had rallied to their mistress's defence. But when he pressed her for an answer, she threw St Paul overboard, seeming to intimate, like Mr John P. Robinson, that "they didn't know everything down in Judee." On another occasion she betrayed her belief that the Old Testament had been translated from the Greek; and when she was confronted with two contradictory statements which no adroitness could reconcile, her only defence was, "Oh, Mr that was not worthy of you." The ritual is a little changed now. There are two "Readers" on the platform, the one playing chorus to the other; and they have a wonderful reading of the Lord's Prayer, a paraphrase by Mrs Eddy, in which the opening words are said to be "Our Father and Mother," on the plea that it is wrong to attribute sex to the Deity.

them cured of Christian Science for all time; not the undertakers or the coroners, who live by fees; not the relations of the converts, who gain by the conversion of fractious hypochondriacs into contented dupes; not the hypochondriacs themselves, who have at last found the kind of the kind of bread - pill that appeals to their imagination. Mrs Eddy and Mrs Field-King deserve the reward of their consummate ingenuity as much or as little as they would if they had won it by clever operations on the Stock Exchange, where their remarkable talents must have assured them success. But instead of assailing these clever ladies and their converts, let us watch the movement with sympathetic interest as a study of a curious side of many-sided human nature; as an excursion of the rich uneducated women of the day into philosophy and professionalism, as their protests against the intolerable dulness of a life of ease and pleasure from which their intellectual limitations prevent them from escaping by the channels open to their better educated sisters. Christian Science is important, because for the moment it is gaining ground so rapidly in London; but it will run the inevitable course of all such movements-schism, mutual vituperation, and extinction.

This is a free country, and if people choose to give their money to an ingenious American, and to do their doctoring at home, who can object? Certainly not the doctors, who suck thereout no small advantage in the end, the suffering patients, having tried the experiment of a smiling lady sitting by the bedside and assuring them that there is no such thing as pain, come back to

WHEN Nelson was negotiating with the Bashaw of Tripoli, and urging that potentate to make peace with our protégés, the two Sicilies and Portugal, the negotiations proceeded satisfactorily up to a certain point. Then the Bashaw found himself on the horns of a dilemma from which it was impossible to escape, and which promptly brought the negotiations to a close he explained that if peace was concluded with our friends he would have no war on his hands, and then, said he, "What am I to do with my frigates?" From the Bashaw's point of view this argument was unanswerable: the frigates were provided for fighting purposes, therefore if he had frigates he must have a war to keep them employed. Moreover, he could not dispense with his ships, because his dignity would be impaired if he laid them up, so the war must go on. Accordingly the frigates sailed on their usual marauding expeditions. Here we see a standing navy regarded as an excellent reason for breaking the peace, and this was a common sentiment not only in Tripoli but all over Europe in the middle ages. Gradually, however, a great change has come about, and the nineteenth century, which is notable for the large

increase of the navies of the world, is also notable for the almost entire absence of serious fighting at sea.

Thus it came to pass that Sir William Mends, who served from 1827 to 1883, either afloat or at the Admiralty, never was in a purely naval action; and indeed since the battle of Navarino in 1827 no British man-of-war has been engaged at sea. Fighting there has been in which the navy has borne a part; but in every instance the fighting took place in connection with shore operations, and much of it was actually on shore. In this fighting, as we shall see, Mends took his share. Indeed the book seems to have been written by the Admiral's son, who himself served some time in the navy, not so much to give to the world an account of the high attainments of the Admiral, but rather to throw light on the work of the navy during the period which it covers, and especially to place on record the aspect of the Crimean campaign as viewed from the quarter-deck of Lord Lyons' flagship, which vessel was in closer touch with the land forces by whom the main operations in the Crimea were carried on than any other ship in the Black Sea.

In common with Blake, Nelson, Jervis, Collingwood, and the great majority of prominent naval men, Mends came from a good middle-class family. It is indeed remarkable how few of our great naval commanders have been of noble birth. Many a scion of the nobility has worthily proved his mettle in the sister service; but the noblemen who have served afloat have very seldom risen to prominence. In the early part of this century the proportion of noblemen serving in the fleet was by no means insignificant, and their interest always enabled them to get such appointments as would give the opportunity of coming to the front; but very few distinguished themselves.

country's service, stood in a very different position from that of some Admiralty nominee whose friends had political interest; and the boy

does not seem to have been badly received by his messmates. His first ship was the Thetis frigate, stationed on the South American command; and though in the piping times of peace the commission did not pass without more than one incident, which showed that lives may be lost in the service even in peacetime, and that it is quite possible for a man-of-war to be called upon to fight even when there is no war. The first occurrence took place in Valparaiso Bay. The Thetis was moored with two anchors ahead and a third astern, a portion of her men ashore, top-gallant sails unbent and awnings spread, when a Chilian official hurried on board to ask for assistance in the capture of a 24-gun brig whose crew had mutinied and were making off with the ship, which contained a large amount of Chilian Government treasure.

In a few minutes awnings were down, sails bent and set, cables were buoyed and slipped, and the ship was in full chase of the brig. Only three-quarters of an hour had elapsed from the first warning when the Thetis drew up within gunshot of the runaway, and a shot was fired across her bows:

in

The method by which young Mends entered the navy 1827 was practically the same as that which is in force at present he had eighteen months' training as a cadet in a college on shore before being sent to sea. But this was then a novelty, and the youngsters who entered in this way-"college volunteers," as they were styled-were looked upon with a certain amount of suspicion by the service afloat. From time immemorial the nomination and entry of youngsters to the service had rested with the captains, and they naturally resented being deprived of their patronage. Mends, however, being the son of a captain in the navy, one of fourteen fighting brothers who obtained commissions in the navy or army, and most of whom lost their lives in their

"No notice was taken by the brig of the shot, so a second was fired over her, upon which she at once brought her topsail to the mast and lay to.