us "kesh," we used to blow or spit the "haws" at any one who might be near of course to his annoyance; or we cut a length of the said "kesh," and making pin-holes in the jointed end, we used to make thereof a 66 squirt" by drawing up and then pushing back a piece of stick, around an end of which we had tied a piece of worsted. But bird-nesting was our favourite spring and summer pastime. There are some lads who have a wonderful expertness in finding out the habitations of the sweet songsters of the grove. Indeed, they seem to know the place where the bird has built its nest. I had a companion who belonged to this class, for we seldom went on an enterprise of discovery without returning flushed with success. But he was a cruel-hearted boy, and could rob a bird's nest with as little remorse as he could pull a reed, forgetting that the poor bird loved its young as much as did his mother. Once I was out with him a bird's-nesting. We saw a nest high up in a thorn. In a moment he was up to it; and, finding that it contained young ones, nicely feathered, he pulled away the nest, though I strongly remonstrated, and the old ones wailed over the act. I shall never forget the cry of those birds as they followed us, nor how they brooded over the nest when the robber laid it on the grass and left it for a time. I reproached him for his cruelty, and ere we reached home I fell out with and left him for ever. Here was a boy who, for the sake of a short-lived pleasure, gave agony to affectionate and happy fellow-creatures. I was glad when I had shaken him off. I have heard my brother John tell a similar story to this in reference to his early days; and I believe we both inherited this love and tenderness for the birds from our father, who, when a boy, took a nest of young birds from their parents, and relenting, before long took them back to the bush from whence he had taken them. I never took part in robbing a bird's home after this; but I spent many and many an hour in seeking nests, and in visiting them, and watching the progress of young rearing. Having been brought up in close proximity to the sea, bathing formed the chief element of our summer pastimes. And it yielded much delight. I have often bathed no fewer than four times between morning and afternoon schoolhours. For, after going into the water with our own companions, if, in going along the beach, we met another lot about to go in, their call, “Come, won't you join us?" has been enough; in we would go again and again till it was often too late for school. I well remember the time when I first began to swim; it was early one morning. I had before this often tried to swim, and had got my companion to hold up my head while I floundered about; but on the morning in question, as soon as I got into the water, such a buoyant sensation came over me the moment that I laid myself on the water, that I swam away with the greatest ease. But, years after this, I remember being nearly drowned. Being near the waterside, I felt a strong impulse to have a bathe. Taking off my clothes, in I went. Being shallow where I entered, I had to walk a long way before I got where I could swim. Between me and the shore was a deep channel, which the flowing tide filled after I had entered. On returning, I happened to seek the ground just there, and, not finding it, I lost confidence, and went over head. My sensations I cannot describe; I lost power to strike out; and how I did not perish I hardly know. I was alone, and to me it is a wonder to this day that I was preserved. I am, however, reminded by this of how, in sudden trial, the holiest man feels he is not too strong for the conflict. Passing from sea to land, I used to take delight in going a-nutting, or a-blackberrying, or in gathering sloes, whenberries, or "rasps." Those were happy days; and had, too, much to do with giving us good health. We were careless and free, strangers to sorrow and woe, and envied not the lot of the wealthy and great. And as we came home with our stomachs and pockets filled with the fruit of the tree or bush, happy as monarchs were we! Thus time rolled on, and the seasons ran their course until hoary-headed winter once more payed us a visit, and gave us a grip of his icy hand. And then most of our out-door sports being ended, we make the best we can of the pastimes which a snug house and a warm fireside afford. There are enjoyments in winter which no other season can afford, for though we cannot enjoy the freedom of bare feet, and a wade in the tide, yet with feet in clogs, well "cockered" or ironed round the edges, we can slide along the ice as merry as our more respectable brother of the skates. It was wonderful how clever some of us lads were on the ice, and how jolly we used to be when rushing through the bracing air, the warm blood flowing through our veins and reddening our cheeks. And when once the mania for "skurling" or sliding was within us, we were not over particular where we went, or what dangers we faced. Close to our school there was a large pond, which supplied a neighbouring coal-pit engine with water, and which ran back, through wooden spouts, quite hot. Here, in warm weather, we used to sail our home-made ships or "flats," with paper sail on its solitary mast, and here, also, when King Frost had gathered the waters in his icy embrace, we used to pass much of our spare time. Often were our clogs minus their irons, and many were the schemes we used to raise the penny or twopence which Harry Yewart, the blacksmith, charged for replacing them. I recollect that a lot of my school-fellows and I enjoyed a good hour's diversion on this sheet of water one afternoon before school began; but, being interrupted by the unwelcome sound of the bell, we made up our minds to return when school was over, and have our joy made full. Great was our anxiety that afternoon lest the thaw which had set in should have made "skurling" impracticable; and, when four o'clock had come, we made a joyful rush to the pond. Collected on the stone edging, how crest-fallen we were to see the water here and there on the surface of the ice. But, bent upon our sport, we sent one of our number to experiment and report. "Come on, lads; never fear!" was his cry, when on we all rushed. For a time we enjoyed the sport, the water splashing around our feet, while the ice swayed, rising and falling with our motions. All was right while we kept apart, but, at last, all coming together, with a loud report the ice gave away, and in we all fell. I shall never forget the strangeness of my feelings, nor can I account for my attempt at a smile when, rising to the surface, I saw eight or ten lads scrambling amongst the broken ice and falling back as the lumps of ice to which they clung gave way. Happening to be the furthest from the edge I was the last to get out. Well do I remember the pitiable cry of my brother John who, too young or too timid to venture on the pond, stood on the parapet, and as he saw ms climb and fall called out, "O, save our Henry; save our Henry!"-a different hue of conduct, you will say, from mine when I deserted him in his time of need. At last I got to the shore, and was pulled out, when my dear little brother literally danced for joy and embraced me. I was afraid to go home; but my brother went in first, and thus "broke the ice," as it is said. Soon affection's arms were around me, and fresh clothing, a cup of tea, with something warm in it, and a night's sleep put me right again. Here, my boys, let me give you a word of advice. Never rush into danger, nor be above taking counsel from wiser heads than your own. I would not have you to be cowards or weak or timid, but there is a kind of courage which is called "foolhardiness," which is false and in reality weak. I hope never to hear of you shewing valour on a battle-field; but, whenever and wherever duty calls, be there. He is a true hero who never shrinks from duty, who bears suffering and reproach with meekness, and who returns good for evil. This is a heroism which Christianity alone can beget; so, should you ever attain and display it, it will have to be through that faith which enabled Paul to fight the good fight and run the heavenly race. LORD ROSSE. On the eve of the appearance of the most wonderful celestial phenomenon perhaps known to the astronomical world three of its brightest luminaries yielded to the eclipse of death. In less than a fortnight Lord Wrottesley, Sir James South, and the Earl of Rosse, successively set to rise no more in this hemisphere. Though the other two were men of no little science, the Irish earl is the one whose name will be longest remembered and known among the votaries and in the annals of astronomy. Born at the beginning of the century, his education, though begun at Dublin, was completed at Oxford, where, in 1822, he took a first-class in mathematics, a circumstance which, in a student of his rank, was not only a testimony of his distinguished proficiency, but also a presumptive proof of decided tastes. In due time, as Lord Oxmantown, he became advantageously known by his able contributions to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, of which he was president from 1848 to 1854. Six years after graduating at Oxford he began the construction of that wonderful telescope, which, after an outlay of twenty thousand pounds and seventeen years of patient labour, he set up on his own estate at Parsonstown, in King's County, Ireland. This vast and perfect instrument has been the admiration of the age, and must be numbered among the wonders of the world. It is impossible to cast ever so cursory a glance over the history of astronomical discovery without being impressed with the great debt due from science to the man whose skill, munificence, and perseverance combined to bequeath to her and to her sons so great a help to the prosecution of their investigations. It has taken the highest place among a class of instruments by means of which, according to their different powers, objects apparently buried in the depths of space are made visible to man. The Chaldeans and other old-world people were no contemptible astronomers, for we still call by the same names stars and constellations which are sublimely celebrated in the Book of Job. But they knew nothing of telescopes, which had no sooner been invented than they were the means of more discoveries in the heavens than had been made during fifty centuries before. It was a long time, however, before the aberrations from a truthful view of objects incident to the instrument in its wider forms were successfully corrected. The history of these efforts, at length crowned with tolerably complete success, is interesting chiefly to minds sufficiently devoted to make it a patient study. Sir William Herschel was the first to confer upon the telescope what he styled a "space-penetrating power"-a power, in other words, of bringing into palpable view the positively invisible. In 1777, as he affirmed, he first became aware of this property; but it is a singular coincidence that he did not print his account of his researches and their results in the "Philosophical Researches ' till 1800, the very year in which the late Lord Rosse was born. Where the telescope was born, and who was its real father, are facts about which there is no certainty. Discoverers, who can see the non-existent without the aid of any glasses, have fancied that they could discern traces of telescopic instruments in the pages of Strabo, Aristophanes, and Pliny. But the thirteenth century had well-nigh expired before Vitello, the Pole, had begun to talk obscurely about the apparent magnitudes of objects seen through the segment of a vitreous sphere. Roger Bacon, who died some eight years before that century closed, makes mention in his chief work of similar experiments. He places beyond doubt the fact that in his days those defective in sight had been furnished with spectacles, and there is evidence further of his apprehension of the practicability of arranging lenses in such a manner as to present objects seen through them in magnified proportions. Although, therefore, we do not hear in either England or Holland of the perfected telescope till towards the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century, it may be fairly presumed that gradual advances were made in the necessary experiments at different epochs of the three intervening centuries. In 1570, Dr. Dee recommended the use of "perspective glasses" to military commanders in reconnoitring enemy's forces. Digges, about the same time, speaks of an arrangement of mirrors representing whole regions, and also of the ascertained possibility of seeing any part of a country so much magnified as to make objects scarcely discerned by the naked eye as clear as if they were close to it; and Digges, the younger, puts it on record, in 1591, that his father could recognise a man three miles off, and read the superscriptions of coins placed out in the open fields. It is certain that the astronomer Borellus, in 1610, discovered spots in the sun by means of telescopes which magnified from ten to twenty times; but whether these instruments were made by Jans, the Dutchman, or by some unnamed optician in England, cannot be certainly known. The existence of the telescope seems to have come in 1609 to the knowledge of Galileo, who, by means of one of his own construction, magnifying thirty times, made his important additions to the stores of astronomical discovery-the ring of Saturn, the satellites of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and many others. It is unnecessary to trace the further progress of improvement which, through Newton and others, has by various stages conducted to the present perfection of telescopic mechanism. When Galileo made splendid discoveries by means of an instrument of so small a power, what wonder that Herschel brought to our knowledge the planet bearing his name when he searched the heavens with a telescope which magnified 6,500 times. Indeed, when the magnifying power of the best glasses stood no higher than 700 times, astronomical discoveries, never exceeded either before or since, were made. While Lord Rosse was working patiently at Birr Castle, even men of science shook their heads, and doubted whether anything would be gained by his mechanical success. The results, however, have far surpassed the most sanguine expectations. With its six feet of aperture, and its fifty-four feet of focal length, it has developed a "spacepenetrating power" far beyond that of any previous instrument. Several nebulæ which had resisted all former attempts to analyse them have been resolved into “particular stars” under its powerful searches. It has also made experienced and skilful observers familiar with many unsuspected peculiarities of structure, such as a distinct and definite spiral arrangement in certain nebulous masses, and, in regard to some of these newly-ascertained bodies, a central, star-like point, surrounded first with a nebulous nucleus, and, beyond and distinct from this, a nebulous ring. But Lord Rosse has been removed to a loftier observatory, and gifted, we may hope, with a clearer and stronger vision; while we must wait till some other mortal shall be prompted to push farther still the discoveries of the heavens made upon the earth. ONE WEEK IN HEAVEN. "One week in Heaven!" I sit within the room, One week in Heaven! no thought of thee is bound But with the ransom'd and the glory-crowned, So near, perchance, thy tender, pitying face O patient hands, whose day of toil is o'er, Sad eyes! that saw earth's splendours fade away, Home, home at last! O city of the King! O Lamb! whose glory is its fadeless light! In the bright streets, where comes no shade of night -Congregationalist. |