Fanny. Throughout the volume pathos and humor, seriousness and drollery, plaintiveness and mirthfulness succeed each other in rhythmical alternation to the exclusion of dullness. Pessimism has no place in the experience or writings of Fanny Crosby. She is a born optimist. The exuberance of her spirits is perennial. Beyond this she has two never-failing sources of support in her affliction, namely, religion and philosophy. Her unwavering faith in God and resignation to his will enable her to say with St. Paul, "I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." The writer on one occasion expressed his sympathy with her in her "affliction," whereupon she declared, "Bless you! my lack of sight is not afflictive to me.

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Saviour all the day long."

Since the life story covering a span of fourscore years of any respectable person possessed of a normal mental equipment abounds with picturesque incident, how much more striking, even if less abundant, are the experiences of bright, active, restless persons who have been "all their lifetime subject to bondage" through the loss of natural vision. To be deprived of the most important of the five senses presupposes an abridgment of the opportunities which the majority of mankind enjoy for the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to render useful service to their fellows. Still, to quote from the autobiographer's "Life Story,” “Seeing is not all done with the optical organs." The apostle Paul's expression, "The eyes of your understanding being enlightened," while it is used in a figurative sense, suggests the presence of another seeing faculty, subjective, to be sure, but none the less potential. Does anyone doubt that Fanny Crosby has all her life long realized the fruition of the sixth beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God"? The volume contains an introduction by Will Carleton, an original poem by Margaret E. Sangster, and a number of hitherto unpublished poetical effusions from the author's pen.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Epworth League Reading Course for 1903-1904. New York: Eaton & Mains. Cincinnati: Jennings & Pye. 3 vols. 16mo. Price, $1 net.

In the selection of the Epworth League Reading Course for 19031904 the authorities of the League have displayed excellent judgment. Limiting their choice to three books, which might be sold for the small sum of one dollar per set, they decided to prepare one volume on a religious topic, one on literature, and one on some phase or department of science popularly treated. For the scientific volume they made admirable choice by the reissue of Dr. Elisha Gray's Electricity and Magnetism, which first appeared as Volume III of "Nature's Miracles." It was Dr. Gray's endeavor to give such

a simple exposition of the phenomena and applications of electricity in a general way that the popular reader might get a definite elementary understanding of the subject. Without the elaborate technical drawings and specifications which usually stand like a dragon at the gate of this department of knowledge, Dr. Gray has given us a delightful sketch of the history of electrical science and of magnetism. The second volume is Books and Life, by that fine thinker and elegant rhetorician William A. Quayle. Such varied topics as the Lowell Letters and Wesley's Journal, Melrose Abbey and Allen Buckner, Womanliness and the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, are discussed with freshness and charm. "I wish I could have heard Wesley pitch a tune," exclaims Dr. Quayle, and one cannot turn over the pages of this dainty booklet without wishing again to hear the powerful pulpit orator who so readily transforms himself into the elegant essayist. The third volume differs from the other two as widely as they differ from each other. It is entitled Back to Oxford, and is from the pen of Dr. James Henry Potts, the brilliant editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate. A subtitle calls the book "A Search for the Essentials of Methodism," and no one who reads it will declare the search to have been unavailing. The substance and genius of Methodism, its backbone and vital force, are here discussed. Every phase of active Church life is considered, new developments, discarded customs, features that should live; and then in an eloquent chapter the future is forecast.

The Conquest. By EVA EMERY DYE, Author of McLoughlin and Old Oregon, Second Edition. Crown 8vo, pp. 443. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. Price, cloth, $1.50.

Next year is the centenary of the exploring expedition headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clarke, which left St. Louis in 1804, passed up to the Missouri and over the mountains to the headwaters of the Columbia, and thehce to the Pacific coast, returning overland in 1806. The Journals of Lewis and Clarke have recently been reprinted by McClurg & Co. Mrs. Dye's story weaves its woof principally upon the warp of that great exploration. The most remarkable sequel to the Lewis and Clarke exploration of the Northwest was the two-thousand-miles journey on foot of four Nez Perces Indians from Oregon to St. Louis in 1830 to find William Clarke, whom they called the Red-headed Chief, who was now United States superintendent of Indian affairs, in order to get "the white man's Book of Heaven" of which an American trapper had told them. The Conquest reaches to cover the work of Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman in Oregon. It thrills with deeds of heroism and consequence. To-day the frontiersman, having finished the conquest of this continent, is building Nome City in the Arctic, and hewing the forests of the Philippines. The centennial of the Lewis and Clarke discoveries will be celebrated by a fair in Portland, Oregon, in 1905.

William McKinley, Twenty-fifth President of the United States.

Born in Niles, O., January 29, 1843. Died in Buffalo, N. Y., September 14, 1901.

METHODIST REVIEW.

NOVEMBER, 1903.

ART.I.-WILLIAM MCKINLEY, THE IDEAL AMERICAN. "Blest is he whose heart is the home of the great dead

And their great thoughts."

THE instinct of humanity will not let the name of the righteous perish. Men are not only inspired with love and gratitude toward their benefactors, but they also take a pride in perpetuating the fame, in immortalizing the names of their national heroes, because they justly flatter themselves that these whom they honor represent to the world and to posterity all that is best in themselves and in their nationality. These standards, these ideals, are what we would attain; these great, good men represent the national aspiration; they are the first fruit to ripen on the tree of liberty, the first sure-footed climbers to reach the summit of the people's progress, the first bright stars of the galaxy to shine out and penetrate the darkness which holds the world in mystery and fear. If distance of time is necessary to secure a proper angle of vision for estimating the historical proportions of a great man, it is for those who knew him and witnessed his development and achievements to pass the verdict on his character which the ages can never reverse. The illustrious Burke said, "Great men make great nations, great nations great men." It is our boast that great men never made a greater nation than this, and it is our belief that one of the greatest and one of the best men this nation ever made was William McKinley.