tion than all the religious and ethical journals in the country. This is the natural result of its reaching the proper audience. It has the same beneficent effect that sermons would have if they were preached to the non-churchgoing people who require them.
When we have learned to recognize the fact that humor does not necessarily imply fun, we will better understand the humorist's attitude and labors. There is nothing, as a rule, very funny, in the weekly issues of "Punch," and "Puck," and "Life." Many of the jokes ought to be explained in a key like that which accompanied my youthful arithmetic; and those which need no such deciphering are often so threadbare and feeble from hard usage, that it is scarcely decent to exact further service from them. It has been represented to us more than once that the English, being conservative in the matter of amusement, prefer those jests which, like "old Grouse in the gunroom," have grown seasoned in long years of telling. "Slow to understand a new joke," says Mrs. Pennell, "they are equally slow to part with one that has been mastered." But there are some time-honored jests—the young
