“But a castaway! Is it so that I must call you? No, Mr. Robarts, not a castaway; neither a hypocrite, nor a castaway; but one who in walking has stumbled in the dark and bruised his feet among the stones. Henceforth let him take a lantern in his hand, and look warily to his path, and walk cautiously among the thorns and rocks,—cautiously, but yet boldly, with manly courage, but Christian meekness, as all men should walk on their pilgrimage through this vale of tears.” And then without giving his companion time to stop him be hurried out of the room, and from the house, and without again seeing any others of the family, stalked back on his road to Hogglestock, thus tramping fourteen miles through the deep mud in performance of the mission on which he had been sent. It was some hours before Mr. Robarts left his room. As soon as he found that Crawley was really gone, and that he should see him no more, he turned the lock of his door, and sat himself down to think over his present life. At about eleven his wife knocked, not knowing whether that other strange clergyman were there or no, for none had seen his departure. But Mark, answering cheerily, desired that he might be left to his studies. Let us hope that his thoughts and mental resolves were then of service to him. Campaigning in China. At a time when military operations in China are about to be undertaken upon a more extended scale than have hitherto been attempted in the Celestial Empire, some account of the longest march into the interior of the country ever yet performed by British troops may not be uninteresting. To judge from the recent accounts which we have received from India, the prospect of Chinese campaigning, so far from exciting that enthusiasm which the novelty and interest of the undertaking might have been expected to awaken, has produced the very opposite effect. The military departmental mind is filled with doubts and vague misgivings. The Quartermaster-General’s staff shake their heads with a mysterious despondency, already oppressed with the weight of prospective cares, the nature of which can only be appreciated by those who have shared in the duties and responsibilities of their office. The Commissariat is no less overwhelmed with a sense of its probable inefficiency, modestly diffident of its capacity to perform its functions in the unknown regions of the far East; while the parallel which has been drawn by those who have visited both countries, between the plains of Chih-li and the steppes of the Crimea, are by no means reassuring to the Land Transport Corps, who are reminded by the comparison of experience not altogether encouraging. So we have croaking articles in the Indian journals, and gloomy forebodings on the part of officers experienced in Indian warfare, who have never been in China, but who “know the East,” and are, therefore, qualified to speak with confidence and authority upon all affairs,