for them in the unhappy attitude taken by the Board. In all seriousness they need to be told that they are in danger of doing irreparable mischief to the cause they love best. The Christian young men of our day are many of them seeking relief from the older construction of church creeds. There is a general ferment of religious thought : religious young men share the inquiring spirit of the time. If they are manly thinkers, they cannot choke inquiry, nor run blindly in the old paths. One of the things hard to be accepted, though formerly unquestioned, is the dogma of eternal suffering as a punishment for all the unenlightened heathen. From the days of John Foster many devout Christians have stood aghast at this sweeping, tremendous doom. Few hold the belief now to the same extreme. Some find relief in one possibility, some in another. "Additional immortality" is the relieving hypothesis of some English divines; and among British Congregationalists Doctor R. W. Dale is in good fellowship. Most of the “majority” doctors at Springfield find relief in supposing that a moral readiness to receive Christ is accounted to many heathen for righteousness, though they never hear of him in this world. This is a "larger hope" than was deemed permissible when the American Board was founded. Now comes another hypothesis, coupled with the name of our oldest theological seminary, of a possible probation hereafter for such as never have the evangel here. It is not held as a dogma. It is only a hope to fall back upon when one is staggered at the old, relentless belief. It is possible to give such an hypothesis an unwarranted prominence. But so far as appears, the candidates rejected by Doctor Alden are not at all "cranks"; they really come under Doctor Storrs's specification of those who "leave the whole momentous matter in the hands of Him who, as Judge of all the earth, will do right in wisdom and love." Such, Doctor Storrs' says, may be commissioned by the Board. They do not preach this hypothesis as a cardinal doctrine, nor as a doctrine at all. They did not flaunt it in the face of the Prudential committee. But when Doctor Alden applied his corkscrew, viz, an extra article of his creed, (and one rejected by the national creed commission), then he found in them this form of the larger hope. It lay quiet in their hearts, but it was their refuge from conclusions that appalled them. The injustice of the majority was in insisting that this was a bold and defiant doctrine, recklessly perversive of the gospel of Christ. Over and over again men with this latent hope had been installed in prominent pastorates at home, because it was found that they were devoted and efficient workers in the Master's vineyard. In Christian spirit they suffer nothing in comparison with the most orthodox." That they are orthodox, who will take it on himself to deny, fresh from re-reading Matthew xxv.? The suspicious, unsympathetic, denunciatory policy of the hyper-orthodox has much to answer for in repelling honest-minded men from church fellowship. It has kept promising church members out of the gospel ministry. And those who enter the ministry are now, it seems, to be told that they are fit only for certain forms of ministerial service. "Stand by, for I am holier than thou." It is all a mistake to try to put fetters on our young preachers at home or abroad. If they are to be worth anything to the church, if they are to be equipped for the great battle with materialism and skepticism, they "must be free." They must be not merely allowed, but encouraged, to think for themselves. If any go plainly out of evangelical bounds, of course they part company with their brethren; but within those bounds it is folly to reject or to brand them." In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." Christian tolerance is one of the needs of the time; the wisdom to see who is, and who is not, heartily on the side of Christian truth and imbued with Christian love. Few of the minority at Springfield indorsed the so-called Andover hypothesis. The writer of this protest does not indorse it but he believes, with that minority, that it is unjust and suicidal to set up a spiritual imperium in imperio to tie the hands and padlock the lips of those who go forth in Christ's name to win the nations to Him. had their share in the Saxon conquest of Britain; and there are in the vulgar dialect of certain portions of England traces of Frisian speech. In the seventh century, the Frisians came into hostility with the Franks; and after long warfare of wavering success, Charlemagne subdued them and gave them a system of law (Lex Frisonum). When the empire of Charlemagne was parceled among his successors after Fontenay, Frisia was partitioned between Lewis the German and Charles the Bald. Subsequently it was overrun by the Normans; but when they abandoned their conquest, Frisia fell into fragments of states which afforded a great degree of freedom to the subjects. Local systems of laws grew up in the several districts; and these codes, together with some fragments of Christian instructions, are practically all the monuments left of Old Friesic, a tongue that reached its highest develop ment in Chaucer's day. The first edition of the present work was published in 1881, and was reviewed in the Californian for July of that year. It was very favorably received by the English critics, (See Notes and Queries for July 16, 1881,) and obtained warm American commendation from what we may regard as our then highest authority, the poet Longfellow. The work as it was originally issued was but a skeleton as compared with the present, which has been expanded and enlarged upon in many interesting points; and for the better aiding of the student, has been provided with reading lessons and glossary. Anglo-Saxon has of late years been the subject of great philological interest in both England and Germany; while the Friesic tongue, of almost equal interest, has suffered neglect. For Mr. Cummins's work it may be claimed that, apart from certain comparative grammars, it is the only guide to a knowledge of Friesic, and in fact that it is the only complete Friesic grammar in any language. Friesic, like Anglo-Saxon, is a twig of the Low German stock. There is a modern Friesic spoken in the peninsula surrounded by the Zuyder Zee, and there Two Books about Authors.1 are Friesic dialects in use in the islands of Föhr, Sylt, Two books of biographical sketches of authors are Amrum, Wangerog, and Heligoland. Necessarily, in hand, both of them by writers whose names are where the Friesic speech is merely a vernacular, liaguarantees that, if the work is a kind of hack work ble to corrupt importations from kindred patois, it — as all such writing must be, it is hack work of suffers material changes. There can no longer be the better sort. Mrs. Bolton has attempted the more said to be a Friesic literary language. And what we difficult task, for her scheme requires an account of may adopt as a language for grammatical purposes can the author's work, and some attempt to characterize be but one of many dialects, just as Tuscan is the it. Since she begins with the great gods of our type of Italian. Max Müller says: "What is, thereliterary pantheon, and uses up her stock of encomium fore, generally called the Frisian language, and on them, she is somewhat embarrassed, on reaching described as such in Frisian graminars, is in reality the lesser names beyond, lest she should seem to but one out of many dialects, though no doubt the damn with faint praise. In the endeavor to avoid most important." this her work is a succession of such unmixed eulogy that it cloys the reader's taste if taken continuously. To appreciate fully the wealth and force of our English tongue, it would seem only logical to go back to the history of each particular language that entered into the mixture. There was a time when the scholar was interested only in the Latin element. as it appeared in direct draughts from the Roman classics, or at second-hand from the French. But not so very long ago it occurred to the masters of English instruction that some attention was due to the Anglo-Saxon side of our mother tongue. The influence of AngloSaxon study began to show itself in current speech as well in a new vigor as in a return to apt words that threatened to become obsolete. The same arguments in favor of Anglo-Saxon study will apply (possibly with less force) to the study of Friesic, albeit the literature that serves as a menstruum for the conveying of the desired knowledge, consisting as it does of rude expositions of half savage law, may not be very inviting to a mere sentimental student. Mr. Rideing escaped this difficulty because his work treats only of the boyhood of his authors. This enables him to fill his space with amusing incidents rather than with eulogy, and makes his work far more likely to be successful with the young people, for whom both books are intended. Both of them will prove inspiring reading to the boy or girl that hopes some day to become an author: for they prove again what has been proved so many times in American life and yet cannot be proved too often, that no circumstances, however adverse, can prevent an ambitious, industrious, and talented lad from making his way to the upper walks of any profession he may choose. 1 Famous American Authors. By Sarah K. Bolton. THE OVERLAND MONTHLY. VOL. XI. (SECOND SERIES.)-MARCH, 1888.-No. 63. A STORY OF CHANCES. "CARAMBA!" exclaimed Mateo Fernandez the aguador, "Que burro maldito! Am I to run my soul into sin a dozen times a day, and every day in the week for thee?" and with no gentle hands he caught by mane and tail the stumbling donkey, laden with great jars of pure water, and set it-staggering with the shock of the stumble, and force of its recovery again on its feet; releasing it with a sounding thwack, and as it followed, somewhat dazed, the jog trot of its mate, apostrophizing in no choice terms the faults and vices of the whole asinine race, at last continuing : "Was there ever such luck as mine? There is a burro that I bought for three dollars a ruinous price, but he was extolled to the skies, and warranted to bring me a fortune-and what happens? Valgame Dios, in all the time I have had him he has done nothing but dance for the Devil, who made him. The Señor Contador himself could not sum up how many cantarros of pure water he has spilt for me, and it is not for everyone that they can be refilled at the public fountain in the square of the city, but I must needs trudge back to the spring on the mountain. There is Doña Luyita, for example, turning the jars over before my eyes, and declaring it mud that lay at the bottom, though I swore it was only the honey and balm that makes the spring of the Bufa the sweetest in all Mexico. 'Honey and balm!' cried she in a rage. 'Ay ! and this too, then, may be medios and cuartillos, for you will get no other from me'; and she threw me a handful of rubbish instead of the money I should have had. Then coming up from the town today what should the clumsy brute do but tumble headlong and smash my largest ollas upon the very spot where he would have come to grief but for my quickness just now. I am beginning to feel as light as a pelota thrown from hand to hand, with constant bounding and springing. At this rate. when am I to get the money to buy Catarina the string of corals I promised her, much less to pay the priest and the Alcade, who must both have a hand in the marriage. My faith! girls it seems were not so particular when my mother spoke a word in the church, and followed my father to the choya on the hillside, and they were a peaceful couple — many a fandango was danced when the duros were plenty, and he never beat her on a feast day, except he should chance to have found the mescal strong enough to mislead him. Mi madre! ay she was a treasure of gold, and took the bad with the good as contentedly as though the Pope himself and the Señor Presidente and all his ministers had tied her and her viejo together." VOL. XI.-15. (Copyright, 1888, by OVERLAND MONTHLY CO. All rights reserved.) Bacon & Company, Printers. When Mateo's reflections had reached this point, the narrow vereda or bridle path by which he was making the descent of the bare precipitous mountain that overlooked the city and supplied the choicest drinking water for its wealthy inhabitants, made a sudden curve around a certain outcropping of rocks, whence he could see directly beneath him the straggling highroad that from the mines in the hills led to the town, which lay ensconced in a valley, the flat roofs of the houses and the cross-crowned towers of its churches gleaming in the vivid pureness of the summer sunshine. As Mateo stood on the bluff, every object within his range of vision seemed projected into the immediate foreground, so absolutely clear was the atmosphere, and a subdued murmur of voices reached him from the highway, where groups of villagers were collected near the church of San Federico. They were composed chiefly of laughing yet shamefaced maidens and young wives, for San Federico was ever pitiful in all domestic concerns, and at his shrine prayers for a speedy and fortunate marriage, or for the blessings of offspring for those already contracted, seldom went unanswered. Mateo Fernandez, like many a wiser man, was more apt to discern things at a distance than those immediately at hand, and it is not strange that aided by the purity of the atmosphere he should recognize among the devotees that tantalizing and exacting Catarina, whose promised corals were put in jeopardy by the evil doings of the perverse and clumsy donkey, the cause of his master's impatience and ill humor; for when one longs to be married, and is frightfully uncertain of the constancy of one's lady love, while the wherewithal to buy presents and pay the priest has to go in replacing broken water jars and feeing the padrino, who is wasting time most unaccountably in arranging the match, it is clearly a case for aggravation, and to an aguador debarred from supplying his customers from the convenient public fountain is a sufficient excuse for a little recrimination of the saints, his patron in particular, who certainly seemed deaf to his adjurations. Mateo, who was a brawny fellow, with a sullen and tanned face, and with a coppercolored breast and sinewy arms bared to the elements, would perhaps have smiled in spite of his ill humor at the sight of Catarina had she been alone. Indeed he had begun to regret, in the chance of meeting her, that though this was Sunday he was still in his workday clothes, a linen shirt, which long. ago had been whole and clean, loose leather pantaloons open from the knee over coarse drawers, which touched his sandals as he walked, and over his shoulders the sleeveless square of leather, and the pad upon which on occasion he carried his heavy cantarros. Catarina he could see had on her brightest skirt of red and white bayeta, with a line of green silk a quarter of a yard in depth gathered into the waist band. A shining reboso, which glistened purple or yellow as she moved, covered her head and shoulders and Mateo thought with a little shiver of jealousy how well she must look in it, for she was not with the other women as she should have been, but quite on the other side of the road talking to a barataro, or miner, who sat on the hillside, a sorry sight in his torn sombrero and scanty cotton clothing stained and yellow with clay, his jorongo at his feet, made up into a bundle, which he presently opened. Mateo knew it contained the miner's share of the busca or find of the preceding week. He was late, but he was evidently taking it into the city in the hope of selling it to some worker on ores, as he came from mass. "Pancho must have had his usual luck," thought Mateo, grimly. "It must be a poor lot if he has not been able to sell it at some hacienda de beneficio as he has come down to the city. Bah! it must be a worthless fellow, in truth, who needs fear Pancho Gil"; and he trudged on sturdily, for his two donkeys, perhaps inspired by the sight of Catarina, who in a gentle or coquettish mood had more than once given them a wisp of green barley, cantered down the slope at a pace which, while it endangered the water jars, soon brought them to the main road, where, in a cloud of dust raised by the feet of horses, mules, and donkeys laden with country produce, as well as by those of plodding humanity, Catarina still continued to delay and belate the unwary Pancho. Both looked up with some confusion, though they laughed, as Mateo stopped before them. "Buenos dios!" he said. "Hast thou made thy fortune already, Panchito, that thou art able to let the market hours go by, and thy rich busca still unsold?" and he pointed with a sour yet sarcastic smile at the little heap of stones on the jorongo. "Anda, Mateo !" what matters it whether I am early or late?" said the barataro gloomily. "Not a stroke of luck have I had since I met the mujer triste in the lower levels, a year ago. There's not an ounce of silver in all that pile, as you know well, and there's not a haciendero in all the town will give three medios for the whole lot." Now although Pancho was in such a depressed mood, and sighed like a furnace, Mateo noticed that Catarina seemed more interested in him than she had ever been in himself in his gayest moments. This was surely woman's perversity, for Pancho Gil was a mere boy with a face like a girl's, from which the big black eyes looked at you sometimes dancing with laughter, and sometimes, as now, swimming in womanish tears; he never had anything but ill luck, as he said, in his life, since he and his father had met the mujer triste. That ghostly weeping woman always foretold disaster, and on that occasion presaged the death of the father and the doom of Pancho to be the sole support of an ailing mother and five or six sisters, some too young, others too proud to work. Catarina had shrunk from the gaze of Mateo as if caught in a crime. She was only one of the plebe, yet it was a breach of etiquette that she should be standing alone talking to her old playfellow on the roadside. She turned away, yet was too defiant to flee, and in her embarrassment began to turn over the glittering fragments of the busca with the toe of her holiday slipper. Mateo's eyes followed the movement, and presently he started, biting his lips to keep back the exclamation that sprang to them. Vaya! Here was an image of wood to be jealous of! His head must be a gourd or as empty. Why, there was a great mass of native silver shining under Catarina's toe, and he who possessed had never noticed it! The luck is for him who will seize it. Although Mateo was but a water carrier, he had not lived among the mines all his life for nothing. He knew silver in the rock when he saw it, as well as Catarina would know honey in the comb. Gracias à Dios, he was not a violent man, and one might as well avenge one's jealousy by gain as by blood. Mateo carried a knife in his belt like his fellows, but, truth to tell, he had often thought if he drew a man's blood with it, it would spoil the edge for his tortillas and tasajo ever after; and here with a little diplomacy was better than tasajo within his reach. The means to buy the corals for Catarina, to pay the priest, and best of all to trick the boy, who with his soft gaze was taking the very heart out of the bosom of the woman he designed for his own, and who, urged by her parents and friends, had half consented to marry him. Mateo ground his teeth together, yet he smiled. "Chut! Chut!" cried he with an affectation of good humor. "Thou art in a sorry plight, Panchito. When ill fortune would take thee by both hands, there is nothing to do but put one behind thee, spirit or devil will give it a grasp, I warrant thee. And thou hast tried to sell thy busca, eh! Ah, the señors are too sharp with thee, they know thee to be but a boy; but it is not even the wisest that would shake his head at Mateo. Ah, they know me for an honest man who knows affairs. Hand me here thy piedritas, and look you drive my burritos into the city, and leave the cantarros at the house of Don Gumisindo Galvez, and I will cheat fortune for thee." Catarina stared at this sudden kindness, but started violently as Pancho, unmoved, began to gather the ends of the blanket leisurely together. "Dios te acompagña!” he |