sermons, in the form of didactic discourses on lying, stealing, impurity, and the other vices of which the hero of the story was guilty, and which brought him to his miserable end. The plainness of speech with which some of these evil doings are enlarged upon, and Mr. Badman's indulgence in them described, makes portions of the book very disagreeable, and indeed hardly profitable reading. With omissions, however, the book well deserves perusal, as a picture such as only Bunyan or his rival in lifelike portraiture, Defoe, could have drawn of vulgar English life in the latter part of the seventeenth century, in a commonplace country town such as Bedford. It is not at all a pleasant picture. The life described, when not gross, is sordid and foul, is mean and commonplace. But as a description of English middle-class life at the epoch of the Restoration and Revolution, it is invaluable for those who wish to put themselves in touch with that period. The anecdotes introduced to illustrate Bunyan's positions of God's judgment upon swearers and sinners, convicting him of a credulity and a harshness of feeling one is sorry to think him capable of, are very interesting for the side-lights they throw upon the times and the people who lived in them. It would take too long to give a sketch of the story, even if a summary could give any real estimate of its picturesque and vivid power. It is certainly a remarkable, if an offensive book. As with "Robinson Crusoe" and Defoe's other tales, we can hardly believe that we have not a real history before us. We feel that there is no reason why the events recorded should not have happened. There are no surprises; no unlooked-for catastrophes; no providential interpositions to punish the sinner or rescue the good man. Badman's pious wife is made to pay the penalty of allowing herself to be deceived by a tall, good-looking, hypocritical scoundrel. He himself pursues his evil way to the end, and "dies like a lamb, or as men call it, like a Chrisom child sweetly and without fear," but the selfsame Mr. Badman still, not only in name, but in condition; sinning onto the last, and dying with a heart that cannot repent.