XX From John Wesley's Writings: The New Birth (The New Birth') Our Stewardship (The Good Steward') The Kingdom of Heaven (The First Discourse upon the The Love that Hopeth and Endureth All Things (Second A Catholic Spirit (Discourse Entitled 'Catholic Spirit') From Charles Wesley's Hymns: Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee Light of Life, Seraphic Fire Love Divine, All Love Excelling Eternal Beam of Light Divine Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild Thou Very Present Aid Hail! Holy, Holy, Holy Lord A Charge to Keep I Have And Have Measured Half My Days Jesus, Lover of My Soul Jesu, My Strength, My Hope IVAN VAZOFF (1850-) BY LUCY CATLIN BULL HE remote principality of Bulgaria does not attract a large have great peacock's-eyes, with glintings and delicate gradations of color-inky blots too, and deep shadows! These are not only worth examining,- they may become in a collection a source of permanent enjoyment. And if life in Bulgaria, either from the moral or the material point of view, has ever so few phenomena that have a peculiar vividness not to be found elsewhere, then it is only a question of time before the world begins to feel the richer for them. That the rugged little country really abounds in poetic and picturesque elements, may be inferred from the fact that her strongest and most prolific writer has been able to confine himself, partly from choice, partly from instinct, to the treatment of life in Bulgaria, without forfeiting his claim to the serious consideration of readers in all parts of the world. In other words, nothing could be racier of the soil than the poems and romances of Ivan Vazoff, born in 1850 in the little town of Sopot, under the shadow of the Great Balkan. No book was ever more thoroughly and lovingly steeped in local color than his most widely read novel, 'Under the Yoke.' But his patriotism, poured out year after year in a cause that seemed utterly hopeless, takes a form so exalted as to raise him above the mere delineator of character and gatherer of specimens. Besides, an irresistible affinity felt in boyhood for writers like Béranger and Victor Hugo, could but have a happy effect on a nervous style, and a diction reminding the reader of the mountain torrents it dwells upon. Who shall say how far a scrupulous choice of words, and a keen ear for the harmonies of verse and prose, may not have tended to rescue the young revolutionist from becoming the ephemeral organ of a political insurrectiop? IVAN VAZOFF |