directly to mental disease than to any other.

The change of sentiment respecting insanity which has taken place in the last fifty years, while very beneficial on the whole, needs watching. By many it is getting to be regarded as always, purely and simply, an organic disease—a visitation of God—for which no one is accountable; and not only has a morbid sentimentality arisen, which condones crimes as the result of uncontrollable impulses, but there is danger that this laxity of sentiment is furnishing not only the excuse but the cause for crime. As the sense of responsibility lessens the uncontrolled passion becomes the uncontrollable, and the increase of crime and insanity proceed pari passu. This is the penalty which nations as well as individuals must pay who refuse to subject themselves to restraint, not the dwarfing restraint of an ignorant age, but the subjection which wise men who feel their own weakness gladly yield to conscience and duty. "That light to guide, that rod to check the erring and reprove. The parental control, the priestly influence, the power of the king, may be less than they once were, and in many cases justly so, but all that ever gave them their right to be is unshaken.

In looking over the records of the supposed causes of insanity contained in our hospital reports, how many there are which would not have been there had an absolutely healthy religious life been led by the sufferers. Not to mention those notoriously immoral, intemperance, sensuality and the like, how many others there are which would not throw off their balance minds habitually trained to accept all the occurrences of life as the rightful discipline of an all-wise and loving Father. Loss of property, loss of friends, disappointed love, all the anxieties and perplexities of life, if accepted as they should be, instead of weakening the mind, would strengthen it to meet new trials and disappointments.

In a service which God's will appoints,
There are no bonds for me;

For my inmost heart is taught the truth
That makes his children free;
And a life of self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty.

WHILE the seasons come and go,
Field and meadow, wood and plain
Blossom, fade and bloom again,

And the tireless rivers flow.
Creeds were born to live and die,
Like the men who gave them birth,
Living as they live, and passing
As they pass away from earth.
But unshaken, firm, eternal,

Stands the living altar stone. In the soul's most secret chamber, Where the priest is God alone. -Henry R. Dorr

THE CITY.

BY HORATIUS BONAR.
Thou art no child of the city!
Hadst thou known it as I have done,
Thou wouldst not smile with pity,
As if joy were with thee alone,-
With thee, the unfettered ranger
Of the forest and moorland free:
As if gloom, and toil, and danger
Could alone in a city be.

The smoke, the din, and the bustle
Of the city-I know them well;
And I know the gentle rustle
Of the leaves in your breezy dell.
Day's hurry and evening's riot
In the city-I know them all;
I know, too, the loving quiet

Of your glen at the day's sweet fall. Yet despite your earnest pity,

And despite its smoke and din,

I cleave to the crowded city,

Though I shrink from its woe and sin. For I know the boundless measure Of the true, and good, and fair; The vast, far-gathered treasure, The wealth of soul, that is there. You may smile, or sneer, or pity;

You may fancy it weak or strange; But my eye to the smoky city

Returns from its widest range.
My heart in its inmost beatings
Still lingers around its homes.
My soul wakes up in its greetings
To the gleam of its spires and domes.
You call it life's weary common,

At the best but an idle fair,
The market of man and woman
But the choice of the race are there.
The wonders of life and gladness,
The wonders of hope and fear,
The wonders of death and sadness,
All the wonders of time are there.
In your lone lake's still face yonder,
By your rivulet's bursting glee,
Deep truth I read and ponder,

Of the earth and its mystery.
But there seems in the city's motion
A mightier truth for me;
'Tis the sound of life's great ocean,
'Tis the tide of the human sea.

Over rural fields lie scattered
Rich fruitage and blossoms rare;
The city the store has gathered,
For the garner of hearts is there.
And the home to which I'm hasting
Is not in a silent glen;
The place where my hopes are resting
Is a city of living men.

The crowds are there; but the sadness
Is fled, with the toil and pain;
Nought is heard but the song of gladness;
"Tis the city of holy men.

And wilt thou my sad fate pity?

Wilt thou grieve o'er my heavy doom, When within that resplendent city I shall find my glorious home?

practically further from market than the in

WORLD.

remembers how he ran a race with it and came out ahead. The vessel from whose deck the first Atlantic cable was paid out is staunch and seaworthy. The poles are yet standing, sound and erect, to which the first telegraph wires were attached. The wire that conveyed the first telephone message is yet in place and untarnished. All the great improvements in transportation have been made within the recollection of persons who are comparatively young. Queen Victoria, it is said, in making her first visit to Balmoral Castle, made the journey in the same way the Queen of Sheba did when she went to visit King Solomon. A historian informs us that the citizens of Oxford who contemplated visiting London two centuries ago generally made their wills and took formal farewell of their friends. The custom of offering prayers in the churches for the protection and safe return of persons undertaking so long a journey was common. Not infrequently there were thanksgiving services on their return. There are persons in Illinois to-day who remember when more time was needed to go from Cairo to Galena than is now required to pass half-way round the globe.

The genius of the present age has been largely employed in devising ways "to get over the ground." Especially has this been the case in this country. A necessity existed here for rendering transportation over long distances cheap and speedy. The land within a reasonable distance of the sea and navigable lakes and rivers became quite densely settled at a comparatively early day. That laying somewhat remote from them was nearly worthless. The inhabitants were obliged to live almost entirely on the articles they produced. They were also obliged to manufacture what they wanted to use. Few productions raised a hundred miles from navigable waters paid for being transported that distance. Little except cotton and wool paid the cost of cartage a hundred miles. The early settlers of Western New York were

in the interior of the country was distinct from every other one. It had its peculiar customs, manners, and dialect. All the imcustoms, manners, and dialect. All the important towns were on the seacoast or on navigable lakes and rivers. The inhabitants of these places enjoyed a much higher civilization than those who lived in the interior of the country. They felt their superiority and duction of railroads tended to make every were not averse to displaying it. The introportion of the country of nearly equal value

so far as location was concerned. Railroads gave a value to everything that was of use to equalize the intelligence of the people by to any people anywhere. They also tended making it easy to convey intelligence.

As a civilizing agent there is nothing to the cheap and rapid transportation of passencompare with a railroad or other means of Steam and electric communication furnish the best aid gers, goods, and intelligence. to the missionary cause. The steam whistle proclaims the glad gospel of progress wherever it is heard. The civilization of any country may be best measured by its means of transtation. In South America it is a mule, in India an elephant, in Arabia a camel, in States and various European countries a loupper Egypt a negro slave, in the United comctive. It is common to hear the remark that perfection has been well-nigh reached in the matter of transportation. There is little reason for believing that such is the case. Improvements in the construction of telegraphic instruments are being made constantly. The like is true in regard to almost everything connected with steam transportation. No piece of mechanism improves as fast as the steam engine. The present steel rail is vastly superior to the old rail made of soft iron. Although steam boilers have increased in number a hundred fold within a few years the number of explosions has been greatly reduced. Railway accidents do not increase with the increase of speed. Statistics show that the safest traveling is by rail. The elec tric railway is as yet but an infant, but it is one of promise. The prospect is good for going from Chicago to New York between breakfast and supper before the end of the present century. Telegraph stations are now as numerous as post offices, and soon every farm house may have telephone communication with the nearest village.—Chicago Times.

NATURAL HISTORY STUDIES.

Flowers in Bedrooms.-No doubt, bedrooms

The mystery about the creature is this: The lily tank at certain seasons of the year is always cleaned out, and dried up, and no one could conceive whence the little fish came, how it survived, or how it multiplied itself. For a whole year it disappeared, and it was supposed to have died out, when, lo! this spring Mr. Sowerby (after whom it is named) found it in the tank again, and he summoned the wise men, who, with glass jars, bottles and nets, captured many of them and carried them away for examination.

They were placed in the laboratory at University College, in a tank of water always kept at a fixed temperature. There they lived, but they did not multiply; and Prof. Sowerby was sorely puzzled to find out how, and when, and where the young jelly-fish were produced, and by what means they had survived the drying up and cleaning out of the tanks in the Botanic Gardens. This question is still unsettled; but about the middle of July some of the little creatures were seen to throw off crystal globules from their own substance, which might prove to be egg-bearers or female jelly-fish. Much as Adam parted with a rib to form himself a wife, so these aquatic little bachelors appeared to detach from themselves one or more portions of animated matter, which, when first examined under the microscope, seemed to be filled with eggs. The investigation is still in progress; the result, anxiously waited for by scientists, cannot yet be known. But if it be as it appeared at first, the process of reproduction and multiplication will be explained, and the discovery will be a great reward for much careful observation.

Many may think this a matter of little consequence, and scarcely worth the thought given to it; but the majority will fully realize the value of scientific research after truth; and the establishment of genuine, well-tested facts by competent authority, in the minutest details of natural law-whether they be seen in the development of a jellyfish or in the hidden workings of the human brain-are to the thoughtful full of a solemn and healthy interest.-Christian Union.

are the apartments in which flowers thrive best. There is a very general impression, however, that, wholesome as flowers may be by day, they are by night very deleterious. Scientific men have declared that they give out oxygen gas by day and carbonic acid gas by night. Now, most people know that carbonic acid gas is poisonous, and it is very common to hear people talk as though a pot or two of geraniums might be expected to choke them in their sleep with the noxious fumes given off. It may interest such persons to know that experiments have been made with the view of determining precisely what is the effect of plants on the night air. Volumes of air were taken about the middle of the day from various parts of a conservatory containing six thousand plants, after it had been closed for twelve hours. Out of ten thousand parts there were found to be 1.39 of carbonic acid. Now the purest of air out-of-doors contains ordinarily about four parts in ten thousand of carbonic acid. There is always more or less of it in the freshest of breezes, and the difference between the four parts in the open air and the 1.39 in the greenhouse was due chiefly, no doubt, to the action of the foliage. The air of the same greenhouse was similarly analyzed just before sunrise, and the carbonic acid amounted then to 3.94 parts in ten thousand, or as near as possible to the proportion always met with in the open air. The action of the plants during the hours of darkness was thus barely sufficient to neutralize the production of oxygen during the daytime, and scarcely brought up the terrible carbonic acid to the normal proportion in the atmosphere. This, it must be remembered, was the effect of six thousand plants in a single apartment. It seems pretty safe to assume that the mischief of a dozen or two in a bedroom is theoretical rather than practical, and that those who like flowers in their bedrooms may indulge their fancy quite safely.-London Globe.

CIVILIZED INDIANS.

An Indian Territory special says the result of the recent leasing by the Arrapahoes and Cheyennes of the western portion of their reservation for grazing purposes is likely to revolutionize the entire Indian question. The rental is nearly $63,000 per annum, payable semi-annually in cash and cattle. The first payment was made a few days ago at the agency, every man, woman and child in the tribe interested receiving five silver dollars. In connection with this lease the Indians have started the cattle business