another, and they will and they will not. And they encourage a man till they have kindled in his heart a raging furnace hotter than Daniel's, and then they wonder-oh! la-to see him storm and rave, and fight the other men with savage blows and the ferocity of a lion.

"Or, again, there are other girls who, seeing some wives neglected and forsaken by their husbands, tremble for themselves, and, rather than fall into this misery, will never marry at all. This I have myself often considered; for to see a young husband's love die away, and be followed by nothing but neglect or contempt, must be a terrible thing. Yet we should all hope that this misfortune may not fall upon us, but rather the long continuance of love to the very end, when youth and strength and beauty have long gone, and the man's skill of hand is forgotten, and he can only sit in the chimney - corner. There the two old folk should comfort each other; and, I think, they might then bless the Lord for the institution of marriage. I speak not against wedlock. I-though I am an old maid whom no man has ever wooed. What then? So much the worse for menot so much the worse for wedlock. Shall I cry out that grapes are sour? Not so.

"Nay, and there are other girls-but these are rare-who look about them and consider the misfortunes of the world, the dreadful calamities which fall upon people: the wives made widows; the mothers robbed of their children; the husbands broken and bankrupt; terrible diseases; and rubs, jerks, flouts, and scorns of fortune. And these things they ponder over until they are unwilling to obey the voice of nature and to take a husband. What? Are we not to

venture out because it may rain? These calamities do not happen to all, but only to some. The ships go forth to sea, and some get wrecked. Are the rest never to leave the port again? Why, most of them go out and return again in safety, cargo and crew, all for the enrichment of the owners. We must take our chance. If it is the Lord's will that our children die, we are in the Lord's hands. Better to believe and die like the rest of the world, than to run away and hide. Besides, who would live at home when the rest are gone? And what is the old maid but a drudge, to mend the clothes and make the beds? And what can a woman do better for herself than to make a man's life happy, and to bring up her children in the fear of the Lord ?"

SIR WALTER BESANT.

VOLCANOES AND EARTHQUAKES
LIMITED BY NATURAL LAWS.

IN the study of these vast and awful phe

nomena we are brought in contact with those immense and rude powers of nature which seem to convey to the imagination the impress of brute force and lawless violence; -but it is not so. Such an idea is not more derogatory to the wisdom and benevolence that prevails throughout all the scheme of creation than it is in itself erroneous. In their wildest paroxysms the rage of the volcano and the earthquake is subject to great and immutable laws; they feel the bridle and obey it. The volcano bellows forth its pent-up overplus of energy, and sinks into long and tranquil repose. The earthquake rolls away, and industry, that balm which nature knows how to shed over every

wound, effaces its traces, and festoons its ruin with flowers. There is mighty and rough work to be accomplished, and it cannot be done by gentle means. It seems, no doubt, terrible, awful, perhaps harsh, that twenty or thirty thousand lives should be swept away in a moment by a sudden and unforeseen calamity; but we must remember that sooner or later every one of those lives must. be called for, and it is by no means the most sudden end that is the most afflictive. It

is well, too, that we should contemplate occasionally, if it were only to teach us humility and submission, the immense energies which are everywhere at work in maintaining the system of nature we see going on so smoothly and tranquilly around us, and of which these furious outbreaks, after all, are but minute and for the moment unbalanced surpluses in the great account. The energy requisite to overthrow a mountain is as a drop in the ocean compared with that which holds it in its place and makes it a mountain. Chemistry tells us that the forces constantly in action to maintain a single grain of water in its habitual state when only partially and sparingly let loose in the form of electricity would manifest themselves as a powerful flash of lightning. And we learn from optical science that in even the smallest element of every material

body-nay, even in what we call empty space-there are forces in perpetual action to which even such energies sink in insignificance. Yet, amid all this, Nature holds her even course: the flowers blossom: animals enjoy their brief span of existence; and man has leisure and opportunity to contemplate and adore, secure of the watchful care which provides for his well-being at

every instant that he is permitted to remain on earth.

SIR JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL.

MARIE CORELLI.

(MINNIE MACKAY.)

THIS writer, who is of Venetian parentage, is the adopted daughter of the late distinguished author Charles Mackay, who was a Scotchman by parentage and birth, but from his early years resided in London, and there received his education.

Miss Mackay's first work, "The Romance of Two Worlds," was published in 1868, when she was but twenty-two years of age. Her works, although written in prose, bear evidence that some of the poetical talent of her adopted father has descended to his chosen daughter. Her writings, which are most interesting, are full of flights of fancy, and many portions of them might be styled

star shone above it like a sun. The trees and flowers sprang up under my gaze, and all stretched themselves towards me, as though for protection. Birds flew about and sang; some of them tried to get as near as possible to the little sun they saw; and other living creatures began to move about in the shadows of the groves, and on the fresh green grass. All the wonderful workings of Nature, as known to us in the world, took place over again in this garden, which seemed somehow to belong to me; and I watched everything with a certain satisfaction and delight. Then the idea came to me that the place would be fairer if there were either men or angels to inhabit it; and quick as light a whisper came

to me:

"CREATE!"

And I thought in my dream that by the mere desire of my being, expressed in waves of electric warmth that floated downwards from me to the earth I possessed, my garden was suddenly filled with men, women and children, each of whom had a small portion of myself in them, inasmuch as it was I who made them move and talk and occupy themselves in all manner of amusements. Many of them knelt down to me and prayed, and offered thanksgivings for having been created; but some of them went instead to the little star, which they called a sun, and thanked that, and prayed to that instead. Then others went and cut down the trees in the garden, and dug up stones, and built themselves little cities, where they all dwelt together like flocks of sheep, and ate and drank and made merry with the things I had given them. Then I thought that I increased their intelligence and quickness of perception, and

A

got everything but themselves. They ceased to remember how they were created, and they cared no more to offer praises to their little sun that through me gave them light and heat. But because something of my essence. still was in them, they always instinctively sought to worship a superior creature to themselves; and puzzling themselves in their folly, they made hideous images of wood and clay, unlike anything in heaven or earth, and offered sacrifices and prayer to these lifeless puppets instead of to me. Then I turned away my eyes in sorrow and pity, but never in anger; for I could not be wrathful with these children of my own creation. And when I thus turned away my eyes, all manner of evil came upon the once fair scenepestilence and storm, disease and vice. dark shadow stole between my little world and me-the shadow of the people's own wickedness. And as every delicate fibre of my spiritual being repelled evil by the necessity of the pure light in which I dwelt serene, I waited patiently for the mists to clear, so that I might again behold the beauty of my garden. Suddenly a soft clamor smote upon my sense of hearing, and a slender stream of light, like a connecting ray, seemed to be flung upwards through the darkness that hid me from the people I had created and loved. I knew the sound-it was the mingled music. of the prayers of children. An infinite pity and pleasure touched me, my being thrilled with love and tenderness; and yielding to these little ones who asked me for protection, I turned my eyes again towards the garden I had designed for fairness and pleasure. But alas! how changed it had become ! No longer fresh and sweet, the people had

it into small portions, and in so doing had divided themselves into separate companies called nations, all of whom fought with each other fiercely for their different little parterres or flower-beds. Some haggled and talked incessantly over the mere possession of a stone which they called a rock; others busied themselves in digging a little yellow metal out of the earth, which, when once obtained, seemed to make the owners of it mad, for they straightway forgot everything else. As

I looked, the darkness between me and my creation grew denser, and was only pierced at last by those long wide shafts of radiance caused by the innocent prayers of those who still remembered me. And I was full of regret, for I saw my people wandering hither and thither, restless and dissatisfied, perplexed by their own errors, and caring nothing for the love I bore them. Then some of them advanced and began to question why they had been created, forgetting completely how their lives had been originally designed by me for happiness, love, and wisdom. Then they accused me of the existence of evil, refusing to see that where there is light there is also darkness, and that darkness is the rival force of the Universe, whence cometh silently the Unnamable Oblivion of Souls. They could not see, my self-willed children, that they had of their own desire sought the darkness and found it; and now, because it gloomed above them like a pall, they refused to believe in the light where still I was loving and always striving to attract them. Yet it was not all darkness, and I knew that even what there was might be repelled and cleared away if only my people would turn towards

all possible blessings. Some they rejected angrily, some they snatched at and threw away again, as though they were poor and trivial-none of them were they thankful for, and none did they desire to keep. And the darkness above them deepened, while my anxious pity and love for them increased. For how could I turn altogether away from them, as long as but a few remembered me? There were some of these weak children of mine who loved and honored me so well that they absorbed some of my light into themselves, and became heroes, poets, musicians, teachers of high and noble thought, and unselfish, devoted martyrs for the sake of the reverence they bore me. There were women pure and sweet, who wore their existence as innocently as lilies, and who turned to me to seek protection, not for themselves, but for those they loved. There were little children, whose asking voices were like waves of delicious music to my being, and for whom I had a surpassing tenderness. And yet all these were a mere handful compared to the numbers who denied numbers who denied my existence, and who had wilfully crushed out and repelled every spark of my essence in themselves. And as I contemplated this, the voice I had heard at the commencement of my dream rushed towards me like a mighty wind broken through by thunder: