are about the only people who have enough space." She (in raptures): ‘ ‘Oh I I cpuld dance to heaven with_ you !” i He: “Topping.' And can you reverse?” "Why are you always down late’ fat breakfast?” “Because I sleep so slowly.” In a letter written to his home Thackeray conveyed his opinion of school life very neatly. ’’’There are 370 boys here,” he wrote. “I wish there were 369.” There are nearly two_ hundred pages hi this little book which is of ,a size small enough to slip into a vest pocket. Of it* kind “Sunbeam” is one of the best examples extant, “Who Told You That: The Storyteller’s Vade Mecum,’” compiled by “Quex,” is a little book of much the same character as “Sunbeams,” the stories in this instance being taken from the column of the Evening News The two quoted below will be found on the same page: The sergeant-major and the young officer were inspecting the cook-house. Pointing to a largo copper of water just commencing to boil, the officer said: “Why does that water only boil round the edge of the copper and not in the centre ?” “The water round the edge, sir.” 1 replied .the sergeant-major, “is for the men on/ guard: they have their breakfast half an hour before the remainder of the company.” A lady had a “newly-rich” friend to tea and was entertaining her with a magnificent gramaphone. “What ’ would vou like?” she asked, “1812?” “Oh, tell me the name of it dear,” was the reply, “I can never remember them by their numbers.” “Who Told You That ” like “Sunbeam.” is published by _ Stanley, Paul and Company and the price is 2s 6d net.