The Christmas Advocate.

The Christmas number of the "Advocate," with its special cover, is decidedly readable throughout. An intelligent and well balanced criticism on Richard Harding Davis is the first main article of the number. "A Bottle of Alcohol" is somewhat unpleasant in subject but shows great facility in short story writing. A Christmas story called "A Gift of Gifts," will interest the regular readers of the Advocate, because they may see in it promises for the future. Its merits are so striking that one feels that time will obliterate the faults it exhibits.

The verses in this number though slight is worth while, especially the song just below the editorial and the lines on "The Great Iceland Glacier."

Among the book reviews is a somewhat testy criticism of "Harvard Episodes" which is likely to impress the average reader as rather overdone.

What is especially encouraging about the number is its great variety of subject.