sphere. A beam of light falling under the direction of the scientist upon a given substance, and under certain conditions, gives forth a musical sound. Mr. Willoughby Smith heard a ray of light fall upon a bar of metal. A cell constructed by Mr. Shelford Bidwell gave out sounds audible in every part of a large hall, sounds which were transmitted by a ray of light; and Professor Bell produced beautifully sonorous vibrations of the air by a beam of light. Yes, we repeat it; the harp of Memnon, long supposed to be an ancient fable, was doubtless a scientific truth. It was said to give forth melodious sounds when struck by the beams of the rising sun. And the glow of the rising sun is a song wherever it may shine! Every lover of Nature who when seated on a mountain side, or on the sea shore, has witnessed the rising sun fling its first golden rays across hill, and sea, and moorland, must have felt his soul stirred as with heavenly music-the silent song of sunrise! Oh, it is no marvel that the heathen of old regarded sunrise as the return of a God! The reader is aware that all musical notes are comprised within an octave-i.e. the number eight-and that the eighth is but a return to the first. He may not be equally aware that the redemption of the world from evil, from the dissonance and discord which sin has introduced, was accomplished by the Redeemer (as far as the act of redemption was concerned, though not its results) on the " eighth day," now called the "first day of the week," the day of His resurrection; and that this was prefigured and predicted a thousand years before, in the various typical and striking acts, facts, and sacrifices which were by the Divine command to be performed and offered on the eighth day; that on this day the Lord revealed Himself in glory to Aaron and his sons, after they had patiently waited " seven days" at the door of the tabernacle; that on this day circumcision was performed, the leper cleansed, the Feast of Firstfruits kept, and likewise the Feast of Pentecost, on the eighth day, fifty days after the Feast of Firstfruits. The Feast of Tabernacles, the last in the series of ecclesiastical feasts, and pointing to that period, now rapidly approaching, when the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, was also to be kept on the "eighth day." And every one of these feasts, acts, and sacrifices, points to the ultimate cleansing of creation from, and extinction of, evil in the universe of God by the redemptive work of Christ; that, that work comprises and contains within it the "octave of creation," when the world beneath His power and rule shall return to its pristine tone and beauty, the eighth being but a return to the first, the "eighth" day of the Jewish ritual being the "first" day of the week of Christian worship, and both pointing to the restored harmonies of creation as a consequence of the redemptive work of Christ. Sin has intruded a discord into the harmony of the spheres; it shall be hushed for ever! the works of the powers of darkness be destroyed. The Redeemer having cast out all rule, and all authority and power, the last sigh breathed, the last tear shed, the last sin committed, He shall hand back the kingdom to God the Father without the least taint of moral evil, radiant with purity and resonant with song! And then creation's harp, retuned H and struck afresh by its Maker's hand, shall give forth the melody that pleases Him, awakening in angelic minds long-slumbering memories of creation's birthday, when God pronounced it "good!" And then from the vast dominions of Jehovah, from the frontier lines of illimitable space shall gather and roll and swell, without one jarring note, the deep diapason of universal song! NATURE'S MUSIC. "The mountain torrent and the rill That murmurs o'er its pebbly bed, Proffers a thousand charms for me! "The ruthless gale that autumn brings, The lispings of the summer breeze, Have each a sovereign power to please, And minister untold delight To fancy in her vagrant flight. "When midnight tempests loudly ring, And from their azure thrones on high, The stars are watching tremblingly, 99 CHAPTER IX. The Pleasures and Power of CENES however beautiful are rendered far more so when associated with the venerable ruins of antiquity. The effects of association awakened by external objects are well described by Gibbon, when speaking of the impressions produced upon his mind at his first beholding Rome: "At the distance of five-and-twenty years,” said he, "I can neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my breast as I first approached the Eternal City. After a sleepless night I trod with lofty step the ruins of the Forum; each spot where Romulus stood or Tully spoke was present to my sight." The melancholy appearance of these ruins was the remote cause of Rienzi's attempt to re-establish the commonwealth. It is impossible to stand at the foot of its antique columns, to see the half-effaced inscriptions, its mutilated statues, its broken shafts, to walk among the remains of its tesselated pavements, and to read their history in coins and medals, without feeling the mind assume all the faculties of a poet; for the heart melts as if it were awakened from the contemplation of a melancholy but delightful dream, while a hallowed sensibility adds purity to the grandeur and sublimity of the soul. The ruins of towers, arches, temples, battlements, seem to survive the silent lapse of ages, and yet-strange paradox - while every column, every turret, seems. wreathed with immortality, each broken fragment seems. to bear the inscription, "I die daily." And yet all this is as nothing to what is felt in the rude majesty of untamed Nature: "The stem Of oak gigantic, withered by the blast, Peerless and proud, the monarch of the plain. And by the melancholy skill of time ; Moulded to beauty, charms the bosom more Than all the palaces of princes. Rocks Which raise their crested heads into the clouds, Piled in rude grandeur, form a scene sublime More rich, more soothing to the pensive soul, Than Rome, with all its palaces and ruins." Imagination gives to nature, life, and ruins, a charm which converts everything it touches into gold. Nature. draws the outlines and arranges the groups, but imagination lends the tints and flings over all, the golden baze of hallowed memories or historical associations. Nature furnishes the instrument, but imagination strikes the chords and produces the melody. "The flute of a shepherd," it has been said, "heard at a distance on a fine summer day, in a romantic scene, will give rapture to |