further, he shall notify the bishop having charge of the Conference, who shall preside at the trial or appoint a traveling preacher to preside; and the records shall be kept by the secretary of the last Conference or one of his assistants. (3) Omit T 223 and ¶ 229, and leave out of ¶ 230 "either an investigation or," and conform § 2 and § 3 under ¶ 222 to § 1 under same T. D. S. MONROE.

Altoona, Pa.

APPROACHES TO UNION.

DR. HARRISON, the able editor of the Quarterly Review of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, presents a plan in his January number for the organic union of the Methodisms of the country. It is to divide it up into four sections, each having its own General Conference, one being the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. Additionally he would have a Methodist Council, also meeting every four years, and composed of members of the four General Conferences.

We rejoice at this proposition from so high a source. It is significant for any one of Dr. Harrison's Church, in high position, to speak at all upon the subject. The oracles of that Church, as if by a preconcerted arrangement, have hitherto been silent on this matter. Even when forced to speak out there is unwillingness, if not fret, attending the utterance. Outside of that Church, even in secular camps, the fact has been noted with wonder and regret. At the Ecumenical, where all other hearts were aglow, this silence was observed, and of course variously interpreted. There is a time to speak and a time to keep silence; and when the silence law is violated an explanation is naturally expected: but even this was not given. This additionally intensified the surprise.

Again, Dr. Harrison's utterance, in the advance to which it goes, even to the submission of a "plan" of organic union, is not only significant, but hopeful.

What is the response that "parties of the second part" should make to it? We would urge its acceptance as a provisional basis of deliberation. This course we think better than to fly at each other's propositions, especially when the possibility of organic union begins to manifest itself in the camps of both parties.

Additionally we would urge its acceptance because it virtually comes from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,-from its highest organ of contact with the public. Whatever the character of the plan, whatever may be the motives that underlie it, we are willing to go into court with it. It is a step-an approach to union.

Individually I might prefer another plan, any one of two or three others, but this will do to start with. It is a starting-point, and such is now the desideratum. The thing to do is to get down to business.

It might be best at the start only to bisect Methodism, making the great Father of Waters the line between the two families. On it might be found that representation in the General Conference can be so cut down, and

the number of Annual Conferences so limited, that there would be no need of dividing at all. Indeed, after the best deliberation, it might appear that a divided Methodism in the same country would be exposed to more perils, geographical and sectional, than a united and indivisible Methodism. All such matters would have to be reached by the deliberations of the pre-continental Conference.

Dr. Harrison's proposition will have to be considered. It is the thought and idol of many, and as an a quo we might as weil start from it as from any other. What the ad quem will be, no man can foresee; but, for one, I believe it will be the best thing for our common American Methodism in the present age.

In the meantime let us hail the right spirit in all plans. Thus advances will go on steadily and safely. All impeachments and suspicions and hard speeches should be kept in abeyance. The press of the two Churches should speak only words of wisdom. "One sinner [editor] destroyeth much good." The wisdom that is from above is the wisdom that is in demand now. This will in due time suggest the "Court" in which all plans must pass review. B. F. RAWLINS.

Cincinnati, O.

AN ECHO FROM THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH,

SOUTH.

I AM not a subscriber to the Review, but have had an opportunity of reading the article, "Methodism: Centripetal or Centrifugal?" in the January-February number, and I write to thank you for that part of it that refers to union of the various Methodisms. I have for several years, as far as my influence would go, been encouraging the union sentiment, and I am glad to have such help as I find in the article referred to above. I want organic union. Not simply fraternity, but organic union; and I am not alone, but think there are a great many preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, that want union of the two Churches. I was glad to read on page 116, "The Methodist Episcopal Church is ready for union to-day." Now, my dear doctor, suppose you submit some plan on which the two Churches can unite, and we can go to discussing that. I do hope your General Conference, as it represents the larger and more powerful of the two Churches, will take some action looking to the uniting of the two Churches. I believe it will meet with a more hearty response than it did in Washington last October. THOS. H. GIBSON.

Milledgeville, Ga.

THE ITINERANTS' CLUB.

QUESTION DRAWER.

WITH the next number of the Review we shall open a Question Drawer. But we hope only such questions will be asked by our Itinerant Club members as are the occasion of real perplexity. A question that is asked merely as a puzzle, or from curiosity to find what answer can be given, may be dropped from the drawer into the basket.

READING BOOKS.

We have books, regiments of them. We have made, as we may presume, from this legion a judicious selection. The room at our command in which to do our reading is well lighted, and is, of course, on the sunny side of the house; it is quiet, of agreeable temperature, and well ventilated. We are ready for our pleasure or our task.

At this moment the most perplexing question that confronts us, the most perplexing to not a few persons, is this: How shall one read? Ah, my friend, much is at stake! As good intentions will not make amends for having wasted much time with unprofitable literature, so good intentions will be no compensation for having read excellent literature by pernicious methods; though we have a sort of undefined theory that it is better, on the whole, to read in any way rather than not at all.

But no one doubts the importance as well as the perplexity of the question before us. There are those who affirm that as much depends on how one reads as on what one reads. Good readers are few, not many, is a common remark. "We are now in want of an art," says D'Israeli, “to teach us how books are to be read." In the same vein Professor Atkinson quotes, with evident approval, the saying of Goethe, "I have been fifty years trying to learn how to read, and I have not learned yet."

Advice on this subject is so various and even diverse, and, too, from high authorities, that one is left, even after much listening, quite at sea. There are those who say read slowly, but others as confidently advise rapid reading. And the methods of distinguished men are as diverse as their advice.

De Quincey tells us that the great German philosopher, Kant, never read a book through in his life, unless it might have been Virgil, which he could recite from memory. His agile and comprehensive mind outran most writers, after he had read a few of their pages, so that what remained of their books possessed for him no interest. De Quincey himself was a prodigious reader, and could assimilate book-food with almost incredible rapidity. Slow reading was to him impossible. It is reported, too, of Madame de Stael that she devoured six hundred novels in three monthsmore than six per day.

31-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. VIII.

"A man must be a poor beast," says Dr. Johnson, "who should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud."

Mr. Gladstone is able to master the contents of a book with the utmost dispatch. It is claimed that he can extract the pith of any average book in a quarter of an hour.

One of the associates of the Hon. Caleb Cushing expressed the opinion that he must have read at least five thousand novels. He could master one of ordinary size in three or four hours, and has been known to get through with a dozen a week as mere recreation. It need be no matter of surprise that he knew multitudes of books, for it is said of him that he could read sixteen hours a day for a month, and that he never forgot an important fact obtained in that time. While attorney-general, he had his meals brought and laid on his writing-desk. His custom often was to eat the entire meal without looking at it or resting from his reading. Now, these readers, Kant, De Quincey, Madame de Stael, Dr. Johnson, Gladstone, Cushing, and numerous others, would assure us that the art of reading consists principally in being able to "skip judiciously."

But, on the other hand, the skipping method will not do for all readers or for all books, and by many men who are eminent in scholarship is condemned. Horne Tooke, for instance, had no sympathy with this reading of books at a glance. He says: "I read all books through; and bad ones the most carefully, because I intend never to look into them again." Macaulay's words, too, are full of wisdom:

It is not by turning over libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and intently contemplating a few great models, that the mind is best disciplined. A man of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much from which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered. The best works employ, in general, but a small portion of his time. Demosthenes is said to have transcribed six times the history of Thucydides. If he had been a young politician of the present age he might in the same space of time have skimmed innumerable newspapers and pamphlets. I do not condemn that desultory mode of study which the state of things, in our day, renders a matter of necessity. But I may be allowed to doubt whether the changes on which the admirers of modern institutions delight to dwell have improved our condition so much in reality as in appearance.

Rumford, it is said, proposed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for feeding his soldiers at a much cheaper rate than formerly. His plan was simply to compel them to masticate their food thoroughly. A small quantity, thus eaten, would, according to that famous projector, afford more sustenance than a large meal hastily devoured. I do not know how Rumford's proposition was received; but to the mind, I believe, it will be found more nutritious to digest a page than to devour a volume.

Says the Rev. F. W. Robertson, one of the most royal of preachers: "1 never skim over books, nor turn aside to merely inviting books. Plato, Aristotle, Butler, Thucydides, Sterne, and Edwards, like the iron atoms of the blood, enter into my mental constitution." It is said of Burke, who was pre-eminent as a statesman and orator, that he read a book as if he were never again to see it. We are told that it was a strict rule in the family of Goethe the elder that any book once commenced should be read through to the end. Mr. Ruskin, who stands among the first of art critics, once remarked that a person might read every book in the British

Museum-and they are counted by the million-and yet could come forth from the reading an uneducated and illiterate person; but that no one can read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, and not thereby attain some good degree of education.

"I resolved," said the distinguished jurist, Sir Edward Sugden, "when beginning to read law, to make every thing I acquired perfectly my own, and never to go to a second thing till I had entirely accomplished the first. Many of my competitors read as much in a day as I read in a week; but at the end of twelve months my knowledge was as fresh as on the day it was acquired, while theirs had glided away from their recollection."

The question now recurs, How shall one read a book? The answer is, That depends on the person and the book. There is no universal rule. The child reads by letters, spelling out the words; later he reads the words, never minding the letters; later still, when he becomes a man, he often reads by paragraphs and pages; after years of reading, and when in possession of much information, he can "browse round," and, entering a public library, can read books as Dr. Johnson did, by the titles on their backs. Sidney Smith said of this same Dr. Johnson, that though he never read a book through he knew more books than any other man alive. We creep, then walk, then run, and at length must fly through literature, and get more from it when flying than we did when creeping.

At this point we cannot forbear saying that the preacher who aspires to the highest scholarship should not linger with the daily newspapers. Even weekly religious papers and the popular magazines should not be read by letters. Rather, their contents must be devoured late in the day and quickly. A glance at the head-lines in nine cases out of ten will do.

But we return to our subject-book reading. Many books must be read by deputy. A preacher's wife may read certain books for him and give an abstract, pointing out or extracting the forceful and pivotal passages. One, too, may often get a fair idea of a book by drawing on the judgment of two or three persons who have read it. Reviews, newspaper and magazine, though often far from accurate, may be the only reading he need give to many a book. One's knowledge of a book, though obtained in this way by proxy, may put to blush often that of scores who say they have read it.

There is a bit of error, yet a vein of truth, in this saying from The Tale of a Tub: "The most accomplished way of using books at present is to serve them as some do bonds-learn their titles and then brag of their acquaintance."

Not all books, however, can be read either by studying their titles or by flying through them, or by proxy-work. The familiar quotation from Lord Bacon-so familiar that we beg pardon for using it-is nevertheless wise and to the point:

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. That is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.