abrading and triturating power of water. By water the soil has been brought down from the hills and spread out into valleys, plains and fields for man's use. Saving the rocks on which the everlasting hills are established, every thing on the surface of our planet seems to have been removed from its original foundation and lodged in its present place by water. Protean in shape, benignant in office, water, whether fresh or salt, solid, fluid or gaseous, is marvelous in its powers. It is one of the chief agents in the manifold workshops in which and by which the earth has been made a habitation fit for man.-M. F. MAURY. The Gulf Stream. There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottoms are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater. The currents of the ocean are among the most important of its movements. They carry on a constant interchange between the waters of the poles and those of the equator, and thus diminish the extremes of heat and cold in every zone. The sea has its climates as well as the land. They both change with the latitude; but one varies with the elevation above, the other with the depression below, the sea level. The climates in each are regulated by circulation; but the regulators are, on the one hand, winds; on the other, currents. The inhabitants of the ocean are as much the creatures of climate as are those of the dry land; for the same Almighty hand which decked the lily and cares for the sparrow fashioned also the pearl and feeds the great whale, and adapted each to the physical conditions by which His providence has surrounded it.-M. F. MAURY. Behold the Sea. Behold the Sea! The opaline, the plentiful and strong, Giving a hint of that which changes not. Wealth to the cunning artist who can work This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves! A load your Atlas shoulders can not lift? EMERSON. The Great Cemetery. The sea is the largest of all cemeteries, and its slumberers sleep without a monument. All other grave-yards in other lands show some distinction between the great and the small, the rich and the poor; but in the great ocean cemetery the king and the clown, prince and peasant, are all alike distinguished. The same waves roll over all; the same requiem by minstrels of the ocean is sung to their honor. Over their remains the same sun shines; and there, unmarked, the weak and the powerful, the plumed and the unhonored, will sleep on until all are awakened by the same trumpet.-ANONYMOUS. SELFISHNESS. Despotisms Founded on Selfishness. The thrones of earth were founded upon the deepest principles of selfishness. Millions of bayonets have stood in frightful lines for the king's support. The history of the last hundred years has been the history of attempts o keep up the same old despotisms. But the equality of mankind has, at the close of each battle in which kings have triumphed, come back to begin its secret abrasion of the flinty rock. No sooner have the kings exacted peace than the voice of human brotherhood has begun, like Abel's blood, to cry up from the ground; and the kings, flushed on yesterday with victory, must begin at once to invent new arms and draft new mercenaries for a fiery conflict. —SWING. Selfishness in White Chapel. During the White Chapel scare, when a reporter was examining one of the spots where those unhappy women. had been murdered, he expressed surprise that the murderer should have escaped, as the scene of the murder was a crowded neighborhood, in which it seems almost incredible that such a crime could be committed and no one hear a scream or witness a struggle or see the murderer flee. A costermonger, standing by, explained the situation by saying: "It's every one fur hisself down here." That is to say, in that neighborhood every one was so preoccupied with his own personal, selfish or sinful interests, that no one would trouble himself to listen to a woman's scream or to witness a struggle going on almost in his own sight.--HUGH PRICE HUGHES. Condensed Comments. If you want to be miserable, think much about yourself; about what you want, what you like; what respect people ought to pay you, and what people think of you. CHARLES KINGSLEY. The man who has lived for himself has the privilege of being his own mourner.-BEECHER. SIN. A Convict Soul. Oh, sight of pity, shame and dole! WALT WHITMAN. Sin Unchecked. Sin runs to passion; passion to tumult in character; and a tumultuous character tends to tempests and explo sions, which scorn secrecies and disguises. Thus the whole man comes to light. He sees bimself, and others Those solemn impera"Thou shalt not”—“I This is see him, as he is in God's light. tives and their awful responses: will"; "Thou shalt "-"I will not" make up, then, all that the man knows of intercourse with God. Sin, in the ultimate and finished type of it. what it grows to in every sinner, if unchecked by the grace of God. Every man unredeemed becomes a demon in eternity.-AUSTIN PHELPS. Redemption by Suffering. This is Forgiveness of sins, if it merely means remission of penalty, perhaps might be achieved without a sacrifice. But if forgiveness of sins means really delivering another from his sin, that never can be accomplished without pain. When the Nation has given itself over to believe a lie to write liberty on its banners and slavery on human lives-death is inevitable if there be not found |