the darkness of his unlucky circumstances; he gets into trouble and out again, richer by the realization that it takes much time to erase the scars of folly."Left to Themselves "* is a story for boys to read on a forbidding rainy day which makes necessary a long quiet time indoors just when they feel most restlessly inclined. It is not calm reading, and the boys will feel their blood tingle as if from a race, while their credulity will need special care after such vigorous exercise. Two boys, Philip and Gerald are thrown together, become firm friends, are shipwrecked, and reap enough troubles for a harvest of wrinkles, but an average amount of native practical intelligence ripens their woes into joys, and at last they become men honorable and respectable if not widely noted.— A cozy story † of good aims, good resolves, and good results, not unmingled with a plentiful amount of good sense, is told of a lovable city

Left to Themselves. By Edward Irenæus Stevenson. Price, $1.00. At Brown's: An Adirondack Story. By Jean Kate Ludlum. New York: Hunt & Eaton. Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe. Price, $1.25.

girl, who with broken health and heart torn by the recent death of her mother, went to the Adirondacks to recruit. In unselfishly soothing the grief of others she soothes her own, and adds to the enjoyment of everybody. The book is spiced with descriptions of mountain scenery and with adventures which do not flatten into matrimonial bliss.

The translations of Honoré de Balzac's novels furnish English reading students with exceptionally fine studies in minuteness of detail and flight of fancy. His delicacy of description sometimes, however, approaches tediousness. His work is marred by the low estimate placed on human character, and by its tone of immorality. The volume entitled "Ursula "* and belonging to the noted series called The Comedy of Human Life, is teeming with scenes from provincial life. "The Lily of the Valley "t is one of his less known and somewhat less caustic attempts.

* Ursula. †The Lily of the Valley. By Honoré de Balzac. Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. Boston: Roberts Brothers, Price of each, $1.50.

HOME NEWS.-June 3. Death of Dr. Benson J. Lossing, the historian.Opening at Asbury Park, N. J., of the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America.

June 27. The one hundred and thirteenth anniversary of the battle of Monmouth is celebrated on the battle field.

June 30. The Weather Bureau is transferred

Boston.

June 9. The Unitarian Conference opens in Buffalo, N. Y.- -At Fort Wayne, Ind., the convention of railroad employees is begun.

June 11. The Rev. Dr. Henry M. MacCracken is made Chancellor of the University of New York in place of Dr. John Hall, resigned. June 16. Colgate University receives a gift of $1,000,000 from Mr. James B. Colgate. Annual meeting of the Supreme Lodge, A.O. U.W., opens in Detroit.

'June 20. Much damage is done by storms in the West. -The International Homeopathic Congress opens in Atlantic City.

FOREIGN NEWS.-June 4. The Itata surrenders in the harbor of Iquique.

June 6. Death of Sir John Macdonald, the Canadian premier.

June 8. Strike of 5,000 omnibus drivers in London.

The Behring Sea bill is signed by

June 11. Queen Victoria.

June 14. Over one hundred persons killed and many injured in a railroad accident in Switzerland.

June 15. Verona, Italy, suffers a severe earthquake shock.

June 20. Germany, Austro-Hungary, Italy, and Switzerland form a customs league.

June 25. Strike of the grocers, butchers, and bakers of Paris.

June 26. The new Spanish commercial treaty

June 29.

The Triple Alliance is renewed for -The Sultan of Turkey ratifies the Brussels Anti-Slavery Convention act.

VOL. XIII.

No. 6.

I.

THE GRECO-RUSSIAN CHURCH.

NE of the best means, perhaps, of apprehending correctly the character of a race is to study its religion. Religions are, as it were, the molds into which the successive generations recorded by history are cast. Often even after the mold is broken do they retain its imprint. On the other hand, religions, like rivers, tak ing the color of the beds wherein they flow, are influenced by the particular character of the peoples that adopt them, by their climate, by the land they inhabit. In no country is this more evident than in Russia, where Christianity presents so unique a phase and seems so wholly a part of the life blood of the nation. In no other country could Church and State have become so wholly one and the same thing.

It is well known how the Russian Slavs were originally governed by Scandinavian princes; how in 864, Rurick, no doubt one of those enterprising sea-kings, taking possession of the coasts of the Baltic, brought the land under his rule and founded that vast monarchy-the Empire of Russia. Less known, perhaps, is the introduction of Christianity into the land.

Two brothers, Dir and Orkhold, after being companions of Rurick, broke away from him

and founded a second monarchy with Kiev for its capital. Next, trying to push their conquests still farther south, they attacked Constantinople. Here they were converted to Christianity, and forthwith sent missionaries to Russia to convert their subjects likewise. It has been a matter of dispute among historians whether the precise date of this event is 866 or 867. If it were in the former year, it was under Photius, the schismatic Patriarch of Constantinople; if in the latter, under Ignatius the Patriarch in communion with the Church of Rome. Whichever it was, the Cross was planted, and planted so deep in the soil of Russia that of all modern nations there is no other at the present time that can be said to have preserved so unalterable a faith in the Savior and so childlike a submission to the decrees of Providence.

Studying the history of this Christianization, we find its modus operandi pretty much the same as in Western Europe. More force was employed than persuasion: the sword being by far the more effective of the two. Neither Clovis nor Charlemagne reasoned with his troops. However, it was not till 988 that coercive measures were employed and Christianity became duly established. The empire had recovered its unity in 882 under Oleg, and in 988 Vladimir the Apostolic determined what should be the religion of the land. the grandson of Olga, the so-called Russian Helena, who had been baptized at Constantinople, and exercised upon her grandson the same influence that the mother of Constantine the Great exercised over her son.

He was

But Vladimir, despite his surname, was of no Christian disposition. Cruel and violent,