retained its place for many years, and that thousands of little readers should have plodded their weary way through its unwholesome pages. For combined wretchedness and self-righteousness, for groveling fear and a total lack of charity, the "Fairchild Family" are without equals in literature, and, I hope, in life. Lucy Fairchild, at nine, comes to the conclusion "that there are very few real Christians in the world, and that a great part of the human race will be finally lost;" and modestly proposes to her brother and sister that they should recite some verses "about mankind having bad hearts." This is alacritously done, the other children being more than equal to the emergency; and each in turn quotes a text to prove that "the nature of man. after the fall of Adam, is utterly and entirely sinful." Lest this fundamental truth should be occasionally forgotten, a prayer is composed for Lucy, which she commits to memory, and a portion of which runs thus:—
"My heart is so exceedingly wicked, so vile, so full of sin, that even when I appear to be tolerably good, even then I am sinning. When I am praying, or reading the Bible, or hearing
