CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
The Log of a 24 Pilot. By the Rev. Thomas Stanley Treanor. (Religious Tract Society.)—A " sky pilot," in sailors' parlance is a clergyman generally, and specially a clergyman who has a spiritual charge among seamen. Mr. Treanor's book describes "work and adventure around the Goodwin Sands," and describes with both simplicity and force. One of his duties is to visit the light-ships, and those visits, though the inexperienced reader would scarcely think so, often involve much adventure, and even danger. Mr. Treanor, for instance, describes his visits to the ` Verne Lightship,' which lies off Folkestone. Deal is the nearest station, and Deal is twenty miles away. Two attempts in suc- cession to reach the ship failed ; the first time, the sea was too high ; the second, there came on a thick fog ; a third effort was successful. In the return from yet another, an adventure that had no small peril in it was met with. It was evident that with an unfavourable wind Deal could not be reached before the tide turned. So the crew resolved to fasten hold on a steamer going that way. This is neither safe nor easy, as we see from Mr. Treanor's vivid description ; and it is scarcely less perilous to cast off. There are many things to read about the life on these light-ships, as well as about other matters which come within the chaplain's experience. His book is one of much interest from various points of view, both religious and secular.
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