for me now mother's gone. It was her as made home sweet, and I shall never have another."

But ten years after when Ishmael came back to England, not to stay but only to visit the old place, he had made a home for himself, with Elsie in it for his wife. He owned a farm of his own, and was prospering in every way. He found the old hut fallen into ruins, for his father had died in the workhouse the year after he had left England; and no one had lived in the desolate hovel since. The old door-sill was there yet, though the thatched roof had long ago mouldered away; and he could almost fancy he could see his mother sitting there, and

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looking out for him. The trees behind the ruins tossed their green branches in the wind, and the blue sky, flecked with clouds, shone above them, as in the bygone days. There were the old pleasant sounds, the song of the birds, and the hum of insects, and the rustling of myriads of leaves; but still it was no more home. His mother, who had made this poor hut a home for him, was no longer there. "I remember," said Elsie, softly, with her hand in his, "how she said, 'I shall watch for thee on the door-sill, to come into the Father's house, boldly, where He's gone to prepare a place; and you and me 'll be at home again, with Him.'"

HE study of the indefinitely small has, since the microscope attained its wonderful perfection, become one of the most interesting windows of the Great King, looking out through which new marvels of creative wisdom are seen. Mrs. Somerville, in her captivating volumes on "Molecular Science," speaks of the microscopic structure of the vegetable world as furnishing a most interesting illustration of the relation between the powers of nature and the particles of matter. But where is nature not microscopic? Where have we not illustrations of even infinite marvels hidden in some minute globular nucleus? The book to which we have referred presents a perfect universe of instances. Comparisons are unsafe, but perhaps if we were called upon at once to mention the most marvellous we should refer to the great family of the diatoms (Diatomaceæ, or Brittleworts). They seem almost to constitute shall we say?-the alluvial flooring of the globe. We suppose there is hardly a spot on the face of the earth, from Spitzbergen to Victoria Land, where they may not be found; they are in the ocean, in running fresh water, and even on the surface of the bare ground; they extend in latitude beyond the limits of all other plants; they car endure all extremes of temperature. Infinitely too small to

be seen by the naked eye, they occur in countless myriads. Their beauty is exquisite beyond all power of description; they constitute the food of innumerable aquatic creatures, and they purify the water from the carbonic acid which animal respiration and the decomposition of matter produce. "Even the Noctiluci," says Mrs. Somerville, "those luminous specks, which make the wake of a boat shine like silver in a warm summer night, live on the countless millions of diatoms." As a creature it is ineffably beautiful, and appears through the microscope in a vast variety of forms. Few eyes have ever seen it, only the more cunning naturalist suspects its existence; but it exists in its manifold proportions of beauty everywhere. So that the words of the poet are not less true than beautiful :

"I tell thee that those living things, To whom the fragile blade of grass, That springeth in the morn And perisheth ere noon,

Is an unbounded world

I tell thee that those viewless beings, Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere,

Think, feel, and live, like man; That their affections and antipathies, Like his, produce the laws Ruling their moral state; And the minutest throb That through their frame diffuses The slightest, faintest motion, Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws

That rule yon rolling orbs."

The man who wrote the above words fancied that he was an atheist. But what an assurance both the science of Mrs. Somerville, and the fancy of Shelley present to us of the infinite life spread over the whole compass of the globe. All these microscopic things and creatures were unknown until the power of the microscope was brought to bear upon them,

and now, says the illustrious lady to whom we have referred, "the deeper the research the more does the inexpressible perfection of God's works appear, whether in the majesty of the heavens, or in the infinitesimal beings of the earth." And what a fine illustration she was of her own remark: her first work was to unfold the mechanism of the heavens when she was almost a girl; her last, when nearly ninety years of age, on the researches of the microscope. We recur to the fine words of Revelation, which tell us that as we look through the windows of the King, we find Him at once "telling the number of the stars, and comprehending the dust of the earth." And the faith of the Christian, as well as the observation of the philosopher, beholds how He

"Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,

Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives thro' all life, extends thro' all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent."

and the instructed heart, looking through all, may see the Great King pass by, whispering as He goes: "Have I been so long time with thee, and yet hast thou not known Me?"

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There is an unseen glory underlying all created things; there is indeed an unseen universe; and the assurance of this should be a help and handmaid to faith. We have not seen Mr. Ruskin's "Time and Tide, by Weare and Tyne," but we meet with the following extract from letter the twenty-fourth Yesterday afternoon, I called on Mr. H. C. Sordy, to see some of the results of an enquiry he has been following all last year" (the letter is dated April 24th, 1867) "into the nature of the colouring matter of leaves and flowers. You most probably have heard of the marvellous power which chemical analysis has received in recent discoveries in the laws of light. My friend showed me the rainbow of the rose, and the rainbow of the violet, and the rainbow of the hyacinth, and the rainbow of the forest leaves being born, and the rainbow of forest leaves dying, and last he showed me the rainbow of blood. It was but the three-hundredth part of a grain dissolved in a drop of water, and it cast its measured bars, for ever recognisable now to human sight, on the chord of the seven colours, and no drops of that red rain can now be shed so small as that the stain of it cannot be known, and the voice of it heard out of the ground." So true it is, as has been said, that we see only a very limited portion of what there is to see in nature, that we see only what our very limited organ of vision enables us to see. Professor Cooke, in his most interesting lectures on Religion and Chemistry, truly says: "The beauty of nature is in the infinite presence it conceals, and unconsciously though it may be, it is the spirit, not the matter which the artist loves. Not only is there a depth to the poetry of nature which man cannot fathom," but Professor Cooke goes on to show, "that there are waves of light and sound of which our dull senses can take no cognisance; there is even a great difference in human perceptivity." He quotes Professor Tyndall's words, from his very interesting work on the "Glaciers of the Alps," an illustration which the writer of this paper has in the same circumstances often confirmed. Tyndall says: "I once crossed a Swiss mountain in company with a friend; a donkey was in advance of us, and the dull tramp of the

animal was plainly heard by my companion, but to me this sound was almost masked by the shrill chirruping of innumerable insects, which thronged the adjacent grass; my friend heard nothing of this, it lay quite beyond the range of his hearing." The illustration is very simple, but following upon a series of scientific incidents, Professor Cooke beautifully says: "There may therefore be innumerable sounds in nature to which our ears are perfectly deaf, although they are the sweetest melody to more refined senses; nay, more, the very air around us may be resounding with the hallelujahs of the Heavenly Host, when our dull ears hear nothing but the feeble accents of our broken prayers." And Sir W. R. Grove, in that great work on which the most advanced science in our day has set its seal, his "Correlation of the Physical Forces," goes so far as to say, "Myriads of organized beings may exist imperceptibly to our vision, even if we were among them." So that Shakespeare expressed a truth which Exact Science sustains when he says:

"Such harmony is in immortal souls,

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay

Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."

So true it is also that science teaches us that we know not a millionth part of the marvels and wonders of this beautiful world. In fact, it is science which reveals to us that which a little thought prepares us to expect, a whole universe of invisible things and powers, "things not seen"; we are compelled to believe in what we cannot see; we can only see effects, we cannot see causes or things.

It has been truly said, and some of the remarks we have already made illustrate the truth, that the world of sight in which we live is a sort of central point or table-land, half-way between the telescope and the microscope. But a very large portion of what we call the material world is invisible, composed of "things not seen." Heat and steam are invisible; we can feel a ray, and we can see vapour, that is, an invisible thing rendered visible by contact with cold air; but who ever saw the mighty giant at home in the boiler, the great moving power of the world? The force which drives a vessel of three thousand tons against wind and tide across the Atlantic, or hammers a twenty-ton weight of iron into shape as easily as you would mould a pellet of bread between your fingers? that five hundred or thousand horse-power nobody has ever beheld, only the vehicle through which it acts. Thus, everywhere a light shines guiding the mind to a principle of Divine order and proportion, all things turn into windows through which we may look out upon an infinite presence beyond; and so, to the thoughtful mind, the universe becomes another universe, and the world another world; it is all as if mysteriously haunted by a presence of Divine unity.

We remember what an old friend of ours, whose acquaintance we made many years since, Robinson Crusoe, says: "It happened one day about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plainly to be seen on the sand; I stood as one thunderstruck, as if I had seen an apparition; how it came thither I knew not, nor could in the least imagine." But Robinson Crusoe did not doubt that some man like himself had

walked that way. Innumerable mysterious fossil footsteps have been traced in the various strata of the world, apparently of birds and other creatures, giving to us information concerning extinct races; strange "footprints on the sands of time" indeed. But there is far more than this shed by the light of the science of comparative anatomy. Can anything be more wonderful than the results of the labours of Baron Cuvier? You show him a tooth or a bone, and he seems to create or build up before you a startlingly-grotesque animal. Many papers, even volumes, have been written on fossil footprints; but what if Robinson Crusoe, as one has said, had found not merely a footprint, but a mathematical problem sketched on the sand? Do you think he would have said, "It is a way the sand has of working those problems"? And are not all these ancient creatures singular proofs of the unity and harmony of the one mind of the invisible Authorship, which has wrought through all ages in the kingdom of nature?

Thus, science is not hostile to faith, science is only one of the King's Windows. The discoveries of science only give more distinctness to the vision of Faith, they cannot enlarge the dimensions of the kingdom over which it prepares to spread its wing. It may be urged, indeed, that faith is a motive power to all the attainments of science, so that we may be bold to say there would be no science at all but for the principle of faith in man; faith antedates all science, as we see in religion or in reference to the being of God; faith affirms it, the philosopher reasons upon it, while the man of science proves it; so that we may repeat, that science is indebted to faith for its very existence.

Among the tales which have charmed and enchanted for many ages, in that strange volume of Eastern adventure, the "Arabian Nights," no story has been a greater favourite, and none has exercised a more pleasing pressure upon the imagination, than that of the poor youth who, while the victim of a magician, suddenly found himself possessed of an old lamp; there seemed to be no worth in it, and he was only meditating the polishing of it a little, when by that very accident he became wonderingly aware of its powers; he had but to touch it, and obedient to his touch or call appeared the wonderful Spirit of the Lamp. It was certainly very convenient: if he were hungry and poor, the touch of the lamp spread before him tables groaning with provisions, and the obedient slaves of the lamp came bearing their rich services of massive silver. It is, in truth, a very wonderful story, how the poor and simple lad was transformed by the possession of his quaint old piece of furniture, into the lord of vast possessions, the monarch of all conditions, and the bridegroom of the beautiful princess. It is a tempting story, and has thrown its charm over many fine poetic fancies, as in the splendid poem of the Danish poet, Oehlenschläger. But if we possessed the power, we could tell a tale which would even yet more marvellously inflame and affect the imagination; for certainly, while the hero of the old Arabian tale hovers like an unsubstantial child of the mist, a mirage picture, before the fancy, he of whom we are about to speak is substantial enough; he is no creation of the imagination, no mystical or dramatic impersonation of poetry.

The modern Aladdin has effected feats which, while as real in fact as those of poetry or fable, have

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as far eclipsed them as they in their turn eclipsed the wanderings of a dervish, or the adventures of a caterpillar.

It is a tale which leaves all the wonderful wonders of past ages and of Arabian enchantment far behind; for armed with his mystic lamp, he appears to have gathered all the tales of Arabian enchantment into one. Our readers will remember how the three kings' sons wished to obtain the hand of a certain lovely princess, and were told that he should have it who brought home the most wonderful object. And one brought a flying carpet; and the other brought the instrument which showed what a friend was doing at a distance merely by looking into it; and another brought the wonderful apple, by which the most exquisite sufferings were alleviated merely through inhaling its fragrance. Our friend the modern Aladdin has done such things that all these are mere trifles to his performances. He has invented wings by which we can travel six hundred miles in our own proper persons in the course of a day. He will enable us to send a message six or eight thousand miles away with nearly the same swiftness and ease as a whisper could be conveyed to a friend sitting in our room. Our friend can take us in his arms and wrap us in a dream of pleasant sensations, while a surgeon's knife is either taking our leg off or submitting us to some of the ghastly horrors we associate with his knife.

There seem to be no bounds to the powers of our friend; we do not fully know all that he has done or what he is doing now, or what he will do next, and he is as far beyond our conception as the story of the earth is beyond that of an ant-hill. He is all eye, all ear, all touch, he has the power of making things to grow out of vacancy, and seeing things where things are not. For instance, it is curious what our friend can do with a little piece of glass, as he fits it into his lamp. When Catlin was among the Red Indians, they had a decided objection to his taking their likenesses; they could not understand how that could be without his taking their souls away from them-although one of them did wax wroth when his profile was taken because the artist had in this instance taken half a soul, and left half a soul behind. But our friend has a way of catching a shadow as it flies through the air; before us there is nothing, no shadow, mere entirely empty space; a little wizardry, and lo! there we are-the very transcript and soul of ourselves. It is quite wonderful what the modern Aladdin can do with his little piece of glass fitted into his lamp. Upon an inconceivably small disc he drops a point, say of nitrate of silver, not larger than a pin's head: "Look!" says our friend, and lo, through the magic glass we see it growing-growing, a tree the gorgeous glories of whose jewellery far outshine the splendours of those fabled trees of blazing jewels, of which we read in the eastern tale. Every little grain, every drop of water, every thread of hair, when our friend holds his lamp over it is alive with wonders, and a mere grain of mud, one of our diatom friends, exhibits splendours before which the blaze of diamonds in the court of Majesty become dim and pale. "What do you think your friend can do," said one to us the other day," with that piece of glass of his?" "Oh, we don't know," was our reply. "I'll tell you what I think," said he; "he shows me that there is nothing in anything." "No," we

rejoined, "far other, at any rate, is the lesson his little pieces of glass have given to us; it is rather that there is something in everything, almost every grain of earth or drop of water seems alive.' Most wonderful are the wizard-like tricks the young Aladdin plays with his little pieces of glass.

Have our readers ever seen a planet belonging to our system called Herschel? Probably not, for so far from being at all a near neighbour, it is exceedingly remote, and can only be well described through our friend's little pieces of glass. Very recently our friend was looking at the same old Herschel. The old acquaintance seemed fidgetty, restless, no eye but our friend's could have noticed that at all; but he continued to look, and to say while he looked, "What is the matter with you? whatever makes you so fidgetty?" There seemed to be no cause for it. Our friend thought, somehow, this must be accounted for by another world being in the way, so he went to work with his pieces of glass, and he held them steadily over that great dark waste, all those unfathomable millions of miles away, and there, at last, he discovered one of the last and most recent accessions to our celestial knowledge, Neptune.

We have heard of spirits seen in rock-crystal; we are not so certain about them. Magic mirrors, Aunt Margaret's mirrors and such like, are very curious to read of, ghosts stepping across the strange opaque plain. We very much want to see one. But our friend, he has a piece of glass with which he breaks a ray of light into pieces, and he has a strange way of discovering what the most distant thing is by the colours he has broken from the ray; having proved this down here it has been quite easy for him to use his piece of glass to take sun and moon and stars to pieces, at any rate so sufficiently dissecting them that he easily tells you the materials of which they are constituted.

But what is the uniting spirit here? It is not the glass alone, it is not the hand which holds the glass, alone; no, nor even the observing eye which looks through the glass; it is the wonderful, the harmonising and unifying power of light—

"All the world's bravery, that delights our eyes, Is but thy several liveries;

Thou the rich dye on them bestow'st,

Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go'st.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;

A crown of studded gold thou bear'st;
The virgin lilies, in their white,

Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, Spring's little infant, stands

Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands;
On the fair tulip thou dost dote;

Thou cloth'st it in a gay and party-colour'd coat."

For there is a revealing power in light, although light itself cannot be seen; in light the more luminous overpowers and extinguishes the feebler-just as we cannot see the light of a candle if we hold it up against the sun-it needs the background of darkness to bring out the light; and yet it is the merest truism to say that light reveals. Thus, the phenomena of nature enable us to realise the omniscience and omnipresence of God. As has been often remarked, we see no star as it actually is, but as it was at the second when the ray of light was transmitted; the light of our sister, the moon, is

the most immediate, and we see her face as it was a second and a quarter before, the sun eight minutes before, Jupiter, fifty-two minutes, almost an hour previously, the principal star in the constellation, Centuar as it was three years since, Vega, twelve years since, Arcturus twenty-six years since, the pole-star forty-eight years since, Capella seventy years since, and a star of the twelfth magnitude as it looked four thousand years ago, or in the time of Abraham. And thus we are reminded that we are walking in the old light; divine words are transmitted to us from far off and ancient times. As the poet says:

"The light of Homer shines upon us still."

There is a transforming power in light. In this age of science it is only very recently that that which we speak of as light has been discovered to be only the sheath, even as it were the hiding of a more subtle force within itself. As when we speak of oxygen as that which supports life, we find that within oxygen there is a yet more subtle power, ozone, which is the true life-supporter; so when we speak of light, within light itself there is a yet more subtle principle, called actinism, which is the true life-quickener, the Actinic ray. So that in virtue of this, no substance can be exposed to the sun's rays without undergoing a chemical change. Thus it is with the mind and moral nature when it stands in the light of God-God, who is light. And we may separate, and say there is a spiritual light which is not Actinic, it reveals but does not transform, but the perfection of the Divine light is that it "converts the soul." There is a luminous ray which is not a transforming ray; but as there is no organisation where the sun's rays do not penetrate, where there is unchangeable darkness, all things that live are bound together by the silver thread of light.

"God said: "Let there be light!'
Grim darkness felt his might,
And fled away;

Then startled seas and mountains cold
Shone forth, all bright.in blue and gold,
And cried: "Tis day! 'tis day!'
'Hail, holy light!' exclaim'd
The thund'rous cloud, that flam'd
O'er daisies white;

And, lo! the rose, in crimson dress'd,
Lean'd sweetly on the lily's breast,

And blushing, murmur'd Light
Then was the skylark born;
Then rose the embattled corn;
Then floods of praise
Flow'd o'er the sunny hills of noon;
And then, in stillest night, the moon
Pour'd forth her pensive lays,
Lo, heaven's bright bow is glad!
Lo, trees and flowers all clad
In glory bloom!

And all the mortal sons of God
Be senseless as the trodden clod,
And darker than the tomb."

But light is altogether too large, too transparent, and too revealing a window in the palace of the Great King, to be sufficiently dealt with in a paragraph or two at the close of a paper. We must return to this window again.