The Chautauquan, April 1885

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The Chautauquan.

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE PROMOTION OF TRUE CULTURE. ORGAN OF THE CHAUTAUQUA LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC CIRCLE.

Vol. V. APRIL, 1885. No. 7.

Officers of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

President, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio. Chancellor, J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn. Counselors, The Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D.; the Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.; Edward Everett Hale. Office Secretary, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J. General Secretary, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Contents

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REQUIRED READING FOR APRIL.

ARISTOTLE.

BY WILLIAM C. WILKINSON.

[The “College Greek Course in English” did not, for a reason alluded to in the following paper, include Aristotle among the authors represented. The readers of The Chautauquan will be glad to get some acquaintance with so great an ancient name through this supplementary chapter from Prof. Wilkinson’s pen.]

Philosopher, though he by eminence is ranked, Aristotle was, too, something of an encyclopedist. He traversed almost the whole circle of the sciences, as that circle existed for the ancient world. But he was not simply first a learner, and then a teacher, of what others had found out before him. He was also an explorer and discoverer. Inventor also he was, if between discovery and invention we are to make a difference. He was a great methodizer and systematizer of knowledge. He bore to Plato the personal relation of pupil.

The history of Aristotle’s intellectual influence is remarkable. That influence has suffered several phases of wax and wane, several alternate occultations and renewals of brightness. During a certain period of time, covering several hundred years, he was, perhaps beyond the fortune of any other man that ever lived, the lord of human thought. We mean the time of the schoolmen[1] so called. From near the close of the thirteenth century, until the era of the Reformation, Aristotle reigned supreme in the schools of Christian theology, which is the same thing as to say that he was acknowledged universal monarch of the European mind. The business of the schoolmen may be said to have been to state the dogmas of the church in the forms of the Aristotelian logic, and then to reconcile those dogmas so stated, with the teachings of the Aristotelian philosophy.

Curiously enough, the introduction of Aristotle to the doctors of the church was through the Mohammedan Arabs. These men had, during a term of centuries, been the continuers of the intellectual life of the race. While through the long night of those ages of darkness the Christian mind slept, the Arabian mind, waking, gave itself largely to the study of Aristotle. The Greek philosopher was posthumously naturalized a barbarian; for Aristotle’s writings were now translated from their original tongue into Arabic. In this Arabic version, the celebrated Ibn Roshd (chiefly famous under his latinized name A-verˈroës) knew Aristotle and commented on him. The Arabic commentaries of Averroes were translated into Latin, and the thought of Aristotle thus became once more accessible to European students. Averroes (A. D. 1149-1198) himself was of the Moors of Spain.

For centuries previous to the time when the son and successor of good Haroun al Raschid,[2] known at least by name to the readers and lovers of Tennyson, collected at Bagdad all the scattered volumes of Greek letters that his agents could find in Armenia, Syria and Egypt—for centuries, we say, previous to this, Aristotle suffered an almost complete arrest and suspension of intellectual influence. That man would have been a bold prophet who should then have predicted what a resurrection to power awaited the slumbering philosopher.

Still earlier, however, than this, that is, during the interval between the third Christian century and the sixth, Aristotle enjoyed a great vogue. He was studied and commented on as if all human wisdom was summed up in him. The spirit of independent and original philosophy had perished, and whatever philosophic aptitude survived was well content to exhaust itself in expounding Aristotle. Aristotle’s works became a kind of common Bible to the universal mind of the Roman empire. This was the period of the Greek scholiasts, so-called—in more ordinary language, commentators.

Taking the reverse or regressive direction of history, we have thus run back to a point of time some six or seven centuries subsequent to the personal life and activity of Aristotle. During the latter half of these centuries, Aristotle’s fame was gradually growing, from total obscurity to its great culmination in splendor under the scholiasts.

Before that growth began, the productions of Aristotle had experienced a fortune that is one of the romances of literary history. The great pupil of Plato had himself no great pupil to continue after his death the illustrious succession of Grecian philosophy. His writings, unduplicated manuscripts they seem to have been, fell into the hands of a disciple, who, dying, bequeathed them to a disciple of his own, residing in the Troad. To the Troad accordingly they went. Here, with a view to save them from the grasp of a ruthless royal collector of valuable parchments, the family having these works in possession hid them in an underground vault, in which they lay moldering and forgotten one hundred and fifty years! It was thus in all nearly two hundred years that Aristotle’s thoughts were lost to the world. When at last it was deemed safe, the precious documents were brought out and sold to a rich and cultivated Athenian. This gentleman, let us name him for honor, it was A-pelˈli-con, had unawares purchased his prize for a rapacious Roman collector. Sylla seized it, on his capture of Athens, and sent it to Rome. At Rome it had the good fortune to be appreciated. One An-dro-niˈcus edited the collection, and gave to the world that, probably, which is now the accepted text of Aristotle.

But, romantic as has been the succession of vicissitudes befalling his productions and his fame, Aristotle is, in his extant writings, anything but a romantic author. A less adorned, a less succulent style, than the style in which the Stagirite (he was of Stagˈi-rus, in Macedonia) wrote, it would be difficult to find. Still it is a style invested at least with the charm of evident severe intentness, in the writer, on his chosen aim. Cicero, it is true, speaks of Aristotle’s style in language of praise that would well befit a characterization of Plato. But Cicero must have had in view works of the philosopher other than those which we possess, works written perhaps in the author’s more florid youth. With this conjecture agrees the fact that a list of Aristotle’s works, made by the authorities of the renowned Alexandrian library, contains numerous titles not appearing in the writings that remain to us attributed to Aristotle.

Aristotle was not, as Plato was, properly a man of letters. Or, if he did bear this character, the evidence of it has perished. What we possess of his intellectual productions exhibits the author in the perfectly dry and colorless light of a man of science. Even in those treatises of his in which he comes nearest to the confines of pure and proper literature, his interest is rather scientific than literary. He discusses in two separate books the art of rhetoric and the art of poetry; but he conducts his discussion without enthusiasm, without imagination, in the severely strict spirit of the analyst and philosopher. The text of the two treatises now referred to survives in a state of great imperfection. Indeed, the same is the case generally with Aristotle’s works. Critics have even surmised that, in some instances, notes of lectures, taken by pupils while the master according to his wont was walking about and extemporizing discourse, have done duty in place of authentic autograph originals supplied by the hand of Aristotle himself. The title “Peripatetic” (walk-about), given to the Aristotelian philosophy, was suggested by the great teacher’s habit, thus alluded to, of doing his work as teacher under the stimulus of exercise on his feet in the open air.

The non-literary character of Aristotle’s works has to a great extent excluded him from the course of Greek reading adopted by colleges—this, and moreover the fact that he occupies a position at the extreme hither limit, if not quite outside the extreme limit, of the Greek classic age. Still he is now and then read in college; and at any rate he is too redoubtable a name among those names which in their motions were

“Full-welling fountain-heads of change,”

not to be an interesting object of knowledge to the readers of The Chautauquan.

The productions of Aristotle are numerous. The Alexandrian bibliography of him gives one hundred and forty-six titles of his works. Of the books thus catalogued not a vestige remains, except in an occasional quotation from them at the hands of some other ancient writer. The works commonly printed as Aristotle’s form an entirely different list. We give a few of the leading titles or subjects: “Organon,” a collective name for various writings that made up a system of logic; “Rhetoric,” “Po-etˈics” (art of poetry), “Ethics,” “Politics,” “Natural Philosophy,” “Biology,” “Metaphysics.” [This last word, which has acquired in modern use a very distinct meaning of its own, was originally a mere meaningless designation of certain investigations or discussions entered into by Aristotle after his physical researches. The preposition meta (after), and physica (physics), give the etymology of the term.] The comprehensive or, as we before said, encyclopædic range of Aristotle’s intellectual activity will to the observant reader be sufficiently indicated by this list of titles.

For his work in natural history, Aristotle was powerfully supported by one of the most resplendent military geniuses that the world has ever seen, Alexander the Great. To this prince and warrior, when he was a lad, the philosopher had discharged the office of private teacher. It would appear that either Aristotle was courtier enough, or young Alexander was man enough, to make this relation a pleasant one to the boy. For, in later years, the conqueror of the world presented to his former teacher a round million of dollars to make himself comfortable withal. But who can tell which it was, gratitude for benefit received, or remorse for trouble occasioned, that prompted the ex post facto[3] royal munificence? Perhaps it was both—a tardy gratitude quickened by a generous remorse.

The chief glory of Aristotle is to have at once invented and finished the science of logic. For this is an achievement which may justly be credited to the philosopher of Stagirus. It would generally be conceded that, since Aristotle’s day, little or nothing substantial has been added to the results of his labor in the field of pure logic. The name Orˈga-non (instrument) is not Aristotle’s word, but that of some ancient editor of his works. It is a noteworthy name, as having dictated to Bacon the title to his epoch-making work, the Novum Organum (the new method or instrument).

It would not be easy to give an exhaustive account of Aristotle’s productions, and make the account attractive reading. We shall not undertake so impracticable a task. Let our readers accept our word for it that Aristotle, though a justly renowned name in the history of thought, is not fitted to be a popular author.

From his “History of Animals” we present a specimen extract that will perhaps with some readers go far toward confuting what we just now said. There are, we confess, some things in this treatise that read almost as if they might belong to that truly fascinating book, “Goldsmith’s Animated Nature:”

“The cuckoo is said by some persons to be a changed hawk, because the hawk which it resembles disappears when the cuckoo comes, and indeed very few hawks of any sort can be seen during the period in which the cuckoo is singing, except for a few days. The cuckoo is seen for a short time in the summer, and disappears in winter. But the hawk has crooked talons, which the cuckoo has not, nor does it resemble the hawk in the form of its head, but in both these respects is more like the pigeon than the hawk, which it resembles in nothing but its color; the markings, however, upon the hawk are like lines, while the cuckoo is spotted.

“Its size and manner of flight is like that of the smallest kind of hawk, which generally disappears during the season in which the cuckoo is seen. But they have both been seen at the same time, and the cuckoo was being devoured by the hawk, though this is never done by birds of the same kind. They say that no one has ever seen the young of the cuckoo. It does, however, lay eggs, but it makes no nest, but sometimes it lays its eggs in the nests of small birds, and devours their eggs, especially in the nests of the pigeon (when it has eaten their eggs). Sometimes it lays two, but usually only one egg; it lays also in the nest of the hypolais,[4] which hatches and brings it up. At this season it is particularly fat and sweet-fleshed; the flesh also of young hawks is very sweet and fat. There is also a kind of them which builds a nest in precipitous cliffs.”

This morsel, our readers must consider, is not a very characteristic specimen of the feast that, take all his works together, Aristotle spreads for his students. But it is as toothsome as any we could offer. If it makes our readers wish for more, that is as friendly a feeling as we could possibly hope to inspire in them toward Aristotle. We shall now let them, in that mood, bid the great philosopher farewell.

HOME STUDIES IN CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.

BY PROF. J. T. EDWARDS, D.D.
Director of the Chautauqua School of Experimental Science.

CHEMISTRY OF EARTH.

John B. Gough declares that a few kind words spoken to him, in a crisis of his life, saved him from ruin. He afterward carefully educated the orphan daughters of the gentleman who uttered those words.

“Why,” you say, “it was a little thing.” “Yes, little for him, but a big thing for me.”

CRYSTALS OF ALUM.

The importance of many things depends upon the point of observation. To a hypothetical astronomer on a distant star, this world would be too minute for observation. In that shining pathway of the heavens, called the “milky way,” there have been discovered eighteen millions of stars, each hundreds of times larger than our earth; yet our atom in immensity is, just now, of marvelous interest to us. Indeed, it must be of interest to the highest intelligences, for such are the harmonies of God’s universe that the minutest planet is in many of its forces and laws representative of the whole. So that our world is, in a sense, both a microcosm and a cosmo.

Let us briefly consider some characteristics of the earth, from the standpoint of the chemist.

All substances have been divided into two great classes, the inorganic and organic. The latter contains two subdivisions—the vegetable and animal world. Nature thus comprises three great sub-kingdoms, the mineral, vegetable and animal.

A mineral is an inorganic body (that is, one in which no parts are formed for special purposes), possessed of a definite chemical composition, and usually of a regular geometric form. It may seem at first glance that the last part of this definition is not correct, but there is reason to believe that all mineral substances may, under favorable circumstances, assume crystalline forms. Water and air are minerals. Other liquids and gases are included in the term, but as we have had already something to say of these latter substances, we shall, for the purposes of this article, use the word earth in the popular sense; namely, inorganic matter, which at ordinary temperature is solid. All materials are classified into

ELEMENTS AND COMPOUNDS.

By an element is meant a substance which has never been resolved into parts, and conversely, one that can not be produced by the union of two or more substances. There is some difference of opinion as to their number. It is usually given as sixty-four. There are a great many compounds. Nature seems to delight in surprising us by the simplicity of the means employed in producing marvelous results. As the mind of Milton combined the twenty-six letters of our alphabet to form “Paradise Lost,” so the Infinite arranged and re-arranged the elements to form the sublime poem of creation. Fifty-one of the elements are metals, and thirteen metalloids; gold is a familiar example of the former, and sulphur of the latter. A few, like hydrogen and oxygen, are gases; two are liquids; quicksilver and bromine: the greater number exist as solids. But few of them are found native, i. e., chemically uncombined with other substances. In the fierce heat of former ages they were mixed as in a mighty crucible, and few escaped the power of affinities thus engendered. Gold and copper are sometimes found pure, but even they, more frequently than otherwise, exist fused with other substances.

Compounds are of three classes—acids, bases and salts. Sand is a specimen of the first, lime of the second, and clay of the third. Fixedness is a characteristic of mineral compounds, yet they are by no means incapable of change; certain influences come in to promote it, of which the following are the most important—heat, solution, friction and percussion.

Two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, may remain side by side for years uncombined, but a single spark will cause them to rush together with terrific energy.

If the contents of the blue and white papers in a Seidlitz powder are mixed, no chemical action follows, but if dissolved separately in glasses of water, and then poured together, a violent effervescence takes place. If a small amount of potassium chlorate and a little piece of sulphur be put together in a mortar, and then pressed by the pestle, sharp detonations follow. Dynamite, which is nitro-glycerine mixed with infusorial earth, sugar or sawdust, is quite harmless when free from acid, unless struck. The above instances illustrate the various influences that stimulate chemical combination. Almost all the crust of the earth is formed of three substances—quartz, lime, and alumina. Wherever we stand on the round globe, it is safe to say that one or all of these are beneath our feet.

QUARTZ.

QUARTZ CRYSTALS.

This mineral comprises about one half the earth’s crust. Its symbol is SiO₂, being a compound of silicon and oxygen, in the proportions indicated. It is very hard, easily scratching glass, of which it forms an important constituent, is acted upon by only one acid—hydrofluoric; this attacks it eagerly, as may be shown by the following interesting experiment: Take a little lead saucer, or in the absence of this, spread lead foil carefully over the inside of an ordinary saucer, and in this place some powdered fluor spar. This mineral is quite abundant in nature, and is always to be obtained, in the form of a powder, from dealers in chemicals. Have a pane of glass covered by a thin film of wax. Now trace upon this surface with a sharp point, anything you may desire, verse or picture. Pour into the saucer containing the fluor spar, sufficient sulphuric acid to make a paste. Place over this the plate of glass, with the waxed side down, and let it remain for twenty-four hours. Remove the wax by heating, and on the glass you will find a perfect etching, the HF having removed the silica.

The same effect may be produced in a few moments by applying to the bottom of the saucer a moderate heat. Care should be taken not to inhale the fumes, as they are highly corrosive.

Quartz can be melted at a high temperature, and may be dissolved in certain hot solutions. It is still a question in dispute, whether the numerous quartz veins found in rocks were introduced there in melted form or in solution. Probably, sometimes in one state and sometimes in the other. Any visitor to a glass manufactory can see how easily glass in a melted state is manipulated; and travelers often bring from the geysers[1] fine specimens of silica called geyserite, derived from the material held in solution in the hot water, and deposited on the edge of the “basin.”

SIDE AND TOP VIEW OF THE REGENT OR PITT DIAMOND (REDUCED IN SIZE)—CUT IN THE FORM OF THE “BRILLIANT.”

Quartz may be classified under two varieties—the common and the rare. Sand, pebbles, many conglomerates, all sandstone rocks come under the former head. The old red sandstone described by Hugh Miller,[2] in which fossil fish are so abundant, and the new red sandstone of the Connecticut valley, famous for its bird or reptile tracks, brought to light through the labors of Dr. Hitchcock,[3] were formed of sand cemented together under pressure by the peroxide of iron. There are many beautiful varieties of the rarer forms of quartz. Not a few of these were known to the ancients, as may be seen by reading the twenty-first chapter of Revelations, where a number are mentioned in the description of the heavenly city. “The wall of it was of jasper, and the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, a sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst.”

All of these excepting the sapphire, which is crystallized alumina, are either pure or mixed varieties of quartz, colored with some metallic oxide. One of the most beautiful forms of these precious stones is the agate, especially that kind called the onyx, which consists of a succession of opaque and transparent layers. When carved into gems, this is called the cameo. A wonderful carved cameo was in the Tiffany exhibit at the Centennial Exposition, valued at four thousand dollars. The several layers were so cut as to represent a man looking through the bars of his prison.

LIME.

Another very plentiful substance in the earth is lime. It is chiefly found in the form of three salts, the carbonate, sulphate and phosphate (CaCO₃) (CaSO₄) (Ca₃(PO₄)₂), respectively. The first is familiarly known as limestone. When crystallized, it appears as marble. The shades of marble are due to the tinting of metallic oxides, and sometimes to the presence of fossils. The most beautiful marble is obtained from Carrara, Italy, which has long been famous for furnishing the material used for statues. It is pure white. Pure black marble is found in some ancient Roman sculptures. Sienna marble is yellow. Italy furnishes one kind that is red. Verd-antique is a mixture of green serpentine and white limestone, while our beautiful Tennessee marble, used so profusely in the new Capitol at Washington, is a blended red and white.

Common limestone is almost entirely the product of minute animals[4] which lived in early geologic times. Ages before the Romans drove piles into the Thames, or the first hut was erected on the banks of the Seine, these little creatures laid the foundations which underlie London and Paris. They built the rocky barriers which gave to England the name Albion, derived from the white cliffs along her shore. It is a suggestive crumb of comfort for little folk, that the great tasks in the building of our earth have been performed by the smallest creatures.

The wide distribution of limestone is shown from the fact that it is found to be an ingredient in almost all waters. It is readily dissolved, as is seen in the numerous caves which are found in limestone regions.

When limestone is heated, the carbonic anhydride[5] is expelled, leaving quicklime. All are familiar with the manifold uses of this material. United with sand, it forms a silicate of lime, called mortar, which becomes harder with age. In the old stone mill[6] at Newport, R. I., which is of unknown antiquity, the mortar in some places actually protrudes beyond the stones, showing it to be more durable than the rock itself. The catacombs of Rome were excavated in a very soft kind of limestone, called calcareous tufa.

Sulphate of lime, also known as gypsum and plaster of Paris, is widely distributed. One beautiful variety is called satin spar, and another alabaster.

Great quantities of sulphate of lime are quarried for use in the arts and for agricultural purposes. Dr. Franklin was one of the first to discover its value in connection with crops, and is said to have sown it with grain on a side hill, so that when the wheat sprang up, observers were surprised to see written in gigantic green letters, “Effects of Gypsum!” I suspect he got the hint from Dr. Beattie, who sowed seeds so that their flowers formed the name of his son, to prove to the boy the existence of a God, from evidences of design in nature.

ALUMINA—Al₂O₃.

This material is found both alone and in combination with silica. It forms an important ingredient in alum. Crystallized, it furnishes some of our most rare and beautiful gems, the color of which depends upon the metal combined with them.

The ruby is red, the emerald green, the topaz yellow, the sapphire blue.

Slate rocks consist largely of this material, and clay is a compound of alumina with siliceous anhydride. Among the first earthy substances utilized by man was clay. We find remains of pottery even as far back as the stone age[7]. The ingenuity of man seems to have been displayed constantly and successfully in the ceramic[8] art, the art of making pottery. Note the accounts given by Prescott, in his “Conquest of Peru and Mexico,” and the Cesnola collection of Cypriote remains[9] exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.

History is repeating itself by renewing the ancient enthusiasm for decoration of china and earthen ware. Bricks made from clay are found to rival granite in durability, and surpass it in resistance to heat, as was proven in the great fires of Boston and Chicago. It will be observed from the symbol of alumina that it is largely composed of the metal aluminum. If this could be readily liberated from the oxygen with which it is combined, the world would be immensely enriched.

Every clay bank or clayey soil contains it in great quantities. Next to oxygen and silicon, it is the most abundant element in the earth. Note its valuable properties. It is but two and one-half times heavier than water, as bright and non-oxidizable as silver, malleable, ductile, tenacious, and can be welded and cast. Who will lay the world under obligation by doing with alumina what has been done with iron ores, cheaply liberate the oxygen?

TESTING FOR IRON WITH A BORAX BEAD.—THE COMPOUNDS OF IRON WITH BORAX GIVE A BOTTLE GREEN COLOR.

In this brief enumeration of earth materials, we have intentionally omitted the forms of carbon. They constitute no insignificant portion of the earth’s crust, but belong to the class of organic substances. We introduce, however, an illustration showing one of the shapes in which is cut the diamond—that most costly of all forms of matter,—crystallized carbon.

THE COMMON METALS.

First in importance is iron. The fact already mentioned that its oxide is the most common coloring matter in the mineral world will also indicate its wide dissemination.

Trap rock, gneiss, even granite, sands, clays and other rocks all borrow tints from this source. Iron is never found native except in meteors. It exists most abundantly in the form of three ores, the composition of which is as follows:

Black or magnetic oxide (Fe₃O₄), red oxide (Fe₂O₃), hydrated sesquioxide (Fe₂O₃3H₂O). From all of these the oxygen is removed in a blast furnace, by the use of some form of carbon. As thus prepared, it is called cast-iron. Two other varieties are employed in the arts, wrought iron and steel. The last differs from the first in having less carbon, and from the second in having more. The general properties of this material are too well known to require description here. A single property of this substance alone has marvelously affected the commerce of the world; that is, the power first discovered in magnetic iron ore, of attracting iron, and pointing northward. The first compass, it is said, consisted of a piece of this metal placed on a cork floating on water.

Copper seems to have been one of the few metals known to barbarous peoples. It is found pure, and in combination. Specimens obtained from the Lake Superior region, in mines worked by the mound builders,[10] have led some to believe that they possessed the art of hardening copper. Malachite is a carbonate of copper, of a beautiful mottled green color, and is made into elegant ornaments. Some magnificent specimens were in the Russian exhibit at the Philadelphia Exposition. It is found in great perfection in the Ural mountains.

Tin is obtained from its binoxide (SnO₂). It was known to the ancients. Some historians claim that the Phœnicians procured it long before the time of Christ, from the mines of Cornwall, England. Until recently our country has seemed to be destitute of this valuable metal. Reports now indicate that Dakota is destined to supply this deficiency. It is a handsome metal, but little affected by oxygen, and capable of being rolled into thin sheets.

Zinc is found in two different ores: red oxide (ZnO) and zinc blende (ZnS), from which it can be separated by smelting, in much the same manner as we obtain iron.

Lead constitutes the fifth of the common metals which are preëminently useful. It is found in the sulphide of lead (PbS), the sulphide being expelled by roasting the ore. It forms numerous compounds, some of which are of great value. For example, lead carbonate (PbCO₃), the white lead which furnishes the most valuable ingredient of all paints.

NOBLE METALS.

These are so called because they retain their brilliancy and are not easily affected by other substances. Three of them are specially important: gold, silver and platinum. Gold is mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis: “and the gold of that land is good.” Although constituting an inconsiderable part of the earth, it is much more widely distributed than many suppose, but often exists in such small quantities that its production is not profitable.

Australia and California are the gold lands. It is found principally in three situations: in sands which have been washed from the mountains, in little pockets in the rocks, and in veins of quartz. From the first it is separated by simply washing away the lighter materials, from the last situation it is procured by quarrying the rock, crushing it with stamping machines, then washing with water to remove the pulverized quartz, and gathering up the powdered gold with quicksilver. The mercury is removed by vaporizing. Gold is nineteen times heavier than water, extremely ductile, and the most malleable of all substances. Silver is abundant in the mountains of the west. It is usually found in the form of black sulphide (Ag₂S) or horn-silver (AgCl). When unpolished it is perfectly white, and is called dead or frosted silver. All are familiar with the properties of this attractive metal. Just now its producers in Colorado seem to fear its displacement from its important position in the coinage of the country. In nitrate of silver (AgNO₃) we have a material that perpetuates the faces of our friends, many a goodly landscape, and marvelous picture.

MAGNET GATHERING IRON FILINGS.—A MAGNET WILL ALSO ATTRACT NICKEL FILINGS.

Platinum stands at the extreme limit of the elementary world in point of weight, being twenty-one and fifty-three hundredths times heavier than water. Russia has almost a monopoly of the production of this metal. It is about the value of gold, and to the chemist is of immense importance, on account of its high point of fusibility, which is over 4,000°. It is so ductile that it can be drawn out into wire so fine as to be invisible to the naked eye. This microscopic wire is used for centering the field of view in the finest telescopes.

EARTH’S CRUST AND CENTER.

Our earth is called “terra firma;” it is regarded as the very embodiment of stability, but every waving outline, every hill and mountain peak, not less than the rumbling of the earthquake, and the bursting forth of volcanic fires, indicate that it has been, and may again be, the scene of mighty disturbances. Indeed, upon reflection, one wonders that we can live on it at all. The temperature of the earth increases one degree for every fifty feet as we approach the center. At this rate, at the depth of fifty miles the heat would be sufficient, according to Humboldt,[11] to melt the hardest rocks. Fifty miles is one one-hundred and sixtieth of the earth’s diameter. It thus appears that if we should have a globe three feet in diameter full of molten liquid, surrounded by a covering of infusible material one eighth of an inch in thickness, that film of solid matter would represent the earth’s crust. Think of it!

A “LEAD TREE.”

Ex.—Place in a glass a dilute solution of acetate of lead; suspend in it a strip of zinc. Some of the lead will be precipitated in crystals upon the zinc. This is caused by the zinc taking a portion of the acetic acid, and thus forming a new compound called zinc acetate, thereby liberating some of the lead.

Besides, that awful, fiery sea within is subject to tides, currents and convulsions that constantly threaten to disrupt and destroy this crust. It is supposed that masses of water percolate through cracks and fissures until they reach the internal fires and are suddenly converted into steam at an enormously high temperature, which gives it such tremendous expansive force as to shake the globe itself. This action, combined with the violent explosion of gases, creates the sublime and dreadful phenomena of

EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES.

The destruction of Lisbon and many other cities is matter of history. But last year a charming city in the Mediterranean was destroyed in a few seconds, and the stricken inhabitants of Spain are still trembling with horror at the recent shocks that have desolated their fair country.

Man looks in vain elsewhere for such exhibitions of the power of chemical forces as are here displayed.

Lord Lytton[12] gives a most impressive description of an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in “The Last Days of Pompeii:”

“In proportion as the blackness gathered, did the lightnings around Vesuvius increase in their vivid and scorching glare. Nor was their horrible beauty confined to the usual hues of fire; no rainbow ever rivaled their varying and prodigal dyes. Now brightly blue as the most azure depth of a southern sky, now of a livid and snake-like green, darting restlessly to and fro as the folds of an enormous serpent; now of a lurid and intolerable crimson, gushing forth through the columns of smoke, far and wide, and lighting up the whole city from arch to arch; then suddenly dying into sickly paleness, like the ghosts of their own life!

“In the pauses of the showers you heard the rumblings of the earth beneath, and the groaning waves of the tortured sea; or, lower still, and audible but to the watch of intensest fear, the grinding, hissing murmur of the escaping gases through the chasms of the distant mountain.

“Sometimes the cloud seemed to break from its solid mass, and, by the lightning to assume quaint and vast mimicries of human or of monster shapes, striding across the gloom, hurtling one upon the other, and vanishing swiftly into the turbulent abyss of shade; so that, to the eyes and fancies of the affrighted wanderers, the unsubstantial vapors were as the bodily forms of gigantic foes—the agents of terror and death.”

TESTING FOR GOLD WITH PURPLE OF CASSIUS.

Ex.—When gold is placed in a solution of Stannon’s chloride and ferric chloride, a precipitate called Purple Cassius appears. Sometimes the color varies to brown or blue.

It is claimed that there are about three hundred extinct volcanoes, and many facts indicate that the convulsions in the earth’s crust are much less frequent than formerly, yet one can easily conceive of its destruction by internal forces, when, as the poet has said,

“The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And like the baseless fabric of a vision,

Leave not a wreck behind.”

Revelation clearly announces the destruction of the earth: “In the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

THE CIRCLE OF THE SCIENCES.

MENTAL SCIENCE

Is the mind’s knowledge of itself, of its faculties, and states. Psychology is now generally accepted as the most appropriate term to indicate that knowledge, and the studies that lead to its attainment. The psyche, as used by those ignorant of man’s higher nature, means the vital principle supposed to animate all living bodies, whether of men or the lower animals. It is, with them, the same as life, and is regarded as a result of the organizations they see, and not their cause. Others more consistently hold that, even in the lowest sense, vital forces precede, secure, and determine the organisms they animate; and that in the case of man there is a nobler endowment, a superadded, distinct, self-conscious, personal intelligence. “There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding.” This psyche, or living soul, is a distinct, spiritual existence, however closely, for a time, allied with matter, and acting through bodily organs. It is capable of a separate existence, and while in the body, presents for our study phenomena peculiarly its own. Intellectual processes may be more subtle, and their analysis more difficult, than that of things external, because in the attempt the mind is, at once, subject and object, the observer and the observed. And, moreover, when greatly excited, it does not submit to immediate and direct investigation, as the effort at once arrests the excited feeling, and lowers the temperature, so that the state can be analyzed only as it is remembered. But, difficult of attainment as it is, the science that discusses the mind, proposing to show all that is known or may be learned respecting it, certainly challenges the interested attention of all who desire to know themselves. Whatever may be thought of the substance, or immediate origin of the active, thinking soul, consciousness affirms its presence, and its power to know and feel. When in a calm, thoughtful state, the phenomena are as real and as manifest as anything in physics or material things that are open to scientific investigation. By thorough introspection, the inquirer finds himself an invisible person, quite distinct from what is merely corporeal in his belongings, and of which he at once says: It is I; a person or being that he not only distinguishes from all others, but also from his own mental acts and states that are not himself. It needs no argument to prove that the physical frame, made of such material substances as gases, salts, earths, and metals, the particles of which are constantly changing, is not the man. It is not in the highest, truest sense, the body. Every particle of that frame may pass away while the body still remains. The real body is that which retains its organic sameness, amidst the incessant change of its materials. It is not the aggregation of gross substances, visible and tangible, but rather their connection and the life that unites them, that constitute a human body. We need not hesitate to say this life is the gift of God to man, made in his own image, and in his purpose an endowment far higher than mere animal life. When it is withdrawn, the organic structure built up as its earthly habitation is a ruin, and its material elements are scattered, the dust returning to dust again. Others may inquire for the “origin of souls,” asking questions over which many have wearied themselves in vain, we here only confess our faith that the sovereign Lord, “God of the spirits of all flesh,” has the relation of Fatherhood to his human children.

A perfect mental science would require first, the normal action of the intellectual faculties to give phenomena, and then the accurate observation, and orderly arrangement of the phenomena given. To have a starting place there must be the feeling that we are, and can distinguish between ourselves and the mental acts of which we are capable. This consciousness is the root of all our soul science, and without it there could be no fruitful study of the human intellect. It is more than mere feeling, as it implies that activity of mind by which a man distinguishes between his body and soul, the senses and their possessor. It is the self-conscious act of knowing what is within; and when the phenomena or state is presented, the knowledge is intuitive or immediate. No reasoning, or other mental process, is required. The soul confronts itself and its acts face to face, and knows them as they are. The endowment is natural and universal. Though a child at first may show no sign of the possession, it has the capacity, and if normally developed, soon claims the right to be itself and not another. Like other human powers, this also is capable of culture, and may be raised to a state of higher activity and clearer discernment. This improved reflective consciousness brings to view the more occult phenomena within, comparing and classifying things, that it may have a clearer, more discriminating knowledge of the facts considered.

Interrogating this witness, each finds in himself a power to think and reason. That is, an intellectual faculty, by the exercise of which there is intelligence, memory to retain or recall things once known, and imagination, that creates and represents things that are not, as though they were. These are distinct, though inseparable, faculties or powers. Thinking is necessary to exact or well defined knowledge, and until our ready impressions and conceptions are penetrated with thought, and we discern their nature, grounds, and connections, we have no science. Information may be received, facts committed to the memory, but if the treasures are jumbled together, and little thought given to either their analysis or orderly arrangement, they can be of but little value to their possessor. In its perceptions and sensations the mind is actively receptive; and by thought this normal activity is intensified. One who desires a correct knowledge of his own mind must connect his conceptions and impressions in some orderly manner, and think much. If there is an aversion to this, or hindrances arise from the almost incessant demands of business or society, and a tendency to mental dissipation is noticed, we may antidote the evil by mostly avoiding the popular light literature, and choosing, as the companions of our few leisure hours, standard works, in which are treasured the best thoughts of the world’s great thinkers. The intelligent study of the outer world, of nature, having the divine impress on every feature, will also do much to cure the weakness that many are ready to confess, to themselves at least. Nature does not think—has not reason, as man has, but the phenomena presented are full of reasons, the embodiments of God’s thoughts, that are above ours, high as the heavens are above the earth.

The will is the controlling motive power, and decides the question of character. A voluntary agent is responsible for his acts. Where there is conscious freedom, not only to act as he wills, but to will obedience to the dictates of conscience, character is possible. The freedom spoken of, and without which there can be no obligation or responsibility, is, of course, human freedom. The will power is man’s, not that of the brute. The rational, voluntary agent, having conscience, moral ideas, sensibilities, and emotions, is, under law, blame- or praiseworthy, and personally responsible for what he is and does. His involuntary acts, if such are committed, are without moral character. There are some things that are not objects of his choice. When different ways of living are presented, he can freely choose which shall be his. But it is not given him to choose whether he himself shall have a moral character. That is inevitable; and his only option in the matter is as to whether it shall be good or bad.

LOGIC.

When the mind is employed in discriminating, arranging, judging, and reasoning, these several acts are all of a class, and are called rational or logical processes. Their importance can hardly be overestimated, as thus the reasoner gets assured possession of judgments or beliefs that are more or less general, and derives from them those that are particular and applicable in any exigency; or by the inductive method, from the particular facts within his knowledge, arrives at general propositions, and securely rests in them as true. In many, perhaps in most cases, both processes, the deductive and inductive, are used or implied. We understand phenomena or effects by their causes, and infer causes from their effects, explain the present by what has been, and anticipate the future by interpreting the past. We reason from what is seen to the unseen, from the facts of nature to nature’s laws.

Systems of logic, if judiciously arranged, are of much value, and should be studied as guides and helps in our efforts to know the certainty of things. Method in reasoning is of much importance. But while comparatively few understand the rules, or adopt the exact technical terms used by scientific logicians, others, using methods and terms of their own, think vigorously, and reason well. The powers employed by the most thoroughly trained scholar and by the unlettered man may be equal, nor are their methods half so different as some suppose. Though the latter forms no expanded syllogisms,[1] says nothing of “subject,” “predicate,” or “copula,” he as really has his premises, reasons from what he knows, and in many cases reaches his conclusions with about the same feeling of certainty. The knowledge he gains does not differ from that of those who are guided in their reasonings by the best rules that observation and experience suggest. Some of those, who in this matter of logic are a law unto themselves, not only reason well, but often very rapidly. Judgment is given so speedily on the presentation of the case that it seems intuitive. There is but a step from the premises of an argument, securely laid in what is conceded in the statement, or what they already know, to the conclusion that is legitimate, and they take it at once. Now, if this is true, and common sense reasonings often seem so easy, while those conducted by men of much science are often difficult and tedious, it may be asked what advantage, then, is there in the logic of the schools? A sufficient answer is found in the fact that the thoroughly trained logician can solve problems the other never attempts. In his processes the properties and relations observed are less obvious or more complicated than anything presented to the other. To apprehend them clearly, closer attention must be given than most men, without such training, ever give or can give. And then, the conclusions of the ready, rapid, though untrained, reasoner who investigates only common subjects, are really less reliable, because more likely to be founded on too superficial observations. The man of more science, and yet slower progress, is expected to handle the more difficult problems, and subject all their elements to a sharper scrutiny.

LANGUAGE

Is intimately connected with thought, not only as its expression, but as an auxiliary. Thoughts always become clearer and more firmly fixed in the mind by being expressed. Though words are not thoughts, and, carelessly uttered, may be quite meaningless, thoughts not only seek to embody, or clothe themselves in language, but our best thinking is done in the use of words, uttered or unexpressed. Though there may be no sound for the ear nor symbol for the eye, the word inly spoken serves to fix the otherwise transient thought so that it can be afterward recalled, and perhaps uttered, to stimulate the thinking of others. Hence the importance of the study of language, of words and their syntax, as employed to express mental processes. Grammar is important as an intellectual science.

ÆSTHETICS.

The science of the beautiful is an important and delightful branch of study; the knowledge gained being mostly through immediate perceptions and sensible impressions. Beauty, wherever discovered, appeals to the sensibilities, and raises pleasant emotions. As a means of culture it elevates and refines. Communings with nature in her lovelier moods subdue asperities, and inspire gentle, kindly dispositions, while the beautiful creations of architecture, statuary, and painting, of poetry and music, fill the souls of discerning, susceptible persons with indescribable pleasure. But though such emotions are frequently excited, and seem familiar, they are of all our mental phenomena least understood, and most difficult to analyze. Some of our most common experiences are, on examination, found the most inexplicable. All, in a general way, know that beauty of form, proportion and color, wherever seen, excites pleasurable emotions. But our knowledge of sensations and emotions is generally, though direct and immediate, imperfect, and can become thorough only when the first impression is retained, and the higher faculties employed in studying its character and its cause. Dr. Porter’s[2] chapters on “Sense Perceptions” are, on the whole, satisfactory, and will help advance this branch of knowledge toward the dignity of a science. They give an analysis of beauty in objects that address the senses, and also of the emotions it awakens. Thoughtful students confess their need of more help. The science has its charms, but is still in its adolescence. Some things elementary are yet wanting, or known only by the names given them. Men talk of the “line of beauty” in architecture and sculpture, but do not yet know just what it is, or by what peculiarities it works on the sympathies of the beholder. We feel the exquisite pleasure but do not know just wherein the charms of the music that most delights us, consist, nor how it awakens the feeling it does. We can not tell just what it is in the poem we admire that gives its rhythm, figures of speech and imagery such enchanting power. The literature on the subject is extensive. We have, as all who read Ruskin’s[3] works know, a rich treasure of astute observations, with keen, incisive criticisms, but yet no thorough analysis of all the materials necessary to complete the science of Æsthetics.

MORAL SCIENCE, OR ETHICS.

The science of duty, often called moral as relating to customs or habits of thought and action, discusses human obligations, or inquires what responsible voluntary agents ought to do, and why. Man has a moral nature; is so constituted, and placed in such relations that he feels certain things to be right for him, and others wrong; he says: I ought to do this, and that I ought not. These words, or their equivalents, expressive of obligation, can be traced in all languages of which we have any knowledge, and they voice the common sentiment of the race. Men differ widely in their intelligence, and consequently in their ability to discriminate with respect to acts or states that are purely intellectual. Their metaphysics may be cloudy and confused, so that their judgments on such matters will have neither agreement nor authority. But the moral sense discovers moral qualities more clearly. Its decisions are prompt, and their authority is acknowledged. Speculative questions on the subject are not all answered with the same agreement. If it is asked why a thing is right, different persons may answer differently. One says because it is useful; another because it is commanded by a higher authority; and another because it accords with the fitness of things. These are questions for the intellect and not for the moral sense. Its province is simply to decide whether the act or state is right or not, and there it stops. Whether the basis of the rectitude approved is in some quality of the act itself, in an antecedent, or a consequent, may be properly asked, and reasons assigned for the answers given. But such questions are speculative, and the answers do not have, even when the best are given, the force of a moral conviction. In saying a thing is right because it is right, we affirm our conviction of the fact, but tacitly confess we may not know all the reasons why. How the fact is known is sufficiently explained by a reference to consciousness. We are so constituted that when moral qualities, in ourselves or others, are fairly presented and understood, there arise feelings of approval or condemnation, corresponding to that which excites them. Of such convictions and emotions we are at once conscious, and can have no more certain knowledge of anything than of what is thus felt. Connecting them with their exciting cause, it, too, is known, not by any outward or sense perception, yet not less certainly by an inward moral sense, whose decisions are promptly given, and with authority. There are frequent occasions for men to distinguish between what is right and what is merely lawful. A villain, destitute of moral rectitude, who for his own pleasure, or gain, robs society of its brightest jewels, spreading ruin and desolation through the community, may violate no statute, and escape legal condemnation; but, though having no fear of the law or of the courts, he is not less certainly a guilty man.

Conscience, as a faculty of the soul, differs but little from consciousness. Both words are from the same root, and neither, in its primary, etymological meaning, implies anything as to moral character. Consciousness is self-knowledge, the mind’s recognition of its own state as it is; and that a man has a conscience, or capacity for passing moral judgment on himself, is a condition that makes character of any kind possible. Each word, however, has now an additional meaning, sanctioned by general usage. The former generally implies emotions of approval or disapproval, and the latter that there is in the mind a standard of action, and a clear discrimination between right and wrong, with an immediate feeling of responsibility, or obligatory emotions.

Though thus richly endowed with intellect, sensibilities, and will, by nature capable of the highest mental activities, the structure of the soul would be strangely incomplete if the religious element were wanting. But it is not wanting. Man is a religious animal, and ever prone to worship. He has capacities that are not filled, longings unsatisfied, and must go out of himself for help and rest. Of all the sciences that concern him most, no other is half so important as the science of God, an infinite, all-wise, ever-present, personal God; our Creator, Redeemer, Benefactor. This science is transcendent, and confirmed by indubitable evidence. It satisfies and saves. “This is eternal life, to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent.”

SOCIAL SCIENCE

Investigates, in an orderly, scientific manner, the principles of association, and whatever relates to the interests and improvement of men in communities. It has its basis in psychology, as that science of the soul reveals most clearly the elements of a social nature. By instinctive longings for sympathy and fellowship, men are drawn together, and readily consent to the restraints of society, whose earlier tacit agreements and maxims are at length formulated into rules and laws for their better government.

Civil governments, incomplete at first, and encountering many hindrances, often progress but slowly, and sometimes even recede from vantage ground that has been gained. Some known in history have made but little advancement during the nineteenth century, and still fail to adjust their political machinery to the wants and demands of the people. They will hardly survive much longer without some promise of better progress in the future. All really good governments are not equally good, and that is regarded best which secures the greatest liberty to the individual citizen, consistent with the rights of others and the public security. That end, when honestly proposed, may be, to some extent, secured under very different charters or constitutions, and very much depends on the wisdom of the administration. When the governing power is in the hands of one man, and he irresponsible for his manner of exercising it, it is called an autocracy, or despotism. When vested in one person, whose executive functions are exercised by ministers responsible to a legislative assembly or parliament, it is a constitutional monarchy. If the nobility, or a few principal men govern by a right, in some way claimed, and conceded to them, it is an oligarchy, or an aristocracy. If the power is in the hands of the people themselves, or their immediate representatives, as in the United States, it is a democracy, or republic.

Social science embraces a wide range of subjects of more than ordinary importance. It discusses both principles and facts, the principles that underlie all social institutions, and the practical, economic regulations that are wisely adopted in well ordered, prosperous communities. If the institutions are established, its province is to examine theories, collect, arrange, and generalize facts, that may have some bearing on any proposed corrective and reformatory measures. It scrutinizes public crimes, penal codes, judicial decisions, and prison discipline, with whatever else pertains to social life. It shows the relation of men to men, of the ruler to the governed, of the employer to his employes, of the rich to the poor, the fortunate to the unfortunate, and by its expositions instructs men how to act in their various relations. If the science were much better understood, the dangerous classes would be less dangerous; and the troublesome problems of pauperism, the liquor traffic, Mormonism, and the social evil, would be less appalling to average legislators and judges.

The experience of ages shows that the ameliorating, helpful agencies and influences that lift communities up to higher levels, often operate silently as the leaven, till the whole lump is leavened. In many tribes the advance from savagery and the usurpation by irresponsible leaders, of absolute power toward complete civil liberty and personal rights, has been slow. The change has come by means almost imperceptible, or by struggles that seemed at the time fruitless. The improved condition of society does not bring entire security, or freedom from assault. The yoke once taken from the neck, and the heavy burdens from the shoulders, new ideas of property, justice, and personal rights are developed. The spirit of enterprise is awakened, because each finds himself in the position of affluence and influence, to which his talents, industry and self-denial entitle him. Men become competitors, and inequalities of condition are inevitable. Incompetence, idleness, and extravagance bring want and misery. Wealth and poverty exist side by side, the rich growing richer, and the poor poorer. Class distinctions become odious. Capital and labor, that should be allies, are often in conflict, to the great injury of both. There may be occasion for complaint against those “who oppress the hireling in his wages,” and “grind the faces of the poor.” But many are envious without cause, and suffer only the penalty of their idleness and extravagance, become enemies of the community, and are deaf to remonstrance if they see, or think they see, any way of relieving themselves at the expense of those who have acted more wisely, and possess large estates. Here come in the functions of government, that is of society, with its better notions of right and justice, and power to enforce them. True “social science,” founded on the experience of ages, recognizes the necessity of government, the obligations of the citizen, and the right of all to the property they have lawfully and honestly acquired. It demonstrates that real progress is in the way of a safe conservatism, while it admits the possibility of change and improvement, fully justifying the work of the reformer where reformation is needed. If existing institutions are inadequate because of some radical defect, have outlasted their usefulness, or become oppressive, revolution may be demanded. But any government, though unjust and despotic, is better than anarchy, and should be repudiated only when it is, under all the circumstances, possible to establish a better. When legitimate authority is resisted in the spirit of lawlessness or efforts at revolution prompted by an evil ambition, the actors are guilty. There have been many attempts, mostly abortive, to solve the problem of government, and reconstruct the social fabric. Some of them by good men, whose schemes were simply theoretical and impractical; others by malcontents and destructionists who mistake license for liberty. Plato, a man of probity and justice, but lacking the wisdom of the statesman, prepared a constitution for a model republic, which had too many defects for adoption; a republic with advantages for a select class, but slavery for the masses doomed to manual labor, which was made despicable. More wrote his “Utopia,”[4] regarded by some as a kind of program for a needed social reform. It had little influence with his countrymen, most of whom ranked it with works of the imagination, where it belonged, whether so intended or not. Campanella,[5] a radical communist of Stilo, in Calabria, wrote his Utopia, called “The City of the Sun,” a sensual paradise, in which there was to be a community of goods and of wives. For more than a century socialistic and communistic publications were numerous; many of them denouncing property as a sin, and advocating the greatest license in the intercourse of the sexes. Rousseau, in his discourse on the “Origin and Grounds of Inequality Amongst Men,” speaks with approval of “a state of nature,” something like that among our American Indians before they had any knowledge of civilization. He seems to have supposed there was no inequality, no vice, no misery, among untutored savages, and advised those who could, to return to a state of nature.

The skeptical Owen,[6] and the philosophical Fourier,[7] more practical than others, attempted to establish communities as models or examples of what could be accomplished on their theory, but failure attended their enterprises, or the communities were saved from utter disintegration by the tacit admission of principles that were once disavowed.

Modern socialism, akin to communism, and in all its tendencies subversive of good government, declaims over the poverty and misery of the unhappy masses, laments their insufficient shelter, food, and clothing, is sentimental on the subject of labor and wages, and seeks to rouse the abject sufferers to a sense of their sad condition. Its pictures of suffering are in many cases not overdrawn, and the greatest efforts can hardly exaggerate the facts. But socialism is not “social science.” It is utterly and perversely unscientific; it discusses effects, carefully leaving causes out of view; and would reform communities by corrupting and debasing individuals. With a vague notion that every man has a natural right to whatever he needs, it allows that the problem of equalization may be solved by violence, and thus all brought to a common level. The crimes against society, which have lately appalled us, are doubtless the result of the pernicious principles and teaching of “socialistic reformers.” But a reaction is sure to come, and the better instincts of the race will yet destroy the corrupt tree whose fruit is evil.

SUNDAY READINGS.

SELECTED BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

[April 5.]

Ecclesiastics 7:29: “Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.”

If we should stand amid the uncovered treasures which mark the site of ancient Nineveh or Babylon we would doubtless find in the objects, as they are this moment, very much to engage our most interested attention. We would regard with wonder and pleasure the specimens of beautiful architecture, the evidences of human skill and industry which modern exploration has disclosed to view. And yet, full of interest as such an occupation would be, we could not prevent our minds from engaging in another. Without any conscious exercise of will, our thought would revert to the day when these fallen structures stood in all their magnificence; when these halls, now filled with the sand of the desert, echoed to the strains of music and to the voices of the noblest and greatest of the land; when through these arches, now crumbling, armies marched gaily to battle, or returned in triumph, bearing the spoils of conquest. We would not be insensible to the value of the columns and capitals, the statuary and tablets before our eyes, and yet the very grandeur of these ruins would evoke the genius who would lead our thought by an irresistible constraint to look upon the prior vision of those cities in the day of their pristine perfection.

My friends, we do stand amid ruins. We walk day after day amid shattered greatness, in comparison with which the prized relics of Nineveh and Babylon, of Thebes, and Luxor,[1] and Troy, sink into insignificance. Far be it from me to underestimate the work of man, as we see him and know him to-day, or as we read of him in the records of the past. I am aware of what he is, and of what he has done. I am not insensible to his work, and yet I declare that man, great as he is—and he is great—is in certain respects not as great as he was. I mean that he is not what the progenitor of the race was. And viewed in comparison with that primitive condition—that condition at creation—man to-day, considered physically, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is a conspicuous instance of fallen grandeur—not worthless and valueless—far from that; but his perfection has departed; he is vastly inferior to what his great original was. Realizing this, we can not fail to revert in thought to that early day, and seek to see what the greatness was from which we have fallen.

Before, however, we attempt to look upon that picture, it will be necessary to establish and defend the theory of man’s condition and history upon this earth, with which it is inseparably connected.

A view of human history, which has been strongly advocated of late, is that our race began physically, intellectually, and morally at the lowest possible point. Some even maintain that the first men and women were but the latest and highest developments of certain species of brutes. But whether this phase of the theory of evolution be included in it or not, the essential idea of the view to which we refer is that the progenitors of our race were the lowest kind of savages, in their powers and capacities, their tastes and pursuits scarcely distinguishable from the brutes around them, and that from this low beginning men have gradually come to the height of attainment and improvement which they occupy to-day. If this theory be true, the statement which we have made, and which we proposed to consider, is false. If such were the origin of our race, if the first men and women were in all the parts of their nature but a shade removed above the brutes of the forest and the field, of course we of to-day are in no respect their inferiors—of course ours is not, as has been declared, a fallen race. We maintain, however, that the theory which makes our race begin in a condition of barbarism and imbecility is untrue. I know that it is supported by eminent names; I know, too, that it has been pressed upon public attention with much noisy and confident assertion; I know all this, and yet I declare that the theory is unproven; more, I declare that it is untrue.

Let us look at a few considerations which may shed the light of truth upon this matter of the primitive condition of mankind, and by this I mean the condition of those who succeeded Adam himself on the stage of the world’s history:

1. We all know how long, in families which have lost position or power, the memory of former greatness is cherished. You will find in your charitable institutions, in the depths of poverty, and, perhaps, of wickedness, those who will tell you by the hour of the fortunes of their house in remote days, of the distinction which some ancestor, far removed, conferred upon the name. Such memories are preserved with care, and transmitted from generation to generation, and they become more and more precious as the descendants themselves have less and less honor of their own. The same principle operates with nations and with the great tribes of men, particularly when they have themselves sunk so low that they are conscious of no ground of glorying in themselves. Now it is an instructive fact that the traditions of all nations have more or less reference to a golden age, from which men have fallen. This is true in India, in China, in Egypt, among our own Indians, among the inhabitants of Central and South America—wherever traditional knowledge is preserved. It is a vague memory—nevertheless a memory cherished by the race, handed down through the ages, not of an era when humanized monkeys rejoiced in their promotion, but of a golden age, when men as gods dwelt upon the earth. The only explanation of such a wide-spread tradition is that there must have been a fact corresponding to it; there must have been a substance to cast this shadow over so many generations. Those who hold that mankind began at the lowest point, can not satisfactorily account for this tradition of the race.

2. Not only tradition, but history sustains our position. If the true explanation of man’s condition to-day, in the civilized countries, is that he has gradually raised himself from a state of absolute barbarism, we certainly ought to have in the records of authentic history the account of at least one nation, which, as matter of fact, before the eyes of the world, has done the same thing. But no such instance can be found, not one of a people, entirely barbarous, lifting themselves unaided, to the higher plane of even a comparative civilization. Archbishop Whately[2] says: “We have no reason to believe that any community ever did or ever can, emerge, unassisted by external helps, from a state of barbarism unto anything that can be called civilization.” And we may follow the course of civilization from our own land back to western Europe, from western Europe to Italy, from Italy to Greece, from Greece to Egypt and the farther East, and still, as far as history takes us we see the barren portions of the earth continuing to be barren—continuing to bear only the wild fruits of barbarism, until the stream of knowledge, and culture, and civilization, is led to it from some other place. And that stream may be followed all the way back to the beginning of authentic secular history, and in no one instance does the dry ground yield fruit and flower of itself. We maintain that the vivifying stream began to flow because there was in the beginning, in the East, a fountain filled by God himself. Or, leaving the language of allegory, we assert that if our race was utterly barbarous at the beginning, it never would have risen from its barbarism, and authentic history can not adduce a single instance of a nation rising unaided from barbarism to overthrow this position. Mankind, therefore, did not begin at the lowest point, or, judged by all the analogy of history, it would be there still.

3. Again, the records, outside of the Bible, which have come down to us from early times, are few and imperfect, but the oldest of those which do remain indicate the existence of nations in a high state of civilization in the earliest periods of human history. In Egypt, China, Chaldea, these earliest records, whether monumental or written, bear evidence, not of universal barbarism in the previous ages, but of powerful and enlightened nationalities. Such a state of things is inconsistent with the theory which makes the history of our race a gradual development from a brutal and degraded beginning.

4. Still further, the science of paleontology comes forward to prove the same thing. There have been found in Belgium and in France, some human skulls and skeletons, unquestionably of very great antiquity. Concerning them one of the most competent of human judges, Principal Dawson, of McGill University, Canada, says: “These skulls are probably the oldest known in the world.” But what sort of men do they indicate as living at that remote day? “They all represent,” he says, “a race of grand, physical development, and of cranial capacity equal to that of the average modern European.” Further he says: “They indicate also that man’s earlier state was the best, that he had been a high and noble creature before he became a savage. It is not conceivable that their great development of brain and mind could have spontaneously engrafted itself on a mere brutal and savage life. These gifts must be remnants of a noble organization, degraded by moral evil. They thus justify the tradition of a golden and Edenic age, and mutely protest against the philosophy of progressive development, as applied to man.” Again, he concludes from a careful study of these remains: “The condition, habits and structure of Palæocosmic[3] men correspond with the idea that they may be rude and barbarous offshoots of more cultivated tribes, and therefore realize, as much as such remains can, the Bible history of the fall and dispersion of antediluvian men. We need not suppose that Adam of the Bible was precisely like the old man of Cromagnon.[4] Rather may this man represent that fallen yet magnificent race which filled the antediluvian earth with violence, and probably the more scattered and wandering tribes of that race, rather than its greater and more cultivated nations.”—Nature and the Bible, pp. 174-179.

5. In addition to these arguments from tradition and history, and monumental and written records, and an actual study of human remains, which experts pronounce to be older, probably, than the flood, we have evidence within ourselves. We are not unfamiliar with stories of children of noble, perhaps of royal, descent, who have been abducted and brought up among people of low tastes and habits. But ever and anon, in gesture or inclination or bent of life, the blood shows itself, and to an attentive eye tells of the gentler and loftier sphere from which it came. So with us. Our consciousness reveals within us remnants of a former greatness; aspirations which this world has never taught us, longings for peace and purity which we feel we ought to have, but which we know this world never imparts. These things are the impress of the joys of that golden age which all these centuries have been powerless to erase from the souls of Adam’s sons. Morally, we know we are not what we ought to be; we are conscious of our degradation. As regards intellect, we retain powers which have, indeed, accomplished marvelous results; and yet, let some abnormal stimulus affect the brain—whether it be that produced by sudden excitement or passion, or that caused by powerful artificial agencies, and we see flashes of power yet in reserve which intimate what this wondrous human mind may once have been. And physically, our frail bodies, quickly tired and quickly crumbling to dust, tell us daily that here, at least, the theory of development from imperfection to perfection has signally failed.

[April 12.]

From these considerations we deem it evident that the theory of man’s development from a primitive condition of barbarism is untrue. The various glimpses which we have been able to obtain of the early ages reveal man as in an advanced condition. To all this the representations of the Bible correspond. It is not the design of the inspired volume to give a minute description of the customs, habits, knowledge, employments of the nations of the world. All that it says upon these subjects is incidental, yet no one in reading its accounts of those early times, and of the people then living, could possibly imagine that the men and women of whom it speaks were such as the rude Hottentot or the savage Caffre of to-day. The picture of man in the primitive times drawn from the Bible, is the same as that which is drawn from all these other sources; a being of physical and intellectual power; not a savage, not a barbarian, but an enlightened, capable, efficient man. How much he knew, how much he could accomplish, what acquaintance he had with the forces of nature, which we are now beginning to understand, must be matters of conjecture. Sin had commenced its blighting work, but we must remember that man in those early days had inherited from the first man splendid powers, and probably varied and extensive knowledge. His physical strength and his length of days were still great, and doubtless in all respects, save morally and spiritually, he was even yet a magnificent creature, and a power upon the earth.

Still, this was not the point which, in this discussion, we wished to reach. All this was the greatness of man after he had begun to deteriorate, after the poison of sin had begun to do its certain and terrible work. This vision of primitive man in his physical and intellectual strength is the splendor which abides a little while in the sky after the sun has set. Nevertheless, the sun had set, and there is a world-wide difference between this picture and that unto which we would lead you—the picture of that sun in its glory—the picture of unfallen man—the first man—the perfect man. Now let us look upon it. The long ages of preparation have rolled away and the earth is a garden of loveliness. Upon the splendors of its landscapes, the beauty of its lakes, the grandeur of its mountains and oceans, the sun looked down from his pavilion in the sky by day, and the moon and the stars by night. The magnificent domain waited in harmony and beauty for its inhabitants, “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” “So God created man in his own image: in the image of God created he him.” “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.”

In the place of honor and dominion in that waiting world of beauty, enthrone a being who shall be the counterpart of those words of infallible description—a man, made in the image of God, and receiving the unqualified commendation of his divine Creator. We may, without danger of mistake, consider him to have been physically a being of magnificent stature, and of matchless perfection of feature and form, with a body ignorant of weakness or disease, free from the seeds of sickness and of death. That a change would afterward have been necessary to fit his body of flesh and blood for its immortality is possible, but such change would not have been what we understand by death. Age would not have brought infirmity to him. Nature would have had no debt to pay to the grave.

Enshrined in this perfect body as in a glorious temple was a mind corresponding, doubtless, in excellence to its habitation and to the terms which describe its creation. Intellectually as well as morally, he was created in the image of God. He was possessed of reason and of actual knowledge. When the various classes of animals were passed in review before him, he had such an apprehension of their distinctive characteristics as to be able to give to them all appropriate names. And as he knew thus much of nature, how shall we limit his familiarity with her mysteries? And what shall we say of the powers of discernment, of intuition, of memory, of judgment, of the facility in working, of the unwearied and the unending delights and achievements of a mind made in the image of God, and not yet marred or weakened by sin!

But the crowning glory of that first man, that which marks his distance from us more than any physical or intellectual superiority, is that in his moral and spiritual nature he bore a likeness to his divine Creator. This being, whose body knew no imperfection, whose mind was rich in its possessions, and mighty in its power to acquire and enjoy every kind of truth, was holy. No thought arose in that heart which could not be published in heaven—none which could mantle his cheek with the blush of shame, or cause his manly eye to drop in consciousness of wrong, or make a ripple of disquiet in the sea of perfect peace which filled his soul. His thoughts were God’s thoughts. His loves, his wishes, his purposes, in harmony with God’s, ascended and descended like the angels Jacob saw, in perfect and blessed communion between heaven and earth, and earth was heaven begun. Of this world, with its abounding life, he was the acknowledged king. Within him was the consciousness of peace, and joy, and immortality. All about him was beauty, and amid the glories of his Eden home, God himself condescended to walk with him and be his friend.

Such is a faint outline of the picture on which I would have you look—the picture of man as he was in the beginning. Does not the sight justify the assertion that we are a fallen race? Does it not confirm the teaching of our text, that “God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions?”

I need not delay to prove that this picture is not a representation of our present condition. Think of these frail physical existences, begun with a cry, continued in pain and weakness, and extended with difficulty to their three score years and ten. Think of the ages through which the intellect of the most favored portion of the world has been struggling to its present attainments. Think particularly of the moral and spiritual condition of the race, in comparison with that heavenly vision of Godlikeness which stands at the beginning of our history. I need not delay then to prove that mankind has fallen. I will, however, ask you to remember when you reflect upon the sad disorders of the present state, upon the sorrows and weaknesses and wickednesses of men to-day, that God did not thus create the progenitors of the race. If we see ruins about us and within us, let us remember that the temple as it was fashioned by the supreme architect was perfect. Let us remember also the real and only cause of this terrible catastrophe. It was sin—sin that always has ruined and always will destroy the beautiful, the pure, the true. Men did indeed go from that height of exaltation into the depths of barbarism; it is true enough that the pages of remote history show us men living in caves, and almost reduced to the level of the brutes—and sin led them there! Men did lose the moral beauty of our first parent; they did lose much of the intellectual and physical strength which lingered for a season in his immediate descendants—and sin was the despoiler that remorselessly stripped from them those glorious robes! You and I might have been as Adam—ignorant of sorrow and of suffering, and the world still an Eden about us, but sin has cast us down.

But let us remember also, with infinite gratitude and hope, as we look upon that picture of primeval perfection which we have sought to restore, that that condition may be regained. The crumbled arches, the fallen walls, the shattered foundations of Nineveh’s or Babylon’s palaces can never by any human skill be made to reproduce the glory that has departed, and yet the temple of man’s Eden estate, though cast down with a more fearful destruction, can be restored! Yea, made more glorious than it was before, and established upon a foundation, so that through the eternal ages it can never again be moved! Thanks be unto God, this is possible to us. Jesus Christ has come from heaven and has undertaken the accomplishment of the stupendous task. Jesus Christ has promised to effect it for every one who will yield to his influences. And he can do it, for he is the Savior, he is the Redeemer, the buyer-back of that which was lost, and of nations and of regions as well as of individual souls. … His spirit is the inspiration of the life which here is lived. That is enough to lift up any place or any people. And just as certainly will it lift up any human soul. Just as certainly will it redeem it from the consequences of the race’s fall. Not in this life, indeed, may we expect to have again the perfection of power and the freedom from sorrow which our first parent had; but the work of bringing men back to all the blessedness which Adam enjoyed, with new elements of blessing added, will be done—yea, it is even now going on, through the power of an indwelling Christ in souls that are here to-day. Let us all take the loving and mighty hand which is extended for our uplifting; let us seek our birthright, and though, through the first Adam our Paradise was lost, let us yield ourselves to the second Adam, by whom a better Paradise shall be regained.—The Rev. Dr. E. D. Ledyard.

[April 19.]

Monarchs reign, but their dominion is merely external. They do not and can not enter into the realm of the soul; but “there is another king, one Jesus,” whose right it is to sit enthroned in every heart, to direct every conscience, and to have dominion over every thought and action. Have you given him the sovereignty of yourself?

Sin reigns, and that king, alas! holds sway in many—I ought to say in the vast majority of human souls. But he is an usurper; for “there is another king, one Jesus,” who is the rightful lord of the heart. Under which king are you? He who repudiates the royalty of Jesus over him is guilty of treason against the majesty of heaven, and is but courting his destruction.

Death reigns, and day by day he is sweeping in new multitudes into his silent realm. The mightiest and the meanest alike must yield to him who is the terror of kings, no less than he is the king of terrors. At one time he rides on the hurricane, and dashes the laboring vessel and the freighted souls within her on the roaring reef; at another he drives through the city streets riding on his pestilential car, and spreads desolation round him. Now he careers upon the boiling flood, and sweeps whole villages before him into swift destruction; and again he leaps in the lightning-flash upon some devoted building, and kindles a conflagration that burns many in its flames. He laughs at men’s efforts to elude his grasp; and as we look upon the settled countenance of the loved one whom we are preparing to lay in the grave, we are almost compelled to own him conqueror. But no! “there is another king, one Jesus,” who is “the Resurrection and the Life,” and “who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel.” Let us, then, be undismayed by this last enemy. He is a vanquished foe. Our Lord Jesus has gone into his domain, and having conquered him there, has brought him back with him to his palace, to be there the page who opens the door for his friends into the chamber of his presence. Yes! as we stand by the remains of our Christian dead, and under the influence of sight are moved to speak of Death as king, we recall in another sense than they were meant, but in a sense which faith recognizes as true, the words “There is another king, one Jesus.”

Paradoxical as it may seem, these two things always go together. Where Christ is owned as the sole sovereign, there his service is perfect freedom; but where his supremacy is either ignored or given to another, there comes the slavery of superstition, or the tyranny of priestcraft, or the cold domination of philosophy, and it is hard to say which of these is the most degrading.—W. M. Taylor.

[April 26.]

He who would preach the Gospel with power must be himself a believer in the Lord. The secret of true, heart-stirring eloquence in the pulpit is, next after the power of the Holy Ghost, that which the French Abbé has very happily called “the accent of conviction” in the speaker. Behind every appeal that Paul made to sinners, there was the memory of that wonderful experience through which he passed on the way to Damascus; and therefore we are not surprised that he so preached as either to secure men’s faith or to rouse their antagonism. But his conversion alone, without his Arabian revelations, would not have made him the apostle he became. In the desert he met his Lord, and received from him many important spiritual communications. There, too, he meditated on the truths revealed to him, and poured out his heart in prayer for a thorough understanding of their meaning and a full realization of their power. Thus he came back to Damascus, if not with a face glowing like that of Moses when he descended from Sinai, at least with a heart filled and fired with love to Him who had there unfolded to him the mysteries of the Gospel. Now, what Paul thus received from the Lord has been given to us by evangelists and apostles in the New Testament Scriptures. Our Arabia, therefore, will be the study and the closet in which we pore over these precious pages, and seek to comprehend their many sided significance, as well as to imbibe the spirit by which they are pervaded. He who would preach to others must be much alone with his Bible and his Lord; else when he appears before his people, he will send them to sleep with his pointless platitudes, or starve them with his empty conceits. Get you to Arabia, then, ye who would become the instructors of your fellowmen! Get you to the closet and the study! Give your days and nights to the investigation of this book; and let everything you produce from it be made to glow with white heat in the forge of your own heart, and be hammered on the anvil of your own experience!—W. M. Taylor.

EASY LESSONS IN ANIMAL BIOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

Biology is the science of life, the true doctrine concerning all living things. Animal biology is that branch of the science which relates to animals, as distinguished from plants. It tells of these animals what we know about them, where and how they live, what food they eat, how it is received, and how they grow and multiply. Of all the sciences, this seems most extensive, having for its field a world of numberless forms, alike in that they all live, and have some characteristics in common, yet showing great diversity in their structure, appearance, and mode of life. In this summary of facts we shall simply classify, or methodically arrange in groups, according to their distinguishing peculiarities, the members of this vast family.

The animal kingdom is divided into the following sub-kingdoms, each of which is subdivided into classes. The following table shows these divisions in their proper order, beginning with the lowest:

SUB-KINGDOM I.

Protozoa (first animals). These earliest formed animals are distinguished for the simplicity of their structure. In some cases their animal nature was long ago in doubt, and they were, for a time, put down as probably belonging to the vegetable kingdom. The border line between the two has never been very definitely located. Biologists may fail to tell just what special quality distinguishes the minute animal from the microscopic plant. This is not wonderful, when it is remembered that myriads of animals, known to be such, are so small that it requires a lens of strong magnifying power to discover them. Three thousand of them, placed side by side, would make a line but little over an inch long.

Class I.—Monera (single). These are the simplest forms of microscopic aquatic animals. They are entirely homogeneous, and without any developed organs; mere particles, of a jelly-like, but living, or life-supporting substance, called protoplasm, or more properly, bioplasm. This, all admit, is the physical basis of life, and the medium of its manifestation, just as the conductor is a medium of manifestation of electricity. But is it not a stupid blunder to confound the mere medium of its manifestation with the life itself? In neither case is the recognized physical basis of the manifestation necessary to the existence of that manifested by its means. Electricity exists without the conductor, and life may exist without the bioplasm.

Class II.—Gregarinida (living in herds). Minute animals which are found in the intestines of the lobster, clam, and cockroach. They are worm-like in form, and of a very simple, cell-like structure, the only organ being a nucleus.

Class III.—Rhizopoda (root footed). The representative forms of this class are the Amœba[1] and Foraminifera. The amœba is an indefinite little bit of bioplasm, as structureless as the monera, only that it is made up of two layers of the substance, has an apparent nucleus, and a contractile cavity within. These first animals vindicate their right to be recognized as such, by moving, receiving food, growing, and reproducing their kind. They move by a contractile force, throwing out at will processes of their soft bodies, to serve them as feet and arms. True, these are blunt, and without digits, but they answer the purpose. They eat either by simple absorption, or by wrapping their soft bodies around the food, and holding it in the extemporized stomach till it is, in some way, assimilated.

The work of reproduction is carried on principally by self-division, and budding. The animal rends itself into two or more parts, each having all the elements of the whole, or it throws out buds that mature and drop from the parent mass, having the vital element, and a portion of the bioplasm, or medium necessary to its development.

FORAMINIFERA, SHOWING ROOT-LIKE FEET.

The Foraminifera (perforated animals), of this class, have several peculiarities. The body is even more simple, being apparently without layers or cavity. The processes thrown out as arms and legs are not blunt or massive, but long and slender. And, moreover, small as it is, it has the wonderful property of secreting about itself an envelope, whose thin walls are built of the carbonate of lime. The delicate little structures are often singularly beautiful. Some are monads, having but a single shell; others, by a process of budding add new cells or chambers, often in a spiral coil. These are marine shells, and their numbers in many parts of the ocean are astounding. The bottom of the sea, for many degrees on both sides of the equator, wherever examined by dredging, is found covered with them, either still in their organic state, or ground by attrition to a fine lime dust. It is estimated that a single pound of the sea bottom in some localities contains millions of them, and they are the principal material of the chalk hills.

Class IV.—Infusoria. This class includes Vorticella (wheel animals), Flagellata (whip-shaped animals), Tentaculata (having tentacles), and others. Their general characteristics do not differ widely from those already mentioned. As the name imports, they are mostly found in vegetable infusions that have been exposed for some time, and are directly the product of invisible cells or animal germs that were floating in the atmosphere till a lodgment was found favorable to their development. Those called Vorticella, to the eye seem simply mould on the plant to which they are attached, but under the glass their animal qualities appear; and they multiply with amazing rapidity. Every drop of water from a stagnant pool is full of these animalculæ, of various shapes and dimensions, some of them constantly in motion, propelled by numerous cilia, or slender, hair-like appendages that fringe the circumference, and are used as oars. Their whole organism, though delicate, and having a thin membranous covering, is imperfect. There are two contractile openings, with a slight depression at the mouth, leading to a funnel-shaped throat, into which the nutritive substances descend.

SUB-KINGDOM II.

Spongida, or sponges, are especially worthy of mention. When much less was known of their nature and habits, they were classed with vegetables, but since their mode of reproduction has been discovered, they are known to be animals. The sponge is formed of an aggregation of ciliated cells, built together on a skeleton or framework of calcareous or silicious substance, that extends by slow external secretions as the animal body grows. There is a central cavity toward which there are numerous channels, from openings on the surface, through which water is continually received, and one through which it is discharged. The animal part is a sensitive, gelatinous film, extending through the growing mass, and spreads out over the surface. It is perforated, in places, and adapts itself to all the sinuosities and intersections of the canals that run in every direction. The little animals are provided with exceedingly fine cilia that they keep in almost constant motion; no one knows how, or for what, but it is supposed they thus sweep in the water that circulates through all the channels and chambers formed for it. After death, the soft matter, like all animal tissues, decays, or is dried up; and by beating and washing, it and any calcareous substances are removed. The horny, elastic fibers are found so exquisitely connected about the internal canals and cavities that water is freely admitted, or by pressure expelled. Sponges are found in every latitude, but are more numerous and grow larger in warm climates. Those in our markets are mostly from the Bahamas and the islands of the Mediterranean. They are obtained by diving, often to great depths.

SUB-KINGDOM III.

Cœlenterata (hollow intestines). These are radiate animals, have a distinct digestive cavity, and always two layers of tissue in their walls. They have minute sacs containing a fluid, and barbed filaments capable of being thrown out as stings. The classes of the Cœlenterata are the Hydrozoa, Anthozoa, and Ctenophora. The best known representative of the former is the fresh water hydra (water animal). It gives but slight evidence of a nervous system, has no stomach, or digestive sac, but is a simple tube into which the mouth opens. The sensitive little body is in color and texture, to the casual observer more like a plant than an animal. It is attached at one end to a submerged aquatic plant, while the mouth at the free end is provided with tentacles,[2] by which it feeds and moves. It buds, and also produces eggs. The young hydra, when hatched or thrown off, attaches itself to plants, as did its parents. Some hydroids attach themselves to shells, and are supported by horny, branching skeletons, specimens of which are numerous, and may be seen in almost any museum.

HYDRA, SHOWING BUDS.

A second representative of this class is the jelly fish. It has a soft, gelatinous, circular body, that floats or swims on the surface in calm weather, with the mouth downward. Tubes radiate from the center to the circumference that is fringed all around with pendant tentacles, sometimes of great length and of considerable contractile power. They are of various sizes, some quite small, others as much as eight feet in diameter. They move about by flapping their sides, after the manner of opening and shutting an umbrella. When dried, the thin, filmy covering is very light. One variety, called Lucernaria, is found attached to grasses along the Atlantic shore. But the ordinary jelly fish is free, and borne on the surface of the sea.

The Anthozoa (flower animals) are small, but not microscopic animals, having a double cavity, the inner of which is the digestive sac. The best known of the class is the Actinia (rayed), or sea anemone, so called from its resemblance to a plant or flower of that name. The body is somewhat like a flower in shape. The disc has a central orifice, very contractile, and surrounded with tubular tentacles of various forms, which it elongates, contracts, and moves in different directions. They are so many arms by which the animal seizes its prey, and when expanded for the purpose, being tinted with brilliant colors, present an elegant appearance, and make vast fields of the ocean look like beautiful flower gardens. They feed voraciously on little crabs and mollusks, that often seem superior to themselves in strength and bulk, but they have power in their little tentacles to seize and hold their prey, and when they engulf large bodies the stomach is distended to receive them; and their digestion is good. The purple sea anemone is very common on the southern shores of England, and one species, found on the shores of the Mediterranean, is said to be esteemed a great delicacy by the Italians. At night, or when alarmed, the animal draws in its arms, shuts the door, and seems but a rounded lump of flesh, a huge oyster without a shell. The coral polyps (many footed), belonging to this class, are little folk, but of importance from their well-earned reputation as reef builders. They are very diminutive creatures, mere drops of animal jelly, often not larger than the head of a pin, but their works show unmistakable evidence of life, and an organic structure. They live in communities, closely united, but each, having a distinct individuality, by the sure process of secreting a portion of the calcareous matter within reach, prepares for himself a house, as all his ancestors have done, and his neighbors are now doing. They build together, their foundations having strong connections, and thoroughly cemented. There in his own little palace the polyp lives, his food being brought to his lips; and, having sent out a numerous progeny to do likewise for themselves, there he dies. Life and death, as in all mundane communities, being in close proximity, the old dying, a new generation builds houses over their sepulchres.

SEA ANEMONE.

The great variety of corals seen in any extensive collection, some very beautiful, others rough and unsightly, are from different branches of a very extensive family. Astrea (star shaped), from the Fiji islands, is a kind of coral hemisphere, covered with large and beautiful cells.

Mushroom coral is disc shaped, not fixed or attached, and is the secretion, not of many, but of a single huge polyp.

Brain coral is globular, and the surface irregularly furrowed or corrugated.

Madrepora (spotted pores) coral is neatly branched, the branches having pointed extremities ending in single minute cells.

Porites, or sponge coral, is also branched, but the branches are not pointed, and the surface smoother.

Tubipora, or organ pipe coral, shows some very striking peculiarities. A section of the vast structures built by them resembles a collection of regular, smooth, red colored pipes, firmly bound together by cross sections.

Coral rocks are of slow formation, but have attained prodigious dimensions; whole islands are of coral origin, and in some seas the concealed rocks make navigation dangerous. The reefs are often 2,000 feet thick, though it is estimated that not more than five feet are added in a thousand years. The little architects were at work early.

Corallium rubrum, or red coral, much sought after and precious, is shrub-like, of fine texture, and a beautiful crimson color. In a living state its branches are said to be covered over with bright polyps, and the skeleton receives a very fine polish. It is used for ornaments. Professor Dana says: “Some species grow in large leaves rolled round each other, like an open cabbage, and another foliated kind consists of leaves more crisped, and of more delicate structure. ‘Lettuce coral’ would be a significant name; each leaf has its surface covered with polyp flowers. The clustered leaves of acanthus and oak are at once called to mind by this species.”

CORAL ISLAND.

The Ctenophora (comb-bearing) are considered the highest of the Cœlenterata, having a more complex digestive apparatus, and better developed nervous system. Their long tentacles, and comb-like cilia are used for swimming.

SUB-KINGDOM IV.

Echinodermata (spiny skinned) have all their parts symmetrically arranged about a central axis, a contractile heart, good digestive organs, and a peculiar system of radiating canals extending through the organism. They are a numerous family of exclusively marine animals, and their characteristics furnish an interesting study. Most naturalists mention four classes.

Class I.—Crinoidea, or sea lilies, now nearly extinct, are fixed to rocks, or the sea bottom, by what seems simply a stem, but is the body of the animal. At the top is the mouth, resembling an expanding bud or flower that opens upward, surrounded by long tentacles, or arms, not unlike the sea anemone. It is supported by a calcareous skeleton consisting of many members, stiff-jointed, crossing and interlacing with one another. When living, the gelatinous animal partly envelops this framework.

Class II.—Asteroidea, or star fish, have a flat disc, five or more radiating arms extending some distance from the body at the center, and containing a part of the viscera. The mouth is where the arms meet, and opens downward. The upper surface is studded over with rough knobs, between which are the openings of many little tubes, for the passage of water into and out of the body. The round mouth is very dilatable, enabling it to receive large and solid objects for its food, which there is no attempt to masticate. After the digestive organ is somehow wrapped around the shell fish on which it feeds, it is held in its firm embrace till the nutritive portion is disposed of, and then thrown out. They are voracious eaters, devouring all kinds of garbage that would otherwise accumulate along the shores, valuable as sea scavengers, though destructive of living crustaceans and shell fish.

Class III.—Echinoidea (hedgehog-like) are covered with spines which they move either by the enveloping membrane or by small muscles properly situated for the purpose. The thin, horny, and, when dry, very light skin is peculiar, in that it is composed of regularly shaped, pentagonal plates, arranged in radiating zones, every alternate plate perforated with small holes; and among the spines, but capable of extending beyond them, are little arms, provided at the end with forceps, probably for seizing their prey, or for ridding themselves of troublesome parasites. These are also used for locomotion. They are less active than some others of the family, live near the shore among rocks, or under the seaweed, feed on crabs, and are oviparous.[3]

Class IV.—Holothuroidea (whole mouthed). They are elongated, like a cucumber, and the head end terminates abruptly, the mouth being a circular opening surrounded with feathery tentacles. They have remarkable muscular power, by which they can disgorge the contents of the stomach, throw off their tentacles, and even eject most of their internal organs, and survive the loss, afterward producing others, perhaps more satisfactory or in a healthier condition. In tropical climates, they have been likened to the sea urchin, without a shell, but are proportionally longer, and their axis horizontal.

SUB-KINGDOM V.

Vermes (worms). Animals having head and tail composed of segments. The digestive organ is tubular, and the nervous system a double chain of ganglia[4] on the ventral[5] surface. There are six classes of vermes. The animals differ greatly in appearance.

Class I.—Flat worms are best known as the parasites that infest animals, such as the liver fluke of the sheep, and the tapeworm. The flat worms pass through a very peculiar metamorphosis, some varieties taking as many as seven different forms.

Class II.—Round or Thread Worms are represented by the pin worm and Trichina. The latter is the dangerous worm which finds its way into the human system from pork flesh, in which it is imbedded.

Class III.—Wheel Animalculæ, or Rotifera. A most interesting microscopic worm, abounding in fresh water and in the ocean. They will remain dried up for years, and then recover life. Their shapes are very peculiar.

Class IV.—Moss Animals, or Polyzoa, are the animals which form a coral-like shell. They are abundant on the seashore, and are called sea mosses.

Class V.—Lamp Shells (Brachiopoda). These worms are marine, and form a bivalve shell, the valves being on either side of the body. The body has long arms on one side of the mouth, which bear fringes; the motion of the fringes draws food into the mouth. They are also used in respiration. But few species of the Brachiopods are now living, though they were once very plenty.

Class VI.—Annelidæ. This last class includes the leeches, a flat worm, whose body is divided into segments; the earth or angleworm, a familiar worm of many segments, and the marine worms. Each segment of the latter bears clusters of bristles, used in swimming.

SUB-KINGDOM VI.

Mollusca (soft). General characteristics—Mollusks, a numerous branch of the animal kingdom, are so called from the softness of their bodies, which usually have no internal skeleton or framework to support them. They are covered with a tough, muscular skin, and generally protected by a shell. They have a gangliated nervous system, in some cases well developed, the medullary[6] mass not enclosed in a cranium or spinal column—of which they are mostly destitute—but distributed more or less irregularly through the body. They have hearts, and an imperfect circulative system, the blood being pale or blueish. Some breathe in air, some in fresh, more in sea water. Some—both of those on land and those in water—are naked, others have a calcareous covering or shell. The larger marine mollusks are often guarded by very strong, heavy shells. Some are viviparous, others oviparous, and multiply rapidly.

SNAIL.

Three general, and many subdivisions are recognized. The total number of living species is said to exceed twenty thousand, of which only a few can be mentioned. The classes under this division are Lamellibranchiata, Gasteropoda, and Cephalopoda. The chief representatives of the first class are all ordinary bivalves.

Ostrea (oysters) are well known bivalve mollusks. The shells are so irregular in surface and shape that it would be impossible, as it is unnecessary, to describe them. The animal itself is very simple in structure, proverbially stupid, low in the scale of animal life, but highly esteemed as a delicious article of food. They are found in almost all seas, and in water of from two to six fathoms, but never very far from some shore. They multiply so rapidly that, though the consumption increases with the increase of population and the facilities for distributing them, the supply is equal to the demand. Boston is mostly supplied from artificial beds, and the flats or shallow bays in the vicinity of our maritime cities abound in such “plants.” Baltimore and New York have each an immense local trade, and the oysters exported from the Chesapeake Bay fisheries amount to about $25,000,000 annually.

Class II.—Gasteropoda (stomach-footed). This class, including the great snail family, is a very large division of terrestrial, air-breathing mollusks. Their light shells vary much in form; when spiral and fully developed they have as many as five or six whorls, symmetrically arranged. The shell can contain the whole body, but the animal often partially crawls out and carries the shell on its back. The locomotion is slow and accomplished by the contractile muscle of the ventral foot.

Class III.—The Cephalopoda (head-footed) have distinctly formed heads, large, staring eyes, mouths surrounded with tentacles or feelers, symmetrically formed bodies wrapped in a muscular covering; they have all the five senses, and are carnivorous. This class is entirely marine, and breathes through gills on the side of the body. The naked Cephalopoda are numerous, and furnish food for many other animals. Those living in chambered shells, once numerous, are now known principally by their fossils, the pearly Nautilus (sailor) being their only living representative. This has a smooth, pearly shell, and is much prized as an ornament. It is a native of the Indian Ocean, dwelling in the deep places of the sea, and at the bottom. The shell is too well known to need description, and but few specimens of the living animal have been obtained.

NAUTILUS.

The following facts as to the physical organization and habits of this interesting species of univalves are gleaned from the American Cyclopædia, and given for those who have not access to any extensive work on the subject; they were mostly copied for the Cyclopædia from Professor Owen’s celebrated memoir, and the “Proceedings of the Linnæan Society of London:”

The posterior portion of the body containing the viscera is soft, smooth and adapted to the anterior chamber of the shell; the anterior portion is muscular, including the organs of sense and locomotion, and can be drawn within the shell. The mantle is very thin behind, and prolonged through the calcareous tube of the occupied chamber as a membranous siphon, and through all the divisions of the shell to the central nucleus; on the upper part of the head is a broad, triangular, muscular hood, protecting the head when retracted and used as a foot for creeping at the bottom of the sea, with the shell uppermost. … The mouth has two horny mandibles, like the beak of a parrot reversed, the lower overlapping the upper, moving vertically, and implanted in thick, muscular walls. … There are ninety tentacles about the labial processes and head. The internal cartilaginous skeleton is confined to the lower surface of the head, a part of the cephalic nervous system being protected in a groove on its upper surface, and the two great muscles which fasten the body to the shell are attached to it. The funnel is very muscular and is the principal organ of free locomotion, the animal being propelled backward by the reaction of the ejected respiratory current against the water before it. … The nautilus, though the lowest of the Cephalopods, offers a nearer approach to the vertebrate animals than does any other invertebrate, in the perfect symmetry of the organs, the larger proportion of muscle, the increased bulk and concentration of the nervous centers in and near the head, and in the cartilaginous cephalic skeleton. The mature nautilus occupies but a small part of the shell, the parts progressively vacated during its growth are one after another partitioned off by their smooth plates into air tight chambers, the plates growing from the circumference toward the center, and pierced by the membranous siphon. The young animal before the formation of these chambers can not rise from the bottom of the sea, but the older ones come to the surface by the expansion and protrusion of their bodies producing a slight vacuum in the posterior part of the chamber unoccupied, and, some say, by the exhalation of some light gas into the other deserted chambers. They rise in the water as a balloon does in the air, because lighter than the element surrounding them. They float on the surface with the shell upward, and sink quickly by reversing it. By a nice adjustment, in the completed structure, between the air chambers and the dwelling chamber, the house and its inhabitant are nearly of the same specific gravity as water. … In parts of the Southern Pacific, at certain seasons of the year, fleets of these little ships are carried by the winds and currents to the island shores, where they are captured and used for food.

ARGONAUT.

The Paper Nautilus, or argonaut, secretes a thin, unchambered shell in which its eggs are carried; has tentacles or arms with which it crawls on the bottom, and swims backward, usually with the back down, squirting water through its breathing funnel. The argonaut differs from the true nautilus in having larger arms of more complicated structure, with sucker discs, and partially connected by a membrane at the base. It has an ink gland and sac, for its secretion. It has a great number of little cells, containing pigment matter of different colors, whose contractions and expansions give it a remarkable power of rapidly changing its tints. There is no internal shell, and it is ascertained that the external shell is peculiar to the female, and is only an incubating and protective nest for the eggs. The eggs are attached to the involuted spire of the shell, behind and beneath the body of the female. From the fact that the animal has no muscular or other attachment to its shell, and has been known, after quitting it, to survive sometime without attempting to return, the argonaut has been supposed to be a parasitic occupant of the cast off shell of another, but is now pretty clearly proved to be the architect of its own shell, which it also repairs when broken by the agency of its palmated arms. It is said the argonaut rises to the surface, with the shell upward, turning it downward when it floats on the water; by drawing the six arms within the shell and placing the palmated ones on the outside, it can quickly sink. This explains why the animal is so seldom taken with the shell. The shell is flexible when in water, but very fragile when dry. The largest known specimen is in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History; it is 10 by 6½ inches. For a full account of this animal see “Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,” vol. v, pp. 369-381.

End of Required Reading for April.

JERRY McAULEY AND HIS WORK.

BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.

Extremes of life meet in a great city. “Man, the pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,” here swings between the utmost extremes of squalor and splendor, misery and enjoyment, sin and virtue. That conflict between good and evil—old as the human soul, its arena—is waged nowhere as fiercely as here, where life is intense and assailable souls are legion. You have to go but a little below the surface of city life to find a worse than Dante’s “Inferno;” and if that were the whole story, if there were no compensating charities, one would feel it a mercy to call down on the city the desolation, and the peace of Sodom.

But, thank God! there are those redeeming, reforming influences to give one new hope for civilization, new faith in humanity, or new faith in divine grace. Its missions and charities are the sunny side of New York. There are over one hundred and thirty established missions in the city, with a million and a half of dollars permanently invested, beside the other millions required to support them; and the eleemosynary and relief institutions of New York outshine the charities of all other cities, proportioned to numbers. Some liberal, devout souls seem to be looking after every conceivable phase of suffering and sin, and if the devil seems generally to be getting the advantage, let us believe that it is because his antagonists are not more numerous, rather than because he is any smarter or attends more strictly to business. Indeed, the ingenuity of some of the foes of sin, might put to confusion the proverbial originality of the great adversary. Of these exceptional efforts, perhaps there is none more unique than the work of the late Jerry McAuley, nor one that has wrought so great results with so little human aid; nor one to which the Christian believer can point as a testimony of divine agency with greater confidence.

Yet, a thoughtful study of the man and his work will reveal the rationale of it, and help us to understand why it took hold of a certain class in the way it did; that is, why he proved so exact a means to that exact end. The characteristics and training that made Jerry McAuley a successful criminal made him, when his nature and purpose had been transformed, a successful missionary. The son of a counterfeiter, he was educated in the worst streets and dens, graduated a tippler and petty thief in his boyhood, and took his degrees of gambler, drunkard, burglar and wharf rat; and at the age of nineteen was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. Short and inglorious career of sin! To be followed by a long and glorious one of righteousness, and crowned at last with a triumphant death in faith! Here for seven years he hardened under perfunctory gospel ministrations and prison discipline, until at the right time Orville Gardner, known as “Awful Gardner, the Reformed Prize-fighter,” found Jerry and led him to that change which he always called his “transformation.” He was pardoned out, only to meet the killing, chilling reception that society gives to one who has passed the bars. Now followed seven years of struggles for an honest life. Only his soul and its Maker know what these were. At one time he relapsed into his old ways, but he was sought and reclaimed by agents of the Howard (“Five Points”) Mission. Strange, is it not, that good people are so much more alert to recall the fallen than to aid the struggling and keep the rescued secure? Why is it that interest in the unfortunate is deferred till interest seems useless?

Jerry now conceived the plan of a mission to people of his own old life, men and women tempted in all points like unto himself. He applied for advice and help to one or two clergymen and some wealthy church members, only to meet with mortifying coldness or refusal. We can readily understand this caution, considering McAuley’s antecedents and qualifications. He could hardly read and write his own name. Churches are so fiercely criticised that they have to be very chary about espousing unpromising enterprises. It was a natural caution if not a Christian charity; worldly if not spiritual wisdom. Besides, are there not still things that He hides from the wise and prudent, and reveals unto babes? At length, McAuley found men able and willing to help, and with their aid he opened his Water Street Mission, in 1872. This situation is one of the worst in the lower part of the city, in the “Bloody Eighth Ward,” the haunt of river thieves, sailors and abandoned women of the lowest degree. It was a “rum start,” indeed, to the denizens of Water Street when one of their leaders was graduated from prison to prayer meeting; and by scores they “came to scoff, and remained to pray.” This mission was a success from the start, and to-day remains in full tide of beneficent operation.

Two years ago Jerry was able to carry out his long-entertained desire to “do something for up-town sinners” by the establishment of the “Cremorne Mission.” It was a more daring undertaking because it had to do with more respectable sinners. He said it was a mistake to speak of those in the gutter as “hard cases;” their pride and reliance are gone, and they are not likely to be affronted or resistant when told they need a Savior; the prosperous and successful are the hard hearted; as you ascend the scale in means, intelligence and pretension, the harder the sinner becomes.

On West Thirty-Second Street, just off Third Avenue, was the infamous Cremorne Gardens, one of the most dangerous because not one of the lowest resorts of abandoned men and women. In this vicinity are many houses of ill repute of the higher rank; gamblers and sporting men have their “runways” in that part of the city. Jerry “carried the war into Africa” by leasing a building next the “Cremorne Garden,” so that in all respects the sad satire of DeFoe was and is reversed,

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer

The Devil always builds a chapel there;

And ’twill be found upon examination

The latter has the larger congregation.”

The passenger by the elevated railroad, or one of the several street car lines that converge at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, may see any evening a brilliant prismatic sign of “Cremorne Garden,” and seemingly just above it this more brilliant legend:

Jerry McAuley’s Cremorne Mission.

He will reach the Mission first, as he approaches this strange conjunction of stars; Jerry said he wanted the Lord to have the first chance at a sinner when he could.

The doors are open night and day, and some one is always there to welcome the visitor. A “protracted meeting” is held here all the year, and all the years, around. Going in, you stand in a long, narrow hall, with high ceilings modestly decorated; an aisle down the middle flanked by rows of oaken settees terminates at a low platform on which are chairs, a cheap desk, and a grand piano. The place seats five or six hundred. The hall is brilliant with electric lights, and the walls are illustrious with such Scripture quotations as, in the words of one of the converts, have been found most apt to “fetch ’em”—i. e., sinners. By the platform are conspicuous notices that speeches are limited to one minute each, a rule that is easily enforced in the case of the converts, because they have only facts to tell, and do not seem to be in love with that sweetest music on earth, the sound of their own voices. “One minute each,” Jerry would say: “Don’t be too long; cut off both ends and give us the middle; you need not get mad, as some people have done, if I ring this bell.” “All right,” replied one easy speaker; “If I get long-winded pull me down by my coat tails;” whereat all laughed heartily, as they frequently do.

Jerry McAuley’s method, first and last, was unique, but simple and very effective. Testimonies are the great reliance. They teach salvation by object lessons, prove the truth of conversion by concrete examples. There is no argument, no exhortation, no didactics, no theological disquisition. What need of these in the presence of these living examples? A man stands up and says: “For twenty years I was a common drunkard and thief. Five years ago I found Christ here. I have not touched a drop nor stolen a thing since.” McAuley was won by proof. He said: “It was a testimony that brought me. I was ‘sent up’ for fifteen years and six months; I listened to preaching there for over seven years, but I was still unmoved. Then a man came along who gave his experience. He had been a wicked man. That man told just my history; but he was saved, and since there was hope for a desperate man like him, I knew there was hope for me. And there was! Now you have heard the biggest debtor to grace that is in the room, let the next heaviest debtor follow me.” Others were won by the undeniable transformation of Jerry. These things were irresistible. Men describe the effect on themselves of these living witnesses:

“The Bible reading and the prayer did not have any effect upon me, but the testimonies of some who had been, as I could not help admitting to myself, just as I then was, did affect me. I felt that I was in the same boat as they had been in. The conviction of my state forced itself upon me, whether I wanted to think of it or not.”

“I came to this meeting three weeks ago. I was drunk when I came in here, but drunk as I was, those testimonies, such as you have heard to-night, reached me, and I went forward to those chairs. There I gave my heart to Christ after serving the devil forty-seven years.”

“When I first heard the testimonies here I thought those who spoke had great impudence to tell all about their past lives, but by and by I felt that they were describing my case. Then, as they told how Jesus saved them, I felt I needed to be saved.”

“As testimony after testimony was given I would say to myself: that’s me, that’s me.”

Another said that the prayer and Bible reading did not affect him, but the testimonies were “like shot after shot fired at him.”

These effects are driven home and clinched by direct personal efforts with penitents, by attentions that follow them to their homes or shops, or into evil haunts, by relief and creature comforts—in a word, by an interest vigilant, ceaseless, and tender as divine love, because inspired by it.

As the method is peculiar, the atmosphere of the meeting is. One familiar with ordinary devotional meetings, and, more, with revival efforts, can not fail to notice here the contrast. Speaking is uniformly in an ordinary tone, and in a conversational, matter-of-fact manner—an effect that is heightened by the use of phrases common in the resorts where some of the converts learned their vernacular. And prayer is specially subdued and low toned—the more impressive and reverential on account of it.

Then, one feels the momentum of the exercises and the tone of cheerfulness and joy that prevail. There is none of that exhortation to “improve the precious time;” none of that dismal bewailing of spiritual barrenness and besetting doubts, fears and temptations, which sometimes make devotional exercises mechanical and dreary, and furnish stumbling-blocks to young believers. These converts do not dwell much on their enjoyment of religion; albeit, they do one and all give thanks without ceasing for their deliverance. One notes, too, the absence of cant, of quotations and set phrases; everything is original. There is little exhortation of others. In short, like Bartimeas, they know “Whereas I was blind, now I see;” and unlike the blind man, they know who worked the miracle.

It was the founder and leader of the two missions who gave all this tone to their services. He was of a medium height and slender, with a heavy, wiry moustache, keen eyes, a nervous temperament, energetic, quick-witted, sympathetic; one readily caught good feeling and confraternity from his presence. He would flash out at a hymn, a text, or a testimony, with a bit of experience. Before two sentences had passed his lips he probably would leap down from his place on the platform, saying, humorously: “I can’t talk up on that stage,” and go down the aisle as if to hold pleasant converse with his audience. It was a strange melange of earnestness, experience, humility and wit, with not the least attempt at eloquence, and apparently no study of effects. He describes one case of conversion:

“This man had come into the meeting with his head about twice the usual size, and his eyes as red as a red-hot poker. You could have squeezed the rum out of him. He asked me to pray with him, but I hadn’t much faith in the man, but that’s just where God disappointed me. I was deceived. The man meant business.”

The missions are supported entirely by voluntary contributions left in the boxes by the door. Sometimes these run low. One night Jerry asked all who were glad to be there to hold up their hands. All hands up. “Now,” said he, “when you take your hands down put them way down—down into your pockets, and fetch something out to put in the boxes by the door.” He said, that to run a mission successfully required “grace, grit and greenbacks.” I fancy considerable of his influence was due to his knowledge of the secret hearts, the personal experiences of his auditors; he was like a priest at confessional, when out of meeting. There are no verbatim reports of his talks extant, and if there were they would give the reader no proper idea of the man, because the grotesqueness of his language would probably be the most striking feature of them. He must have been heard to be understood, and even then I think he could not have been understood save by those whose experience and modes of life gave them the touchstone.

Sister Maggie is a typical convert. At one of the Cremorne missions a Sunday-school worker from the East Side told of his class of fifteen street boys and girls. “I asked them,” he said, “how many of them drank beer, and all promptly put up their hands. I asked how many thought it a bad practice, and only four or five responded. I then told them of the evils that drink led to, and cited them numerous examples within their knowledge, and finally asked how many of them would resolve never to drink any more beer. About half of them kept their hands down, and in a way that showed they meant business.”

This discouraging incident brought to her feet, on the platform, a tall, thick-set, strong-featured woman. She spoke with a strident, energetic voice, a Bowery accent, and a manner to which all thought of shrinking or embarrassment was a stranger. It was Sister Maggie. She said, as nearly as I recall the words: “This teaching children beer-drinking is the beginning of all the deviltry. I was passing a dive yesterday and I saw a little kid come out with a pail of beer that she had been sent for, and no sooner was she outside the door than the pail went to her head. That’s the way I used to do, and learned to drink and steal at the same time. But God can help us to reclaim even beings so badly educated. He helped me, and there can’t be a worse case on the East Side. There is not a dive over there that I haven’t been drunk in. Brother S. knows how often I have drank with him at old C.’s dead-house (rum-shop). Sixteen years ago I was a leper, a confirmed sot. If you had seen me you would not have believed that I could have been saved. Christians said I was too far gone; they said there was not enough woman left in me to be saved. I had had the jim-jams twicet. [Laughter.] The first time I had ’em I thought my back hair was full of mice—oh, that was awful! [More laughter.] I was just getting over the tremens when I first come in here. I was a walking rag-shop, and if you’d a seen me you’d give me plenty of room on the walk. I staggered in and sat down on the very backest seat. Now they let me sit up here on the platform. What d’ye think of that? God helped me, and he has helped me now for sixteen years, and I am going through. I am happy. I have friends and good clothes, and more than all, I have a good home, and that is what I never knew before.”

At the mention of the word “home,” all the woman’s instinct asserted itself, and for the first time her voice softened, and her manner melted; she sobbed, and sat down.

I can give no complete idea of the effect of this, because the reader can know nothing of the surroundings, the antecedents of the speaker and of many of her listeners, and the keen rapport that ties them together. These worshipers are a class and an organization by themselves; they have no church affiliations, and their worship is sui generis; many of them were outcasts of society in former years, they stand alone since their reformation, and they are drawn close together in their isolation. True, there are many among them who were always respectable members of society; many who since their conversion here have joined churches; there are richly dressed and cultured-looking people scattered in these audiences; but the fact remains that the genius and distinctive personnel of the meetings are of the order of which Jerry McAuley and “Sister Maggie” and their ministrations are representatives.

I know of no religious exercises better calculated to inspire the true religious feelings of faith, charity, humility, gratitude, and rejoicing—the distinguishing marks of the original Christian following. But they differ from the noisy demonstrations which sometimes are taken for “primitive Christianity,” as they do from the cold and conventional worship which advertises itself in brownstone structures and double-barred mahogany pews. If one wants to get a breath of vigorous faith and wholesome humility, he should attend the Sunday evening services at one of the McAuley Missions.

Jerry McAuley died suddenly, but not unexpectedly, last September. His funeral, held at the great Broadway Tabernacle, was one of the largest ever seen in this city, and was attended by hundreds of abandoned characters who had been reclaimed through his instrumentality, and who were probably never inside of a church before, and may never be again. Women with painted faces, but with tears in their eyes and bits of crape fastened at their throats or arms, stood with downcast heads beside other women who, under other circumstances, would have shunned them. Thus did all classes testify to the power of simple faith and devotion in a poor, uncultured outcast. Over the platform in his chapels are his last, characteristic words:

“IT’S ALL RIGHT.”

“The workman dies, but the work goes on.” There is no calculating the power and extent of the influences this humble worker has set in motion. Beside the hundreds of living examples of his labor here, the seed has scattered to the four winds of heaven, and sprung up in various forms to bless the world—in other cities and other lands. The Missions publish Jerry McAuley’s Newspaper, which, extensively circulated, especially in prisons and “the slums” of cities, carries the glad tidings of the testimonies to do a silent and unknown work. An affecting feature of the private work of these converts is their efforts to hunt out and reclaim missing boys and girls. Letters are received from agonized parents, from distant points as well as the city, imploring the help of missionaries to find these estrays; and their efforts are often successful.

I close with one example of this radiating, ramifying influence: Michael Dunn was an English thief by inheritance, for his parents were thieves, and as he expresses it, “he had thieving on the brain.” He had spent the greater part of thirty-five years in different prisons, and continued the same life after coming to this country. One evening an unconverted man sent him into the McAuley Mission as a joke, but it proved to Dunn a blessing, for he found a Savior, and the desire for stealing was all cast out. He was moved to undertake that most important work, the provision of a home for refuge and work for his brother ex-convicts. After many trials and difficulties he finally established the Home of Industry, No. 40 Houston Street, New York, where many lost men who were a terror to society, have been made honest Christian citizens, and are working to save others. Nor did the work stop here. In the autumn of 1883, Dunn was called to San Francisco, California, to open a similar Home in that city, where his labors are as successful as they were in New York.