FAMILY THE TREASURY. Our Readers. HE New Year affords an opportunity for more direct communication between the editor of a magazine and his constituents. At all other times it becomes him to attend to his work and keep silence; at this time, and for once, he is permitted, and perhaps even expected, to look up and address a few words to the company. We-the prescriptive editorial plurality-beg to congratulate our readers and ourselves on the peaceful and useful tenor of our way hitherto, and on the hopeful prospect that lies before us. Looking backward, we thank God; looking forward, we take courage. Our plan for the future is the same as it has been in the past; its execution, if we are able, will be not inferior. In apostolic fashion, we would fain forget the things that now lie behind, and press forward. The two elements which, when combined, constituted a motive of sufficient force to induce Paul to continue his ministry at Ephesus were-A wide door, and many adversaries. These are precisely the two things which combine to urge us onward in our own humble sphere. The "adversaries" are 'present in such number and force as to prove the need of effort; and the "door" of opportunity stands so widely open, that there is no ground for despairing or desponding. Labour in our field is neither superfluous on the one hand, nor hopeless on the other. We confess frankly here that we do not disdain to employ, as one of our instruments, that species of composition which, for want of a better name, we must call Fiction; that is, a narrative which leans upon and exhibits correctly the main features of great historic events, while the details are filled in by the imagination of the writer, but corresponding of course to the scenes and circumstances of the original. It is advisedly that we speak of this as an instrument, for we should not care to introduce it merely for its own sake. It may become the vehicle which bears in and deposits on the memory principles and aims that shall improve the life. We are well aware that among the readers of the FAMILY TREASURY a wide diversity of opinion on this subject obtains. Our desire is to satisfy all classes, in as far as that is possible, without sacrificing our main object. Those who relish and value a tale pure and elevating in its tone, solidly grounded in the facts of history, and artistically filled in by an exercised, discriminating imagination, will, we expect, be gratified by the specimens which we are enabled to present this year. As to those, on the other hand, among our readers who would more or less rigidly exclude narrative which is in any degree imaginative, as the vehicle of moral and religious lessons, while we greatly respect their character and their views, we must, in the interest of the greatest number, pursue the course on which we have entered. None of our readers can be more alarmed than we are at the position which fiction has attained in the literature of our times. Whether we regard its quantity merely, or take in also its quality, we shrink back from it as a devastating flood. Much of it is vain, and much of it vile. It is a great calamity that the rising generation should be so much occupied with fiction, to the comparative exclusion of graver literature. Even when it is not positively immoral, it is for the most part fitted by its levity to eat out the force and seriousness of a life. This being our view, the practical question comes up and presses for immediate answer, Shall we altogether abandon this agent, or shall we seize it and endeavour to employ it for good? It would involve a grave responsibility indeed to decide, either expressly or by implication, that the use of imaginative pictures for moral and spiritual instruction is unlawful in its own nature. The decision would be false in itself, and fraught with most mischievous results. It remains that we should adopt and act on the other alternative that we should accept an instrument which in its own nature is innocent, and is capable of exerting an influence on the side of truth and righteousness. In the present state of the battle, we are not at liberty to fling that weapon conclusively away. On the whole, painting, whether in words or in colours, if moderate in quantity, pure in quality, skilful in execution, and useful in aim and tendency, seems both lawful and expedient for Christian workers in the present day. The greater subjects will require fewer words of explanation, precisely because they are greater. Expositions of Scripture for the Sabbath evening will be found in every Number. Economic questions bearing on the health and comfort of the people will find a place. Efforts, whether by private societies or by the imperial legislature, to remove temptations and improve the moral condition of the masses, will be noticed as they arise. In short, everything will be welcomed into our pages that promises to conspire with other means to promote the kingdom of Christ and improve the condition of the world. W. A. Na burning autumn afternoon, when the sixteenth century had passed its meridian by rather more than ten years, Don Fray Tomas de San Martin, the stately prior of the great Franciscan monastery of Ciudad de los Reyes, now called Lima, was sitting alone in his private apartment. Meaner and idler men were dozing the sultry hours away; but it was not in the nature of Fray Tomas to seek repose, while the duties of his calling, the interests of his Order, or the concerns of any of his numerous friends required his attention. In spite of physical languor and exhaustion, an expression of satisfaction lit up his countenance as he finished his second careful perusal of a letter he held in his hand. Then he laid the document on the table before him, pausing, however, to glance, with a slight smile, at the pompous armorial bearings inscribed on the seals with which the floss silk that bound it had been secured. The prior was not a man given to soliloquy; but if we might take the liberty of translating his unspoken thoughts into words, they would run somewhat after this fashion: "Sixteen quarterings for honest Marcio Serra de Leguisano, the tailor's son! Where, in heaven's name, have they all come from? Truly saith the preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes, 'I have seen servants riding upon horses.' He might have added,—and there be none such headlong riders. Pues, every man to his taste. These little weaknesses of Marcio Serra's may well be borne with, after all. For amongst the conquistadors there is many a worse man, and not one better. Would that they all, like him, broke off their sins by righteousness, and their iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Certainly, it behoves us to aid him to the utmost of our power." And, stretching out his hand, he rang a little silver bell that lay near him on the table. But the poor lay brother, whose duty it was to answer it, was lying on a mat in the antechamber fast asleep. Not until the prior had more than once raised his voice and called loudly, "Antonio!" did he make his appearance. "Send me hither Fray Fernando immediately, and then go finish thy siesta," said the prior, cutting short his apologies with contemptuous good-nature. Fray Fernando, who was not asleep, came in a few moments; and having made the accustomed reverence, stood silently before the chair of his superior. Fray Tomas was an able man and a good ruler. Both within the walls of his monastery and beyond them he was thoroughly respected. Yet few could have looked on the two men who were now face to face without the thought that they ought to have changed places, that Fray Fernando ought to have commanded and Fray Tomas to have obeyed him. Everything about the younger monk, from the broad white forehead to the nervous taper fingers, bespoke a refined and sensitive nature. Yet he did not look like a man of the schools and the cloister. Power and determination gleamed from his dark, deep-set eye, and showed themselves in every movement of his vigorous though attenuated frame. You would have said, that he ought to have worn the plumed casque instead of the tonsure, and have shouted, "St. Jago for Spain !" instead of telling Ave Marias on the rosary that hung from his | disposed to compassionate them, because he hath belt. The prior addressed him with great urbanity: "We do justice, brother," he said, "to that singular zeal for our holy faith which animates your breast." taken to wife an Indian princess, one of the Children of the Sun, as they call them, after their vain heathenish fashion. Therefore he hath purchased a sufficient band of negro slaves, both men and women, which he hath been at great Fray Fernando bowed, but a look of pain charges to transport from the coast to the heights passed over his face. The prior blandly continued: "It is therefore that, an opportunity being afforded to some brother of our honourable Order to undertake a work of peculiar toil and self-sacrifice for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, our thoughts turn to thee, as to one who will cheerfully, nay joyfully, embrace such a mission." "This "I am ready to go whithersoever my lord the prior shall command," said Fray Fernando. The prior laid his hand on the letter. have I just received from the most noble knight and conquistador, Don Marcio Serra de Leguisano. Doubtless he is known to you by reputation?" "My lord remembers I am a comparative stranger here." The prior had too much good sense to retail idle stories such as that the good knight's parentage was said to be of the humblest; that on the division of the spoils of Cuzco the massive golden sun of the great temple had fallen to his share; and that with the recklessness of a parvenu he had gambled most of it away at primero in a single night, complaining pathetically, the next morning, that he had "lost a good piece of the sun." He merely explained: "Don Marcio Serra hath received, in encomienda from our lord the king, a noble estate, rich in gold and silver, as well as in the ordinary productions of the soil. It embraces a very fertile valley, called Nasca; and stretches upwards, even to the land of mist and snow, where the mighty Andes raise their giant heads. High up, in that rarely trodden region, at the summit of a bleak mountain, called Cerro Blanco, gold was discovered a few years since. A shaft was sunk, and the mine was worked as usual by the forced labour of the Indians. But these unhappy people died so quickly, that at last Don Marcio, having the fear of God before his eyes, and being mindful of his soul's salvation, began to take thought of their miserable case. Possibly he was the more of Cerro Blanco. And there he hath set them to work under competent Spanish overseers." Both the churchmen accepted this substitution of black labourers for copper-coloured ones as an effort of the most sincere and enlightened philanthropy. Nor were they, perhaps, as much mistaken as might be supposed. 'But," continued Fray Tomas, " as the good knight's piety is fully equal to his humanity, he is now desirous to extend to these benighted savages the inestimable blessings of our holy Faith. He therefore entreats me to send him some brother of our Order, who may be found willing, for the love of God and the good of souls, to banish himself to a dreary inhospitable region, where the frozen earth brings forth little more than a few blades of stunted grass; and where, from one year's end to the other, scarce a face will greet the exile's eyes save those of the negro slaves." Had the picture he was limning been intended for any other eye than that of Fray Fernando, Fray Tomas would have softened its lines, and have interspersed here and there a few lighter touches. But now he did just the contrary; because he had taken the measurement of the man he was addressing. When he ceased speaking, there was a moment's silence; then Fray Fernando said quietly, "I willingly undertake the mission." "May God and our Lady recompense thy zeal and piety," was the prior's benign reply. He then proceeded, with equal affability and good sense, to discuss the details of the lengthened journey which it would be necessary for Fray Fernando to undertake. The younger monk seemed not only willing, but actually eager to occupy the post assigned to him. Not during his whole novitiate (which had but recently terminated) had he appeared so cheerful, not to say so animated. It was currently reported that nothing gave Fray Fernando |