To our Correspondents.

A mistress writes: "I have great pleasure in recommending the Young Scholar to my fellow-teachers and friends. It has been a real encouragement to see the children trying to improve in writing and arithmetic, in order that they may compete for a prize.'

"

The principal of a classical school writes: "I am much pleased with your little publication, and encourage its circulation among my boys."

Another gentleman writes: "I am very much pleased at the success of the Young Scholar. I find that it has had an excellent effect in my school, the boys being not merely interested in it, but almost in a state of excitement, and every one doing his very utmost to get into the first class. I have no doubt other readers will find the result equally gratifying."

The master of a national school writes: "I have used your little magazine in my school as a reading-book ever since its first appearance, and it is much appreciated by the boys."

Another gentleman writes: "I write to congratulate you upon the great success of your excellent periodical. You have supplied a book which will soon take the place, even more than it has done, of the villanous trash we now see published; and I am sure the young scholars appreciate it, or there would not be so many competitors for the prizes." We agree with this gentleman that in the parsing exercise the word "by" may be correctly parsed as a preposition governing 'fearing." His suggestion shall receive attention.

Another gentleman writes: "I have introduced the Young Scholar into my class, and the boys are very well pleased with it. I have been getting as many as fifty copies per month, and I shall have to get sixty or more by next month. I have commenced it as a class reading-book, and find it suits admirably."

Another teacher writes: "My scholars are very pleased with their periodical, and anxiously look forward to the time of its arrival.”

The following letter from one of our readers has given us great pleasure in its perusal :

East Rainton, Fence Houses, June 5th, 1872. DEAR SIR,-I am very glad to say that your magazine, the Young Scholar, pleases me very well. I like to read the life of Lord Nelson; he was such a bold, courageous man. I think that if it does not please people, it ought to do.

It is also pleasant to read over the names of the boys and girls, and see how they try to answer the questions which you set t em. I tried but did not succeed well, but I mean to try again. And besides your giving prizes for what we do, our schoolmaster gives your magazine to the scholars who do their work best. This will encourage them to work harder, and to do their work better. I daresay they are very pleased with them. As you said that we were not to take up too much paper, I will close my letter. THOMAS EMMERSON.

(Certified by R. T. SAGAR, C.M)

Another boy writes:

DEAR SIR,- You cannot conceive the pleasure it gives me to read your little periodical. My father says it is a grand thing for scholars-both old and young. Dear sir, I think you deserve the thanks of every "young scholar' in Britain.

THE YOUNG SCHOLAR.

AUGUST, 1872.

Lay Sermons.

No. 6. ON IMMORAL LITERATURE.

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.-St. Matthew vii., 16, 17.

HERE are many temptations in the present day to which the children of a former age were not exposed. There has arisen in all the great towns, and especially in the great town of London, a new system of juvenile literature, the most corrupt, the most attractive, the most dangerous, the most pestilential, that ever devastated the souls of the human race.-Speech of

Lord Shaftesbury, at Birmingham, July 9th, 1872.

Most of our readers know very well the works which Lord Shaftesbury had in his mind when he spoke the above words. You cannot pass a newspaper shop without seeing them in abundance. Some of you, perhaps, are in the habit of reading them, without knowing that they do you any harm. You are aware that they do you no good, and you know that in themselves they are bad, but you have not as yet realised the connection between the tree and its fruit, which our Lord teaches in His Sermon on the Mount.

Thousands have been ruined by them. Thousands, young and innocent as you are, have had their first suggestions of evil and vicious living put in their minds by these bad books. Things that they looked upon with horror have been made familiar; and when they ceased to regard them with aversion, the temptation seized them, and they fell.

The only wisdom in the matter is-have nothing to do with them. Your only safety lies in flight. You cannot touch pitch without being defiled. You cannot read these books without catching the taint of the evil they contain.

There are plenty of books which your teachers will recommend to you, which will not only interest but instruct you. There is no reason why you should touch this cheap low literature to which Lord Shaftesbury alludes. The rubbish he refers to is rarely seen in volumes: people do not find it, after they have taken it in, worth the binding. Make it your aim and object to read what you would like to remember as long as you live-what will not rise up to condemn you in the hour of death and the day of judgment.

The great object of the Young Scholar is to furnish boys and girls with interesting reading, that will do them good and not harm. There are many of our readers who, as yet, have given us no help, have not introduced our magazine to one of their companions, or shown their own love of it by saving their numbers to get them bound. We appeal to every one of our young scholars to be a missionary on our behalf. We are pleased to find that this magazine has readers in all parts of the kingdom; but we are anxious that it should be sold in every bookshop in the kingdom. Those who help us will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are helping on a good work; that they are on the side of God and against the devil. The evil arising from children reading bad books is greater than you imagine. The full part of Lord Shaftesbury's speech (which we give below) will show you what that noble and pious man thinks of it :—

There were many temptations in the present day to which the children of a former age were not exposed. Every form of amusement was rendered now most attractive in shape; and there had arisen in all the great towns, and especially in the great town of London, a new system of juvenile literature, the most corrupt, the most attractive, the most dangerous, the most pestilential, that ever devastated the souls of the human race. Art and science, given by God for the advancement of

man, were perverted, like every other of his good gifts, to the purposes of Satan. Engravings that in his day would have cost a considerable sum of money, were now circulated among the poorest at the lowest possible figure. They might have this juvenile literature written in the most attractive form, on excellent paper, with engravings by the best artists, for the sum of one penny-works that in his day could not have been produced for three, four, or even five shillings. These works were written in the most fascinating, and in the most careful and insidious manner; written in such a way that children well brought up, who would reject anything coarse and repulsive, read them and drank in the poison, and knew not the effect before it began to burn and mantle in their veins. This literature was so pestilential as to be sufficient to destroy all who came under its influence, and yet was written with so much art and care that he would defy the most cunning lawyer that ever existed to frame a clause in an Act of Parliament that would reach it; and would defy any judge to bring any law that existed, however much he might strain the clauses, that would bring it within the reach of judicial condemnation. -Lord Shaftesbury's Speech at Birmingham, July 9th, 1872.

Gulliver in Lilliput.

BY DEAN SWIFT.

CHAPTER II.

CONFESS I was often tempted, while they were passing backwards and forwards on my body, to seize forty or fifty of the first that came within my reach, and dash them against the ground. But the remembrance of what I had felt, and the promise of honour I had made them, soon drove out these imaginations. After some time, when they found that I made no more demands for meat, there appeared before me a person of high rank from his imperial majesty. His excellency having mounted upon the small of my right leg, advanced forwards up to my face, with about a dozen of his retinue; and producing his credentials under the signet royal, which he applied close to my eyes, spoke about ten minutes without any signs of anger, but with a kind of determined resolution, often pointing forwards, which, as I afterwards found, was towards the capital city, about half a mile distant; whither it was agreed by his majesty in council that I must be conveyed. He made other signs to let me understand that I should have meat and drink enough, and very good treatment.

Soon after, I heard a general shout, and I felt great numbers of people on my left side, loosening the cords to such a degree that I was able to turn upon my right. Before this they had daubed my face and both my hands with a sort of ointment, very pleasant to the smell, which in a few minutes removed all the smart of their arrows. These circumstances, added to the refreshment I had received by their victuals and drink, which were very nourishing, disposed me to sleep. I slept about eight hours, as I was afterwards assured; and it was no wonder, for the physicians, by the emperor's order, had mingled a sleepy potion in the hogsheads of wine.

In order to carry me to the capital, five hundred carpenters and engineers were immediately set at work to prepare the greatest engine they had. It was a frame of wood, raised three inches from the ground, about seven feet long and four wide, moving upon twenty-two wheels. The shout I heard was upon the arrival of this engine, which it seems set out in four hours after my landing. It was brought parallel to me as I lay. But the principal difficulty was to raise and place me in this vehicle. Eighty poles, each of one foot high, were erected for this purpose, and very strong cords, of the bigness of packthread, were fastened by hooks to many bandages which the workmen had girt round my neck, my hands, my body, and my legs. Nine hundred of the strongest men were employed to draw up these cords by many pulleys fastened on the poles; and thus, in less than three hours, I was raised and slung into the engine, and there tied fast. All this I was told; for while the operation was being performed I lay in a profound sleep, by the force of the medicine infused in my liquor. Fifteen hundred of the emperor's largest horses, each about four inches and a half high, were employed to draw me towards the metropolis, which, as I said, was half a mile distant.

About four hours after we began our journey, I was awakened by a very ridiculous accident. The carriage being stopped awhile to adjust something that was out of order, two or three of the young natives had the curiosity to see how I looked when I was asleep. They, therefore, climbed up into the engine, and advancing very softly to my face, one of them, an officer in the guards, put the sharp end of his half-pike a good way up into my