rds on
a piano from the opera of "Lucretia Borgia"--the finale of the second
act. My labor was rewarded by the most pleasing sounds I had ever made
with my own fingers, and there was a general ebullition of pleasure and
expectation of future harmonies through my whole body for many hours
afterward. That night I went to hear a great scientist lecture on
astronomy.

THE SUBLIMITY OF HIS SUBJECT,

the idea of a universe of stars as yet unbounded, the higher idea of an
infinitude of such universes, each but a handful of mist in the greatest
telescope, raised me to a point of feeling which made life an ineffable
delight. I went to my bed, and thanked a Creator out of a boundless
thankfulness. I have thought that the twenty-third Psalm (beginning,
"The Lord is my shepherd)" is a hymn of thanksgiving inspired with the
same high quality of satisfaction. Surely,

MAN IS NOT THE VICIOUS LUMP OF CLAY

which the atheist would have him when he is able to command that picture
of Faith which Wordsworth wrote:

I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell;
To which in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely, and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy,--for murmurings from within
Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby,
To his belief the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things.

No! No! To found the problem or the actions of man on any one agent, and
to cut him off from God, is peurile! The reason of man necessitated the
discovery of gravitation, and it is to-day the best-established physical
fact before our view. The reason of man also demands a Creator, to endow
us with motives above our own development, and that reason, in the soul
of every man, atheist and Christian alike, must and will, secretly or
openly, have divine satisfaction.

The atheist, in these days, is the champion and the leader of a scrubby
lot of social and religious ideas. He should not "march them through
Coventry that's flat."

THE BIBLE.

Those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which, fourteen hundred year