of facts and not stories, and of profitable facts well stated, showing that we are not driven to the field of fiction for material with which to make interesting books for the young.

19. Ancient Egypt: Its Antiquities, Religion and History, to the close of the Old Testament Period. 16mo. pp. 400. By the

same.

THIS is a reprint from the London Religious Tract Society, and like so many of their historical works is an accurate and interesting condensation of the history of the chosen field. It is well backed, yet not burdened by references to authorities. The illustrations, which are numerous, and a map add much to the value of the volIt will be a permanent and always desirable book among the publications of this Society.

ume.

20.-MISCELLANEOUS. Heavenly Hymns for Heavy Hearts. Presbyterian Board of Publication, 821 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. A choice collection of sweet and comforting hymns for hours of sorrow. Many of our best Christian poets are represented here. Aunt Harriet's Tales about Little Words. By the same. These will surely interest our young folk, and must do them good. Familiar Letters to a Young Convert. By the same. We should hesitate on the teachings of the "Letter on an Immediate Profession of Religion." For the step here urged we incline to think that the early church had a better; we mean a class for catechumens. The revival and adoption of this ancient usage would, we think, give us more Christians and fewer professors of religion. Biddy Malone, Jack Myers, Early Dawn, Bessie Haven, Carrie Trueman, The Five Gifts, and Harry Edwards are stories published by this Board, written in a good style, and with good truth and principles interwoven. Grapes from the Great Vine. By the same. The author of this is the Rev. W. P. Breed, and it is a very happy production. It has in its nine chapters bits of story, with large portions of history, facts and truth. The fiction is the smallest part, and yet the book is very fascinating. It comes nearer to our model for a child's book than any thing we have seen of late among new books. Homes of the West. By the same. A lively picture of Western life in its beginnings and joys and trials. The sketching is well done. The Christian Soldier, by this Society is an excellent pocket miscellany for our hardy and noble sons at the front. The Gospel among the Caffres. 16mo. pp. 284. By the same. Another valuable reprint from the same excellent Society, giving a lively and truthful account of Mr. Moffat's missionary labors in Africa.

ARTICLE IX.

THE ROUND TABLE.

OUR COUNTRY.-European nations are looking anxiously for the permanent dismemberment of our Union. Even England cannot see the very smallest difficulty or objection in the way of two North Amercan republics in stead of one, with the reserved right, of course, to any section or State of each to get up a new ordinance of secession, and constitute a third or fourth or fifth confederacy, oligarchy or empire, as the case might be. England thinks that, on the whole, there are some things to render such a termination (?) of our dreadful struggle desirable. For instance, we should be very much in the condition of Samson when shorn of his locks. It would be an easy matter comparatively to put out our eyes and make us grind in a prison. If the world in general and England in particular will pardon us for having an opinion in relation to our own affairs, we will take leave to say that we entertain rather decided objections to such a disposisition of ourselves. It may appear very strange to the nation on whose dominions the sun never sets, but we find ourselves filled with a strong desire to maintain the integrity of this American Union, and, what is more, we intend to do it, with or without the approval and sympathy of our very respected friends and neighbors. Our war was undertaken for this particular purpose, though we believe God will make it the means to accomplish other valuable purposes. For the sake of preserving the Union we have given the very flower of our American manhood by hundreds of thousands, sending forth armies, such, for the intelligence, moral character and social position of those composing them, as the sun never shone upon. We have multiplied widows and orphans and fathers and mothers written childless throughout all the land. All this we have done, and done cheerfully, that we might still be a nation, having a place and a name in the earth, and not a miserable fragment of a once glorious, but forever dismembered Union. What yet remains to do or to bear, for the securing of the same great end, we trust we are prepared to do and to bear.

We have listened so long to dismal prophecies across the waters of our fast-coming financial ruin that we are grown used to it. The financial ruin has not overtaken us, and it will not overtake us. We shall have embarrassments of course, heavy burdens of taxation, financial revulsions and possibly convulsions. It is simply a matter of course that mistakes have been made in finance and

very grave mistakes; and all men are seers after the discovery, and it is always exceedingly pleasant to have a scape-goat to send away into the wilderness with curses on his head. We ought to have had taxes imposed much earlier and to a greater extent, and ought not to have issued so many greenbacks, and ought to have done many other things, and to have left many other things undone.

This is all very plain now, and we have got to pay the penalty of our blunders. But what then? Can we not afford to do it? Did not Richard Cobden say more than two years ago that there was not a state in Europe that could have done what our government had already done in the raising of armies and subsidies? And yet all that was only the small beginning of what we have done since. Why it is scarcely more than two years since we heard the wealthy men of a wealthy town in Massachusetts gravely deliberating in legal town meeting whether they should offer so large a sum as fifty dollars to each volunteer in the cause of his country; and now while we are writing we read that another town in our Commonwealth has just offered one hundred and twenty five dollars in gold to each volunteer, besides what the National government gives, and this amount in gold will pay a debt of $318 75 incurred the day on which that smaller sum was debated.

Our material resources are such as no other nation on earth possesses. This war, enormously expensive as it is, is not going to ruin us. We can pay every farthing of our immense debt, interest and all, and it will do us good. Sub pondere crescit. If we had owed all that we owe now fifty years ago, it would have been the salvation of the country would have saved us from that fearful corruption and debasement of political parties and that social extravagance and consequent effeminacy and vice which must have effected our downfall in time, and which have had not a little to do in bringing us into our present distresses. We have long been a wonder and almost a byword to Europeans for our reckless and often witless expenditure — an expenditure which has added not the smallest particle to our dignity, comfort, contentment or respectability, but has produced results very much the contrary of all this.

Our taxes must be heavy, doubtless, for a long time to come, if measured with our own past experience; but as compared with the burdens which other nations have borne, are bearing, they will be moderate to say the least. We recall our own experience in England not many years back, and the recollection alleviates very materially any apprehensions we might otherwise have in view of our present prospects. Our library was a pleasant room in an ample and substantial brick house, looking out upon a beautiful fruit

and flower garden in the rear; and the said library had just one window, because the light of the sun was such an expensive article in England that at that time even rich men were prudent in its consumption. Seven is the perfect number, and the father of a household might have seven windows of a moderate and prescribed size, without paying for the light that came through them, but for every additional window or opening, with or without glass, through which heaven's sweet light was admitted to sitting-room, chamber, office or cellar, there must be paid to the government of "our Sovereign Lady," a sum equal to two dollars and a half. This supremely absurd and barbarous law had the effect greatly to mar the beauty and comfort of English dwellings, and to kill annually a multitude of scrofulous children. We do not remember the number of windows in the house of which we have spoken, but the sum total we paid for sunlight must have been at least twenty five dollars a year, and that, be it remembered, for light inferior in quality, and in only moderate quantity. We recollect one day seeing a strange man surveying our premises in a curious way. Presently he rang at the bell, introduced himself as a new Inspector for the district, and said we were liable for one window more than we were paying for. We asked him where it was, and he pointed to an opening into the coal cellar, about two square feet in size, and thereafter we paid for it the same as for a full sized window in our library. This was the new Inspector's way of commending himself to those to whom he was indebted for his office, and, possibly, to secure promotion. It is gratifying to the humane and benevolent feelings to know that this odious and cruel tax was repealed some twelve years ago, and a house tax substituted for it, proportioned to rental.

This was one item in the list of direct taxes. And the repeal or commutation of this was by far the most important relief which England has experienced in the matter of fiscal burdens for the last half century, unless we should except the repeal of the corn law. For a carriage with four wheels, and drawn by two horses, the owner pays an annual tax of $17 50, or $10, if drawn by one horse. For a carriage of two wheels the rates are about one half as much. If the carriage is used for carrying merchandize whereby a livelihood is sought, a carriage with four wheels pays eleven dollars, and with two wheels six dollars and a half. For every horse kept for riding or driving in a carriage liable to duty the tax is five dollars. On every dog," mongrel, puppy, [of six months or over] whelp or hound," a yearly tax of three dollars is imposed, with the express provision that no man shall be taxed for more than sixty-six dogs.

If you use a ring, seal, or any other article having on it your crest "or other armorial device," you will pay a tax of three dollars and a quarter therefor, provided you are an individual of no more than ordinary consequence; but if you drive a pair of horses and have four wheels to your carriage, then your crest rises surprisingly, and you pay thirteen dollars a year for that important indication of respectability.

We think our income tax, with the addition, a serious impost; but let us see how this matter is arranged in England. A man with a salary or total income exceeding $500 and not exceeding $750, is taxed on the whole amount, at the rate of $2 40 per $100, equal to $18 on an income of $750; on all incomes exceeding $750, the tax is at the rate of $3 60 per $100 on the entire amount, equal to $36 00 on a total income of $1,000.

But the direct taxes paid by Englishmen are small when compared with what they pay in the shape of customs and excise. Bricks are excised, and malt is excised, and every home produced article that can be, and the consumer pays it in the advanced prices. Every drive which you take with horse and carriage from the livery stable is excised, and the proprietor pays it out of the amount charged to you. The consumers of tobacco pay an enormous aggregate tax to government, the average duty being a dollar a pound, and the better qualities being rated much higher. We remember to have paid a dollar and a half a pound for the best black teas, one third of the amount being duty; or if we used what was sold for a dollar we still paid half a dollar to government for every pound consumed. Coffee was half a crown, or sixty two cents a pound, and other luxuries in proportion. All this was in a time of profound peace, with no derangement of the currency, and no unusual inflation of prices by speculation. Yet we seldom heard an Englishman complain of taxes. A much more common remark was, that his was the best country and the best government in the world, and well worth paying for.

We are to be taxed, let it be remembered, for the preservation of the Union our very national existence; with the immense undeveloped resources of our country we can bear heavy taxes better than England can; there is no prospect that our taxation will come up to what Englishmen have paid cheerfully from time immemorial; the bearing of very heavy burdens of this sort will do us no harm whatever, but will tend directly to promote social economy and social morals; will be a guarantee for the integrity of our statesmen and politicians; will bind us firmly together as a people, and cause