as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim 15—those oraculous gems on Aaron's breast-from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable and eternal principles of the moral law to guide us, and only so far as we walk by that guidance can we be permanently a great nation, or our people a happy people. 1 Coronet, a crown of an inferior kind worn on special occasions by princes and peers. (Lat. corona, a crown,) 2 Mitre, a sort of crown worn on very solemn occasions by cardinals and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. (Lat. mitra, a kind of cap.) 3 Constitution, the system of govern- 4 Legislation, the art of framing 6 Repudiate, disown; refuse to ac- . 7 The most ancient, &c. Herodotus, All 9 Scythians. They occupied the south of the country now called Russia. 10 Cimeter, same as scimitar; a sword 11 Mars, the god of war; from affecting sensibly, without having a "sensible" effect, that is, a result which can be easily noticed. 14 The great Italian, Dante, flourished about A.D. 1300. He wrote the Divine Comedy, a sublime poem on Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. 15 Urim and Thummim, twelve precious stones in the breastplate of the Jewish high priest; they are called "oraculous gems," because by their means, in some way unknown, the high priest was guided in the answers he gave when consulted as to the will of God in any proposed undertaking of national importance. THE OLD CLOCK. SOMEWHAT back from the village street Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw; "Forever-never! Never-forever!" ST. 6. Halfway up the stairs it stands, And points and beckons with its hands Like a monk, who, under his cloak, Never-forever!" By day its voice is low and light; "Forever-never! Never-forever!" Through days of sorrow and of mirth, Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood; 66 Never-forever!" In that mansion used to be His great fires up the chimney roared; But, like the skeleton at the feast, Never-forever!" There groups of merry children played; O precious hours! O golden prime, Those hours the ancient time-piece told : "Forever-never! Never-forever!" From that chamber, clothed in white, The dead lay in his shroud of snow; And in the hush that follow'd the prayer, Was heard the old clock on the stair: "Forever-never! Never-forever!" All are scattered now and fled, A LETTER ON THE EVILS OF SMOKING. Newcastle, January 16th, 1879. DEAR SIR, I regret that I am unable to attend your meeting on the 21st instant, the object of which is to devise measures, as far as possible, to put a stop to juvenile smoking. The resolutions you propose to offer to the meeting may do some good; but they cannot be thoroughly effective so long as grown-up fathers perpetually indulge in smoking in the presence and knowledge of their sons. Lads and young men are by nature imitative, and full of emulation. They will imitate their fathers, because they think, naturally enough, it must be right to do so, and that it is clever to do as their fathers and other grown-up men do. They find it a nauseous and difficult task at first, but their emulation is fired to try and master the difficulty. Strong, grown-up men, habituated to smoking, may not be conscious of much harm from an indulgence in the habit. But, nevertheless, in the end they will find out-in dyspepsia 2 and all its evils; in accelerated age; in loss of both mental and physical vigour, and in an enfeebled constitution-what a daily dose of narcotics poison has done for them. But for lads and very young men to smoke is a far more serious, rapid, perceptible, and permanent mischief. Lads and very young men are growing-their bones and muscles and brain have to grow bigger. They require much and nourishing food to enable this natural process to go on. Stop the adequate food, or its noarishing quality, and the bones and muscles and brain cease to grow. The lad becomes a stunted, undersized, sickly-looking, and feeble-minded young man; and as long as he lives that is his type of manhood. The doctors will tell you that food, in order to be nourishing, must be well digested; that undigested food is rather harmful than otherwise, and destroys the appetite for more, for the stomach cannot get rid of that which is already in it. Digestion is partly a mechanical and partly a chemical process. The food is kept moving round in the stomach by a peculiar muscular action of the stomach itself, and thereby all parts of it are exposed to, and mixed up with, certain chemical agents which tend to dissolve and digest it. These agents are the saliva exuded' by certain glands of the mouth, and intended by nature to be mixed with the food while eating; and the gastric juices exuded by the coats of the stomach itself. It is a mere common-sense deduction, that if you excite the salivary glands by smoking, and spit out and waste the saliva which nature intended to assist in digesting the food taken, you partly destroy one of the chemical agents which is to digest it. 6 9 8 But that is not all; nicotine, the poison contained in the fumes of tobacco, partially paralyses the nerves of the stomach, acts violently upon its lining membrane -so much so, as frequently to produce sickness in young men after smoking and thus partially destroys the proper supply of the gastric juices by the stomach, the other chemical agent that was intended by nature to perfect the digestion of the food. It does more than this; the same paralysing effect of the narcotic poison absorbed by the coats of the stomach, weakens and |