Readers of the first Volume, who have amused themselves by trying to solve the two puzzles propounded at page 380 of the Preface, may perhaps like to exercise their ingenuity in discovering which (if any) of the following parallelisms were intentional, and which (if any) accidental.

I will publish the answer to this puzzle in the Preface to a little book of `Original Games and Puzzles', now in course of preparation.

I have reserved, for the last, one or two rather more serious topics.

I had intended, in this Preface, to discuss more fully, than I had done in the previous Volume, the `Morality of Sport', with special reference to letters I have received from lovers of Sport, in which they point out the many great advantages which men get from it, and try to prove that the suffering, which it inflicts on animals, is too trivial to be regarded.

But, when I came to think the subject out, and to arrange the whole of the arguments `pro' and `con', I found it much too large for treatment here. Some day, I hope to publish an essay on this subject. At present, I will content myself with stating the net result I have arrived at.

It is, that God has given to Man an absolute right to take the lives of other animals, for any reasonable cause, such as the supply of food: but that He has not given to Man the right to inflict pain, unless when necessary: that mere pleasure, or advantage, does not constitute such a necessity: and, consequently, that pain, inflicted for the purposes of Sport, is cruel, and therefore wrong. But I find it a far more complex question than I had supposed; and that the `case', on the side of the Sportsman, is a much stronger one than I had supposed. So, for the present, I say no more about it.

Objections have been raised to the severe language I have put into the mouth of `Arthur', at p. 489, on the subject of `Sermons', and at pp. 487, 488, on the subjects of Choral Services and `Choristers'.

I have already protested against the assumption that I am ready to endorse the opinions of characters in my story. But, in these two instances, I admit that I am much in sympathy with `Arthur'. In my opinion, far too many sermons are expected from our preachers; and, as a consequence, a great many are preached, which are not worth listening to; and, as a consequence of that, we are very apt not to listen. The reader of this paragraph probably heard a sermon last Sunday morning? Well, let him, if he can, name the text, and state how the preacher treated it!

Then, as to `Choristers', and all the other accessories--of music, vestments, processions, &c.--which have come, along with them, into fashion--while freely admitting that the `Ritual' movement was sorely needed, and that it has effected a vast improvement in our Church-Services, which had become dead and dry to the last degree, I hold that, like many other desirable movements, it has gone too far in the opposite direction, and has introduced many new dangers.

For the Congregation this new movement involves the danger of learning to think that the Services are done for them; and that their bodily presence is all they need contribute. And, for Clergy and Congregation alike, it involves the danger of regarding these elaborate Services as ends in themselves, and of forgetting that they are simply means, and the very hollowest of mockeries, unless they bear fruit in our lives.

For the Choristers it seems to involve the danger of self-conceit, as described at p. 488 (N.B. `stagy- entrances' is a misprint for `stage-entrances'), the danger of regarding those parts of the Service, where their help is not required, as not worth attending to, the danger of coming to regard the Service as a