ivory; made it the seat of smiles and blushes; lighted it up and enlivened it with the brightness of the eyes; hung it on each side with curious organs of sense; given it airs and graces that cannot be described; and surrounded it with such a flowing shade of hair, as sets all its beauties in the most agreeable light.

As we perceive the shadow to have moved along the dialplate, but did not perceive it moving; and it appears that the grass has grown, though nobody ever saw it grow: so the advances we make in knowledge, as they consist of such minute steps, are only perceivable by the distance.

Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias' rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

He who through vast immensity can pierce,
See worlds on worlds compose one universe;
Observe how system into system runs,
What other planets circle other suns;
What varied being peoples ev'ry star,

May tell why Heav'n has made us as we are.
But of this frame,2 the bearings and the ties,
The strong connexions, nice dependencies,
Gradations just, has thy pervading3 soul

Look'd through? or can a part contain the whole ?*
Is the great chain that draws all to agree,
And drawn, supports,-upheld by God, or thee?
Presumptuous man! the reason would'st thou find,
Why form'd so weak, so little, and so blind?

1 bias, leaning, prejudice.

2 frame, the universe.

3 pervading,

spreading.

penetrating, far

4 Can you who are only a part of the

universe comprehend the plan of the whole?

5 drawn, supports, and supports what is thus drawn into harmonious dependence on God.

First, if thou canst, the harder reason guess,
Why form'd no weaker, blinder, and no less.
Ask of thy mother, earth, why oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the weeds they shade?
Or ask of yonder argent' fields above

Why Jove's satellites are less than Jove?

'Tis with our judgments as our watches; none Go just alike, yet each believes his own.

One science only will one genius fit,10
So vast is art, so narrow human wit;
Not only bounded to peculiar arts,
But oft in those confined to single parts;
Like kings we lose the conquests gain'd before,
By vain ambition still to make them more;
Each might his sev'ral" province well command,
Would all but stoop to what they understand.

ON TOTAL ABSTINENCE.-CANON FARRAR. From a Sermon preached before the University of Cambridge. 1. It is a characteristic―a very fine and redeeming characteristic of this age, that all who dare to call themselves Christians, are thoroughly in earnest (thoroughly, and more wisely, and more systematically, and less despairingly in earnest than of old) in the work of social amelioration; but yet, mainly because there is here, there

6 Why formed ? why art thou formed?

7 argent, silver.

8 Jovè must be pronounced in two syllables.

9 satellites, moons, lit., attendants.

10 One science, &c. Man's mind can only master one science thoroughly. Each man has a special study for which alone he is peculiarly fit.

11 several, separate.

is at our doors, there is in the very midst of us, an evil, colossal and horrible-an evil with which, to its utter shame, the State has not yet dared to grapple-the evil, I mean, of universal drinking and universal drunkenness -not only has much of all this vast charitable effort been wholly insignificant for good, but some of it has been absolutely powerful for harm, increasing the evils which it wished to alleviate, and perpetuating the miseries which it desired to relieve.

2. And in the hearing of some of you, in whose hands shall be the future of England, who will live to fill her pulpits, to write her literature, to make her laws, and who will, I hope, be eager to help in tearing away this poisoned robe which has been maddening the blood of our country; I say, with all the emphasis of a conviction not hastily or rashly formed, that not only are our best agencies of mercy neutralised by this one vice of intemperance, but that all these agencies concentrated into their most effective vigour would do less-infinitely less -good than would be done by the expulsion of this one preventable cause of sin and misery. Called by the Providence of God from the brightness of a life spent at our great public schools, to face the repellant squalor of London pauperism, that has been brought home to me by vivid personal experience. “I speak that which I know, and testify that which I have seen."

3. But I do not ask you-you in your learned culture and cloistered calm-I, who am but a London clergyman, with no leisure whatever to be a student-I do not ask you for one moment to accept on my poor authority a dictum for which, if time permitted, I could simply overwhelm you with irresistible evidence; evidence which, in spite of disdain and in spite of struggle, should arrest your attention and fetter and rivet to the rock of

conviction even him among you to whom this topic is most distasteful.

4. "Every day's experience tends more and more to confirm me in the opinion that the temperance cause lies at the foundation of all social and political reform." These are not mine, but the weighty words of the calm, wise statesman, Richard Cobden. Every benevolent institution utters the same complaint. "A monster obstacle is in our way-strong drink; by whatever name the demon is styled, in whatever way it presents itself, this, this prevents our success. Remove this one obstacle, and our course will be onwards, and our labours will be blessed." These words are not mine, they are the massive eloquence of Mr. John Bright. "We are convinced that if a statesman, who desired to do the utmost for his country, were thoughtfully to inquire which of the topics of the day deserved the most intense force of his attention, the true reply-the reply which would be exacted by due deliberation-would be that he should study the means by which this worst of plagues should be stayed." Those are the words of the late thoughtful and lamented Charles Buxton. "Profligacy, vice, and immorality are not thundering at our gates like a besieging army, but they are undermining the very ground on which we stand." Those words, so deep in their pathos, are yet the utterance of the genial and beloved Lord Palmerston. "Let us crush these artists in human slaughter, who have reconciled their country to sickness and ruin, and spread over the pitfalls of debauchery such a bait as cannot be resisted." In such stern words spoke, more than a hundred years ago, the worldly and polished Chesterfield.

5. Are not such statements from such men-undeniable, uncontradicted, nay, even unchallenged as they

are at least enough to waken the deep slumber of a decided opinion, even if they be not enough to break down the clenched antagonism of an invincible prejudice, or to dispel the stupid selfishness of an incurable frivolity? They are not the words of men at whom you can sneer as crochety politicians or temperance fanatics, or whom the very best of you all, in his own estimation, can set aside with a disparagement or demolish with a gibe. The very cleverest of youthful graduates, or even of undergraduates,-cannot quite stab these men with an epigram, or refute them, as fops refuted Berkeley, with a grin. To sneer at these would be to condemn yourselves as incapable; these not to know would argue yourselves unknown. And yet these are but a few of many such warnings uttered by some of the best, greatest, wisest in the land, and you ought not, you must not, you surely dare not, ignore them.

6. But if these be not enough, I will add something more. Taking alcohol as a convenient generic name for the specific element in all kinds of intoxicating drink, I will ask you to look with me for a moment at what it is not and what it is, and at what it costs. It used to be believed that alcohol was a food; it is now conclusively demonstrated (and when I say "conclusively demonstrated," I ask you to believe that I mean in the most literal sense conclusively demonstrated) that it contains not one single element of food; and that, as one of the first modern chemists has said, there is in nine quarts of alcohol less food than can be spread on the end of a table-knife.

7. Nor is it a source of strength; for alike, in Africa and India, in the Arctic and in the Antarctic, and by great labour-employers in the temperate zones, and by distinct experiments with navvies in gangs, and soldiers