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NDER this title, M. de Quatrefages, member of the French Academy, has published in a recent number of the "Magasin Pittoresque" a remarkable paper on the relations of Science and Religion. In our own country, where all our great scientific men, from the time of Newton and Ray to that of Brewster and Faraday, with a few exceptions, have been firm believers in Revealed as well as in Natural religion, a popular appeal on the subject may seem scarcely required. But in France the flood of anti-religious and materialistic literature, issued frequently under the mask of science, has led M. de Quatrefages to lift up the standard of faith in religion. Such a protest, from one whose position is so high and whose name is so honoured, has the greater significance from his being a savant well versed in those branches of science now most in fashion, and most ostentatiously hostile to religious belief. Among his many other scientific treatises, that entitled "L'Espèce Humaine" has passed through seven editions, and is of high authority among all students of natural science. But let us hear the distinguished "membre de l'Institut."

"It is sometimes asserted that science is incompatible not merely with a positive and dogmatic religion, but even with that exalted spiritualism which, apart from the special doctrines of different creeds, sees in this universe the impress of a Divine will, and recognises in man destinies other than those which he accomplishes on this terrestrial globe. They who hold such language know little of science and little of history.

The study of nature and its laws, so far from removing religious feelings, brings almost irresistibly such ideas to any one who is occupied ever so little in questions of this kind. Religion and science, each in its sphere, appeal to instincts which are found amongst all people, amongst the most debased as well as the most enlightened; and which ennoble the loftiest human faculties. Undoubtedly conceptions vary according to times and places, and they are also modified by different minds, but among the highest conceptions obtained from the widest knowledge of natural phenomena, it is seldom that the man of science does not meet with a multitude of related and generalised facts, or laws, which impress on him the belief of a Legislator and Creator.

The majority of men of science have not had occasion to declare publicly their religious convictions. Their private life must be revealed before we can know what they have thought of those important problems which the multitude debate about to-day, without having the necessary data to pronounce any opinion. However, there are a certain number who have loudly avowed their convictions. It may be said that they have been obliged to do so by the very nature of their researches, which have brought about as it were an outburst of feeling, awakened and exalted by the

The magnificent introduction of this immortal book goes on with this language: 'The design of the creation of the earth is the glory of God;' and when the distinguished author and naturalist goes on to describe the characteristics of all things which compose the empire of nature, and arrives at man, he places among the attributes of this being raised above all others, veneration for his Creator.

By the side of Linnæus, who was known to all as a believer, may be placed another naturalist, not less distinguished, who, although considering himself free to reject certain dogmas, nevertheless was anything but a materialist. Buffon attributed to natural movements the formation of our entire planetary system. He first attempted to illustrate our cosmogony by direct experiment and observation, and was led by his studies to assign to our earth a much older date of formation than was at that time accepted, or than ordinary calculations allow. By a variety of fanciful theories, and his acceptance of sundry opinions, the details of which it is not necessary to mention, Buffon separated himself from orthodox doctrines, and deserved to be placed in the number of Freethinkers, then called Philosophers. He proclaimed not the less openly his belief in the existence of God and of the human soul. These words occur very often from his pen; and here is how he terminates his Treatise on the Nature of Animals :-'God alone knows the past, the present, and the future; He is of all times and knows all times. Man, whose duration is but for a few moments, sees only those moments. But in Him a living and immortal power compares these moments, distinguishes them, arranges them; it is by this power that He knows the present, that He judges of the past, and that He foresees the future. Take from man this divine light, and you degrade and darken his being; there remains only an animal existence.'

Lamarck, who is often described as an atheist, whom some have termed the French Linnæus, and who certainly was the precursor of Darwin,Lamarck, who advocated spontaneous generation, and who derives the animal and higher vegetable species by gradual evolution from Infusoria and

seaweeds,-Lamarck proclaimed very expressly and on different occasions the existence of God. He distinguishes the Creator of all things from the laws which govern the universe, and which we call Nature. He said, amongst other things that he has written, in the Introduction of his Natural History of the Non-Vertebrated Animals: 'Some have thought Nature and God to be the same. Strange idea! They have confounded the watch with the maker of the watch, the work with its author. Assuredly this idea is untenable.

. Nature is nothing save the intermediate agency between GOD and the parts of the physical universe, for the execution of the Divine Will.'

Geoffry St. Hilaire, who inclines in some respects both to Lamarck and to Buffon, and has reduced to precise laws the formation of those monsters which were regarded until his time as the sports or errors of nature-Geoffry St. Hilaire was a sincerely religious man. He began and ended one of his works with this exclamation : 'Glory be to God.' He also believed in a human soul and in a future beyond the tomb. In the book which he devoted to the history of his father, Isidore Geoffry, he informs us that, finding himself near his end, he said to his beloved daughter, 'We are going to part; we shall find ourselves together again.'

But

We cannot be surprised to meet with these spiritual sentiments amongst men devoted to the study of organised beings. The naturalist-the zoologist particularly-finds himself continually in presence of life, the manifestations of which, infinite in appearance, but always tending to a small number of general types, irresistibly suggest the thought of an organising will. Some other sciences, and especially astronomy, produce impressions somewhat different. Undoubtedly it is for the reflecting mind a grand and sublime spectacle, that myriads of celestial bodies. move in infinite space, each one according to its rank, and with marvellous order. of this order we comprehend the immediate cause; these movements can be calculated for the past, and foreseen also in the future with wonderful precision. We may think ourselves here. in the presence of something unchangeable, and of unalterable fate. The idea of necessity may tend to hide that of an intelligent power having fashioned and regulated this horologe of the ages. And yet even in astronomy the princes of the science have escaped from this tendency. From the laws which they have discovered they have learnt how to rise to the belief of a Divine Lawgiver.

It is sufficient to mention in this place only two illustrious names among many-that of Kepler, who discovered the laws of the movements of the heavenly bodies; and that of Newton, who, by giving reasons for these laws, and by showing that they are the necessary consequence of universal attraction, made the greatest discovery that honours human intelligence. Both these men were profoundly religious, and had a piety which almost bordered upon mysticism. We know that Newton attempted to comment on the Apocalypse. As to Kepler, he has left us a touching testimony of his

sentiments in a prayer placed by him at the end of one of his works. Here is a translation of that prayer:

Before quitting this table upon which I have made all my researches, it only remains for me to raise my eyes and my hands towards heaven, and address with devotion my humble prayer to the Author of all illumination.

'Oh! Thou who, by the glorious light which Thou hast shed over all nature, raisest our desires up to the sacred light of Thy grace, in order that we may be one day transported unto the eternal light of Thy glory, I give Thee thanks, my Lord and my Creator, for all the joys that I have experienced, in the ecstasies into which I have been thrown by the contemplation of the work of Thy hands! Now I have completed this book which contains the fruit of my labours, and I have used in composing it the whole of the intelligence that Thou hast given me. I have set forth before men the grandeur of Thy works; I have explained these mysteries as well as my finite mind has permitted me to embrace the infinite extent of them. I have made all efforts to arrive at truth by the ways of philosophy; and if it has occurred to me -a despicable worm, conceived and brought up in sin-to say anything unworthy of Thee, make me know it, in order that I may remove it. Have I allowed myself to cherish any self-complacent presumption in the presence of the admirable beauties of Thy works? Have I proposed to myself my own renown among men by raising this monument, which ought to have been consecrated entirely to Thy glory? Oh! if it has been so, receive me in Thy clemency and mercy, and grant me this favour: that the work I have just finished may ever be powerless to do evil, and that it may contribute to Thy glory, and to the good of souls!'

I shall refrain from adding the least comment on this utterance of humble and devout adoration."

Be Just and Fear not.

Do right, whate'er the issue be,
Leave the result to Him
Who with All-Wisdom's eyes can see
Where mortal sight is dim.

Do right, and on right's strength rely,
Nor fear what will befall;
Heaven soon or late will justify
Thy act and thee to all.

Yet, if misjudged thou be, what then?
Be stainless in God's sight;

Why need'st thou heed the thoughts of men,
When He will judge thee right?

-W. C. BENNETT.

TH

HERE is a delightful spot in the North London district where five roads, meeting each other at all sort of acute and obtuse angles, give to the luckless foot-passenger at least ten different streams of vehicles to confuse and affright him, whenever his business obliges him to cross the carriage-way at that particular point. Along two of these roads omnibuses roll in manycoloured streams, with a due proportion of cabs and light carts; a third road contributes a heavy traffic of waggons, drays, and goods-carts, while the two other roads supply an admixture of vehicles both heavy and light, all shabby, and all driven in haste. On Mondays and Thursdays, moreover, the place was (at the time of which I write) overflowed by flocks of bewildered and footsore sheep, and no less tired, but more often angry, oxen, who loudly bleated and bellowed out their woes, as they strayed and dawdled about in the specially helpless and imbecile manner peculiar to cattle going through town. Add to this chronic state of things a shower of hansom cabs, rattling along, as thick and fast as the stones in a hailstorm, at certain hours of the day, obedient to the shrill summons of the railway terminus bell, and a steam road-engine snorting along at intervals, and usually preceded by an affrighted dray-horse flying in terror from the steam monster, and you have a rough idea of some of the special charms of this spot at the period of my story. In the centre of this hurly-burly a tall lamp with a small strip of surrounding pavement and posts seemed to promise a refuge to the bewildered foot-passenger; and I have seen timid people lured on to that delusive haven of refuge and helplessly cast away there as on a desert island, whilst raging billows of cabs and carts dashed ceaselessly around them, splashing them from head to foot with the specially thick black mud which abounds in that quarter, and cutting them off from all assistance and all chance of landing on the peaceful pavement towards which they cast longing eyes.

It is not surprising, under these untoward circumstances, that from time to time a patient should be brought into some of the adjacent hospitals for there are several in that locality— gasping out, as well as broken bones and bruises will let him, that he has been "caught between two carts," or "knocked down under the wheels of a cab." Sometimes they cannot even gasp, but lie blankly insensible while others tell how they came by their injuries. Of this last species was a man brought in to us one February afternoon just as the day was closing. A dull February afternoon it had been-a grey leaden sky above, greasy, clinging mud underfoot, and a raw damp atmosphere in between.

In the hospital receiving-room, although it was but four o'clock, the gaslights were doing duty for the sun-absent without leave of the hospital authorities—and ere another half hour had elapsed gas was burning brilliantly also in the operating

room. The surgeon of the week had been sent for; also the patient's wife, from whom permission was obtained to proceed at once with the operation necessary for the injured man's safety. Close under the gaslight stood the surgeon and his assistant. The head-nurse was ready with the instruments and sponges. In a few minutes the administrator of the chloroform gave the word to begin, and swiftly and deftly the operator commenced. Briefly spoken directions alone broke the silence, as with bended head, never swerving hand, and intent eye, he prosecuted his responsible task-no less a task than the amputation of the sorely injured foot. The operation was at length duly concluded, the limb "put up," and the still unconscious patient borne back to bed. After a while he woke out of his chloroform, unusually brisk, very restless, in some pain, and in much excitement, being evidently of a naturally excitable temperament.

His chief trouble was somewhat peculiar. It was not that he had lost a foot, it was not that he was thrown out of work by the accident, it was not that he was suffering enough pain to make most men grumble if not groan. It was, that his daily labour being among indigo had stained his limbs with a deep and apparently indelible blue, and he feared that the doctors and nurses would think him a dirty patient. The poor little man's anxiety upon the point became most ludicrous, "Had we washed his foot before it was taken off? He feared not, because the remaining ankle still looked blue." Had we told the doctor that it was not dirt but only the stain of his daily work, which he could not help?" and a dozen other like questions. He was very hard to be soothed, was this odd, excitable little man; very hard to be convinced that we had no doubt as to his due attention to cleanliness and the personal proprieties; very absurdly persistent in impressing upon our minds that the colour of dirt proper was. mostly black, whereas the prevailing tint of his. skin was very decidedly blue. And thus it came about that, by universal consent, and apparently much to his own satisfaction, he was dubbed our blue patient," and that his legitimate patronymic, though it appeared on his certificates. of incapacity for work and on his diet-board, was never otherwise used during his stay in hospital.

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Eleven o'clock sounding out from the sleepytoned clock upon the staircase some two or three days after the admission of the blue patient, proclaimed that another dull February day had nearly ended, and soft moonlight struggling through a yet hazy atmosphere seemed to promise that the next morning might be of a brighter and cheerier sort. Hark! what unlawful and improper sound was that I heard? Voices talking in the men's ward at eleven o'clock at night? I went softly towards the door of the inner ward, which opened out into the room from which the sound proceeded. No one suspected that the lady-superin

tendant was in that inner ward; she was supposed to be fast asleep upstairs in her own bed-chamber. They did not know that the "extra" engaged that night to watch the insensible and fast-sinking head case in that small ward had failed to come, and that therefore the head-nurse was doing duty there herself instead. "Ha, ha, my friends," said the head-nurse to herself, "you ignorantly think that it's a case of 'when the cat's away.' And so saying she crept softly to the intervening door, opened it just half an inch, and peeping through, beheld those naughty mice of hers at play after a fashion calculated to fill the mind of any well-regulated nurse with indignant horror.

There, at eleven o'clock at night, were the gaslights flaring away at full cock; they had with wicked ingenuity turned them up with the ends of their crutches. There was the Irish night nurse (dismissed the next day) peacefully snoring with her head on the table, close to the remains of her supper. There, in the mingled glare of fire and gaslight were some dozen pale, eager faces belonging to the maimed and crippled recusants who were sitting up in their beds, their heads all inclined in one direction, and apparently listening with great attention. And there, in the bed by the fire, was the prime mover of the mischief, our blue patient, haranguing his companions with fluent speech and great energy. He had turned himself partly round out of his bed and was nursing the injured leg with both arms across the other knee, while he very discreetly warmed it at the fire.

Now I frankly confess that, as a conscientious head-nurse, I ought to have interrupted the man then and there, broken up this picturesque scene, turned down the gas, and given them a good scolding all round, for such glaring violation of hospital rules. But the picture was so striking that I paused for a moment to contemplate it, and then I found myself listening with involuntary interest to what the blue patient was saying, and paused still longer to listen, intending each moment to go in and give them that scolding which was their due, but delaying ever a moment more ere I did it. These were the first words that I chanced to hear when I opened the door: “Aye, but it's a terrible thing, mates, to be tried for your life. I can never think of it without a shudder, and yet I can't help a-thinking of it 'most always. I had to stand still and silent, and hear the gentleman that was prosecuting of me put everything against me in the worst light his clever tongue could find to put it in, and I mightn't say a word, though I could hardly keep the 'No, no, no,' from bursting out of my mouth as he went on making out his side of the tale. I must keep quiet, quite quiet, as if I'd naught to say, and hear him suppose this and suppose the other to fill up the breaks in the story that made against me, and show that I'd had a plenty of reasons for doing of it, when I'd no more reason than for climbing to the top of St. Paul's. And then he called the witnesses-his witnesses to say where I'd been seen, and how I'd looked, and what I'd said, and what I'd doneand what I'd not said nor done too. It was astonishing to see what a fine story that there clever

gentleman made out of it all, and it was frightening too to me who knew there wasn't really no story at all to be made out. How the things that had happened and the words that had been said seemed to gather round me and hem me in! Mates, I declare to you that at last they seemed to me to be somehow live things with a cruel purpose in 'em-rising up, rising up, one after another, pointing at me with their horrid fingers, pressing upon me to crush the life out of me. And I as innocent as a new-born babe. Still I wasn't wholly down-hearted. Said I to myself, may hem me in and press me hard, but I've got my facts to fight you off with yet, and you can't prove that I've done the horrid deed-for sure what's not been done at all, can't anyhow by any clever talk be made out to have been done, clean against the truth of things.' And just as I says so to myself they called their last witness. I knew him directly he stepped into the box. A man as owed me a grudge because he'd been doing unfair by the master-his and mine-and I'd felt it my duty to complain."

You

"And so he foreswore himself against you?" broke in one of the eager auditors, with a tone of indignant scorn.

"No, mate, he did not quite do that; but he did nigh as bad for me. He was a lad with a mighty clever tongue, and he spoke this way and that way, round about the truth, not straightforwardlike, and he somehow managed to forget all that went to prove me innocent, and to remember hard and sharp two awkward looking facts that looked to go dead against me-worse against me than anything else that had yet been said. They would have looked right enough-as they were, and as you'll hear presently-if he'd said the whole story straight through; but, taken by theirselves, the way he put 'em, they seemed to make out that I, and nobody else, must certain sure have been the murderer. God forgive me! but his wickedness 'most made me what he wanted to prove me; for I reads my Bible, mates, and it says that if a man hates his brother-that's any of his mates, I take it; and I take it, too, that it means, hates him so as he would be glad to see him dead-well, then, if he does that, it says he's as bad as a downright murderer. And I did hate him," added the little man, his high-pitched, excited voice dropping to an awed whisper-"I did hate him; just so. I saw him awhile since, quite unexpected-just before I stumbled up against that there cab and got my foot done for; I saw him hereabouts in this neighbourhood. He'd tools with him, and seemed going to work somewhere nigh. The Lord help me! but though the trial's over and gone this twelve years and more, I felt all the old anger rise up in me against him as if it would choke me."

"But you got off, mate?" here asked another of his listeners.

"Yes, yes; I got off," he made answer; "it was proved clear enough at last that I was not the wretch that had done it. But that fellow's evidence hunted me hard into a corner and nearly got me hanged. What hours the jury talked! It seemed as if I'd lived to be an old man before they comed

out and said as how they'd agreed, 'Not guilty.' And then-and then--and then-" the eager voice dropped off into a vacillating whisper, and the narrator stretched his hands out suddenly yet feebly. For a moment he seemed to be feeling about for something in the air, while he stared vacantly before him; and then he abruptly collapsed and fell back among his pillows. Our little blue friend had fainted.

I stepped hastily forward. A thin stream of red flowing from the overheated and pendant leg was meandering slowly along the snowy boards. As I thus unexpectedly appeared, the change in the aspect of the group of invalids would have provoked my laughter had I not been too anxious to be tempted to mirth. Everybody vanished under their respective coverlets with the swiftness of magic. They might have been all dead for the sudden stillness and silence that prevailed.

"Hope as there's not much amiss with him, ma'am?" one, bolder and more alarmed for his comrade than the rest, ventured to ask in a sufficiently affrighted tone.

"No thanks to you if there is not. This comes of breaking hospital rules," I said, speaking, I fear, with the more asperity because I was annoyed with myself, and felt myself very much to blame in the matter for not having stopped the man's talk before.

It proved, to my great relief, that there was not any serious harm done. A few simple measures stayed the hæmorrhage and recovered the patient from his swoon, and in the end no appreciable retardation took place in his favourable recovery. But I do not think that batch of patients ever again broke the smallest rule during their stay in hospital, and the blue patient himself, with that exaggerated susceptibility which seemed part of the little man's nature, was profoundly and even inconveniently conscientious for the future. He would do nothing without asking leave, and required special permission for the most obviously innocent trifles. "There, hold your tongue!" the under-nurse would at last exclaim in a pet; "there's the hospital rules printed out large and clear a-hanging against the wall. Just you learn 'em right off by heart, and all that they don't say you mayn't do just you do, and don't a-bother me no more." With which lucid and concise direction she extinguished the blue patient whenever his scrupulosity flamed up afresh. On the point of finishing the story of his trial he was deaf to all entreaties. "No, no; I got into trouble once telling that. Besides, where would be the good? it's not mighty interesting to any one but me. And mayhap it might make me feel angry again. Best every way to let it be." And so we never learned any further particulars of that episode in his past life.

Several weeks passed, and spring was gaining softly on us. One day there was a sudden sound in the entrance-hall and along the passage below, as of a small regiment tramping heavily in. Ah me! I knew the sound well; the half regular tread of many feet going in pairs of two, each two pairs keeping scrupulously even step regardless of all the other couples. A serious accident had hap

pened, and they were bringing both the dead and the injured to our keeping. It was a terrible time. Of all that were brought in to us, four men only were carried on into the wards, which all through the long morning, and many times toc in the afternoon, were full of the quiet, quick footsteps of surgeons coming and going with grave faces and watchful care. A few hours more, and two of the four were dead. One of them was a platelayer. A sweet-faced, middle-aged woman had kept watch with me by his bedside, paralysed by the sudden calamity that had fallen upon her, and wailing out from time to time the praises of the dying man, "the most God-fearing man and the kindest, best husband that ever any woman had." But now, the kind, lamented husband, all unconscious of his wife's fast flowing tears, lay motionless. His face had a dignity and goodness about its rough lines and homely contour which seemed to justify the poor wife's loving praises of his life; and as he lay there with the soil of his just commenced morning's work still fresh upon his coarse jacket and his labour-hardened hands, one could not but wonder, with reverent awe and a certain sympathising joy, what kind of occupation it would be that this son of toil should find in the long, bright future before him.

After awhile the stricken widow went out to break the news to those at home, and to make her sad preparations for taking away her dead; and I sat me down between the two beds in a dreamy mood, which was half fatigue and half meditativeness. I looked at the countenance of the other man, a railway navvy, trying as I looked to repel the ungracious thought that there was some lack there of the dignity and goodness which were conspicuous in the face of his comrade. Suddenly I became aware that some one was standing near me, looking over my shoulder, and turning my head, I saw "the blue patient." He was gazing fixedly at the dead navvy. I have said that he was a very excitable person, and when I saw his face grow almost as pallid as the one he looked upon, and his limbs tremble so that I mechanically extended my arm to support him in his forward progress to the bedside of the dead man, I only took it for a fresh evidence of his nervous temperament, sympathetically shaken perhaps by some thought of how near he too had been a short while since to peril of life as well as limb. But after a minute's awed silence he spoke, and the cause of his agitation was made clear. "It's him," he said, in a low voice; "it's the man who gave evidence against me. Oh, God forgive me! I was feeling angry against him not a month ago." The tears gathered in his eyes, but some inward dread seemed to freeze them there, and they never fell. "I'm a-trying to think," he said, after a pause, "if I'd got over it -if I'd forgiven him-if I'd put that wicked anger quite away out of my mind. God help me! it would be a dreadful thing to be angry still with a dead man."

I was much moved by his evident distress, as well as startled by this unexpected recognition, but after a moment's thought I spoke to him soothingly.