spite of Russian delusion that flatters itself in the role of a future Nurhatshu (the Mandshu conqueror of China) or Jengis; yet if the inquirer judge the matter objectively, and take into account the new position of affairs, he will be impressed by omnipotence of the Russian Colossus has its limits, and that, though the stream of Russian immigration, carried forward by the aids of modern culture, will continue to roll on undisturbedly in an easterly direction over the old part of the continent, it will by no means acquire extraordinary dimensions. We must arrive at similar conclusions if we examine the chances of a Russian expansion towards the south, with special reference to a violent conflict with the Mongol race. The Russians did not hitherto succeed with their process of absorption in the great Kirghise steppe, and they can much less succeed in the regions between Dzugaria and the Chingan range, inhabited by Mongols. of colonizing the country of that goodnatured hunting people the Tunguses, though its mineral wealth occupied the Tshudic races of antiquity. In the East, favorable geographical conditions will render the future more auspicious, and Russian cultural influence may here, on the the conviction that even the apparent banks of the Amur, and in the Primorsky district, call into life that process of colonization and those cultural centres which it has created during the last two centuries in western Siberia. The plan of connecting the east coast of Mandshuria and the interior of the empire by a railway line lends color to such an opinion; only the circumstance must not be overlooked that Russia, in its expansion in western and central Siberia, did not meet with a political adversary worthy of mention, and could advance slowly but surely. In the extreme east, however, progress is rendered considerably more difficult by the enmity of China; which is just undergoing the era of political and national awakening, and which will by no means continue the former complaisant and sleepy neighbor. That pastoral people has lost a good deal The times are now finally over, when of its former warlike nature by the accepGeneral Muraview, in 1855, acquired by tation of Buddhism; and in consequence stratagem and bribery the left bank of the of this creed, penetrated as it is with the Amur, and when Ignatiew, in 1860, wrested strictly Asiatic spirit, the Mongols are the east coast of Mandshuria from the less lively, less active, more conservative, Chinese, then weakened by the Taeping and more unmoved by the influence of revolution and the Anglo-French war. foreign culture than the Kirghise. Very The Chinese unfold to-day quite a respect- little or nothing has reached these Monable defensive power; in Mandshuria they golian inhabitants of the steppe from are erecting military strongholds, and Nertchinsk, Seleginsk, and Irkutsk, the furnish them with modern European ord-outposts of the Russian cultural world at nance; and as here the watchfulness and the Mongol northern frontier; whilst from energy of China will rather increase than the opposite direction, that is, the neigh the contrary, Russian colonization under boring southern cultural world, with its the best circumstances may confine itself Chinese influences, quite considerable only to that territory which, joined on to traces of foreign civilization have reeastern Siberia, has, as far as the forty-mained. From the point of view of relafifth degree of latitude, actually passed tionship in religion and the reciprocal into their possession, as a further expan- intercourse of several centuries, this is sion of Russian rule at the expense of quite natural; but it is equally natural to China is hardly conceivable. The ethnical suppose that also in the future the same element, moreover, shows much greater factors will lead to equal results; that is, exclusiveness here than in western and Chinese influence will always preponder. central Siberia. Mandshuria is to-day ate on the Mongol steppe, and counteract only a geographical notion, as amongst a Russian influence; for this reason also, population of twenty millions there are the Khalkaas, Dorbuts, Urangites, and only one million Mandshus, whilst the rest Torguts always prefer, in political relaare Chinese and Koreans. The warlike tions, to turn to Peking rather than to St. tribe of the Mandshus cares to know as Petersburg. And this is the case in spite little of Russian culture as the Chinese of all the periodical accounts of Russian themselves; both look upon the Russian travellers, in which they speak of the ar as a barbarian, and deem their own culture dent love and the steadfast attachment of higher than that, of their hated neighbor. the Mongols to the white khan at the However much, therefore, one may Neva. In the case of the settled portion speak of the thunder-storm about to dis- of the Mongol race I refer to the Burycharge itself over northern China, and inates, estimated at two hundred and eight so also in Asia the constant aggression of our culture and policy of conquest has produced to some extent a similar effect. Russian ambition and Russian growth can, at present, in the most favorable case, only find its nourishment among primitive nations professing beliefs outside the two ruling religions of Asia; and as the number of the latter is too small and unimportant, one may well venture upon the assertion that the Russian Colossus, having arrived in both parts of the world at the utmost limits of its extensive capabil thousand, living in Transbaikal, in the | ing, formed a barrier to the enlargement government district of Irkutsk - the Rus- of a race element at the cost of another, sians flatter themselves to have achieved greater success, as the hardworking and clever little nation distinguishes itself in industries and agriculture, and in some special instances shows a remarkable adaptability to Russian instructions. The Russian system of conversion can also show some results here; but it seems to us a vain self-delusion to draw arguments from a few individual instances in support of the future transformation of the whole people. Just as the Muhammadans of the Caucasus, in spite of the apostasy of a few chiefs who had been educated in Rus-ities, it can only increase intensively, and sian schools, will long preserve their at tachment to Islam and Persia, so also the tractableness of a few Buryates cannot by a long way be considered as an indication of the whole Buryate people desiring assimilation. Buddhism has struck its roots far too deep, the habits of life and the genius of the people are chained too strongly to China and Tibet, to make it possible and allowable to think of a sepa ration from the old order that has become part of the flesh and blood of the nation. Where the teaching of Buddha or Muhammad has once established its dominion, Christianity, and with it the culture of the West, will only find a difficult entrance. acquire strength and vigor, but it will require a long, very long, time to fill the contours of that body which to-day seems to us so imposing and powerful. From Longman's Magazine. WILL SIMPSON'S FUNERAL. AN EPISODE. I. SANDY ANDERSON, the bell-ringer of the parish church, stood at the church door and surveyed the surrounding country. It was already the hour at which service should have commenced. The tinkle of the Free Church bell had died away on the breeze, the clock had struck, and yet Sandy had not rung the final summons which would bring into church the groups of men chattering idly in the porch, and a few stray members of the flock now struggling up the steep ascent known as Kirk Hill. Summing up what we have said about northern Asia, the final result of our reflections will be, that the northern half of the old continent - inasmuch as it is primarily an exclusive domain of RussianEuropean cultural influence. -can only be affected by the rays of Western culture through the medium of the Slavic race, and that it is progressing towards a more auspicious future as far as geographical "She's late the day," muttered Sandy to conditions will allow it. The stream of himself. He shaded his eyes with his present Russian immigration flowing from hand, and at last descried far down the the Ural to the east coast of Mandshuria, western road a slim, girlish figure, that will, by reason of gradual absorption fur was hurrying forward in breathless haste. ther on, be constantly on the increase, but Sandy watched her till she had passed the as has been pointed out in passages touch-corner by the Haugh Farm, then he ing upon the matter, without being able to enlarge to an extraordinary degree the chain of Russian national elements, which protrude like islands in the midst of the sea of foreign nations. The causes which were active at the rise and former development of the empire of the czar have, it is true, come to their conclusion in Europe, and not in northern Asia, where some factors in the displacement of nationalities and in the sphere of power of a higher culture, still produce their effects; but, just as in Europe political constellations, and the active awakening of national feel · Be mounted the belfry steps and swung out In response, the men who stood in the porch prepared themselves to enter the kirk. They stopped their chattering, a look of preternatural solemnity settled down on their features, each one of them produced a copper coin and dropped it with a resounding click into the plate at the door; then they tramped inside, and settled themselves with some commotion in their various pews. Sandy dropped the bell rope, and scuffled down the wooden Ay, an' his mither's fair dementit. 'Gin my Will's ta'en awa',' says she, 'God isna a God o' love."'" "Eh, it's hard on her, puir cratur!" "Ay, is't." They all shook their heads lugubriously, but allowed a faint smile to lighten the gloom of their faces as the last comer, Miss Hereford, passed them with a nod of welcome. She entered the church, and they followed. The inner doors were closed; and presently the cheerful strains of " "Martyrdom floated out upon the air, startling some mavises into glorious song. Miss Hereford was the newly elected teacher of the board school, opened a year before for the quarriers' children. Very little was known about her except that she came from the South-some said from London! The salary attached to the Quarry School was small, and there was difficulty in finding a teacher. Of the few applicants, Miss Hereford held such superior certificates, that the board could not do otherwise than elect her. This was her third appearance in church. She was seated in the Manse pew, a prominent position, and excited more interest among the congregation than she had any idea of. Kind-hearted farmers' wives, looking at her slender figure and thin face, thought of their own buxom daughters, and pitied her. The men stared at her with a persistency of which she and they were unconscious, and recognized in her a creature very different from the women they were accustomed to deal with. The whole congregation was a little suspicious of her she came from the South. On her first appearance in church she had been observed to kneel during the prayers right down on her knees, on the bare boards! Did this savor of popery? Sandy Anderson, who had elected himself her defender in chief, said, "Na, na. She's a braw bit lassie. Gin she disna mind the boords, we'll no say a word." On the next Sabbath it was further discovered that whereas the rest of the worshippers precipitated themselves from their pews the very moment the benedic tion had been pronounced, and left the church rapidly and noisily, Miss Hereford knelt down and remained kneeling for quite two minutes. The superintendent of the Sabbath School, who had thought of asking her to take a class, hesitated. Sandy looked anxious. With the third Sabbath a climax was reached. At the close of an impressive sermon on the words "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," solemn reference was made to "a recent loss sustained by some who have neither part nor lot with us; an expression that roused Miss Hereford's wonder. Then the first three verses of the 53rd Paraphrase were given out. The school-teacher loved singing, and had a sweet, clear voice. She had heard the remarks made by the men at the church door; they had filled her with an irrepressible sadness, which had deepened during the sermon. Now she raised her voice and sang out almost with a smile, Take comfort, Christians, when your friends In Jesus fall asleep, but at the word Jesus she bent her head down very low. The action was seen by every one. Her ringing voice had attracted to her some eyes that would not otherwise have been turned in her direction. Horrified glances were exchanged by a few, disapproval was written large in the faces of many. Sandy's expression of dismay would have been ludicrous but for its intensity. He looked at his book; the name recurred in the third verse. He watched the singer with breathless anxiety; again her head was bent reverently but unmistakably down. Sandy's jaw dropped; he was scarcely conscious of the benediction and subsequent emptying of the church. When Miss Hereford came out, he was standing dejectedly in the porch. 66 Good-day, Sandy," said she, holding out her hand in greeting. "I was nearly too late this morning, was I not?" He made no answer, but shifted the collection plate to and fro on its stand. Why," cried Miss Hereford, noticing the movement, "you don't mean to say that that money has been there all through the service! Do you always leave it there? Does it never get stolen ?" 'Ay, it's lifted whiles." A deacon came out, and carried the collection away into safety. Then Miss Hereford, recovering from her astonishment, remembered a determination she had made on her knees at the close of the service. 'Sandy," she said, "there are one or two things I want to ask you about. Are you going straight home? because, if so, I will wait for you at the foot of the hill." He signified his acquiescence in this arrangement by a nod, and disappeared abruptly within the building. The young lady walked slowly down the hill, pausing at intervals to draw deep breaths of the heather-scented air. The blue sky, the golden cornfields, the purple heather, the droning hum of the bee, the liquid trill of the thrush, were sights and sounds that thrilled her. At the foot of the hill she seated herself on a huge stone that had fallen from the dyke. She plucked some sprays of heather, and bound them to one another with a strip of grass. Suddenly her mind reverted to the conversa. tion of the men at the church porch. Tears filled her eyes and blotted out the landscape. "Gin my Will's ta'en awa' God isna a God o' love,'" she repeated. "Oh, that poor woman, that poor woman; how I wish I could comfort her!" Presently Sandy overtook her, and together they walked up the western road which led to their respective homes. Sandy," she said, "I overheard what you and those other men were saying at the church door this morning. You were talking about some woman who has lost her son. Who is it?" 66 Kirsty Simpson, Jeemes Simpson's wife." "Where does she live ?" He "At Braehead Croft, yonder." pointed in the direction of a thickly wooded hill. "Is it the other side of the hill?" 66 Ay." "How can I get there?" He looked at her curiously. What could she want at Kirsty Simpson's? "Ye can gang by the Barrow Road, but it's nigh upo' five mile; or ye can gang up the Quarry Road and past Donald Stewart's farm." Well, good-bye, Sandy," said she. "I will try to be in good time next Sunday." Sandy stood still. A tremendous desire possessed him to speak some words on which he had been meditating ever since the singing of the Paraphrase. It seemed impossible to utter them, and yet they must be uttered. "What for did ye douk your heid?" he asked. He might as well have spoken Greek. His auditor knew but few Scotch words. "Douk" she had never heard, and being unconscious of the impropriety with which she had behaved she attached no signifi cance to "heid." She smiled up at him a wondering interrogation; and Sandy, growing suddenly abashed at his own dar ing, hurried off up the side road and left her. II. AN epidemic of measles had broken out in the quarry cottages. Lest it should spread further, the authorities ordered the school to be closed for a few days; and in consequence Miss Hereford was free to carry out her charitable intentions. After noon on Monday, she betook herself to the Quarry Road, and followed it to Donald Stewart's farm, where it ended abruptly; a beaten track led her on to the moor beyond. Here there was no track visible, but she knew in which direction Braehead Croft lay, and tramped con fidently through the heather. She was awed by the intense stillness through which she passed. From far distant fields the sound of the reapers' voices was carried up to her on the air; but there was no sound near her except once, when she startled a covey of grouse, and was herself more scared than they as they whirred up out of the heather at her feet. It took her a long time to cover the "three mile an' a bit." She was not used to walking over peat moss, and through woods where the ground was slippery with pine needles. At last she came in sight of Braehead Croft, lying a hundred yards below her at the foot of a steep incline. The place looked deserted, desolate; there was absolutely not one sign of life about it. Two or three acres of ground had been cleared, and a crop of oats raised. It was cut and stood in stooks; Miss Hereford was not experienced enough to note how short the straw was, and how light the grain. The back of the cottage was toward her; she passed round to the front of it. Absolute stillness prevailed. She tapped at the wooden door, and received no answer. As it was unfastened, she pushed it open and went in. There were the regulation two rooms, "butt and ben," divided by a narrow passage. The door to the right was ajar. She stepped across the threshold and stood on the stone floor of the kitchen. A peat fire smouldered on the hearth, and the reek filled the room - a dark, wretched little room, with a box-bed in the wall, a dresser, a broken table, and a couple of benches. The place was silent-empty. She turned away from it and walked along the passage. The other door was closed. She had almost turned the handle when a sudden sensation of fear stole over her; if she opened that door, what would she see? She made her way quickly out of the cottage; then her ear caught the sound of a sob. She followed the sound. Behind the cottage was a dilapidated wooden shed. In the further end of it oats were stacked; in front, leaning against straw, sat a woman and a lad. They seemed to have dropped down there from sheer fatigue. The lad's eyes were closed; he breathed with difficulty. The woman sat and looked at him. It was a picture of hopeless despair. It was she who now and again drew a long, sobbing breath, but there were no tears in her eyes. Miss Hereford glanced at the lad, and her face lightened; she recognized in him the carrier who drove past the schoolhouse every week. Miss Hereford knelt down beside him, gently pushed back the hair from his forehead, and wiped his brow with her handkerchief. "Ought he to be here?" she asked anxiously. "Shall we try to get him to his bed? "I dinna ken. He thinks he's better here. The reek i' the room gars him cough, an' the cough's sair upon him." "I think I could make him more comfortable," said the girl. She shifted the straw so as to give him more support. His heavy eyelids closed; he was already half asleep. His mother had by this time dragged herself to her feet. "Eh, you're kind!" she said wonderingly, as though kindness were rarely met with. "He'll bide there; he'll rest there. He isna' fit for work." "Have you and he been trying to work?" "Ay. The neebors ha' been kind til 's. They cuttit the oats afore Will was ta'en. But the stooks maun be led in. Jake an' I tried to lift them." "Does your husband not help you?" Miss Hereford was almost afraid to allude to Jeemes after Sandy's remark. "He hasna been i' the place sin Will gaed awa'. Maybe Jeemes isna all he should be." Thus gently did she speak of one who was the terror of the neighborhood. "Jake is very much changed since I last saw him." Ay, is he. He was liftin' Will o' Saturday, and he bled frae the lungs. "Do you mean he broke a blood-vessel?" 66 Ay; I ken it's the sign o' his death. Will began that way." "But oh!" cried Miss Hereford, wringing her hands, "if that happened on Sat urday you should not have let him touch these heavy weights to-day." "I ken that fine," said Kirsty with a breaking voice. "But, ye see, grief has ta'en a' my strength; an' when Jake saw me strugglin' wi' them stooks, naething could keep him frae helpin' me.' "Has the doctor seen him?" "He was here o' Saturday. He gied him a mixture. It's a red mixture, Will's was white; maybe this'll do mair guid. I canna work mair. I'll gang to my bairn. Will ye come too?" Instinctively Miss Hereford knew that this invitation was intended as a compliment. She followed. They went from the barn into the cottage, turned to the left hand, and entered |