hope on meeting her husband in heaven if it pleases God to separate by a stroke of death the two hearts united on earth. If her husband is sick, or in trouble, she falls on her knees, and prays to God to deal kindly with him. She feels her dependance upon her Heavenly Father, and goes to Him whenever occasion requires, to lay her case before Him. She makes no hesitation in communing with Him; she feels at home in His unseen presence. All this, indeed, seems as if she had a conscience void of offence towards God and man. A ANIMAL HEAT. DVENTUROUS mariners navigate their barks among the ice-bergs of the polar regions, to procure the valuable stores of the whale, the seal, and the walrus, which they seize upon as spoils, to be transported to marts of commerce for distribution, for the purpose of being burnt as fuel in lamps, instead of in the lungs, for which purpose it was originally designed. Men eagerly strip off the prized furs and down from the seal, from the eider duck, and from other animals, whose breasts, exposed to submersion in icy water, and to keen wintry winds, require these non-conducting coverings to sustain the animal heat. These prized spoils of soft furs and down, are appropriated as a covering to sustain the same genial warmth within the glowing bosom of the civilized belle. In the colder bosom of an Esquimaux belle, residing in a crystal palace, and beneath a dome built of blocks of ice, not only are these soft external appliances of robes of fur necessary for sustaining a genial glow of life's warm current, but also the most extraordinary combustion in her lungs of fat and oily food. One of these belles, according to Captain Parry's narrative of his voyage to the Arctic regions, sipped the oil from an extinguished lamp, and received a tallow candle as an accept able bon-bon, the courteous captain kindly enjoining upon her by signs, suiting the action to the word, not to choke herself by attempting to swallow the wick. It thus appears that what is scarcely adequate to serve as fuel for developing warmth and powers in the bodies of human beings dwelling in the Arctic regions, would overheat the bodies of the same individuals when transported to warm tropical climates, and speedily induce fatal inflammatory disorders. To the ignorance of this fact, are ascribed the deaths of myriads of voyagers from cold to warm climates. On the contrary, voyagers from sultry climes to cold regions require more combustion in their lungs, to sustain the average temperature of blood heat. Indeed, the sensation of a waning warmth is so immediately attendant on a waning sup. ply of food, that the terms "cold" and "hunger" have become associated together; and the phrase "starving with cold," has become introduced into popular parlance. As there is a greater tendency to an excess of animal heat in warm climates, this pernicious result is provided against, by the process of cooling by the continual evaporation of perspired water from the surface of the body. The continual combustion going on in the lungs, and this continual evaporation of perspired moisture, produces the result of a delicate balance of temperature, which is uniformly maintained within a range of one or two degrees of the thermometer, as is commonly designated on the scale of the thermometer by the term "blood heat." Whenever this delicate balance of the body is not maintained, and an excessive excitation occurs by a quickened pulsation, and diminished evaporation, the phenomenon of excessive heat of "fever," is manifest. In cases of fever, the rapid wasting away of the patient's body is an effect resulting from the combustion of the fatty matter, whereby the extraordinary heat of fevers is sustained. As fevers are usually attended with a checked perspiration and dry surface of the skin, there is reason for believing that a reversed action of the functions of the pores is induced, whereby the air combines with the blood directly through the thin membrane, covering the external surface of the body, instead of being confined to the thin membrane lining the interior of the lungs. ning to a plaything to be experimented upon in the hands of scientific men. The gradual progress of discovery has recently imparted the greatest interest to the study of the modes of propagating mechanical force through the medium of electric matter, with extreme rapidity, to remote distances, as practised in the now common use of electro-motive power for telegraphic purposes, and for accomplishing processes of electro-metallurgy. The recently discovered motive powers of electro-magnetic machines have also added fresh interest to the study of this new branch of science. The remarkable stimulating excitation of alcohol in the human system, is probably ascribable to the rapid decomposition, or burning of this substance in the lungs. Alcohol is a vegetable formation, artificially arrested during the process of fermentation, in its half-way recoil from one condition to another. This highly stimulating fluid exhibits a grouping of elements, constituting an intermediate stage between The recent progress of the science has food and fuel. This pernicious compound, invested the once deemed fanciful imagininstead of undergoing a protracted processings of the ever admirable Greek poet, of digestion, appears to become speedily assimilated as a sudden and excessive supply of combustible fuel to be burnt in the lungs, causing extraordinary developments of heat and of animal power, and a quickened pulsation, which surcharges the arteries of the brain, and deranges the functions of this organ. ELECTRICITY. "Let down our golden, everlasting chain Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main." Homer, with the appearance of a philosophical truth, demonstrating the fact that electric action, as propagated from the sun, does really constitute the "Everlasting chain, Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main." The direct electric action of the sun admits of being concentrated by convex lenses and concave mirrors upon the focus of a steam boiler containing water, as it is narrated in history that Archimedes attempted to set fire to a hostile fleet in the THE phenomena of flashes of lightning, harbor of Syracuse. sometimes appearing like the glittering links of a dazzling chain suspended from imminent black thunder-clouds in the sky, have attracted the attention of mankind from the earliest records of history. Lightning was once regarded with religious awe and reverence by unenlightened people, and was considered as an immediate revelation of the power of the king of the heathen gods. Jupiter is usually represented in ancient mythology as seated on clouds, and brandishing thunderbolts in his right hand. As beautifully observed by a French philosopher, it remained for our illustrious countryman, Franklin, "to wrest the thunderbolts from heaven, as well as the sceptre from tyrants," and to reduce the light The usual mode of reducing the molecules of water from their natural conditions to the temporary, constrained condition of steam, is by means of the combustion of fuel, instead of the awkward expedient of employing the immediate electric action of the sun. The use of fuel is, philosophically speaking, only a more ready and convenient employment of the same electric action of the sun in an indirect form; for wood, peat, and mineral coal, constituting fuel, truly represents groupings of atoms reduced by the electric action of the sun on the organs of plants from their natural conditions, floating in the atmosphere, to solid, constrained conditions of organic formations. On the recoil of these groupings of atoms from A OPINIONS. the constrained static conditions of fuel hand partly exposed to the jet of steam during the process of combustion, as on escaping from a leak in a steam-boiler, the recoil of the vapory thunder-clouds, when with the other hand he attempted the original electric action impressed upon to adjust the safety valve. An electrical these atoms through the mechanism of the shock followed every attempt to touch the organs of living plants on the sunny hill-metallic connections with the boiler. This side, again becomes propagated therefrom fact astonished him, and led to further into the molecules of water in the boiler. vestigations, which have disclosed the Every steam-boiler, with this simple ex-wonder-working agency of steam as being planation, becomes recognized in its true due to electric action. character, as a real electrical machine. Indeed small steam-boilers have recently been introduced into the lecture-room, as the most effective kind of electrical machines, one of these steam-boilers having proved adequate to exciting "sevenfold more electricity than has been excited by the most powerful frictional electrical machine that has ever yet been constructed." It is only necessary to open a stopcock to allow the vapory molecules of water to issue in the form of a jet of steam into the open air, and thus suddenly to pass from their constrained condition, into drops of water, in humble mimicry of the condensing vapors of thunder-clouds, when similar electric flashes are developed with sufficient intensity to dart in vivid coruscations, through a space of nearly two feet of air toward adjacent bodies. with a The boiler becomes electrically excited, and also any adjacent insulated bodies against which the jets of steam escaping from any boiler of a steam-engine, working pressure of sixty or seventy pounds on the square inch, while the operator stands on a board resting on strong glass bottles, electric sparks may be drawn from all parts of his body, by persons standing on the ground, and applying their fingers to touch him. Even the insulation of the folds of a warm dry silk handkerchief, wrapped around a pointed wire held in the hand, is sufficient to exhibit electric sparks. GREAT portion of the opinion's of mankind are notoriously propagated by transmission from one generation to another, without any possible option on the part of those into whose mind they are instilled. A child regards as true whatever his teachers choose to inculcate, and whatever he discovers to be believed by those around him. His creed is thus insensibly formed, and he will continue in after life to believe the same things, without any proof, provided his knowledge and experience do not happen to infringe upon their falsehood. Mere installation is sufficient to make him believe any proposition, although he should be utterly ignorant of the foundation on which it rests, or the evidence by which it is supported. It may create in his mind a belief of the most palpable absurdities; things, as it appears to others, not only contradicted by his reason, but at variance with the testimony of his senses; and in the boundless region which the senses do not reach, there is nothing too preposterous to be palmed on his credulity. The religious opinions of the majority of mankind are necessarily acquired in this way; from the nature of the case they cannot be otherwise than derivative, and they are as firmly believed, without the least particle of evidence, as the theorems of Euclid by those who understand the demonstrations. This very interesting discovery of the propagation of electro-dynamic action from a steam-boiler, was accidentally A well-instructed people alone can be made a few years ago by an engineer, a permanently free people. Good instrucwhen insulated on a ladder, with one tion is better than riches.-Penn. SON NEVER TOO LATE. HOME persons, whose minds have not been properly cultivated in early life, are, in more advanced age, discouraged from attempting to supply the defect by the notion that the susceptibility of culture is very much impaired, if not altogether lost, and the power of deriving pleasure from such sources infinitely less than in youth. No doubt the faculties have wasted for the want of being employed; but it is equally certain that the period of life must be very far advanced indeed at which they may not be quickened to use and polished to brightness; and, for the enjoyment, we shall quote Dugald Stewart, who, in one of his essays, says, "In such men, what an accession is gained to their most refined pleasures! What enchantments are added to their most ordinary perceptions? The mind awakening, as if from a trance, to a new existence, becomes habituated to the most interesting aspects of life and nature-the intellectual eve is cleared of its film,' and things the most familiar and unnoticed disclose charms invisible before. The same objects and events, which were lately beheld with indifference, occupy now all the capacities and powers of the soul; the contrast between the present and the past serving only to enhance and to endear so unlooked for an acquisition. What Gray has so finely said of the pleasure of vicissitude, conveys but a faint image of what is experienced by the man who, after having lost in humble occupations and unprofitable amusements his earliest and most precious years, is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth: The meanest floweret of the vale, action; and action consists of talking and doing. All, therefore, in a human character, depends upon thought. But the soul is born without a thought, and all moral or immoral thought is communicated, by means of the tongue. Here, then, in this little member you have the lever that moves the world. The lives of all men correspond with their general language; hence you can see the character of a people through their speech better than through any other medium. We read Greece and Rome in their mother tongue; and were the English, the French, and the Germans to be swept from the earth, yet, if their language remained, other nations would have a distinct idea of their science, philosophy, history, biography, politics, trade, liberty, morality and religion. We may, therefore, assert that talking is every thing to man. Strike him dumb, and close his ears, and you most effectually stop the progress of truth. The building of Babel which was so well understood by all the architects, masons, carpenters, and laborers, could not go on after the confusion of tongues. Plans, spades, hammers, trowels, ladders, bricks, mortar, &c., were of no use when the speech of the people became unintelligible. Language, then, is the most powerful agent in our world. MY MOTHER. It has been truly said, "The first being that rushes to the recollection of a soldier or a sailor, in his heart's difficulty, is his mother. She clings to his memory and affection in the midst of all the forgetfulness and hardihood induced by a roving life. The last message he leaves is for her; his last whisper breathes her name. The mother as she instills the lessons of piety and filial obligation into the heart of her infant son, should always feel that her labor is not in vain. She may drop into the grave, but she has left behind her influences that will work for her. The bow is broken, but the arrow is sped and will do its office." "But they do not belong to us, my son. could ascend into the heavens, it is there: Shall we take what is not ours?" "She won't know it; she can't see us, father;" and Frank stood on tip-toe, and stretched his neck, to see if they came within the range of any of the windows of the next house. Satisfied upon this point, he turned away-"Please do get me some, father," he said beseechingly. Mr. Townsend look steadily and earnestly at Frank. Then, taking him by both hands, he said impressively: "And is there no one else who can see you, my son? and whose and down into the depths, it is there also. That eye has mercifully watched over you through all the five years of your little life, and it looks upon you at this moment. It sees you now, and understands the thoughts of your heart." He paused for a moment, and the boy buried his face in his father's bosom. "Do you remember, Frank, last Sunday I taught you the commandments. You repeated them after me. One of them was this Thou shalt not steal !'" |