we have charcoal converted into gas, and evolved in an invisible form. Yes, the very same invisible gas which charcoal yields when burned in a fire, it yields when burned in the lungs; and, as I have said, from the nineteen cubic feet, or thereabouts, of gaseous matter which each human individual on an average discharges from his lungs in the course of twenty-four hours, the chemist, by his wonderful art, can extract no less than 13 oz. of real charcoal. And now for the second question, How do we breathe? All animals breathe, but not by the same apparatus. The backboned animals which suckle their young, however, all breathe alike. In the chest of each individual of this class, we find certain spongy organs, called lights, or lungs; organs admirably adapted to the end of bringing impure blood into the presence of pure air. When the chest expands, the lungs expand too, and air rushes in; when the chest contracts, so do the lungs contract, and the air rushes out. In such manner is breathing performed in backboned animals which suckle their young. But whoever has seen the structure of a piece of lights, must be aware that it is a heavy and bulky structure, and requiring a large chest to hold it. This sort of arrangement would not have sufficed for creatures like birds, which have to pass so large a portion of their time in the air, supported by mere force of wing. Yet no system of breathing apparatus involving a lowering or a sluggishness of the breathing function, would have sufficed. Birds are exceedingly warm-blooded animals; their animal heat is considerably higher than the animal heat of human beings. Mark, then, how admirably the breath apparatus of these creatures has been modified to suit the conditions under which the feathered tribe have to exist. Far back against the spine of a fowl or other bird you may chance to be partaking . of, you will find a little spongy mass, so much resembling in general texture the lungs or lights of a land-animal, that you will be prepared to believe that the two are corresponding organs. Lungs so very small must be turned to their fullest account, in order to evolve the amount of animal heat which a bird requires; and so, indeed, they are. It would be not very incorrect to say, that the body of a bird is all lungs, since all over the body there are cavities designed to contain air. The bones, too, are hollow and contain air; so that whenever the bird moves a muscle, a circulation of air is determined toward its little lungs; and when the bird begins to fly, the violent muscular exercise necessary to this act raises the air circulation to its highest intensity, and may be said to fan the breath-combustion to the highest pitch of which it is susceptible. Pause a minute, now, and reflect how beautifully the teachings of philosophy accord with the teachings of experience and common sense. Who does not know that the more an animal moves or exerts itself, the faster it breathes and the hotter it becomes? Who does not know that exercise begets hunger and thirst; it gives an appetite? What marvel? : Again who has not looked upon one asleep, and remarked the placid torpor of vitality characteristic of that state? The muscular system is all at rest, save the heart and a portion of the system which presides over the breath. Wear and tear of the materials of the body are reduced to a low grade. There is no wearing application of the mind; either lulled to oblivion altogether, or disporting itself in dreams, man's thinking part makes no call on his members or the things which minister to them, for stimulus or refreshment. Looking at these, the prominent conditions of sleep, it should be-if the principles which our philosophy seeks to establish be sound-it should be, I say, that proportionately with the lowering of lung-combustion during the state of sleep, there should be a corresponding diminution of animal heat, and a decreased necessity for eating and drinking. Does not experience correspond with these suggestions? How often must it have occurred to many who are now reading this paper, to go to bed on a winter's night, after briskly moving about, fancying they should be quite hot enough; to commit themselves to sleep, still feeling hot enough; but to awake, as the night advanced, under an unbearable sensation of cold, or, if not awaking, to dream of rolling in snow-drifts, or taking cold baths, or standing in a shower with one's clothes off, or some other painful expression, in sleep's own grotesque way, of the unpleasant sensation of cold? Then, as to eating and drinking, everybody knows they are the natural alleviators of hunger and thirst; but next in order, as an alleviative agent, comes sleep. People exposed to want of aliment, people on the verge of starvation, feel an almost unconquerable desire to sleep; and many a starving man or woman may pass in sleep a space of time, without eating and drinking, which awake would have been impossible. Think, too, of the following fact we can draw a long or a short breath, as we will; but no effort of will can prevent our breathing altogether. Mark, too, that during the whole period of sleep respiration goes on without our will having any conscious effort in the matter. Compare this with the heart. This organ is not subject to the will in any degree. No one by mere effort of volition can make his heart beat a long beat or a short beat, much less cause the heart to stop for a few moments. How beautifully is all this ordered! What benevolent foresight! Frequent occasions arise when it is necessary to interfere momentarily with the breath. If a cloud of dust blow past, it is injudicious to breathe it; and to avoid it, we cease breathing momentarily by the force of will. We may have to thrust our heads under water for a few seconds; in this case again it would be injudicious to go on breathing, and so we are permitted to subject the breath to the will within narrow limits. But under no conceivable conditions can any occasion arise for dictating to the heart at all the sturdy little blood-pumper is boxed away inside the chest, and enveloped in a sort of leather bag: he is cut off from the external world, like the veriest recluse. The heart has his own appointed work to do, and the most imperious will can in no degree affect him. And now it remains for me to say that the breathing organs of some animals are not modeled after the type of lungs; and that other animals, although they breathe, are devoid of any special breathing organs. Need I say that fishes do not breathe by lungs? how could they? They breathe by those red fringe-like things called gills, no less admirably adapted to lay hold of the air which is dissolved in water, than our lungs are adapted to contain air as it exists in the gaseous form. Certain curious animals, too, are supplied with both gills and lungs; so that philosophers are at a loss to decide whether they are fish or reptiles. Insects breathe by tubes called trachea, opening externally on various parts of the body, whence the secret of killing a wasp by smearing its body with oil; and certain lower animals, unprovided with special respiratory apparatus, breathe by absorbing air through their skins. Thus ends what I have to say about breathing. It may enable the reader to understand what is implied in the Divine record, when it is said that God "breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life." THE CHILD AND THE FLOWERS. Radiant with his spirit's light, Was the little, beauteous child; Sporting around a fountain bright, Playing through the flow'rets wild. Where they grew he lightly stepp'd, Cautious not a leaf to crush; Then about the fount he leap'd, Shouting at its merry gush. While the sparkling waters well'd, Laughing as they bubbled up; In his lily hands he held, Closely clasp'd, a tiny cup. Now he put it forth to fill, Then he bore it to the flowers, Through his fingers there to spill What it held in mimic showers, 66 Open to the air and sun; So to-morrow, I may see, What my rain to-day has done. "Yes you will, you will, I know, For the drink I give you now, Burst your little cups, and blow, When I'm gone and can't tell how. "O! I wish I could but see How God's finger touches you, When your sides unclasp, and free Let your leaves and odors through. "I would watch you all the night, Nor in darkness be afraid, Only once to see aright How a beauteous flower is made. "Now remember, I shall come In the morning from my bed, Here to find among you some With your brightest colors spread !" To his buds he hasten'd out At the dewy morning hour, Crying, with a joyous shout, "God has made of each a flower!" Precious must the ready faith Of the little children be, SYSTEMATIC PREACHING. HE age demands, loudly and impatiently, from the public teachers of Christianity, a forcible and impressive style of speech. A preacher who cannot impress, may as well hold his tongue; for his instructions, however wise and excellent, will be as water spilled on the ground. No amount of truth will be of the slightest use, if addressed to sleeping ears. But, on the other hand, it is equally true, that if the preacher can only impress, not instruct, he may as well hold his tongue too; for he impresses to no purpose. Whatever the age may demand in the style of preaching, human nature, in every age, demands divine truth as the one thing which can renew and save it. Rhetoric, fancy, dramatic power, oratorical splendor, wit, pathos, originality, pointed sarcasm, and all other forms or instruments of eloquence, will never compensate for a defective exhibition of divine truth. That truth is not to be snatched up, at a glance, from the mere surface of Scripture. It will not reveal its harmonious symmetry, and majestic proportions, to a shallow, impatient intellect, even though allied to a fervent and sincere heart. Inasmuch as it is spiritual and moral truth, it cannot be apprehended by the intellect alone; but, inasmuch as it is truth, it cannot be apprehended without the intelleci. "He that loveth not, knoweth not God:" but it is equally true that we can love God worthily, only as we know him. And we know him only in proportion as we know all that he has revealed of himself-of his character, law, designs, and dealings-in his word. If the Bible really contain the communication, from God himself, of this divine knowledge, there must be in it unity and system, however concealed beneath the fragmentary and concrete form in which God has seen fit to give it to us. The concealment of divine art is as complete in the revelation of Scripture as in that of nature. Prose, poetry, history, proverbs, parables, discourses, letters, predictions afford the evervarying media through which successive ages made their slow and unequal contributions to the sum of inspired teaching. Truths the most distinct are found inseparably interwoven, and kindred truths widely separated; a law involving a promise, a history vailing a prediction; the But, to casket lying in one book, and the key, a True, we do not want elaborate displays of systematic theology in our pulpits, in place of plain, warm-hearted explana is true, the place grew a little more lively, for the main road from Memphis to Little Rock ran past it; but in winter, and for nine months of the year, the settlement was quite under water; the postman was the only traveler who passed, and the host turned in to enjoy his "winter sleep," as his neighbors termed it. One fine summer day, not so many cloud at his door when a hunter, followed by four dogs, came panting along the road at a faster rate than usual; as soon as he arrived within hail, however, he accounted for his haste by announcing that the settlement was going to be honored with the most extraordinary visitor ever yet seen in the backwoods. A little Frenchman was coming up the road with a heap of wolf traps. tion and enforcement of particular truths, any more than we want botanical and anatomical preparations on our dinnertables, in place of roasted joints and wellcooked vegetables. But if the preacher be ill-acquainted with the anatomy and the botany, so to speak, of Scripture truth, he will be very likely often to spread before his hearers, with the best intentions, a very unsatisfying, indigestible, or dan-years back, the landlord was blowing a gerous banquet. A preacher need not take off the skin of his mind, that his hearers may see its muscles and sinews, or be always holding up the skeletons of his sermons, that we may hear their bones rattle, and see the flesh creep over them, a limb at a time. The human frame would gain neither strength nor beauty if it could be rendered transparent, and each miraculous construction, and sinewy jointure, and sympathetic throb in the secret machinery of life, laid bare to view. But every bone and every artery is indispensable alike to its strength and to its beauty; and a single vertebra out of place would be fatal to both. Just so, a sermon must have bone and sinews, though it need not show them. And as with a single sermon, so with the habitual course of pulpit instruction: it is likely either to be deformed and maimed, or paralytic and powerless, if it lack the compact skeleton of a comprehensive orderly conception of the unity of Bible truth, and the nerves and muscles of logical, systematical, strenuous thought. I THE WILD MAN OF THE WOODS. DARE say very few of my readers ever heard of the magnificent backwoods town of Francisville, in Kansas. In fact it only consists of three houses, although it boasts some very wide streets, cleared through the forest, but not yet built upon. Mine host of the City Hotel had christened his claim by that name, and small blame to him if he thought the speculation might prove successful. At present, however, the only stranger visible in Washington, or Front-street, was an occasional bear, who took a survey of the improvements and then disappeared in the forest again with a growl. When this occurred the landlord would leave the hotel to the care of his wife and a nigger boy, and start off with his dogs after the uninvited guest. During the summer, it 66 Wolf traps!" said the landlord, with a hearty grin. "Is a Yankee going to bring traps to the settlement? and pray what does he mean to catch ?" Catch! why, man, they're all full of the strangest brutes you ever saw in your life!" "Nonsense, Stewart; what do the Yankees know about setting traps, although they are so clever in selling us clocks?" "I tell you, Wilson, it's not a Yankee, but a Frenchman. But did you ever see a man feed a catamount ?" "Feed a catamount?" the old backwoodsman replied, contemptuously. "I tell you what it is, Stewart, you must have a precious large whisky - bottle at home, for you haven't been here for a month." And I tell you again he has one with him which he feeds like I do Bob and Watch here. But you will see it to-night, for he intends to stop a week on Francis River, and give an exhibition, as he calls it, to which we are to invite all the neighbors." 66 Invite ?" the landlord said, in amazement. "He don't mean to kill the beast and serve it up to American Christians? the deuce take the French infidel!" "Well, he'll have company enough," said Stewart, "for the court will be held the day after to-morrow." "He shan't sell any liquor, though," said Willson, with a cunning nod of the head. "I have enough to pay for my license, and those who like to be his guests in the eating way may do so, for aught I care." In the mean while a couple of neighbors had joined them, and they were all lost in conjecture as to what the Frenchman wanted here with such a strange cargo. None of them thought for a moment that he intended to make money by showing it, for very few of the farmers had ever a quarter-dollar in their pockets or on the chimney-board to pay for a letter when one came by accident. Unfortunately the postman would not take bear-skins or deer hams, except at scandalously low prices. The strange visitors were, however, coming up fast; the dogs began barking, and Watch sniffed and looked, and then went sideways into the brush, after a cautious glance at his master. "Why, Wilson," said Stewart, "the old boy has scented the catamount, and is trying to get to windward of it." A man now came galloping up on a little black pony, and the barking of the dogs for a while prevented any conversation. The Frenchman, however, had lifted his hat very politely, and at last rode up to the men, asking them where would be the best place to camp for a week. "The best place, sir; O, anywhere," laughed Stewart; "there, at the corner of Washington and Sycamore, or here, or the market-place, where Wilson has just taken his wood away; it's all the same where you choose a place." "Corner of Washington and Sycamore?" the Frenchman repeated, with some surprise, and looking round him, corner of what, gentlemen ?" 66 · Well, the board's big enough and plain enough," said Wilson, somewhat riled, partly at the insult to his town, partly because he still suspected that the Frenchman intended to set up some rival establishment. The little man bowed again, and then rode to examine the place, which exactly suited him. Stewart, however, had reason for his surprise, for M. Bertrand was certainly the first human being who had ever brought such a living cargo into the backwoods, where some of the specimens were indigenous; nor was he wrong in believing that the settlers would be highly interested at seeing beasts which lived in the woods around them caged up and tranquil. But M. Bertrand was fated soon to discover that pleasure, and paying for pleasure were two different things. The wagons were drawn up in a circle, and the owner began arranging the various cages, while the dogs set up a most furious barking. The Frenchman, however, did not try to drive them away; that would have been lost labor; and besides, he regarded the barking as a sort of cheap announcement of his curiosities by which the dogs would attract the attention of their masters. Before long, Wilson and Stewart walked up to the menagerie to satisfy their curiosity. Where away, stranger?" the host began; for he could not believe that the Frenchman had come to Francisville to turn back again. "To Little Rock, and thence to Kansas Port, Napoleon, and to the Mississippi." "Halloo!" the backwoodsman growled, for he could not understand how a man who wanted to go to the Mississippi, should be turning from it. "But the other way round would have been nearer." "Certainly, monsieur; sair, I would say; but then you can't always go the straightest road to get through the world." "That's true, too, in hunting; but I suppose you find it very awkward moving with that lot of cases?" "And what have you got in them?" Wilson now said, walking up to one of them, and trying to peep behind the curtain. "Bless me, those are famous wolf traps, but hereabouts the beasts wouldn't go into them, because of the bars. But what's that knocking at the door?" "Pray, sair, let go!" the Frenchman implored. But the curious backwoodsman had lifted the curtain with a little stick he had in his hand; he started back, however, in terror, when a brown hairy hand emerged, seized the stick, and pulled it in. "Dod drot it, what's that?" he cried, as he started back, uncertain whether the hand might not wish to seize something else; "does it bite, old fellow ?" The Frenchman, who wished to spread the news of his menagerie as soon as possible, determined on showing the two men a specimen; so he pulled back the curtain, and revealed a fine full-grown chimpanzee. "Darn my buttons!" both the men shouted, "if that don't beat cock-fighting!" "Jimmy! where did you catch him?" Stewart then said, kneeling down to have a better look. "Is it good to eat?" |