questioning) answered, can be the use to the aloe of its flower, to the mine of its gold? Oldbuck of Monkbarns might have done worse than parody, as he did, the “brutal ignorance” of your cui bono querists of the baser sort, in the strain of Gray's Bard,—

"Weave the warp and weave the woof,

The winding-sheet of wit and sense ;
Dull garment of defensive proof

'Gainst all that does not gather pence."

That a new machine, a new experiment, the discovery of a salt, or of a bone, should, in England, receive a wider homage, than the most profound speculation from which no obvious results are apprehended,-this way of contemplating affairs Mr. Buckle was prompt to own as certainly productive of great good. But he also took care to declare it to be, with equal certainty, a one-sided way, satisfying a part only of the human mind—many of the noblest intellects craving for something which it cannot supply. There are mortals who, as a clerical essayist has said, cannot understand or sympathise with the gratification arising from a study of graceful and beautiful objects; who think that the supply of animal necessities is all that any man (but themselves, perhaps) can need. What more can he want? they exclaim, if the man be well-fed, and welldressed, and well-lodged. Why, if he had been a horse or a pig, is the answer, he would have wanted nothing more; but the possession of a rational soul brings with it pressing wants which are not of a material nature, not to be supplied by material things, and not felt by pigs and horses. And the craving for surrounding objects of grace and beauty is held to be one of these. Mr. Emerson, in his far-going way, goes so far as to say, as regards the "base rate at which the highest mental and moral gifts are held" in his country,—that let a man attain the highest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let him die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, "and all America will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that, after the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America, that the best

use to put a fine person to, is, to drown him to save his board." M. de Tocqueville somewhere observes, that to cross almost impenetrable forests, to swim deep rivers, to encounter pestilential marshes, to sleep exposed to the damp air of the woods, these are efforts which an American easily conceives, if a dollar is to be gained by them-that is the point; but that a man should take such journeys from curiosity, he cannot understand. The German poet is often cited for his remark, that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. An English sympathiser exclaims, “O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! Gaze on the goddess," he bids a sordid aspirant," and get ready the churn and thy scales, and let us see what butter will fetch in the market." When Judge Haliburton's typical Yankee is asked by the old minister what he thinks of Niagara, and forthwith expatiates on the "grand spec" it offers for factory purposes for carding mills, fulling mills, cotton mills, grain mills, saw mills, plaster mills, and never a want of water for any or all of them, his pastor upbraids him with almost sacrilege in that style of talk; exclaiming, "How that dreadful thirst of gain has absorbed all other feelings in our people, when such an idea could be entertained for a moment! It [Niagara] is a grand spectacle, it is the voice of nature in the wilderness, proclaiming to the untutored tribes there of the power and majesty and glory of God. Talk not to me of

mills, factories, and machinery, sir, nor of introducing the money-changers into the temple of the Lord."

THE

LIGHT AT EVENING-TIME.

ZECHARIAH xiv. 7.

HE promise, or prediction, to be found in the words of the son of Berechiah, that "at evening-time it shall be light," is gratefully accepted by devout souls in perhaps a strained and wrested sense; but a sense so comforting, so full

of tenderness and beauty, that one is fain to believe the words may favour, if they cannot be said to warrant, this "accommodation of Scripture." Divines are fain to give technical divinity the go-by for the nonce, while, as they confess, the deepening twilight seldom fails to suggest to them this cheering promise, a promise which "tells how the Christian's day shall end, how the day of life may be somewhat overcast and dreary, but light shall come on the darkened way at last." In the same spirit are welcome the words of Amos, the herdsman of Tekoa, concerning One who turneth the shadow of death into the morning. To Him the darkness and the light are both alike; and at His bidding, when despondent sufferers are in a horror of great darkness, and say surely the darkness shall cover them, even the night shall be light about them; and in some sort to them, even as to Him, the night shineth as the day; or at least, in the language of Zechariah, there is light, which if not clear, is yet not dark; neither wholly day nor night, but twilight-soft, soothing, tranquillizing instead of the dreaded darkness which may be felt. Even thus He brings the blind by a way that they knew not, making darkness light before them.

Even thus, at the last, He delivers them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Bunyan exemplifies such in Mr. Fearing, the pilgrim, who at the entrance of the Valley of the Shadow of Death was "ready to die for fear." But the valley was quiet from troublers. “I suppose those enemies here had now a special check from our Lord, and a command not to meddle until Mr. Fearing had passed over it." "And here also I took notice of what was very remarkable—the water of that river was lower at this time than ever I saw it in all my life; so he went over at last, not much above wetshod.

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Honesty: Then it seems he was well at last?

Greatheart: Yes, yes; I never had a doubt about it.”

Often, observes Schleiermacher in one of his letters, the last radiant moment is called rapidly into being, even in souls wherein the eternal Light has not always shone with bright effulgence.

Biographers of Dr. Johnson tell us how, when at length the moment, dreaded through so many years, came close, the dark cloud passed away from his mind; how his temper became unusually patient and gentle, and he ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lieth beyond death, and spoke much of the mercy of God and of the propitiation of Christ. One might apply to him in effect the lines of the poet of the Seasons.

"Joy seized his withered veins, and one bright gleam
Of setting life shone on her evening hours."

Meditating on various senses in which the words of the promise of light at evening-time speak truly, in which its great principle holds good, the signal blessing shall come when it is needed most and expected least, Dr. Boyd, thinks mainly how sometimes, at the close of the chequered and sober day, the Better Sun has broken through the clouds and made the flaming west all purple and gold. He pictures the chamber of death, while hushed and mournful gazers see also the summer sun in glory going down. "But it is only to us who remain that the evening darkness is growing, only for us that the sun is going down." As the evening falls on us, but not on the departing believer; as the shadows deepen on us, but not on him; as the darkness gathers on us, but not on him; the "glorious promise has found its perfect fulfilment, that 'at the eveningtime there shall be light.''

Secular literature has its analogous instances. Dr. Holmes describes Elsie Venner's storm-tossed, vagrant spirit as composed and serene at the last; the cold glitter died out of the diamond eyes, and the stormy scowl disappeared from the dark brows. "It seemed to her father as if the malign influence— evil spirit it might almost be called—which had pervaded her being had at last been driven forth or exorcised,” and that the tears she now shed were at once the sign and the pledge of her redeemed nature. But now she was to be soothed and not excited. After her tears she slept again, and the look her face wore was peaceful as never before." And the devoted father,

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to whom her life-long career had been until now a perturbing trial, now thanked God for the brief interval of peace which had been granted her, and for the sweet communion they had enjoyed in these last days. There are those of whom it may be said that it comes to pass, when midday is over, and they cast wistful glances, and perhaps even reproachful petitions heavenwards, until evening-time, that there is from above neither voice, nor any to answer, nor seemingly any that regardeth; but with evening-time comes an answer and comes light. Applicable to the subject, in this sense, are the lines in Paracelsus," on one who lived without God in the world :

"Then died, grown old; and just an hour before-
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes—
He sate up suddenly, and with natural voice
Said, that in spite of thick air and closed doors
God told him it was June."

Of Margaret Arundel, in "The Gordian Knot," we read, in her hour of household desolation and distress, that could we have seen her fair face, now pale with pain, now flushed with emotion, we should have pitied her; but "it may be that some superior intelligence witnessed her suffering, and pitied her not; knowing that all she was to undergo was but the fiery trial. destined for those for whom in the evening there is light." Stephen Blackpool, in "Hard Times," who has found life "aw a muddle,” and meets with his death in the pit, is tranquillized with light at the last-light which he identifies with the star that shone upon him while he lay mangled in the old shaft. "Often as I coom to myseln, and found it shinin' on me down there in my trouble, I thowt it were the very star as guided to our Saviour's home. I awmost think it be the very star." His rescuers lift him up, and he is overjoyed to find they are about to take him in the direction whither the star seems to him to lead. Very gently they carry him along the fields and down the lanes; but it is soon a funeral procession. "The star had shown him where to find the God of the poor; and through humility and sorrow and forgiveness, he had gone to