THE SILENT TRAVELLER.

MR. EDITOR-I travel in various parts of the Unite Kingdom, and always with my eyes and ears fully open and being blessed with a retentive memory, my jour neys (when I look back upon them) often afford matte for agreeable reflection. In proportion as I talk little I observe, and remember a good deal. If you thin that any anecdotes, seeming to my judgment wort remembering, can afford pleasure to your readers, o may be some little profit, I shall be happy to relat such as flit across my mind in the perspective of m journeys the last few years.

Some four or five years since, I was travelling in railway-carriage, from B― to B—, when my com panions becoming talkative, the conversation turned or the chances of danger in different modes of travelling as to whether by land or by sea was the most hazardous and whether by sailing ship, or by steamer-whethe on horseback-by carriage-or by rail. Most of the party had offered some opinion, one advising which was the safest part of a railway-carriage to occupyanother which the safest part of a ship to cling to in case of accidents, &c. At length an elderly lady, who had not mixed in the conversation hitherto, was addressed by a gentleman thus :

"Have you travelled much, ma'am ?"

"I have been a great traveller, both by land and water."

“Then what advice would you give, as to the best mode of travelling, and the most safe against accidents ?"

There was a silence. The elderly lady spoke quietly: "I have been twice shipwrecked, and I have once met with an accident in a railway. I used to be very fearful, nay cowardly, but experience has made me more courageous."

"I wonder at that, when you have met with so many accidents.'

"I have met with many mercies too, and it has forced upon me the conviction, that the only way to feel secure, is, whether by land, or by sea, to remember that God is everywhere!""

A reverential pause was the result of this observation. One of the ladies present appeared much struck by it, for although she said nothing, I saw her eyes filled with tears. She alighted at the next station, when I perceived the elderly lady pressed her hand as she passed by, and I heard her say, "I regret that we are going no further together, for I see that you can sympathize with me. May God bless you, wherever your path leads you-that God who is everywhere."

I felt rebuked, for I had been unfavourably impressed at first towards that elderly lady, by her style of dress. I now felt she was a better Christian than I was. As we journey through life, we learn not to judge too quickly by appearances.

F. A.

EVENINGS WITH THE EDITOR.

EVENING THE TWENTY-NINTH.

Aug. There, Emma, I've got through it.

Emm. Got through it! Is that all you have to say about it?

Aug. Oh! it's well enough, but quite a girl's book. It is by no means equal to "I've been Thinking.'

Ed. What! A book by the same author?

Emm. Yes, Mr. Editor; To LOVE AND TO BE LOVED. Augustus thinks poorly of it, it seems; but I think it a very good story.

Aug. Too romantic.

Emm. At any rate, it is a narrative of social life in New York, and whoever begins will not lay it down till he has finished its perusal. Even Augustus has managed to get to the end.

London: Clarke & Beaton.

Aug. My anxiety to be correct in my judgment, EmmelineEmm. Of course. Very fine!

Ed. What is the story about?

Emm. About a young clerk's fate and fortunes, with an exciting description of his escape from a base design to ruin his character. Poor James! he had a narrow escape.

Aug. It is the eleventh volume of the "Run and Read Library."

Emm. The twelfth is BEATRICE,* by Miss Sinclair.

Ed. We shall be glad of this work in a cheap form. Its design is to show how Jesuits mingle in Protestant society under the most unsuspected disguises; and how their machinations destroy the peace of families, secure miserable victims for a false shrine, and exhibit a never-lost-sight-of scheme of enriching Rome by voluntary or involuntary surrenders of money and estates.

Aug. The reviewers, especially the American ones, are in raptures over this book. The famous Gavazzi says, "It is a work which can never be too often read, or too highly appreciated." The American critics assert it will have a million of readers.

Ed. Not improbable, if one publishing house in New York has sold 30,000 copies in the first month after publication. It ran through four editions in ten days.

Emm. The Americans must be strongly attached to Protestantism.

Ed. Or to Protestant stories. The exciting character of this book, its variety of characters, constant changing of scenes, romantic plot, and high dramatic power are enough to render it popular. As the "British Banner" observes, Miss Sinclair requires no certificate for either talent or virtue; and as the "Pomeroy Telegraph” affirms, Beatrice may not unsuitably be styled the "Uncle Tom" of Popery.

Emm. But, after all, do you really think that the Jesuits are actually at work in the way Miss Sinclair describes ?

Ed. She has perhaps brought more Jesuits together in "Beatrice," than in actual life might be the case; half the number might suffice for real experience, but her object was to show Jesuitism everywhere, and lurking under all forms. I think she has also failed in the complete portraiture of Jesuitism, and that the failure arises from her intense Protestantism. Her Jesuits, whether men or women, are astonishingly placid, still-life figures, with wondrous eyes of mesmeric power, with reserved manners, "casting black shadows on the spirits" of those with whom they come in contact. Now, it seems to me,

*London: Clarke & Beaton.

that a true Jesuit is not a stereotype, but rather a chameleon; varying both dress and manners as it suits. I should expect to find a disciple of Loyola as much under the form of a gay, worldly looking and talking mortal, as under a melancholic, corpse-like individual. Miss Sinclair might have given a new dramatic touch to her story-none the less dramatic because truthful-had she introduced some ball-room fine lady, apparently intent upon nothing but Almacks, and yet secretly working out a Jesuit policy.

Emm. "Lady Anne" might have done for such a person. Ed. Or some one like her.

Aug. Here is a capital book, A Guide to the Knowledge OF LIFE.* It is designed for the use of schools, on which account it has been arranged in nine hundred condensed, distinct and numbered propositions, so that the most important facts may be readily seen in their mutual relations, and be as easily retained in the memory. These condensed propositions are illustrated by a running commentary in smaller type, and by small engravings.

Ed. Such a book has long been an educational want.

Aug. And it not only aims to supply the want, but does supply it very satisfactorily. It gives "such a simple and clear explanation of the structure of the human body, and of its relations to external nature, as may enable the student and the reader thoroughly to comprehend the arrangements upon which health and happiness have been made to depend. In these days when men are driven more and more into close as sociation and companionship, for the sake of the advantages that result from co-operation, it becomes an affair of the gravest import, involving no less an alternative than life or death, that all should understand how it is that typhus fever and cholera follow in the footsteps of ignorance and perversity. How that impure air suffocates none the less surely because its operation is slow. How that intemperance fills the streams of the circulation with poison in the place of nourishment. Why it is that habits of intellectual refinement and moral self-control invigorate and ennoble, and why vicious pursuits and the indulgence of mere animal propensities, entail weakness, disease, and premature decay. The Guide'; explains just so much of these, and other like momentous principles, as every rational creature ought to know before he assumes independent responsibility in the affairs of life, and does this by tracing the ' material elements' of vitality through their various stages of preparation for organization, and through the different phases of vegetable and animal existence, up to their highest employ

* London: Jarrold & Sons.

ments in the composition of the nervous apparatus and brain of man.'

Ed. There is a very interesting document which bears upon this subject. I refer to a "Medical opinion," signed by Sir James Clark, Dr. Arnott, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Dr. Locock, Dr. Hodgkin, Dr. Southwood Smith, and by almost every other eminent medical man in the metropolis. It was printed in 1853, and is as follows:

"Our opinion having been requested as to the advantage of making the Elements of Human Physiology, or a general knowledge of the laws of health, a part of the education of youth, we the undersigned have no hesitation in giving it strongly in the affirmative. We are satisfied that much of the sickness from which the working classes at present suffer, might be avoided; and we know that the best-directed efforts to benefit them by medical treatment are often greatly impeded, and sometimes entirely frustrated, by their ignorance and their neglect of the conditions upon which health necessarily depends. We are therefore of opinion, that it would greatly tend to prevent sickness and to promote soundness of body and mind, were the Elements of Physiology, in its application to the preservation of health, made a part of general education; and we are convinced that such instruction may be rendered most interesting to the young, and may be communicated to them with the utmost facility and propriety in the ordinary schools, by properly instructed schoolmasters."

Aug. We will hope then that Physical Education will speedily become one of the sciences taught in our schools; and Dr. Mann's "Guide" will be the best text-book that can be chosen for the pupils.-They have sent us the second volume of the LIBRARY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE.* You know it, I suppose, sir.

Ed. Yes, Augustus, and am much pleased with it. It consists of distinct treatises on scriptural subjects, issued in the form of cheap tracts, and written in a very popular and interesting style. The writers have evidently taken considerable pains to do justice to their subjects.

Aug. Three of these are bound together under the title of THE APOSTLE PAUL,* and give an excellent account of his life and labours. Sunday-school teachers will find this biblical series an economical auxiliary.

Emm. Here is a book for Leontine - SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME.†

Leo. I have not had a book for a long time.

Aug. What a singular title! What is it?

*London: Freeman.

† London: Nelson & Sons.