The Press.
London, England, 1858-06-26 00:00:00

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beginning to be entertained in some quarters, of
missionary labour taken up for a limited period,
and then to be laid aside :

Nothing so wounded Judson as the temptations which
he found the churches at home presenting to missionaries
to make a stepping-stone of the heathen-field. It is
with regret and consternation," he wrote to the Secretary
of the Board, " that we have just learned that a new mis•
sionary has come out for a limited term of years. I much
fear that this will occasion a breach in our mission. How
can we, who are devoted for life, cordially take to our hearts
and councils one who is a mere hireling? I have seen
the beginning, middle, and end of several limited•term
missionaries. They are all good for nothing. They come
out for a few years, with the view of acquiring a stock of
credit on which they may vegetate the rest of their days in
the congenial climate of their nativelland. As to lessening
the trials of the candidate for missions, it is just what
ought not to be done. Missionaries need more trials on
their first setting out, instead of less. The motto of every
missionary—whether preacher, printer, or schoolmaster
—ought to be, ' Devoted for life.' A few days ago,
brother Kincaid was asked by Burmese officer of
government how long he intended to stay. Untila II
Burmah worship the Eternal God,' was the prompt
reply. If the limited-term system, which begins to he
fashionable in some quarters, gain the ascendancy, it will
be the death-blow of missions." And he added :—" Eviuse
my freedom of speech, and believe me to he, with all faith-
fulness and respect, your ` devoted for life,' A. JUDSON."

This was the tone of a conqueror—of one who
would "do, or die " ;—of one who had broken
down the bridge behind him ! And it was fitly
rewarded :

The Burman king now welcomes to his territory the
servants of Jesus Christ. And so mightily does the Word
of God prevail, that, in two provinces alone—Tenaaserim
and Pegu, the number of hopeful converts has risen to
eleven thousand, nine hundred, and sixty-six, with a norni-
natty Christian population of at least one hundred
thousand!

The two small volumes, then—" Africa's
Mountain Valley," which contains the history of
Regent's Town, and " Rivers in the Desert,"
which gives us the narrative of the Burmese
Mission—are alone in their class. Each por-
trays a model man—the one of a plain school-
master, who, by the simple power of the Gospel,
subdued and Christianized hundreds of poor
savages ; the other of a man of genius, a man of
ambition, who aimed at the conquest of an
empire for Christ, and who succeeded in his
object.

RAILWAY NOVELS.
Tracey; or, the Apparition. By Mrs. Thomson.
London : Hodgson.

2. Billets and Bivouacs. London : Routledge.
3. Parthenia. By Eliza Buokminster Lee. London :
Routledge.
4. Hand and Glove. By Miss Edwards. London :
Brown.
RAILWAY travellers are fast becoming alive to the
conviction that the illuminated covers which make
so many stations as gay as beds of flowers are be-
coming in most cases a mockery, a delusion, and a
snare. The traveller who, tempted on one journey
by the startling outside of some book the intense
stupidity of which causes him to throw it out of the
window before he has proceeded twenty miles, is
attracted, on the next occasion, by the severe sim-
plicity of attire in which respectable publishers en-
velope their most cherished reprints, and neglects
golden sunsets and scenes of terrific violence (in red
and yellow) for the comparatively plain exterior of Miss
Bronti or Miss Martineau. Nimium ne crede colori
certainly applies to most of the volumes now before
us. But we feel more especially bound to warn un-
suspecting readers against " Tracey " (I)—an " Ap-
parition" which will certainly never disturb the
slumbers of the most nervous invalid. This Mrs.
Thomson is not the Mrs. Thomson of whose "Court
Secrets " we had occasion to speak highly a short
time since. Her ghost had, till explained, some
pretensions to odylic character. But the one before
us is merely a pale rechauffee of Lord Lyttelton's,
and is as mere a turnip and•white.sheet.as the most
• artless village hobgoblin ever illuminated by tallow.
The story itself is the most feeble, maundering,
dreary production it has for a long time been our
fate to meet with. It moves at a funeral pace. and
the greater number of the characters contribute
nothing, that we can see, to the progress of the plot ;
which is of the sort that is made up by injured
y • rightful heirs, wicked noblemen, and concealed wills.
-at To mitigate the wild excitement produced by such
ad ingredients, the most prosaic inhabitants of a country
we neighbourhood converse at full length through
be' many a wearisome page. In the author's own de-
scription of these there may perhaps be a gleam of
fa* shrewdness—such as you find in some ill nature d
-3:- old maid who has all her neighbours characters at
- "- her scissors' ends ; but the pervading atmosphere is
that of dulness, unrelieved by any curiosity about
the hero or heroine, who are not quite so real as the
phantasms of a bad dream. Altogether this book,