What is the Actual Condition of Ireland? By Edward Stanley Robertson 451 The Deluge: Its Traditions in Ancient Nations. By François Lenormant 465 Suspended Animation. By Richard A. Proctor 501 John Stuart Mill's Philosophy Tested. IV.--Utilitarianism. By Professor W. Stanley Jevons 521 DECEMBER, 1879. The Lord's Prayer and the Church: Letters Addressed to the Clergy. By John Ruskin, D.C.L. 539 India under Lord Lytton. By Lieut.-Colonel R. D. Osborn 553 On the Utility to Flowers of their Beauty. By the Hon. Justice Fry 574 Where are we in Art? By Lady Verney 588 Life in Constantinople Fifty Years Ago. By an Eastern Statesman 601 Miracles, Prayer, and Law. By J. Boyd Kinnear 617 What is Rent? By Professor Bonamy Price 630 Buddhism and Jainism. By Professor Monier Williams 644 Lord Beaconsfield:-- 665 I. Why we Follow Him. By a Tory. II. Why we Disbelieve in Him. By a Whig. Contemporary Life and Thought in France. By Gabriel Monod 697 THE FUTURE OF CHINA. The late reconquest by China of some of her former possessions in Central Asia, and the firm tone in which she is urging her demands upon Russia, in respect of the _Kuldja_ territory, are giving her a prominence as a factor in Asiatic politics which she can scarcely be said to have claimed before. These signs of tenacity of purpose, if not of actual vitality, acquire an additional interest when viewed in connection with the recently modified policy of her Government towards Western States; a policy which, whether induced by an honest intention to forego the traditional exclusiveness of past ages, or by a shrewd determination to cope, if possible, with more advanced nations upon the advantageous footing secured by the cultivation of the progressive Arts and Sciences, has had the effect of bringing China into diplomatic relations with the principal Powers of Europe and America, and introducing her as a recognised element into the political calculations of the civilized world. The issue of the _Kuldja_ controversy has a special interest for England, as the mistress of adjacent territory in India; but a far greater importance attaches to the result of the larger efforts which China is making to take up a position amongst the nations, and upon the success of which all her political future must depend. It is of that future, and of its bearing upon the interests of China's two great rivals in Asiatic dominion, Russia and Great Britain, that this paper proposes to treat.