A Gossip about Russia.

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Accordingly "there is a time of war." That happens just now; and as it brings Russia to the front, now is the time to write about the land of the Tsar. The country is large, but by no means beautiful. The scenery that is really fascinating is about as scarce as Gratiano's reasons, and those were "as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff." Between St. Petersburg and Moscow, for instance, you may go by rail in a straight line for four hundred miles and see nothing but forest and morass, and scarce catch sight of a town or even a house during the whole journey. The carriages are pretty comfortable, fitted with stoves for winter travelling; but as time is no object to a Russian, the trains only run at the rate of from fifteen to thirty miles an hour. Another peculiarity is that when the station is reached the passenger is frequently miles away from the place indicated by the name. The vehicles for road travelling are the Tarantass, a sort of "phæton without springs;" the Drosky, a smaller vehicle, described as "midway between a cab and an instrument of torture;" and then, for winter, of course there are sledges. The roads are wretched, and the bridges more wretched. They are best in winter, for the snow is a great leveller; but then the cold is so severe that almost before he knows it a man may lose the most prominent feature of his face by frost-bite.

Russian hotels have their surprises for West Europeans. They let bed-rooms, but beds are not always included; and if they are, the traveller is expected to supply bed linen, pillows, blankets, and towels. A genuine Russian merchant would sooner travel without a portmanteau than without his pillow. A wise man will also carry with him his tea and sugar. "One always orders tea in Russia," and the waiter will supply hot water with a tumbler (not cup) and saucer.

The Emperor has a strange variety of races to govern. The great body of the people are Russian and orthodox, but Southern Russia contains as motley a list of nationalities as any country in Europe. Official statistics mention Great Russians, Little Russians, Poles, Servians, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, Moldavians, Germans, English, Swedes, Swiss, French, Italians, Greeks, Armenians, Tartars, Mordwá, Jews, and Gypsies. The religions are almost as varied. The Jewish colonists, strange to say, are among the least prosperous; and the Germans are the most numerous. It was hoped that the German settlers would exercise a civilizing influence on the Russian peasantry, but the hope has not been realized. The two nationalities remain as distinct and separate as Hindoos and English. The Russian peasant looks on the German as a being of another order. He regards him as a wonderful curiosity; but he no more thinks of imitating German houses, and German ways of life than a Hindoo thinks of eating English roast beef. He concludes, in short, that the German is German, the Russian is Russian, and there's an end of it. And so the Russian peasant goes on in his own way, parting his hair in the middle, wearing his shaggy cap, greasy sheepskin and ragged leg-swathings, carrying himself with an independent

manly air, paying his taxes, cultivating somewhat lazily his own strip of the communal land, and not unfrequently getting as drunk as a Briton.

One race not yet referred to deserves special mention from the important part they are playing in the Russo-Turkish War. I mean the COSSACKS. They occupy the territory between the Sea of Azof and the Caspian; and whilst in times past they have occasioned the government much trouble, they have rendered valuable service to Russia in protecting the southern and Asiatic frontier from Tartar and Circassian raids. Magnificent specimens of the genus homo, they are a warlike people, and in return for certain grants of land, and exemption from taxation, they hold themselves ready, at their own expense, to serve the government in war, wherever the military authorities may command. In some respects they are invaluable soldiers, for they can endure fatigue and privation that would kill ordinary troops, and they can adapt themselves with wonderful facility to any circumstances in which they may be placed. Their work as Uhlans, in the present war, is the very task to give them infinite delight; and when we read of their dashing exploits we ought not to be surprised, for they believe themselves capable of doing anything within the bounds of human possibility, and a good deal outside those bounds. In relation to their home life, a quaint custom, observed as late as 1850, is too original to be omitted. When the Cossacks commenced agriculture they knew very little of land surveying, and still less of land registering, and so when a parish boundary was determined it was registered in the following unique fashion. All the boys of the two contiguous stanitsas were collected and driven in a body to the boundary line agreed upon. The whole of the population then walked along the frontier, and at each landmark they gave a number of the boys a severe flogging and sent them home. "This was done in the hope that the victims would remember, as long as they lived, the spot where they had received their unmerited castigation."

From the peasants, colonists, and these warrior Cossacks, let us turn, by way of conclusion, to the Russian Noblesse. These form a striking contrast to our own aristocracy. In Russia there is no pride of birth; and to base any claim to social consideration on the ground of having a long pedigree is to a Russian noble the height of absurdity. Wealth, culture, and official position, are most highly esteemed; but as for titles they are cheaper, and commoner, than that of "General" in America. The title of Prince belongs to the highest rank; but owing to the Russian law of inheritance which gives the father's title to all his sons, and which at his death causes his property, moveable and unmoveable, to be equally divided among his children, there are princes in Russia who are as poor as peasants, and as uneducated, and who live in as squalid povertystricken homes. Report says that not long ago a certain Prince Krapotkin earned his living as a cabman in St. Petersburg. Indeed Russia has hundreds of princes and princesses who have not the right to appear at Court, and who can find no entrance into any refined society whatever. Besides these there are Counts and Barons. Some of the nobility are very rich, but there is little of aristocratic sentiment anywhere. The nobles have no ambition to make themselves a ruling or a privileged class, and the people are not envious of those who enjoy other forms of

THE NIGHTINGALE.

341

government. Autocracy in Russia is upheld by the unbounded hereditary devotion of the people, and was never more secure (says Mr. Wallace) than at the present moment." Free from the desire for oligarchy on the one hand, or democracy on the other, "Nobles and people alike seem to hold instinctively the creed of the French philosopher who thought it better to be governed by a lion of good family than by a hundred rats of his own species." J. FLETCHER.

The Nightingale.

BY DR. BUCKLEY.

NOT many days after reaching England I went with some friends to Bourne Wood to hear the sweet notes of the enchanting songstress of the night; and I wish I could give the reader an adequate impression of the pleasure we experienced, without the sensation of cold that began to creep over one of the party before we left the wood. I am not sure that I had heard the nightingale before-certainly never under such favourable circumstances-and it was to me most interesting. How varied, rich, deep, and inexpressibly melodious were the notes of the happy songstress. Nor should we forget that "winged fowl," "flying above the earth in the open expanse of heaven," were vocal with the praises of the Almighty Creator before our first parents, amid the innocence and happiness of Eden, praised the Lord in loftier strains for His goodness.

One lesson which the scenes and songs of that lovely spring night in the wood imprinted on my mind I record for the reader's benefit. It is expounded in Montgomery's beautiful verse

"The bird that soars on highest wing
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rest.
In lark and nightingale we see

What honour hath humility."

In harmony with this is Cowper's reference to the nightingale in his fine hymn beginning,

"Far from the world, O Lord, I flee."

After describing, with great sweetness, "the calm retreat, the silent shade," as happily agreeing with prayer and praise, and as made by the rich bounty of our heavenly Father for the benefit of His people, he goes on to advert to the hallowed pleasures enjoyed by the soul in solitary communion with its God, adding

"Here, like the nightingale, she pours

Her solitary lays,

Nor asks a witness of her song,
Nor thirsts for human praise."

In one of his smaller poems he describes

"A nightingale that all day long

Had cheered the village with his song."

I do not know enough of the habits of nightingales to confirm the statement of the poet; but it may be supposed that he had good authority for his description. The lesson, however, taught in the hymn, is one that it will be well for us to learn. The most important work we

all of us have to do is to be done with God alone. Jacob, Moses, Elijah, David, and other eminent servants of God in different ages have taught us the blessedness of solitary communion with God and our own hearts; nor should the Highest of all Examples, and the impressive words that Gethsemane heard be forgotten, " Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder." In secret communion with the Father of spirits we realize most deeply the powers of the world to come. The things that are not seen and that are eternal affect us much more powerfully than when surrounded by the busy scenes and tender friendships of life. In the presence of infinite purity we learn the depths of our own pollution, and cry with the prophet, "Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips." And the more brightly the beams of glory shine on our spirits the humbler we lie at the footstool, the higher our admiration of the abounding grace of God to sinful worms of the earth, and the readier our response to the divine call, "Whom shall I send? And who shall go for us ?" "Here am I, send me !"

"Thy ransomed servant, I

Restore to Thee thine own;

And from this moment live or die
To serve my God alone."

It was a touching prayer that Robert Hall offered shortly before his afflictive attack," O Lord, if Thou smilest upon us, let us have grace to acknowledge with gratitude and obedience the Author of our illumination. Thou drawest a cloud over us. We retire behind it to converse with God." Holy converse with God is best enjoyed in solitude.

England, Turkey, and Russia.

MR. GLADSTONE still counsels "VIGILANCE." The Government is to be watched. The right-minded men in the Cabinet need the backing of public opinion, the support of the right-hearted Parliament out-of-doors. It must be stated again and again, and with increasing emphasis, that the great "British interest" is RIGHTEOUSNESS— the interest alike of Turk and Russian, of Bulgarian and Servian, of Britain and of humanity at large. For it we must speak and act. So doing we never can fight FOR the Turkish Empire; we may be compelled to fight AGAINST it. The revelations of the systematic and persistent atrocities of the Turkish soldiery, made on the authority of correspondents like Lieutenant Brackenbury of the Times, and others equally reliable, are enough to rouse the deepest pity and the most fiery indignation. The horrors reported by the Daily News last year are out done by the foul crimes perpetrated within the last few weeks, not only by the barbarous soldiery, but also by the civilians of the invaded districts. The mutilation of living victims, the outrages on ambulance men wearing the badge of the Red Cross, the needless butchery of women and children with a malignant and ingenious cruelty almost unrivalled, are facts so horrible that it is not strange that the Russians should be filled with a spirit of retaliation. Well, says the Times correspondent, "Put English troops in their place, call Plevna, Delhi, and Shipka, Cawnpore, and then criticise, if you can, the men who may possibly refuse quarter."

Fortunately for England the reverses experienced by the Russians have somewhat quieted the war fever. Had Russia conquered at every step the Daily Telegraph, and papers of that indescribable ilk, would have had less difficulty in goading the nation into conflict with Russia. But should Russia, which is likely, recover ground, we must be on our watch. The victory of Russia will be the opportunity of the "wrongminded" men in the country and in the nation, and constitute a special demand for vigilance in all those who care more for righteousness than for the defeat of an ancient enemy. Vigilance, then, is the right word. Let us have our loins girt about, and our lamps burning, ready for any emergency in this period of national peril.

The Special Dangers of the Young: and

How to Guard Against Them.*

IN speaking of the dangers of the present age, I would by no means insinuate that any previous age has been free from its own distinctive spiritual perils. There are persons now, as there were in the days of Solomon, who, casting a lingering look on the past, are ready to propose the question, "Why were the former days better than these?" a question which may well be interdicted, if for no other reason, at least for this reason, that it is assuming that which ought first to be proved, and probably the proof would be extremely difficult to find. Perhaps, taking things all round, no days of the world's history since the fall of man have been socially or morally, educationally or spiritually, better than these, or less characterised by danger to the young.

Nor would I intimate that any period of human life is free from its peculiar dangers. When we were young and inexperienced, we looked with a kind of envious feeling on the mature aged Christian, under the false impression that piety had become so consolidated as practically to place him beyond the reach of temptation, that he had about weathered all the storms, and had advanced to a stage of freedom from spiritual danger. Age and observation have dispelled this delusion, and I venture to say that the old Christian of seventy feels quite as deeply as the youth of seventeen that he is still absolutely dependent upon the grace of God for his safety and his happiness.

Nor have I any wish to see the unnatural and incongruous spectacle of "old heads on young shoulders"—a spectacle almost as outrageous as Horace's famous simile in his "Ars Poetica," of a horse's head joined to a human neck, terminating in the body of a fish. We have no right to wish to see that habitually demure and systematically solemn and staid deportment in a child of twelve or fourteen which would be perfectly appropriate and natural in an old man of eighty.

This would be symptomatic of a mawkish and unhealthy sentimentalism, and by no means a proof of an elevated and vigorous spiritual life; but eminently calculated to render religion repulsive and distasteful to the minds of other young people, and fitted to minister to the fallacious conclusion that when a youth becomes a Christian he must surrender all the pleasures of life, and assume a garb of melancholic sobriety. No; let our children and the youth of the Sunday school give full fling at appropriate times and places to the elasticity and buoyancy of their spirits.

I can conceive of no mode of treatment being more damaging to the mental future of a bright, active, impetuous boy or girl than that perpetual snubbing of which some parents and teachers are so fond. Whether the aphorism in equine science be or be not true, that "the wildest colts make the best horses," of one thing I am quite sure, that nothing can be more disastrous to the prospects of a young person than the success of an operation which is often attempted, and some* A paper read at a meeting of Sunday School Teachers held at Fleet, in connection with the Lincolnshire Sunday School Union, and published by request.