Greek error may illustrate a general truth, namely, that true teachers have to undergo-(2) Divine discipline. Providence often seems to frown on the noblest men who are doing earth's noblest work. The

courses of history and the currents of events appear to be against them. The Divine destiny for such is an icy Caucasus or a Roman Cross. URIJAH R. THOMAS.

Bristol.

Earthquakes: Use is Second

Nature.

IN speaking of the cause of the indescribable, deep, and quite peculiar impression which the first earthquake which inexperience makes upon us, Humboldt says, "The impression here is not, I believe, the consequence of any recollection of destructive catastrophes presented to our imagination by narratives of historical events. What seizes upon us so wonderfully, is the disabuse of that innate faith in the fixity of the solid and sureset foundations of the earth. From early childhood we are habituated to the contrast between the mobile element water, and the immobility of the soil on which we stand. All the evidences of our senses have confirmed the belief. But when suddenly the ground begins to rock beneath us, the feeling of an unknown mysterious power in nature coming into action and shaking the solid globe, arises in the mind-the illusion of the whole of our earlier life is annihilated in an instant. We are undeceived as to the repose of nature, we feel ourselves transported to the realm, and made subject to the empire, of destructive unknown powers. Every sound,

the slightest rustle in the air, sets attention on the stretch. We no longer trust the earth upon which we stand. The unusual in the phenomenon throws the same anxious unrest and alarm over the lower animals. Swine and dogs are particularly affected by it, and the very crocodiles of the Orinoco, otherwise as dumb as our little lizards, leave the shaken bed of the stream and run bellowing into the woods. To man the earthquake presents itself as an all-pervading unlimited something. We can remove from an active crater; from the stream of lava which is pouring down on our dwelling we can escape; with the earthquake we feel that, whithersoever we fly, we are still over the hearth of destruction. Such a mental condition, though evoked in our very innermost nature, is not however of long duration. When a series of slighter shocks occur in a district one after another, every trace of alarm soon vanishes among the inhabitants. On the rainless coast of Peru, nothing is known of hail, nor of explosions of lightning and rolling thunder in the bosom of the atmosphere. The subterraneous noise that accompanies the earthquake there comes in lieu of the thunder of

IN Judea there are periodical rains which often continue for successive days; these rains often fill the glens of the mountains to their overflow, and the accumulated waters rush forth and roll in foaming torrents down the hills, bearing everything before them. The house that was built above them would be secure, but that at the base would be exposed to the utmost danger. Picture the scene of the house thus built on the sand. It is just finished and the owner has taken possession of it as his home. There he hoped to enjoy comfort which would amply repay his labour and cost. For a season all is fair. It is girded by the hills, the valleys bloom around, the genial air breathes softly by. It seems a beautiful residence, a well-chosen home. The traveller admires it on his way. But the summer months roll away, the autumn succeeds, and now the dreary winter comes. There are indications of a storm, the clouds gather, blacken, and spread; the winds howl in the threatening notes; rains com

mence, torrents fall on the earth day after day without abatement, the glens of the mountains are full to an overflow; they come rushing down the hills with an ever increasing force; they dash against the sides of the house, they accumulate around it, they penetrate and loosen the foundation; meanwhile the winds are raised to a hurricane, and are beating all their force upon the building. At length the foundation gives way; not a stone, a timber, escapes-it is utter ruin. "Great was the fall!" Such is the image which Christ employs to describe the terrible condition of the false religionists in “that day.”

Christ as a Teacher. Ir is said that "the common people heard Him gladly." The common people; not the religious rabble, who are carried away with any vulgar declaimer who can excite their sensibility, but the unsophisticated millions, possessing the average amount of common sense, they "heard Him gladly." There were fulness and force about His statements that touched their inmost nature and woke their slumbering souls. The sermons of Jesus wafted the minds of His hearers into a new world. New stars shone above them; the landscape was new; and the air, fresh and balmy, quickened the pulsations of their souls, and gave them feelings they never had before. They were astonished at His doctrine."

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The Manatees: Self-sacri

fice.

THE Manatees (Manatus) collect together in large troops. Their character is mild, affectionate, and sociable. The male, which is extremely attached to his female, does not desert her in the hour of danger, but defends her until his death. The young ones have no less tenderness for their mother. The fishermen know how to profit by the ties which unite all the members of the family. They try above all to capture first the females, because the males and the young ones follow them to defend them, or to share their fate. On the shallow, weedy shores, round islands at the mouths of rivers, which these innocent and mild animals frequent to feed on the sea-weed, are the places to look for the Manatees. The hunter waits for the moment when they come to the surface to breathe; or else he surprises them in their sleep, floating with their muzzles above the surface of the water in the current. When close, he throws his harpoon. The wounded animal loses its blood; this blood brings up the other Manatees to the assistance of the victim. At the fatal moment some of them try to wrench

out the murderous weapon, the others to bite through the cord which the wounded one is dragging along with it, thus affording the fisherman an opportunity to massacre the whole troop. The unselfish devotion of these animals leads them on to their destruction.

Not uncommonly we read, in biographies and elsewhere, eloquent panegyrics on the bravery of warriors and others, on occasions when they have risked their lives for their fellows. It may raise our conception of the lower creation to remember that some other existences manifest a self-sacrificing devotion equal to if not superior to our own, as in the case of these Manatees.

The Movements of the Ocean: "He divideth the Sea with His Power." BEFORE Captain Maury's researches, the ocean appeared to the most judicious observers as nothing more than a grand mass of water, inert, passive, obedient to blind and changeful forces. He has demonstrated, however, that there, as in all other parts of the economy of nature, harmony and order reign, that everything is planned, weighed, and compensated;

F

and more, that ocean is endowed with a combination of movements similar to those which nourish life in the plant and the animal; that it has a circulation, free and regular as that of the blood; a pulse ever throbbing and heaving; veins and arteries, ay, and a heart; and that beyond the purely physical causes to which we may attribute this circulation there exists an essential agent which we should seek in vain elsewhere, a vital force-that of the myriads of invisible beings which are born, live, multiply, and die in its waters. these imperceptible existences changes the equilibrium of the ocean; they also help to regulate the climates of the earth and to preserve the purity of the seas. The principal agents of this circulation are three in number. The first and most apparent is caloric, the solar radiation; but of itself this Iwould be insufficient. The second and most important is the salt. The third is the animal life-"the living infinite of the sea," as Michelet calls it, the infusoria.

Each of

Truly, as we contemplate this wonderful arrangement, we may say, "He divideth the sea with His power."

The Sparrow: Thieves sel

dom Prosper long. OCCASIONALLY the sparrows, which take advantage of every cavity about our houses for their own purposes, finding the nest of a martin ready for use, take possession of it without ceremony; in this case the rightful owners endeavour, generally with success, to oust

the intruder from their domicile. Sometimes, however, the sparrow in possession obstinately refuses to quit his usurped abode, and then the martins have been seen to adopt a very curious mode of revenging themselves. When the owners of the nest find that all their endeavours are insufficient to turn out the robber, they collect their friends and neighbours in great numbers, and watch the moment when the sparrow is engaged in the business of incubation. Then the whole body, each bearing a mass of soft earth in its bill, rushes at once to the nest, and in a few moments the aperture at the top is closed by a solid mass of mud, which no effort on the part of the unhappy prisoner can possibly break through. So determined are they indeed to effect that object thoroughly, that in a case recorded by the Vicomte de Tarragon, the mass of clay stuffed into the aperture was nearly the size of a swallow's egg, the two ends projecting into and out of the nest. The sparrow was found dead on her eggs.

It has often been remarked that property acquired by fraud and cheating seldom permanently benefits the possessor. This seems to be the rule.

The Violet: The Sweet
Disposition.

ALL the culture of the world has never been able to improve the violet: it is as lovely and sweetscented in the wild bank and in the wood as in the most splendid borders of palace gardens.