REVIEWS — THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AAIERICA. 69 



hopeless iu anticipation. To visit a genviine congregation of civilized 

 Indian converts is a very pleasant thing. The sacred music is specially 

 acceptable to them, and they learn to sing in parts, with great sweetness 

 and fervour ; as well as to play on the organ, and other instruments. 

 Without cheating them with a mere round of formal observances in the 

 name of religion ; much may be done to adapt the services of Christian 

 worship to their simple and child-like minds, and wherever this has 

 been effectually done, the change produced is well calculated to gratify 

 the disinterested and self-denying labourer in so good a cause. 



The venerable, though little-known Society, " The Company for the 

 propagation of the Gospel in New England, and the parts adjacent in 

 America," nurses anciently accumulated funds and endowments, in 

 some quiet nook of the British metropolis, and supports missionary 

 agents, seemingly, in a very Catholic fashion, among the Indians of 

 Canada ; as it selects them indiscriminately from various denomina- 

 tions. The Hudson's Bay Company, with what some will consider 

 greater catholicity, contributes towards the support of an Epis- 

 copalian, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic ministry alike ; but as 

 might be expected, the services of such are rather rendered to the 

 wealthy residents, the retired Hudson's Bay factors, the merchants, 

 traders, and farmers, white and half-breed, than among the wild Crees, 

 Chippewas, and Blackfeet, by whom they are surrounded. 



The interest which justly attaches to the present condition and 

 future prospects of the aborigines of this continent, and the respon- 

 sibilities which devolve on ourselves as Canadians, in our relations to 

 the dismembered Indian nationalities already retreating before our 

 encroaching clearings, have tempted us to follow the lead of the Abbe 

 Domenech in reference to the traces of any ameliorating influences 

 resulting to what he calls " the population of the Great Deserts." 

 But we must not allow this to divert us from the curious illustration of 

 the process of book manufactory which his volumes afford. The 

 establishment of a new system of book-circulating libraries by Mudie 

 and other enterprising London booksellers is, we fear, doing in some 

 degree for English literature what the cheap pirating-press of the 

 United States has done for the American author. Substantial works 

 of genuine interest and worth are at a discount, while the sensation 

 literature of a Du Chaillu doubles its circulation by the very notoriety 

 which the author's knavery begets for it. No wonder that under 



