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] / t a statement unless you are sure,” said the Doc tor; and his mind reverted to the secret Jona than Gump had confided to him, under charge to keep it faithfully no mailer what befell him— that strange secret of four words. “If Mr. Lawrence should return in two or three weeks,” continued the Doctor, “you might regret that assertion.” There was that in his tone which caused these two women to think that they had been guilt- of a grave wrong; and while they blubbere and cried, arrangements were made for dig ging the river- the humane villagers hoping . recover the body to give it decent burial. All that morning they labored, and until the sun had almost set, but without success. Then, dis heartened and discouraged, they abandoned it, and retired to their homes with sad faces and humid eyes. Dr. Strong had been most diligent in the fruitless and melancholy search; and now when it was completed he was not fully satisfied with the result. “I’ll declare,” he exclaimed. “It does seem to me that if he had been thrown into the river, we should have found his body. Still, I don’t know. If he had escaped, he would have come to my house directly. No; he is in this river. The stream is full of rocks, and he may have drifted between two of them, and then Satan himself-couldn’t fetch him out. However, I’m goirJ I reconnoitre,” and immediately' he re- tur:| fte Rock River bridge. “w| jdr&inly dragged down as far as the current could have carried him,” muttered the Doctor. Suddenly an idea struck him in the midst of his meditations. “ Ah ! what was that he said to me? No mat ter what befall me, keep my secret. These words meant something more than I had sup posed. I think I understand it. There is an enemy at the bottom of it, and I’ll bet my hun dred thousand on it. It means I’ll be bound— that this enemy has taken the life of Jonathan Gump—nothing more and nothing less. Now, for the jiroofs. This enemy is an old one—one who has followed him from abroad—one whom Jonathan Gump was expecting every day and hour, as the song goes. In communicating his secret to me, he meant to warn me that this man would seek to take his life. Why couldn’t he have put it in plainer words ? Confound it all! But enough of his faults! Poor, worthy fellow, he is gone. I am curious to know what Mr. Law rence will say when he comes. By the way, Doctor,” said the banker, changing the subject, “ I am glad to know that you and your sister are reconciled." They were now at the doctor’s gate, and the worthy physician alighted in a brown study, and {>-.*-red his house. ”iat man is a shrewd scoundrel,” he said to ilf. “ He is mean enough, but is too cow- to murder. Besides, there was no provo- n. Mabel and Gump had seen too little of w.;ch other to incur his hatred and jealousy. Let the murderer be who he may, he is pretty shrewd. It was a good trick to commit the crime on the bridge, to compel the horses to run away, and to throw the body into the river. He thus has covered up his work effectually. But it shall be undone. To-morrow I will telegraph to Pinker ton to send me his best detective. I am deter mined to see this thing through. I will advise with Judge Thompson before doing so, for the reason that he is experienced, and on Mabel’s account will be glad to aid me.” (to be continued.! [For The SuDny South.1 SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE. BT IlEV. W. P. HARltlSON, D.D. WO. Ill—THE CORRKLATKW OF FORCES. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.’ — Acte xvii: 28. Physical science knows nothing of creation and annihilation. This assertion we meet at every turn, whenever the theologian proposes to discuss the origin and end of the material universe. Properly speaking, science has noth ing to do with these questions, aDd we are con tent to restrain the physical scientist within his own chosen limits, if he would confine himself to them. But, with remarkable inconsistency, in one sentence he declares the impotence of Science in regard to the beginning and the end of matter, and in the same page he ventures to assert that because Nature reveals no secrets of her birth, and makes no prophecy of her death, therefore both the beginning and the end of things are utterly impossible. To say that mat- . . , ter is, and therefore always existed, is just as I was a fool for promising to keep his secret; I illogical as to say, because a steam engine is a ought to have told it the first shot after this, j complete machine to-day, it was a complete ma- Indeed, I do believe that it ought to be told any- t chine before the existence of the human race, how. But a promise is a promise, and I’ll hold j There is nothing more absurd in the mental to f° r the present. Now, for some trace of the conception of the creation of a power, than there murderer. j j s j n tjj e me ntal conception of the application Near the centre of the bridge in length, and | of a power. If we grant the existence of an in- near its centre in width, he saw a dark streak, ! telligent, Almighty Being, we provide for the which the day’s travel had not obliterated. At creation of force, just as the admission of an in- the outer edge, where the dust had not fallen, | telligent, finite Mind, provides for the applica- the evidences of blood were so plain that the j lion of forces. God is free, and therefore Al- veriest dolt alive could but pronounce it such, mighty Power enn create. Man is free, and Dr. Strong brushed the dust from the dark spot therefore human skill can control, direct, and in the middle of the bridge, and discovered that j modify the application of natural laws, the gore of his murdered friend had penetrated j The most recent form of this pagan philoso- the dry pine floor. . phy of the eternity of mattor is known by sev- “This is murder without doubt,” he cried. | eral names, “the correlation of forces,” “the “If he had been thrown from the carriage, he ! equivalence of forces,” “the conservation of would have fallen at the outer edge of the bridge. ! energy.” All writers among the scientists are not agreed in regard to the doctrines expressed by these terms. Some reduce all motive forces to a single class, the Physical. Another school of scientists acknowledge the existence of two classes, Physical and Vital Forces. Still another division of these theorists, admit the existence of three classes, the Physical, the Vital, and the Mental Force. They all agree in a single prop osition, to wit: all known forces are correlated But he was murdered in his carriage, and then dragged to the middle of the bridge, and from there to the edge, and was then pushed into the river. Poor fellow! he was shot while sitting in his seat. Now, who is the murderer—that is the question. He maj’ have left some trace behind. But where is the good of it, when he has proba bly returned from whence he came. Gump has probably stood in his way in some matter—per haps in love—and this fellow has now put him 1 the birth of one is the subsidence of another: out of his way, for good. Yet I shall hunt like I the dissipation of one is substituted by the ap- a blood-hound, and who knows but I may sue- j pearance of another forri. To illustrate the ceed.” 1 meaning of the phrase, “correlation of forces,” At the right hand of the bridge toward Rock j we will take their favorite comparison, the steam- island, and in fact for some distance along the i engine. road leading toward the city, is quite a heavy j The steam-engine, perfect in all its parts, is undergrowth of “hazel-bushes” and small hick- i supplied with water and fuel. The generation ory, with frequent crab-apple and plum trees, j of heat by the coal in the furnace causes the water to expand, and the development of steam force is the result. This steam, pressing upon “The matter of life is a veritable ‘Peau de Chagrin,’ and for every vital act it is somewhat the smaller. All work implies waste, and the work of life results, directly or indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm. Every word uttered by a speaker costs him some physical loss, and in the strictest sense, it burns that others may have light—so mrnli eloquence, so much of his body resolved intq carbonic acid, water, and urea. It is clear that this process of expendi ture cannot go o4 forever. But happily the protoplasmic peau de chagrin differs from Bal zac’s in its capacjty of being repaired, and brought back to it&full size, after every exertion. For example, this present lecture, whatever its intellectual worth to you, has a certain physical value to me, which is, conceivably, expressible by the number of grains of protoplasm and other bodily substance wasted in maintaining my vital processes during its delivery. My peau de chagrin will be distinctly smaller at the end of the discohrse than it was at the begin ning. By-and-by, I shall probably have re course to the substance called mutton, for the purpose of stretching it back to its original size. A singular inward laboratory, which I possess, will dissolve a certain portion of the modified protoplasm, the solution so formed will pass into my veins, and the subtle influences to which it will then be subjected will convert the dead protoplasm into living protoplasm, and transubstantiate sheep into man.” Thus, according to these modern expounders of the laws ol njjfure, a few ounces of mutton are transmuted i»io a philosophical essay. If this be true, then,lhe address of Professor Hux ley is capable of bJing “transubstantiated ” into a few ounces of mutton, for one is tho exact equivalent of the other. The absurdity of this doctrine is palpaU«. Natural forces are invari able in their operations. It does not matter whose hand applies the match to a powder mag azine—whether it be the hand of an idiot or that of a philosopher, the magazine explodes when the fire touches the powder. The trigger of a gun may be drawn by a child, or by a giant, with precisely the same result. The purpose, the intention of the actor has nothing at all to do with tho operations of the physical force. If the mutton in the laboratory of the professor is “transubstantiated” into a splendid address, why will not the same amount of mutton pro duce the same result in the “laboratory” of a dunce? The mutton contains as much “ proto plasm ’’—the laboratory of the dunce may be in better working order than that of the scientist — and yet, in the one case, an eloquent lecture may delight a multitude of hearers, and in the other case produce a refreshing sleep. Why is this? What becomes of the protoplasm ? Among the millions of tons of mutton consumed in these three thousand years of human history, why is it that so little of it has been transmuted into orations like that of Demosthenes on the Crown, Cicero against Cataline, the defense of Apuleius, or Burke on the impeachment of Warren Hast ings? Why has so little transmuted mutton ap peared in the guise of sermons like those of Bossuet and Massillon, Whitfield and Irving, Edwards and Bascom ? It is useless to argue that some material de fect in the organization of the brain of man hin ders the development of this “ transubstantia- tion ” of physical into mental force. Human science has never been able to discover a scin tilla of difference in the texture of two healthy brains, although the one may have burned with the genius of a Byron, and the other plotted with the sullen malignity’ of a Guy Fawkes. So subtle is this material throne of thought, the brain, that evon fatal diseases have produced viun it soAri" 4 -*-' perc^Mibla influence. folly. Life, animal life, the visible expression of the vital force, is the gift of God. Organic nature brings us, then, one step nearer to the Great First Cause. He has en dowed every organism, from the invisible ani malcule to the huge mastodon, with certain powers, suited to the condition of the living creature. No mistakes are made in this animal kingdom. Birds with fins and fishes with wings appear only approximately as the two elements in which they move resemble each other, or as the two classes of beings are designod to occupy alternately air and water. The simplest form of life in the first series, touches the lowest form in the second series, and the highest of the second, the lowest of the third; and thus the as cending scales, from the motionless mollusc, the time when first she could read the dusty old volumes on her father’s book-shelves; nnd she feels proudly that there is a nameless something within her, that places her widely apart from, and above those around her—something that is a power, a glory, and yet, at times, an exquisite pain. So through the twilight time the two confide their hopes and dreams to each other, and paint in bold colors a wondrous future; and in those coming years they' are still to be as now—all in all to each other; no other love is ever to rival in strength this devotion that has knit them to gether from childhood, in a tie as rare as it is beautiful. There ring out in the deepening twilight now, light bursts and snatches of joyous song. Lilts chained immovably to the submerged rocks of of sweet old melodies float musically through the ocean, to the eagle soaring with his eye fixed | tho house, and down the quiet old garden, lying upon the resplendent sun, crowns the work : by the rippling river—“Annie Laurie,” “Ingle- of the Creator as the labor of a free, intelligent, I Side”—how the fresh young voices chime to the beneficent God. | sweet old words; how the walls ring with “Fairy Last, but highest of all, we recognize Spirit i Bell” and “Alton Waters I” Force. It is the image of God, imprinted upon ; Another form rises from the glowing coals, and a tablet of clay—existing in an animal organ- smiles at the dreaming woman now. It is her ism, which in turn rests upon a physical basis dead father; she sees his olden look of proud of life. Physical forces combined, form the or- ; affection as Nannie carols his favorite Scotch ganized body of which vital force is the soul, song, in her rich, beautiful voice; and she feels the life. Supremely enthroned upon this vital ; his kind hand laid tenderly on her head as she organism is the mental, the spirit force. Blood, ventures to tell him her own ambitious hopes nerves, muscles, tendons, bones, brain are parts ; for the future. She sits by his side again in the of the vital machine, but they are not parts of j long winter evenings, while he reads to her the the mind. Their conditions may, and generally \ master pieces of the old English bards and phil- do, reflect upon the intellect, and mar, or stim- 1 osophers—some stately march of Milton’s verse, ulate its manifestations to the outer world, but i or scrap of Bacon’s wondrous lore, or perhaps a no combinations, no conditions of matter, no \ pathetic song from his own best-loved poet, glo- alliance of vital forces can create or destroy the rious Robert Burns—and the eyes of parent and thinking principle. This is God’s image, and \ child meet in mute but eloquent sympathy, as He alone can photograph tho principle of im- : some noble sentiment wakes a responsive chord mortality. i in each heart. She remembers how timidly and This immortal phoenix rises from the ashes of ; and yet how proudly she gave him her own first dissolution, nnd plumes itself for the last, the essays at rhyme; nnd she feels again the old grandest flight, and the moulting season of the resurrection will furnish the pinions that will only be folded again in the “balm-breathing gar dens of God.” The cry of the ages comes down from the shadowy aisles of pre-liistoric homes, and above the Babel confusion of human wars of ambition and lust; above the clamor of fierce, relentless passions; above the jarring discords of colliding centuries, and races, we hear the thrill of delicious joy as his warm commenda tions reward her. Ah, it was all years ago; but for a moment the rapt woman who sits by the lonely fireside be lieves it a present actuality. She hears Nannie’s rich voice ring again through the old hall at “home;” she catches the glance of her father’s eye, she feels the clasp of his fond hand—her heart swells high with its old daring and extrav- plaintive notes of orphaned humanity seeking ; agant ambition; then, a tear, large and hot, falls for its Father’s House. Across the sunny plains to her lap—she has come back to the present, of the Indus, where Nature, dressed in her re- | Her father has slept quietly' for many' years in splendent robes, appears the beautiful bride of the garden of her childhood's home; the old ideal perfection; in the midst of gorgeous tern- rooms are occupied by strangers; new forms sit pies whose pinnacles are capped with tiaras of : around the parlor fire; new forms go up and down ! clouds and snow, whilst perpetual spring with : the old, quaint stairway; strange feet tread care- | balmy breath wooes every living thing to the | lessly the long hail that once echoed with Nan- i fullness of pleasure; even thence in vague and nie’s songs and caught the whispered tones of ! mystical forms of thought, with frozen music 1 the two who walked there so often at nightfall, j telling of songs wrung from the heart to be en- j One of these has a home of her own far away; I graved in monuments of architecture; the in- and there is a winsome little girl who inherits finite aspiration for the truth that never dies, j her mother’s love of music, and already sings in Dr. Strong thought it very probable that the murderer had taken a hasty flight into this copse, alter the commission of his crime, in order : the piston-rod of the engine, causes the driving- to hide his tracks. ■ wheels to revolve, and the cars linked to the If so, he had pursued the very course calcula- ! machine are propelled upon the track. The ted to open the way to his detection, for in his j motion given to the train is the equivalent of hurry he was likely to leave some trace which power developed by the heat of the furnace. To might furnish a clue to his identity. 1 stop the train, brakes are applied to the wheels, The Docter hunted for Borne time, and at last and the friction of the brake develops heat. If found footsteps, which showed extreme haste on , we could gather every particle of heat thrown the part of their owner. A little further on, and ! off by this friction, and add to that sum the they were joined by another, but entirely differ- j escaped steam and unemployed heat retained in ent. While it was broader and larger, and heav- i the engine, and escaping from the smoke-pipe, ier, at the same time it was not so deeply im- j we should have a positive equivalent for the bedded in the soil. Evidently the last track had ' amount of heat generated in the furnace. Noth- been made by one who was stealthily creeping ] ing is lost, there is simply a change of place in after the other. ! the location of the force. This example furnishes Pursuing these tracks a short distance, Dr. j an illustration of correlated physical forces. Heat Strong found something which encouraged him I makes steam; steam gives motion; motion retard exceedingly. It was a heavy, round stick, about ! ed becomes friction; friction yields heat again; three feet in length. He picked it up and ex- j and thus were turn in the circle to the starting- amined it. Several long black hairs covered the j point. end of it, but there was no blood on it. j Thus far, we have no controversy with the “This is the instrument of death,” he said, j scientists; there is, unquestionably, a sphere of “A well-directed stroke with this would kill anv action in which there exists a true correlation of the beautiful that never fades, the good that be comes immortal, comes down the ages and tells us of an unchanging and unchangeable Paradise, the lost, but recovered home of the never-dyin& soul! Out of the mazes of dialectic disputa tion, the amazing labyrinth of human thought; from the shadowy groves of Athens and the olive-gardens of Attica, sculptured prayers of Greek art striving after the image of the Un- ! known God, breathe forever the sublime, yet sorrowful petition for restoration to the Paradise ! of Immortality. Out of the whirlpool of pas- j sions, revolving in the great centre of earth’s material power, imperial Rome, amidst the de- ; ification of force, the apotheosis of martial glory, the great heart of humanity swells in the j sighs of the post’s for the elixir of life, the am- ' ibrosial flash, anld the nectar which gives a^jjn- pure, childish tones some of the songs of Nan nie’s own childhood. She, we trust—our dainty wee maiden with the sinless face that makes one dream of Paradise—will have all the advantages of culture that were denied Nannie; and in her Nannie will live over again the sunny dreams and hopes of her own lost girlhood. And the solitary woman dreaming by the fire— what of her? She has never climbed the height of fame; she has never drunk one draught from the cup that in her daring youth she vowed to quail so deep ly—the world knows her not. The thorns of life’s journey have pierced so sorely her tired feet that now she has no heart to climb—she only cares to rest. Her brow is pale and faded—not meet to be decorated with the once passionately longed-for Neither the we? r e r *of the brain, r^>r the healthy Jless immortality ! Out of the dread silence of crown of bay—years have well-nigh quenched action of the or'- arn * can account fdr the wonder-.; primeval forest^, the smoking incense of Druid- J the old fire of enthusiasm in her breast—she has ful Khenomena*^ ®nind. Of the kue parents,/ in the same household, surrounded by the same' influences, subjected to the same methods of de velopment, one child becomes a scholar, brilliant, acute, and logical, whilst another settles down into the dull routine of prosy life. In the one case, all knowledge possesses a fascination which absorbs the hours devoted by other children to sports and amusements; books have a charm which is sweeter than all the delights of the senses, and the child is happy only as the mind ical invocations .comes, and mystical rites pro- j learned many of the sternest lessons of human claim that they, too, catching a glimpse of the ! life. shadow of immortality falling on the portals of j Once she wrestled fiercely with the cold, piti- death, join the universal prayer for the orphan’s less hand of fate that held her so remorsely down; return to the Father's House ! Let Science bind she cried out at what she thought the unjustice return to the Father's House ! Let Science bind her bedraggled mantle,aronnd her wan and weary form, and follow her earliest votaries, the Wise Men of the East, led by the Herald Star to the cradle of Bethlehem. There she will learn the mysteries of Life, the enigmas of Death—there she will see a correlated .Star transmuted to a of the God who had endowed her so richly only to let her carry to her grave the stinging con sciousness of unemployed power—the pain of an eternal regret. But the years have taught her better. She can weigh more rightly now the worth of earthly success and earthly honor. She has tested the is ascending the hill of science, and basking in ! Son of Righteousness, and there she may learn the sunlight of thought. In the other case, all j that the author of physical life has assumed the j hollow ring of fame; and is learning the lofty study is a bore; books are instruments of tor- j organism of man, and made eternal life possible j philosophy of life that teaches how vain is every ture, and the chili is only happy when all re- | to every human being who will receive Him as ambition that does not draw its inspiration from the bread sent down from heaven “ for in Him we live, and move, and have our being.” [For The Sunny South.] GALLERY OF MEMORIES. Soon afterward he came to a sharp stone in the pathway trod by the two men he was following, at the side of which he noticed two bits of leather, seemingly shaven from a boot. At the time he gave this discovery no thought, and passed on physical forces. But the question arises, Are all forces physical? Are there not other, dis tinct forces, which are not the products of ma terial causes ? There is the noblest of all the brutes, the horse. Is the draft-power of a horse the product of corn and fodder ? Will a horse, Soon afterward he appeared in the public fed with a given weight of corn, be enabled highway, or nearly thereto, led by the track he had been following. At this point he saw where a horse had been hitched, which the assassin thereby to draw as many pounds weight as the corn, converted by heat into steam, would move? Is it not evident that there is something resi- had probably mounted and ridden away. From dent in the muscular organization of the ani- that place he could see but the footsteps of one mal which contains a reserve of force independ- man, the one whose feet w'ere large, and whose ent of the immediate stimulus of food? It is frame must have been heavy. Which was the true, that the organism of the horse must be criminal, Dr. Strong could not say. sustained by food; this is the condition of organic As he turned homeward a carriage rolled by. integrity. If the animal is not fed, the tissues ^ ^ I If ^ 1V* r* X 1C VI /V J" n 1. y, /] 41, ^ .mm am m a A ‘Dr. StrorF'js it not?” asked the occupant, checking his-.brses. The physician, looking up, beheld the Rock Island banker, J. S. Thompson. “ Good evening, Judge,” was the answer. “Which way?” asked the banker. “ Home,” was the reply. r “ Good ! I will set you dow r n at your own door. ^ ery formidable weapon that you carry. Is that the hair of a mad dog upon its end ?” Dr. Strong laughed oddly, and replied: “ I presume so.” Having determined to keep his discoveries a secret for the present, Dr. Strong thought it no harm to humor the Judge in his fancies. “Anything new in Camden?” asked the banker, carelessly whipping the grass as he drove along. There was something new, and so Dr. Strong told him what it was. “Thrown from tho buggy and drowned, you say! exclaimed the Judge. “ Dragged the river all day and found nothing? That is strange. You are certain that the horses ran away with him —that he was not murdered ?’’ The banker s tone was smooth and even, evin cing scarcely a pardonable curiosity. “ That seems to be the general impression,” answered Dr. Strong. “It is too bad,” muttered the banker thought fully, but in a tone loud enough to bo heard by his companion. “He seemed to be a very fine young man, although he had taken a very unac countable dislike to me. And not really unac countable, either. He seemed Bmitten with the charms of your niece, but seeing that I stood in his way, he hated me accordingly. Still I wished him well, and although he insulted me, I offered him assistance for saving Mabel’s life.” “ I fancy that he did not take it,” observed the Doctor. “ No; and was offended at me for my kindness. will waste away; his strength will decrease, and he will ultimately perish. But we affirm that the strength of the horse is not wholly cor related matter; that there is a distinct force, called the vital, and whilst this force depends upon conditions, the maintenance of perfect health in properly adapted food, this condition of healthy activity is the medium by which vital force demonstrates itself. This vital force is capable of increase by exercise of the muscles of the animal, without, necessarily, increasing the amount of food consumed. Again, the food may be consumed, and the vital force may re main unexpended. If the food of the horse is related to his working force, as the fuel of the engine is to the steam generated, then the food would compel activity, for nothing can be lost. The power of the steam cannot be stored up in the machine beyond a given point—when the pressure becomes too strong the boiler will ex plode. But the horse may remain for days and weeks, consuming a stated supply of food, but expending little or no force. Nor can it be said that the draft-power icastes in the idleness of the animal. There is manifestly less waste at rest than in motion. There remains but one solution to the problem. Vital force, distinct from physical, depends upon perfect animal organization for its full development. A per fect organism is the vehicle of a perfect vital force, and in such proportion as the medium is impaired, the force is lessened. In addition to these two forces, physical and vital, we are invited to the consideration of a third. If mere physical forces are not trans muted into vital powers, still less can they be transformed into Mental Force. We will per mit Professor Huxley to state and illustrate the doctrines of materialists in regard to the corre lation of mental and physical forces. In his celebrated lecture on the “Physical Basis of Life,” he says: straints are remove'dv-and the mind is subordi- [ nated to the rul(/ of sentiment and passion. j Whence comes this-difference ? In the structure l of the brain ? No microscopic test has been able I to discover it. Is it" in the blood? the digestion? < Is it a material difference at all ? Mysterious as this inquiry is, from any point of view, there is , no answer to it from the standpoint of material- | ism. | SO. VI.—‘MUSIC AT SilGHTFALL.” If we examine the subject farther, we shall The book has fallen unnoticed to her feet; her find that bodily exhaustion and supreme mental : bands lie, idly folded, in her lap, as, leaning vigor are frequently co-existing conditions. A | slightly forward, she gazes dreamily—with a feeble body, incapable of sustaining its own smile half-joyous, half-sad—into the ^glowing BY FLORENCE HAKTLAND. weight, martyred by disease from early infancy, may be seen illuminated by an intellect which is capable of instructing sages even whilst the tottering frame cannot bear itself erect. In many cases of consumption, whilst an ounce of food is too large a portion for the wasted, emaciated machinery of life, the lips that can only speak in whispers have uttered glowing sentences of peerless wisdom, and the quickened pulses of the mind have exhibited, in the very agonies of bodily dissolution, the supremacy of a brilliant genius. All this would be impossible if thought was a secretion o^ the bruin, and mental force only correlated matter. The antagonisms of constant experience demonstrate the fallacy of this equivalence of physical and mental forces. An athletic bodytand feeble mind—a feeble body and gigantic intaffect—the ascending scale of intellectual powerHceeping pace with the decrease of vital force—the 1 decreasing powers of the mind manifesting themselves in the presence of in creasing healthfulness of physical conditions— these are contradictions that no principle of ma terialism can explain or reconcile. The true theory is simple, and as grand as it is simple. Matter is endowed by its Creator with physical force. Many of these physical laws are interchangeable. Analysis and synthe sis, taking to pieces and putting together again, these are incidents in the world of matter—no atom is lost. Heat, electricity, decay, rain, storm and sunshine, cohesion and divisibility, and an unknown catalogue of combinations and modifications of natural conditions, all these be long to the material universe, the world of pos sibilities. Inorganic nature is as the clay in the potter’s hand. The simple elements of mat ter may be divorced from their natural unions, and recombined into compounds unknown to the student of nature. These mutations, actual and possible, are incalculable. A thousand arts and sciences find their raw materials in this field of human effort, and the progress of civilization is recorded in the wjdenees of man’s triumphs over the domain of inert matter. He can change the forms of matteT—reduce the liquids to sol- ids— the oxyds to metals—the metals to gases, and through the tortuous methods by which he applies or withholds heat, the transforming agency, he develops or conceals at will the na tive qualities of the materials upon which he experiments. All this he may do, but all the medical science from the days of Hippocrates or Esculapius down to the present time has been unable to poult out the means of constructing, out of inert matter, the smallest organism en dowed with life. Spontaneous generation, re cently proclaimed with exultation in the so- called AcarUs Crossii, has been refuted by a brother scientist, and the deluded man-creator hangs his head abashed in the presence of his depths of the oak fire. She caught, just now, a snatch of an olden melody, hummed idly by some late passer-by on his way home, and in an instant the gulf of years is bridged, and she is back again in the wonder-land of youth—breath ing its enchanted air, basking in ils splendid sunlight. Rapidly from the flaming hearts of the coals a picture is evolved. The woman leans nearer it; her eyes grow luminous and tender; a soft color tinges her pale cheek; her lips part with a tremulous smile that for a moment invests her with something of the lost grace of youth. This is the picture she sees: an old, old home, with out any architectural beauty to render it attrac tive; a quaint, old-time room, plainly, very mea grely furnished; a large, rambling garden, where Nature has her own sweet way, sloping down from the rear of the house to the sparkling waters of a little stream that dances merrily on to its home in the blue Chesapeake. A plain, unpretending Virginia homestead; but to the woman gazing in the coals, it is wrapt in the brightest sunlight — over-arched by the bluest sky—in all the wide, wide world. In this old house, there is a large, nobly-pro portioned hall, looking toward the west; and here, evening after evening, as the colors of the sunset are paling, and shadows are creeping out of their lurking-places in the old rooms, two girls, with interlocked arms, walk up and down, and in half-whispered tones confide to each other their hopes and dreams of the future. Let me paint them as the woman sees them now, wrapt in the clear glow of the firelight. A the eternal well-spring, and is not based upon the rock of the soul’s immortality. Yet there is something gone from her that she yearns for; a sense of loss haunts her and hurts her. At times the “old sorrow wakes and cries;” and ghosts of other days mock her with her lonely life, and hold up the dusty pictures of her dead ambition. But the pain is quickly solaced. She walks through the cool aisles of green Virginia woods, i and hears the heart of Nature beating slowly, i calmly, yet ceaselessly; and she feels how God’s great heart beats on with grand pulsations behind it, sending its tide of life through all, regulating and controlling the whole. She watches the pomp ot Southern sunsets, and sees His finger painting the matchless picture; she looks up at the blue arch of a summer sky, and ponders the glories of man’s true home that lies somewhere beyond it, waiting for the hurried drama of life to close; and thus she is content to icait. As she sits amid the wrecks of old idols, min gling with the strains of half-forgotten melodies that haunt her memory at nightfall, there comes over and again the refrain of a sacred song: “Oh. Paradise! oh. Paradise! Who doth not crave for reBt? Who would not seek that happy land Where they that love are blest'! Where loyal hearts and true Stand ever in the light. All rapture through nnd through, In God’s most holy sight.” It is the plaint of the weary—the burden of the soul’s longing for home. The Great California Picture. Among the many works of art that are to be seen at the Centennial, none will more readily catch the eye and impress the minds of the grea mass ot visitors, especially Americans, who have a passion for broad and grand representation, than Biertadt’s “ Settlement of California.” It is an immense picture. The magnitude of scene which it embraces is rendered in a mas terly manner, while it is finished with the most brunette and a blonde: the one all warmth, color ! m i n ute attention to detail. It is thus described: . . “ In tho tAPflrri'Annrl nr animation—her dark, long-laslied eyes full of fire and yet of tenderness, her Lair black and rich as satin, her cheeks brilliant with scarlet, her half-parted lips revealing the white, perfect teeth; the other pale, auburn-haired, blue-eyed — not pretty, in repose perhaps not interesting, but when excited, or even strongly stirred, the pale, quiet face can waken into something akin to beauty—so clearly does a soul look at you through her earnest eyes. One—the brunette—is a musician; she has a rich, clear voice that from her childhood has been the delight and pride of her home circle; and in the twilight, as she paces slowly with her sister up and down the old ball, she weaves bright fancies of some coming day when a good fairy will procure her the means—alas! so in sufficient now—of perfecting herself in the study of the beautiful science she so passionately wor ships. The pale-faced girl at her side loves music, too, and sings a pleasing alto, but there is some thing nearer her heart than the desire to be a mu sician—she would excel in letters. She has rev eled in a bright, ideal world of her own from In the foreground appear new settlers, „ group of priests, sailors, and soldiers, gathered beneath a magnificent old tree. Within the branches hangs a bell, whose notes have called the group to prayer. There is a newly-erected altar, before which the priests bow and the way worn voyageurs kneel. Overhead float the ban ners of old Spain. In the distance is seen the broad, serene Pacific, and by the shore the ship rides at anchor. In the other direction far around, stretch the glory and beauty and bloom ot the “Peerless Land.” Here and there are groups of cattle peacefully grazing, up to their knees m grasses and flowers. Above all are out spread the cloudless blue skies. The picture is striking in its effects of scenic grandeur and brilliant contrasts of masses of light and shade ’’ At the close of a tavern dinner, two of the thTD. i dOWI l stair V he one tumbling to the first landing-place and the other rolling to the bottom. Some one remarked that the first seemed drunk. “Yes,” observed a wae “bnL-KoT' below. ” 0t S ° ^ 8 ° ne “ th ® ° ther gentler^fJfcHm® ■ Xjf