one who had burst the cerements of the tomb before the consummation of our world's doom,trembling, fearing, yet still loving.

How long that darkness lasted I know not, mine were not scientific observations; but quickly as it had travelled, it moved not quicker than the thoughts and impressions of the human mind; all was as distinct as if it had lasted an hour; the vision of the mind is a wonderful thing. I was only conscious of feeling; not of seeing, observing, reasoning; but the mental retina easily reproduces what the bodily eyes have scantily rested upon. I thought not of causes, reasoned not of effects ; the moving hand of the Almighty power was all my soul acknowledged. The tension of heart and mind passed away; the east reddened as with new-born day; the sky was streaked with crimson and silver, then gold shone over both. The wings of darkness were upraised; we might think we saw and heard their rising, as we had palpably seen them sweeping on around us. But the darkness had not gathered around us, as other darkness does; it had swept on from one quarter of the heavens to the other, and we saw it coming from one side while the other was still light; now it seemed to rise up at once from us, as if it lifted

its great wings, and gathered itself up: we saw from whence it came; we saw not whither it went.

The dark body that caused it by her travels through the heavens-the silver moon, which at other times gives light upon the earth, moved on her way, undisturbed, perhaps, by the commotion she excited among some of the children of men, and some of the creatures of their planet.

A few moments, and sea and sky and land were themselves again. The belt of sickly yellow faded from the horizon; the foliage resumed its colours; some little flowers opened out their winking petals; the fir trees on the Fiord were spectres no longer. The birds, with short and anxious flights, started from their hidingplaces and flew in circles, chattering vehemently, and making their own astronomical observations in their own way to one another; and the merry young Laplander recorded in hers, that the calves raised up the heads they had put down, and the pigs set up their tails and ran squeaking about the yard.

We looked at

We too began to utter words. each other, and the tears trembled down some faces. Wonderful Creator of all things! who could refuse to adore Thee in the things Thou hast

made-even in the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained?

Amid the vast and splendid scenery of this northern clime, looking over the diversified beauties of the singular Fiord, the effect of this total eclipse of the sun, in its progress, its duration, its passing away, was such as to stamp the scene of a few minutes in an indelible picture on the canvas of memory-a picture which can never be transferred to other canvas, or expressed on paper, or in words; but when that shifting kaleidoscope of mind reproduces to myself the scene, I bless God for having permitted me to see it.

I thanked Herr Hanson for making me stay to see the sun when there would be no sun, and asked if he had seen it to advantage. "I saw it in the yard," he said, "it grew very dark there." Something darker than usual was all that the persons who sat sipping coffee in that always dark yard saw of the same wonderful sight.

I have now been a fortnight in Norway, and I am anxious to get off again; but there were two or three things to be seen or done after having seen the sun. One was to look in at its Storthing, its "Great Thing," or Parliament, which is now hold

ing its sittings. Our word, Parliament, means, I am told, "much speaking;" I suppose the Norse term is as significant in its own way; but from the gallery, to which our kind Vice-Consul accompanied me, I must say the Storthing seemed a very dirty thing in outer appearance; the closeness, the tobacco-smoke, and the hateful practice in which even women as well as men indulge in the North, the very mention of which is scandalous in English (that of spitting about), rendered half-a-minute in the gallery of the Great Thing of Norway more desirable to me than half-anhour.

The next thing I had to do was, rather to my surprise, to act as a reporter, or as a penny-a-liner, without the penny. That very evening a gentleman called on me and asked me if I could not write. I replied that I could, and read also. He meant, however, if I could write for the press! I said I would try.

And then I was re

quested to put on paper an account of the speech made by "the distinguished foreigner" at Herr Y.'s dinner.

I did try; but I did not quite succeed.

"Was there not something more?" said my employer. "Did he not say something about

Herr Y. being the greatest man of his time in Norway, and about his being a hero? Did he not say that the man who had the courage, in the face of such opposition, to bring a steam-boat in pieces. overland from Christiania, a space of forty-six English miles, and put it up on the lake, was, in his estimation, a hero?"

"He did; he did!" I cried. "I remember it well, and he wept, too, when he sat down. Shall I put that in also ?”

But I am sure my reported speech was published in the Norway papers, so there is no need to give it wider circulation.

The last thing I saw in Norway was the "turning of the sod" for the first railroad in that country. It is to run from the capital-the word ought to be in great letters-to Lake Miösen: think of the blessing of a railroad instead of that most abominable highway; and through a district where neither beauty nor interest make the traveller amends for the dislocation of his frame!

This first sod was turned with a great deal of pomp. There were a great many wheelbarrows displayed on the ground, which I believe had never before been seen on Norwegian ground, and were brought from England purposely. I heard,