exactly as the half-turn is completed, into that strange compound, white,--that apparent want of colour,-which is, in reality, only colour well mixed. And, after marking the wonderful harmony of this gamut of shade and hue noted down by the Lord of the Creation himself, we always feel inclined to look rather curiously at the men who affirm that there exists no such gamut. There are few more beautiful objects in nature than a siliceous petrifaction of wood when viewed under the polarizing prism and largely magnified. Each minute quartz crystal locked up in the vegetable cells takes a different prismatic hue, which passes, as the instrument revolves, through all the complementary shades; and the effect of the whole is that of a finished piece of colour-music, played simultaneously in parts. Now, it is a curious fact that the colours of the richest flowers of our parterres and meadows are arranged on the principles of this complementary gamut; nay, that their very leaves and stems manifest the same harmony.-Hugh Miller. THE GENTLEMAN AT CHURCH. He may be known by the following marks: 1. Comes in good season, so as neither to interrupt the pastor nor congregation by a late arrival. 2. Does not stop upon the steps or in the portico, either to gape at the ladies, salute his friends, or display his colloquial powers. 3. Opens and shuts the door gently, and walks deliberately up the aisle or gallery-stairs, and gets to his seat as quietly, and by making as few people remove, as possible. 4. Takes his seat either in the back part of the pew, or steps out in the aisle when any one wishes to pass in, and never thinks of such a thing as making people crowd past him while keeping his place in the pew. 5. Is always attentive to strangers, and gives up his seat to such, seeking another for himself. 6. Never thinks of defiling the house of God with tobacco-spittle, or annoying those who sit near him by chewing that nauseous weed in church. 7. Never, unless in case of illness, gets up and goes out in time of service. But, if necessity compels him to do so, goes so quietly that his very manner is an apology for the act. 8. Does not engage in conversation before commencement of service. 9. Does not whisper, or laugh, or eat fruit, in the house of God, or lounge. 10. Does not rush out of church like a tramping horse the moment the benediction is pronounced, but retires slowly, in a noiseless, quiet manner. 11. Does all he can, by precept and example, to promote decorum in others. -Exchange Paper. DR. DUFF'S FAREWELL TO SCOTLAND. AND now, this my home-work being for the present finished, while exigencies of a peculiar kind appear to call me back again to the Indian field, I cheerfully obey the summons; and, despite its manifold ties and attractions, I now feel as if in fulness of heart I can say farewell to Scotland !—to Scotland, honoured by ancient memories and associations of undying glory and renown!-Scotland, on whose soil were fought some of the mightiest battles for civil and religious liberty!-Scotland, thou country and home of the bravest among undaunted Reformers!-Scotland, thou chosen abode and last resting. place of the ashes of most heroic and daring martyrs!-yet farewell, Scotland! Farewell to all that is in thee! Farewell, from peculiarity of natural temperament, I am prepared to say, Farewell ye mountains and hills, with your exhilarating breezes, where the soul has at times risen to the elevation of the Rock of ages, and looked to the hill whence alone aid can come. Farewell, ye rivers and murmuring brooks, along whose shady banks it has often been my lot to roam, enjoying in your solitude the sweetest society! Farewell, ye rocky and rugged strands, where I have so often stood and gazed at the foaming billows as they dashed and surged everlastingly at your feet! Farewell, ye churches and halls throughout this land, where it has been so often my privilege to plead the cause of a perishing world; and where, in so doing, I have had such precious glimpses of the King in his beauty, wielding the sceptre of grace over awakened, quickened, and ransomed souls. Farewell, ye abodes of the righteous, whether manses or ordinary dwellings, in which this weary, pilgrimed body has often found sweet rest and shelter, and this wearied spirit the most genial Christian fellowship. Farewell, too, ye homes of earliest youth, linked to my soul by associations of endearment which time can never efface. Ay, and farewell, ye graves of my fathers, never likely to receive my mortal remains! And welcome, India! Welcome, India, with thy benighted, perishing millions; because, in the vision of faith, I see the renovating process that is to elevate them from the lowest depths of debasement and shame to the noblest heights of celestial glory. Welcome, you majestic hills, the loftiest on this our globe! for, though cold be your summits and clothed with the drapery of eternal winter, in the vision of faith I can go beyond and behold the mountain of the Lord's house established on the top of the mountains, with the innumerable multitudes of India's adoring worshippers joyously thronging towards it. Welcome, too, ye mighty, stupendous fabrics of a dark, lowering idolatry, because in the vision of faith I can see in your certain downfall, and in the beauteous temples of Christianity reared over your ruins, one of the mightiest monuments to the triumph and glory of our adored Immanuel! Welcome, too, thou majestic Ganges, in whose waters, through every age, such countless multitudes have been engulfed, in the vain hope of obtaining thereby a sure passport to immortality, because in the vision of faith I behold the myriads of thy deluded votaries forsaking thy turbid though sacred waters, and learning to wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb! Welcome-if the Lord so wills it-welcome, sooner or later, a quiet resting-place on thy sunny banks, amid the Hindu people, for whose deliverance from the tyrannic sway of the foulest and cruelest idolatries on earth I have groaned and travailed in soul-agony! Fare ye well, then, reverend fathers and beloved brethren and sisters in the Lord,-fare ye well in time! fare ye well through all eternity! And, in the view of that bright and glorious eternity, welcome, thrice welcome, thou resurrection-morn, when the graves of every clime and of every age, from the time of righteous Abel down to the period of the last trumpet-sound, will give up their dead, and the ransomed myriads of the Lord, ascending on high, shall enter the mansions of glory-the palaces of light-in Immanuel's land; and there together, in indissoluble and blissful harmony, celebrate the jubilee of a once groaning but then renovated universe! Farewell! farewell! THE SWORD AND THE PRESS. THE following beautiful extract, illustrating in a powerful manner the advantages of printing to mankind, is from an essay by Thomas Carlyle, in the British Review, published nearly twenty years ago, when the somewhat noted writer clothed his ideas in plain English, and his works could be read without an insight into the mysteries of Transcendentalism: "When Tamerlane had finished building his pyramid of seventy thousand human skulls, and was seen standing at the gate of Damascus, glittering in his steel, with his battleaxe on his shoulder, till his fierce hosts filed out to new victories and new carnage, the pale looker-on might have fancied that nature was in her death-throes; for havoc and despair had taken possession of the earth; the sun of manhood seemed setting in a sea of blood. Yet it might be on that very gala-day of Tamerlane that a little boy was playing nine-pins in the streets of Mentz, whose history was more important than that of twenty Tamerlanes. The khan, with his shaggy demons of the wilderness, "passed away like a whirlwind," to be forgotten forever; and that German artisan has wrought a benefit which is yet immeasurably expanding itself, and will continue to expand itself, through all countries and all times. What are the conquests and the expeditions of the whole multitudes of captains, from Walter the Penniless to Napoleon Bonaparte, compared with those movable types of Faust? Truly, it is a mortifying thing for your conqueror to reflect how perishable is the metal with which he hammers with such violence; how the kind earth will soon shroud up his bloody footprints, and all that he achieved and skilfully piled together will be but like his own canvass city of a camp-this evening loud with life, to-morrow all struck and vanished -a few pits and heaps of straw.' For here, as always, it continues true that the deepest force is the stillest; that, as in the fable, the mild shining of the sun shall silently accomplish what the fierce blustering of the tempest in vain essayed. Above all, it is well ever to keep in mind that not by material but by moral power men and their actions are governed. How noiseless is thought! No rolling of drums, no tramp of squadrons, no immeasurable tumult of innumerable baggage-wagons, attend its movements. In what obscure and sequestered places may the head be meditating which is one day to be crowned with more than imperial authority! for kings and emperors will be among its ministering servants; it will rule not over, but in, all heads, and, with these solitary combinations of ideas and with magic formulas, bend the world to its will. The time may come when Napoleon himself will be better known for his laws than his battles, and the victory of Waterloo prove less momentous than the opening of the first Mechanics' Institute. A SPIRITUAL MIND FROM GOD. THE Spirit shall breathe on all thy powers, and thou shalt have a SPIRITUAL MIND. A PERCEPTION which shall perceive my glory in all things. A CONCEPTION, so as to put all thy perceptions before thy mind, and conceive something of my wondrous greatness. A MEMORY, to remember my daily mercies. An IMAGINATION, to imagine "the height and depth, and length and breadth, of the love of Jesus." A COMPARISON, that thou mayest compare the littleness of the world below with the vastness of the world above. A JUDGMENT, to think of all thy actions, and judge whether they are right or wrong. A REASON, which shall think of cause and effect, and tell thee that because of these wonderful works working together for good, there must be a Spirit of goodness, a great GOD. And, lastly, A LANGUAGE, that, when thou art able to perceive, conceive, imagine, remember, compare, and understand these things, thou mayest tell them to all the world; singing, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good-will towards men.' |