beauty, Paris gives her the apple, and so indicates his choice. Led by Aphrodite to Helen, the lovely wife of his friend Menelaus, king of Sparta, he persuades her to desert husband, home, and country, and to return with him to Troy. To recover Helen and to avenge the conduct of its prince, Troy is beleaguered, and the long and terrible Trojan war ensues-a war involving the death of the kingly Hector, the sacking of the city, untold ruin and slaughter, and the death of Paris himself. This myth, as it represents Paris refusing power and fame, refusing wisdom and virtue, but enamoured of mere beauty of form, indicates at once the capacity, the character, and the consequences of human choice. There is illustrated here, I. THAT MAN IS DIVINELY ENTRUSTED WITH THE POWER OF CHOICE. Zeus, the father of gods and men, gave Paris the privilege and responsibility of awarding the apple of gold. So God has given man the privilege and the responsibility of choice. And as the three several claimants presented themselves before Paris, so to every man different aims, different gains, different pleasures are offered, from amongst which he may select the object of his choice: whilst the freedom with which Paris rejected the two and decided on the third, is a type of the liberty of the human will. Man is not shut up without alternatives. "See, I have set before thee this day good and evil, life and death.' "Choose ye whom ye will serve." II. THAT MAN IS PRONE TO EVIL CHOICE. When such a man, -so fair, so brave, so beloved as Paris,-makes so evil a choice, we may conclude that still more surely inferior men are inclined to choose the evil rather than the good. Each of the other two was better than the third; one of them was supremely good; and yet the third was chosen. That one was wholly evil; for it was (1) utterly carnal, (2) wrong to his own faithful wife, (3) wrong to his friend Menelaus, whose wife he abducts, (4) wrong to himself, for not only does he miss honour and virtue, but becomes emasculate and contemptible. III. THAT THE CONSEQUENCES of EVIL CHOICE ARE TERRIFIC. At the moment it might seem a small matter to which of the three suitors he gave the costly fruit. But as indicating the bent of his mind, and as committing him to a course of conduct, it was the momentous act of his life. Every evil choice is fraught with misery. This, and such as this, seems to have in it hells of wretchedness. For the misery following this false choice was (1) personal. A life of beauty is blighted. and a man of princely rank and promise dies a conquered dishonoured fugitive. Not only are his circumstances hurled into chaos, but his character infinitely deteriorates. The brave and strong hero degenerates into the enervated and helpless coward. He who had been Enone's pride becomes even Helen's scorn. So evil choice discrowns men. The misery was (2) social. Enone's heartbrokenness and the mourning of Menelaus are but pictures, dark and weird, of the social sorrows which man's evil choice has caused all through the lands and all down the centuries. This misery was (3) national. The carnage and slaughter and untold agony of Troy is of course a wider circle of woe than is created by the evil choice of less important men, and yet it suggests what national ruin or shame the unjust decisions of a statesman or a monarch may produce. Let but the golden apple be given to ambition, or thirst for conquest, or selfish policy, or party interests, and the statesinan's evil choice will involve his country in dishonour and destruction scarcely less calamitous than that which Paris brought on Troy. Bristol. URIJAH R. THOMAS. ORIGINAL SIMILITUDES. The Soul's Capacity to Grow both Evil and Good. THE tares and the wheat having been sown, germinated and grew. The soil of the heart quickeneth both. Though man's nature is made for truth and right, it will grow error and wrong. It can develop a wrong from an abstract idea into a upas tree, which shall spread its baneful branches over empires. All the social, political, and religious institutions that curse the world are but principles received from the devil, and grown by the human heart. Man has soil in his heart to grow the upas, as well as the tree of life. propositions, appear in books, or flow from the lips of eloquence, are scarcely to be distinguished from the right. But let them grow into the forms of acts, habits, and institutions, and dissimilarity becomes obvious. You will have great difficulty in convincing the foolishly indulgent parent who ministers more to the bodily appetites and fantastic wishes of his child than to the conscience, who instils the principles of pleasure rather than duty, that he is wrong; but let the boy or girl reach maturity, and he shall have heartbreaking proofs of his error. You may have a difficulty in convincing an atheist that his principles are bad; but let them grow and become embodied in the life of a nation, and, as in France, the enormity shall be written in blood and proclaimed in thunder. The difference between good and evil principles appears more and more as they are left to grow. On the great Day of Judgment you will look on the left hand and see in the horrid faces, expressions and characters of the G G formulas of hazy solemnity. The reason of this is, the want of faith in the vital truth of their ideas. Truth, like life, will make its own form; error only lives as it is wrapped in fine clothes. Christianity is a principle of living truth-"a seed," and though small, only give it soil, and it will build up structures for itself. The little acorn will build in oaken forests for itself a home, and will flourish in strength and beauty when those palaces are dust. Truth never studies appearance; error does. Truth is content with the form of a mustard-seed; error seeks all the pageantry that art can invent and wealth procure. Right a Slow Growth. As a general principle in life, science, and institutions, the greater the thing, the slower its growth. Every kind of life, philosophic, social, and political, as well as vegetable and animal, has its mushroom and oak,-the one reaching its perfection in a few hours, the other requiring the growth of long centuries. Since Christianity is growing still, its roots are deeper, its branches stretch over more territory, and are clad in richer foliage to-day than ever. Let us then toil on. We cannot labour in vain. Christianity Fitted to the Soul, THE earth is invested with powers to quicken, nourish, and develop the seed. The human soul can take in the Gospel, and turns it into a living and regnant power. There is beautiful fitness in the Gospel to the constitution and conditions of the human soul. There are some systems that suit some souls in some respects, but do not suit others. Christianity suits all; it is fitted to universal mind as the earth is fitted for the seed. It can grow in souls of every zone, from the equator to the poles. Truth in the Soul. CHRIST was a sower of the seed. He sought to put the truth into human hearts; He did not commit his thoughts to books, but to souls. Christianity, as it works in the heart, is mightier than it is when explained and enforced Oh, let me speak the thoughts of And then my words like seed shall In hearts when I am gone. To beautify and bless, shall they Harvests out of them shall come, SCIENTIFIC FACTS AS ILLUSTRATIONS OF ETERNAL TRUTHS. "Books of Illustration" designed to help preachers, are somewhat, we think, too abounding. They are often made up to a great extent of anecdotes from the sentimental side of life, and not always having a healthful influence or historic foundation. We find that preachers and hearers are getting tired of such. Albeit illustrations are needed by every speaker who would interest the people, and are sanctioned by the highest authority. Nature itself is a parable. Hence we have arranged with a naturalist who has been engaged in scientific investigation for many years, to supply The Homilist with such reliable and well-ascertained facts in nature as cultured and conscientious men may use with confidence, as mirrors of morals and diagrams of doctrines. The Indelibility of Impres- fully put aside where nothing can deteriorate its surface, though it remain for many months, breathing on it again will cause a shadowy form to emerge. Indeed, a shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace, a trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper processes. In photography, peoples, palaces, churches, landscapes etc., may lay hidden from the eye on the sensitive surface for years, and reappear in all their freshness, reality, and proportion, as soon as the proper developers are applied. It is somewhat thus with mental impressions. No impression made upon the mind is lost. Like the wafer image on the polished metal, or the picture on the sensitive plate, it may lay concealed; but a mere breath, or beam, or particle will call it forth in all its reality, and thus on for ever. A man commits a trifling sin; the act falls as a mere wafer on the surface of his soul; but the impression of that wafer is more lasting than the stars. Man carrying with him the Places he Visits: The World in a Man's Soul. "I HAVE seen," says Dr. Draper, "landscapes and architectural views taken in Mexico developed, as artists call it, months subsequently in New York; the images coming out after the long voyage in all their proper forms, and in all their proper contrasts in lights and shades. The photograph had forgotten nothing; it had equally preserved the contour of the everlasting mountains and the passing smoke of a bandit fire." Thus the traveller with this art may carry with him all that he has witnessed from the equator to the pole. The travelling Englishman, returning to his home, may carry with him all the landscapes he has seen, all the cathedrals he has entered, and the grandest buildings of all the cities whose streets he has trod. It is thus with the soul. All things we see and hear, touch and taste, are photographed within; and their images are destined to re-appear. We do not leave the world when we die; we carry it with us in our hearts. In the silent galleries of our spiritual being are hung, in countless numbers, the micrographs of the living and the dead, of all the scenes we have visited, of all the incidents in which we have borne a part. Thus God has put the world in a man's soul. Man's Mind in Animals: Duty to the Lower Creatures. BRODIE, after an exhaustive consideration of the facts, affirms that the mind of animals is essentially the same as that of man. Every one familiar with the dog will admit that that creature knows right from wrong, and is conscious when he has committed a fault. Many domestic animals have reasoning powers, and employ proper means for the attainment of ends. How numerous are the anecdotes related of the intentional actions of the elephant and the ape! Nor is this apparent intelligence due to imitation, to their association with man, for wild animals that have no such relation exhibit similar propensities. In different species, the capacity and character greatly vary. Thus, the dog is not only more intelligent, but has social and moral qualities that the cat does not possess; the former loves his master, the latter her home. Listen to one of the many anecdotes which Huber, at once |