the paleness of decay, the hectic of disease and the lividness of death. There would have been an unvaried, unmeaning, leaden hue, where we now see the changing and expressive countenance, the tinted earth and gorgeous firmament."

"Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first born,

Or of the eternal co-eternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light,

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Before the sun-

.

Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a mantle didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep

Wou from the void and formless Infinite!"

What a mystery is light!-its combination of different rays-the red, the orange, the yellow, the green, the blue, the indigo and the violet! This ar rangement of colors is seen in harmonious assemblage in the rainbow, by the rays of light from the great luminary falling upon drops of rain in a shower; and also through the crystal-hence the term prismatic colors. Light, as we receive it from the sun, appears to the senses as a simple element: and, judging from our early impressions we might consider the peculiar colors of bodies as inherent in those bodies; but we are enabled to trace the immediate cause of the colors of bodies, whether permanent or transient, by the analysis of light furnished by the well known experiments of the glass prism. The sun's light, for instance, may

be decomposed into its homogeneous constituent rays by refraction through a transparent prism: conversely, it may be recompounded into light similar to the original, merely by making the rays, thus separated, by another refraction to occupy the same place. This may be effected by placing the prism of exactly similar material and form to that already used, with its refracting angle turned in a direction opposite to that of the former, so that the near faces of both prisms may be parallel; for the rays entering the second prism are in the same condition as if we supposed their direction inverted, that they may repass through the first; and therefore, they emerge in a similar compound ray with the original. Modern science has revealed much in regard to the nature and properties of light. Faraday has recently made a ray of polarized light rotate under the influence of an electric current.

There are instances in which light exerts a direct chemical agency without its being referable to the heat which usually accompanies it when intense. Thus, if a mixture of equal volumes of chlorine and hydrogen gases be kept in the dark, no combination takes place between them; but in the light of day they unite slowly, and form hydrochloric acid gas; while if exposed to the direct solar rays, the combination occurs instantaneously, and with loud explosion. If colorless nitric acid be exposed to the sun's rays, it becomes yellow, and afterwards red. So of chloride of silveras long as it is kept from the light, even though it may be exposed to heat, it remains perfectly colorless; but the sun's rays, and even diffused daylight, by their pe

culiar action, blacken it speedily. Chemistry furnishes many similar experiments.

Light has been defined that ethereal agent, of the presence of which we are informed by the sensibility of the visual organs. Some maintain that it is composed of material particles, projected in all directions from luminous bodies in an inconceivably rapid succession: but from the more recent investigations of science, it is believed that all the phenomena of light depend on the undulations of a highly attenuated fluid or ether, diffused through space, which, while at rest, is not appreciable by our senses, but when acted on by luminous bodies, is thrown into a succession of waves. Leaving the scientific aspect of light, we might ask what would become of us were its gladdening beams forever withdrawn from our world? We leave the reader's imagination to fill up the dark picture.

How full of significance is the radiant dawn of day— how expressively does it typify the early budding of infancy-its virgin freshness, purity and beauty. So, also, the noontide of life is imaged by the heat of the mid-day sun. As the brilliant hues of the morning become absorbed by the more intense and uniform glare of his meridian beams—so the toilers after wealth and fame are hurried into the fierce battle of life: also, anon the sun sinks to the western wave, and man to his quick grave. Life's busy scene is but a lengthened day; or, as Shakspeare says:

"Our little life is rounded by a sleep."

"Between two worlds life hovers like a star,

"Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge."

Sir William Temple wisely said: "When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the care is over. We bring into the world with us a poor, needy, uncertain life, short at the longest, and unquiet at the best. All the imaginations of the witty and the wise have been perpetually busy to find out the ways how to revive it with pleasures, or to relieve it with diversions; how to compose it with ease, and settle it with safety; that our poor, mortal lives should pass the easier and happier for that little time we possess them, or else end the better when we lose them." Life is not all storm and tempest, neither is it all sunshine and peace; it is a compound of both. As in nature we sometimes see the elements in fierce, tumultuous strife, and anon the landscape again all serenely reposing in the happy sunshine; so is it with human life. Who has not shared the bitter experience when suffering from either mental or physical depression, that the atmosphere of grief can convert the gladness of summer sunlight into the night-shade of sorrow? But there is a divine alchemy which transmutes all the bitterness of earthly sorrow into a joy that is "unspeakable and full of glory," when we look not at the things which are temporal, but at those which are eternal. Day draws to its decline, and pensive evening, with its charmed and mysterious twilight, succeeds-that time so loved of poet, painter, and philosopher. The lamented Charlotte Bronte has penned some expressive lines on this musing hour of eventide, which we subjoin:

"The human heart has hidden treasures

In secret kept, in silence sealed;

The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.

And days may pass in dull confusion,
And nights in noisy routs may fly,
While, lost in fame's or wealth's illusion,
The memory of the past may die.

"But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When soft as birds their pinions closing,

The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then, in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;

And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause some gentle tears to flow.

"And feelings once as strong as passions,
Float softly back-
-a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations
The taste of others' sufferings seem;
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How it longs for that time to be,
When through the mists of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!

'And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shades and loneliness,
And while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Heed no unmeasured woe's distress-

Only a deeper impress given

By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come."

There are two periods in the life of man in