Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-11-25

and at last gets his position acknowledged.
The lives of Rob Bethune and Lesley Baird dc
} not go on so smoothly. There is a letter which
slips down through a hole in pocket and
makes no end of trouble.
"Life's Long Battle Won" is thoughtfully
written, reminding one at times of Macdonald.
The people are pleasant people to know. The
plot is well constructed and holds our atten-
tion throughout. 1t is not at all great novel;
there is too much preaching in it to satisfy the
canons Of literary art. But it is a good. whole
some, helpful book, and worth reading.
ass
"Life's long battle" is lost rather than won in
The Garden of Arnltdd (Cassell & Co. h.
Watts Co., so cents). Mrs. Starr, very nice
little widow, has found out by one experiment
that marriage is failure. She is willing. how
ever, to give the matter a fair test and to try
the experiment over again. For this purpose
she crosses the ocean to meet Eugene Merriam,
to whom she is betrothed. Mr.. Merriam is q
rather fast young journalist, to whom we are
introduced, little the worse for wine, at
supper at Delmontco's. Mrs. Starr fingers by
fellow, worth 200 Merriams. In the meantime
Merriam Wanders into "Armida's Garden"
The old story of Tannhauscr and the Venus
hill, Of Ulysses and Calypso is acted over again.
Finally ID Lor1a visits Merriam, asking Tor a
severlng OF the engagement. The interview Is
very well told. The author of the "Garden OF
Armida' is Anne Sheldon Coombs.
A stout fellow in medissval armor holds up
banner Of extraordinary size upon the cover Of
Il Knight of Faith. u. s. Ogilvie.) The real
knight of the book, however. is a lady. Miss
Roland, OF Potucket, ought to have been pro-
fessor Of dogmatic theology in a German Uni
versity. She Is learned enough. And her
learning gets into her conversation in an
alarming way The learning was not at all
al hOWaVQr Tn nr ri n
skeptieal physician who comes to the light un-
der Miss RDland's guiding. Miss Lydia II.
Farmer, who wrote this book, had excellent in
for Robert Elsmere" She gathered together
great lot of pretty good material, and in a
mistaken moment thought it might go further
II little balloon were tied to it in the form Of
plot. The theology, unfortunately, outweighs
the fiction. There is too much ballast in this
balloon. Elsmere was bad enough, but this is
Internationally bad. "Our casual intuition
thus making self-evident the impossibility that
our conscious life could have been begotten by
dead non-consciousness; our will by fate; our
conscience by nescience; our identity by nonen-
tity" etc, etc This is too much. This-knight
has too much armor on. The theo-
logical lovers are happily married. They were
riding together in Central Park. When she
flashed on him a look which sent the
blood tingling to his heart; and strong man as
he was, his brain for an instant grew dizzy in
transport Of overwhelming emotion All, this
was marriage of soulsp' This sort of thing
goes on all the time. At last they Join the Nc
All Mission in Paris. One day they are return
ing from a visit to lone Of the towns of
France, where for 200 years the Gospel of
Christ had not been preached till this Knight
of Faith planted there the banner of the
cross" ~ when down goes a bridge and the
train with it, and that Is the end of the hero.
In the next chapter an ocean steamer founders
and that is the end of the heroine.
SO
A quite different discussion of theological
matter is published by the editors of a new
magazine, The arena. The programme for
December is an attractive one. Savage, Froth-
teachers are the contributors. Mary A. Liver
more has something TO say about woman
suffrage, and Helen Campbell sets down Ser
tain Convictions as to Poverty" Rabbi Solo
mon Scnindler discusses History in the Public
Schools"