Pau/ and Christina. By Amelia E. Barr. (James Clarke and
Co.) —This powerful story is, if our memory serves, constructed on much the same lines as one from the same pen which was praised in the Spectator some time ago,—" Jan Vedder'e Wife." Paul Monsen, a fine specimen of the sturdy Shetlauder, marries Christina Bork, a beautiful girl, but shallow and selfish. Then follows the tragio story of their wedded life. She is led away by bad companions and by her own
selfish folly. More than once Paul finds her overcome with drink. At last he takes her child from her, as a trust which she is not fit to keep, and hands it to his mother. Be himself goes on a whale-voyage. It is this child which is made, by a finely imagined and well.told series of events, to bring back the erring woman to her better self and to her husband. A truer and more pathetic story it would not be easy to find. The Shetland minister is a very striking figure ; and it is particularly good to read of how be is brought to better and more catholic thoughts about the fate of the babe whioh hail died nnbaptised because he had refused, according to the custom of his Church, to impart the blessings of God to any but the children of the righteous.
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