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temptation to cook the accounts of the conscience. When we suspect an error there it is best to stop at once and see what wants to be put right. Generally the search need not be a long one.

There are some stupid habits which have been disturbing us. We have been put out, and though perhaps we openly or outwardly lay the fault at the door of others, we might guess pretty shrewdly that we have our own selves chiefly to blame for them. Well, let us realise these items in checking the sands of life. Don't let us slip over them. They are putting our reckoning wrong. It is best to look them fairly in the face. Those moods of carelessness which spoilt legitimate opportunities might help us to be more watchful and considerate. Those passing, seemingly unimportant indulgencies which brought indisposition might warn us against habits which taint the sense of health. That slight departure from straightforwardness which we are glad was not noticed at the time cannot perhaps be rectified, but its vexatious memory may hinder our swerving from the line again. That hasty answer which bred so much mischief cannot be unsaid, but it might set us with renewed determination to keep the door of our lips. Perhaps the special item to be seen to is hastiness of speech and judgment. Look at that which presents itself as most mortifying or vexatious in the past, and note how it really arose, not so much from the disobedience of another as

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from our own want of self-command. In making up the accounts of our own memory and social or domestic experience, let us really make them, and reckon fairly how far they have been spoiled by our own self-indulgence or impatience. perhaps the flaw has another character. We may have missed opportunities of action and speech; we may have been too slow; we may have responded sluggishly to the promptings of kindness and been too cautious. There are faults of omission as well as of commission. And that important spiritual possession of ours-I mean conscience -will tell us, if we allow it, where the fault has been. Let us deal fairly with our own selves, and not try to square the accounts of recollection. If we judge ourselves we should not be judged, says a great authority. When we talk of balancing the books of the memory and mind, let us at the outset determine, at any rate, to see things as they

are.

Again. The readiest divisions into which we might lay the result of a retrospect are those of loss and gain. Have we gained or lost? Have we made progress, gone back, or stood still?

In one sense some may be in a fairly good condition and yet hardly be able to say that they have progressed. If they are young, still under what is called education, they should be able to reflect upon distinct advances they have made in their studies, whatever those may be. They have read fresh books, they have been introduced to fresh processes, they have learnt to consider some things easy which they once found to be hard. They have perhaps reached fresh powers or conditions of mind or body, and to them a year may seem full, and may really have been full, of fresh facts, aspects, and feelings of life. In one sense

they may certainly have progressed. They are not, and they know they are not, what they were. Mysterious growth, mental and physical, has brought its revelations. How have they treated, how have they used, these influxes of being? Have they learnt new meanings of shame, responsibility, self-command? If they have failed in a right use of new faculties and passions, young as they still are, they may well take the advice which the oldest and gravest all feel to be right, and judge fairly by themselves, honestly resolving on a better mastery over self.

There are, though, many to whom life has become comparatively flat. They have passed through the opening periods of ordinary experience. They have settled down to their place in life. So it would seem. They have chosen a calling, or had one chosen for them; they have been for some while engaged in its exercise.

The chief landmarks of life have been passed. Education, under one form or another; entrance into business, or into the responsibility of ownership; may be, marriage. They may be seeing the next generation growing up around; looking with young eyes and untried taste at those things with which they have been long familiar. And to such as these life presents small external variety and small prospect of change. How can they estimate progress"? In some senses they can hardly be said to have moved on. Men and women of mid and settled life are surrounded by the husks of experience. The equipment of society is what it was. There are the same markets, shops, offices, fields, neighbours. There are the old newspapers, and books which in very many cases are new only in shape. The old story is continually telling itself over again. Now and then they come across some sentence, publication, character, which has the scent and taste of freshness, but monotonous mediocrity marks the outside of the life they lead.

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But they are really progressing-moving through its course. They are nearer to the end. And in reckoning gains and losses they may well ask themselves how they are looking at the lessening heap of sand which still lies in the upper half of their glass; how they are using the flame which the shrinking store of oil in the lamp is still able to supply. More oil they cannot put in. There is about the same ration for consumption served out to each. The oldest recorded experience reckons that it will last some threescore years ten. Are any in mid life trying to forget that? An unwise effort if they are, for this truth is of all things sure to assert itself. The journey is not made pleasanter when we strive to take it with eyes thus shut. It is as we bravely open them that we learn to look at the passage of years with a firmer glance and stronger heart. We might be realising life better and better, we might be conscious of a growing power to see things as they are, and not to give too much prominence to the things of the moment. We may be conscious of a juster estimate-and the exercise of this consciousness may be very enjoyable of matters which once exercised us much, and which, on closer inspection, are seen to be not the most

important conceivable. Of course, we don't trouble ourselves to give expression to all these thoughts, however vividly we entertain them; we are less inclined to carry our feelings on our sleeves for every daw to peck at, but we may become honestly aware of a growing strength of life and perception which we own. We truly progress. Life is more real.

We are like men on an ocean voyage, with this difference that our voyage is taken only once. We know the time which it has been generally found to consume; we have left the excitement of embarkation behind us long ago. We have found the curiosity with which we looked forward to calms and storms in great measure satisfied, and we are thinking about the end of the course. Then, in an actual, not symbolical, voyage, passengers often forecast their landing, begin to get their things together-feel the interest of speculation in what they shall see presently revived, and have less concern about the nautical routine which surrounds them.

We are all on such a voyage, though some have only just set out, while others have only a little portion of it left. Is there no progress here? Methinks it may be most real. For, as we sit looser to the former cares of life, however unchanged or multiplied some must deem them to be, as we apprehend the enormous and increasing interest which belongs to the close of the voyage, and the revelation of a new land, then we are more capable of growing towards the measure of the stature of Christ. As our oil burns out, as our sands run down, as our voyage draws towards its end, we may thus really reckon our gains. ever monotonous our outward lot, we may apprehend the approaching and enormous dissipation of this monotony. That increased perception is a gain. There have been some to say so very distinctly, St. Paul did. We cannot, however, always hold ourselves in this divine heroic mood, but there are moments in which we may touch it; when, for example, we contemplate this world from afar, as

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it were, in the retirement of our thoughts, and all its cares and even joys begin to look very small, like things which we have long passed upon the road. There are such delightful day dreams to some. We are wakened from them, maybe with a start, and very properly take up the tool again, and turn to our work once more. But they come, do these parentheses of charm, as we commune with our hearts and are still. They come with growing power of perception and enjoyment as the end draws nearer. They may come with special propriety when the conventional divisions of life set us to balance our accounts, to reckon our position on the chart of life.

What I have said about gains is plainly applicable to losses. Replies to the one will almost answer inquiries about the other. But not wholly.

Though in a very true sense we may progress, and know it, when we look back many are conscious of things which they valued, which they had a right to value, but which they have lost. It is well bravely to realise this. Those who have passed out of childhood and youth may sometimes be tempted to regret a freedom which was allowed them then, but is inadmissible a little later on. They have begun to wear the harness of life, and it is not so enjoyable as once it seemed. Disillusion has set in. They are not all holidays when we leave school for good, Happy is the man or woman who soon learns this. There is a divine contemptuousness of failure which can cheer him or her who, in making up the books of life, and reckoning its losses, sees the successive stages in the course left behind.

There are, no doubt, times in which this disheartens even the hopeful. Any change has its moments of uncertainty and depression. But as we rest in the Lord the sense of His support returns, and we judge of our position by its brighter not darker hour, though even the looking over of old receipts may recall some half-forgotten business which we wish we had not done.

HARRY JONES.

What Age are the Burnham Beeches?

Darieties.

Mr. Vernon Heath has written a most interesting letter on this question. After referring to the tradition of the Beeches having been pollarded by Cromwell's army, a tradition as equally without foundation as other devastations ascribed to that cause, Mr. Heath says: "In the poet Gray's letter to Horace Walpole, dated September, 1737, he speaks of these trees as 'most venerable beeches,' that like most other ancient people are always dreaming out their stories to the winds. Clearly Gray is here using the word 'venerable' to describe not the boles merely, but the limbs and boughs. Now, let us take some date of the Cromwellian period, say, that of the battle of Worcester, 1650, and it will be seen that between this and Gray's letter there are only eighty-seven years, a period insufficient for the pollarded trees to have grown venerable' limbs.

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"Gray's letter, it will be observed, was written 146 years

ago. I myself have known Burnham Beeches forty-six years, and during this time, in my belief, the boles of the great trees have scarcely in any way changed; at all events there is no perceptible change, for they were just as much mere shells when I first knew them as they are now. At the time, too, of my early acquaintance with them, I remarked within the hollows of some, formations and characteristics that have to this day in no way altered. Beyond this I used to find out all the very old people of the district, and learnt that within their knowledge of them these trees appeared in no way changed; that they were hollow when they were young, and more than that, their fathers described and spoke of them as hollow trees when they were children.

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Of course it may be said that this is traditional, but as my own forty-six years of watching and observation is not, I think the evidence of the old people I actually saw and talked to may be allowed; and say that one of these was eighty years of age, then eighty and forty-six together would

bring us to within twenty years of the date of Gray's letter. From this I evolve the theory that the boles were in his days much as they are now; and this being so, I argue that the pollarding occurred long prior to Gray's or Cromwell's period, and I believe that whenever it was done the trees were full grown. Such being the case, the age that has been accorded them in the various articles that have lately been written-viz., 400 or 500 years-is obviously a great deal too little. It would not surprise me should it be discovered that these veritable giants of old were trees at the time of the Norman Conquest. It is at least a curious fact that the welldefined remains of a moat within the district of the Beeches, which by the people in the neighbourhood is called 'Harlequin's Moat,' is in the old records written Hardicanute; and is, no doubt, one of the places of defence the Danish king made when, on the death of his brother, the first Harold, he was on his way to seize the crown of England.

"To the students of tree life, especially to those who have not actual acquaintance with these beeches, I may say that the whole have been pollarded; that the whole are hollow, reduced, indeed, as I have said, to a mere shell, and, therefore, all the usual means of arriving at a tree's age are absent. I may add that in my records of their size, the girth of one, 5ft. from the ground, is 23ft. 9in., another 21ft. 4in., while one which was blown down in 1875, the Autumn of my Four Seasons, girthed 25ft. 6in."

Mr. Vernon Heath has studied these venerable trees, first as artist, and afterwards as photographer, for nearly half a century, and we are glad to hear that he is preparing for publication a selection of his splendid photographic studies of the Burnham Beeches, now the property of the Corporation of London.

Oliver Goldsmith in the Temple.-Some of the houses in Garden Court have been recently demolished and rebuilt. It was in No. 3, Garden Court that the author of "The Traveller" first took up his abode on migrating to the Temple from Wine Office Court, and here he remained until one of those brief gleams of success which shone at intervals apon his shiftless life enabled him to better his quarters. Thence, descending himself as his fortunes rose, he moved down into chambers on the ground-floor of the same staircase; and from these he removed after the success of "The Good-natured Man" to Brick Court, where four years later he breathed his last. Goldsmith, unlike Johnson and Lamb, was always faithful to the Temple. It was in Brick Court that he wrote "The Deserted Village," and here, too, blossomed forth that ever-fresh oasis in the desert of his dreary hack work, "She Stoops to Conquer.' It was in Brick Court, too, that he was seized with that unlucky fit of extravagance which so swiftly swallowed up the proceeds of his first successful comedy. This was the abode rendered gorgeous by "Wilton carpets and blue merino curtains," and here it was that the poet first arrayed himself in those magnificent garments which provoked the contemptuous com ments of Mr. Boswell. Here, too, was the scene of those "noctes cœnæque deûm," when Goldsmith would entertain his company with Irish songs, and maddeningly distract the reflections of the learned Mr. Blackstone, deep in the fourth volume of his "Commentaries," in the rooms below. Brick Court, in short, whether as the witness of Goldsmith's shortlived happiness or of his forlorn and untimely end, will always lay claim to the larger share of his memory; but as the home of his obscurity and early struggles the chambers in Garden Court possess a certain sanctity of their own. "The Traveller," as we have said, was born in the garret of No. 3; and "The Vicar of Wakefield" first saw the light in the rooms beneath.

Sanitation in India.-Amidst the villages the peasants pen up the cattle inside the dwelling-houses. Amidst the largest cities the artisans are crowded together in the compartments of houses many storeys high, wherein to all the miseries which exist in these cool latitudes there are added the heat and malaria of the tropics. Again, the quality of food supply is a matter with which our studies are rightly concerned at home, and this object is almost, though not quite, equally important abroad. Respecting adulteration of food, the natives in the East have not yet acquired much proficiency in that dark science, though they might prove but too teachable if once

this black art were to gain ground at home. The purifica tion of water for drinking and for bathing has always been among the objects of our studies, and some benefit has accrued from persistent advocacy. There is dread lest impurity in this element should produce untold evils in the United Kingdom; but we know that in India it has produced more physical mischief than any cause whatsoever, and perhaps as much mischief as all other causes put together could produce. Much of this evil is preventible by water supply provided during years of plenty, and here is a field abroad for that engineering science which has wrought wonders at home. It were almost superfluous to call to remembrance the successful efforts put forth at home respecting sanitation, drainage, and sewage. We have but lately beheld the terrible example afforded by the cholera in Egypt. The professional inspection of every new house before it is occupied is wanted in the colonies, and assuredly it is needed in the capital cities of the East. In all matters relating to the public health, the Eastern nationalities must be brought under sanitary education. Unless they learn how to save themselves, and become imbued with a desire to practise what they learn, the utmost effort of the State for saving them will fail.-Sir Richard Temple at Social Science Congress.

Distance of the Sun.-In a discourse before the British Association, Professor Ball, the Astronomer Royal for Ireland, said that the method by observation of some of the minor planets must now be depended on for obtaining more accurate determination of the distance of the sun from the earth. There would not be another transit of Venus till the year 2004. It is somewhere between 92 and 93 millions, and as the doubt only involved 1,000th part of the whole distance there was reason to hope that astronomers would ultimately by this method finally determine the distance with unfailing accuracy. His own opinion was that the distance was 92,700,000 miles.

British Empire, its Extent and Population.-The area of this empire, at home and abroad, nearly 8,000,000 of square miles, may fail to convey a definite idea; but the total of the population is instantly suggestive, as it amounts to 315,000,000 of souls. This population, too, is increasing at the rate of 2,500,000 annually; in other words, by 25,000,000 every decade, or 50,000,000 in every twenty years.

Domestic Art in Cairo.-The domestic architecture of the Arabs is especially well represented in Cairo, as that city was, during the most brilliant period of its history, the capital, inhabited by a refined Court. This period is contemporary with an age which we in Europe usually associate with the twilight of the Middle Ages, stretching as it does in contemporary English history over the period of the Con quest, and the even ruder days of our last Saxon and Danish kings, the Crusades, and the still uncouth epoch-however exquisite may have been its artistic creations of the Scotch and French wars of the three Edwards. Two centuries after its foundation, that is, in the ninth century, Cairo, under Mamoun the Learned, the son of the famous Haroun al Raschid, was an active centre of learning and refinement. Cairo suddenly became the most important city of the East. In their wealth the caliphs revelled in the wildest dreams the "Arabian Nights" have pictured to our Western minds. The prohibitions of the Prophet respecting the representation of animate beings, respecting gambling and the use of wine, were disregarded, and to these days of Arab splendour belong some of the choicest relics we possess of the art of the caliphs. In Cairo and Damietta the looms were busy with the production of the most gorgeous stuffs, further enriched with the costliest embroideries. The goldsmiths and armourers found their most exquisite products never sufficiently choice for their fastidious clients. In the midst of such a refined existence, and with surroundings so elegant, the character of the domestic architecture, it can be imagined, was scarcely less decorative. No wealth was too great to lavish on the interiors of their homes, where gilded and painted woodwork in delicate arabesque contrasted with the deep blue of tiles of the choicest design, and hangings of the richest fabrics, floors of marble and mosaic covered with thick carpets, each marvels of decorative beauty. The wood-workers exhausted their utmost art in inlaying ivory and mother-o'-pearl and tortoiseshell in the most intricate incised designs; the sim

plest utensils were plated or damascened with gold and silver as richly as the goldsmith's art could devise. The choicest perfumes, of which the consumption appears to have been immense, were brought from the furthermost corners of the earth. Sumptuous as were their interiors, no display of all this wealth was allowed to be even suggested by the exterior appearance of the house. Shrewd motives suggested this custom (one that gives its peculiar character to all Oriental cities) as calculated to allay the too familiar cupidity of the ruling powers or the violence of the populace. Bare grim walls, pierced by a few small grated openings, and, in the older houses, the doorways strongly protected by loopholes and overhanging machicolations, are all that present themselves on the exterior of many of the wealthiest and most delicately-decorated of the old houses of Cairo.-The Pottery

Gazette.

Limits of Laws of Nature.-The laws of nature may keep up the working of the machinery, but they did not and could not set up the machine. The human species, for example, may be upholden through an indefinite series of ages by the established law of transmission, but were the species destroyed there are no observed powers of nature by which it could again be originated. For the continuance of the system and of all its operations we might imagine a sufficiency in the laws of nature; but it is the first construction of the system which so palpably calls for the intervention of an artificer or demonstrates so powerfully the fiat and finger of a God. In these ruins, viewed as materials for the architecture of a renovated world, there did reside all those forces by which the processes of the existing economy are upholden; but the geologists assign to them a function wholly distinct from this when they labour to demonstrate that by laws, and laws alone, the framework of our existing economy was put together. It is thus they would exclude the agency of a God from the transition between one system, or one formation, and another, although it be precisely at such transition when this agency seems most palpably and peculiarly called for.— Dr. Chalmers.

A Descendant of William Penn.-In an old copy of "The Evening Chronicle," April 30th, 1847, we find this obituary notice :-Died, on the 29th April, 1847, at the house of her son-in-law, the Earl of Ranfurly, No. 40, Berkeley Square, the Hon. Sophia Margaret Stuart, granddaughter of the celebrated William Penn, founder and proprietor of Pennsylvania, and the widow of the Hon. and Rev. W. Stuart, D.D., late Lord Primate of All Ireland, in the eighty-third year of her age.

Which John Thomas.-Dr. Thomas, who died Bishop of Salisbury. I so describe him, for it was not always easy to distinguish the two Dr. Thomases. Somebody was speaking of Dr. Thomas; he was asked, Which Dr. Thomas do you mean? Dr. John Thomas. They are both named John. Dr. Thomas, who has a living in the City. They both have livings in the City. Dr. Thomas, who is Chaplain to the King. They are both Chaplains to the King. Dr. Thomas, who is a very good preacher. They are both very good preachers. Dr. Thomas, who squints. They both squint; for Dr. Thomas, who died Bishop of Winchester, handsome as he was, had a little cast in one of his eyes. John Thomas, Bishop of Salisbury, was Preceptor to the Prince of Wales (George III). I may add that both these John Thomases had been Bishops of Salisbury, one in 1757, the other in 1761. He of Salisbury died in 1766; he of Winchester in 1791; but there was a third Dr. John Thomas, who succeeded Dr. Pearce as Dean of Westminster, and on his death, in 1774, succeeded him as the Bishop of Rochester.-Bishop Newton's Autobiography.

Christmas Gifts in a New Light.-A novel and practical rendering of the words, "It is more blessed to give than to receive," occurred in John Wandmaker's famous Bethany Sunday-school in Philadelphia last Christmas. Instead of giving presents to the children, the old custom was reversed, and the children brought presents to give to others. These presents were as miscellaneous a lot as were ever collected on a Sunday-school platform. Nearly every one of the two thousand children in the Sunday-school brought some gift. The parents and friends also bestowed liberally, some of the

articles presented being of considerable value. There were all manner of toys for little children, and garments for those of every size. There were bags and barrels of flour, and immense quantities of vegetables. There were whole carcasses of sheep and hogs, which were not the less acceptable because novel. Many of the gifts were given out to the poor and needy of the neighbourhood. The rest were sent to some of the orphans' homes and other benevolent institutions of the city. A procession of waggons waited for them outside the Sunday-school hall during the services, after which the larger boys enjoyed the fun of loading up. - New York Witness.

British Museum Reading Room in 1759.-I often pass four hours in the day in the stillness and solitude of the reading room, which is uninterrupted by anything but Dr, Stukely the antiquary, who comes there to talk nonsense and coffee-house news; the rest of the learned are (I suppose) in the country, at least none of them come there, except two Prussians, and a man who writes for Lord Royston. When I call it peaceful, you are to understand it only of us visitors, for the society itself, trustees and all, are up in arms, like the fellows of a college. The keepers have broke off all intercourse with one another, and only lower a silent defiance as they pass by. Dr. Knight has walled up the passage to the little house, because some of the rest were obliged to pass by one of his windows in the way to it. Moreover the trustees lay out £500 a year more than their income; so you may expect all the books and the crocodiles will soon be put up to auction.-Gray's Letters.

A Wonderful Canary.-There was a woman who kept a great coffee-house in Pall Mall, and she had a miraculous canary-bird, that piped twenty tunes. Lady Sandwich was fond of such things, had heard of and seen the bird. Lord Peterborough came to the woman and offered her a large sum of money for it; but she was rich, and proud of it, and would not part with it for love or money. However, he watched the bird narrowly, observed all its marks and features, went and bought just such another, sauntered into the coffee-room, took his opportunity when no one was by, slipped the wrong bird into the cage, and the right into his pocket, and went off undiscovered to make my Lady Sandwich happy. This was just about the time of the Revolution, and, a good while after, going into the same coffee-house again, he saw his bird there, and said, "Well, I reckon you would give your ears now that you had taken my money.' "Money! says the woman, "no, nor ten times that money now; dear little creature; for, if your Lordship will believe me (as I am a Christian it is true), it has moped and moped, and never once opened its pretty lips since the day that the poor king went away!"-Gray's Letters.

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The Venetian Gondola.-It is extremely difficult, even for a practised University oarsman, to acquire the skill of the gondolier. The long-bladed oar of the Venetian works against a crooked grooved rowlock, against which it must always be held home alike when the stroke is delivered and while the blade is brought back. This is all done under water, with no false impulse to the direction of the boat, though the stroke is made on one side only. Deftly withheld from " yawing" by the fish-like back screw which the gondolier gives, the black hull glides along like a living thing, rearing over the scarcely-stirred water that quaint rostrum of notched steel which is certainly a survival of Roman ship-building.

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Non-Alcoholic "Pick-me-Ups."-Dr. E. Symes Thompson, F. R.C.P., communicated to the "Church of England Temperance Chronicle" several remedies which he found useful in cases where a medicinal substitute seemed to be needed to overcome the craving for alcohol. He says pick-meup" No. I should only be used when the craving is great. Nos. 2 and 3 are suited for persons whose strength has been deteriorated by long habits of excess. No. 4 is specially adapted for those accustomed to a bitter with meals, but need not be taken with meals unless desired. I. Pick-me-up." -Sal volatile, spirit of chloroform, compound tincture of cardamoms, of each half an ounce. Dose, a teaspoonful or two in a wineglassful of water. 2. Solution of the per

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chloride of iron, spirit of mindererus, spirit of chloroform, of each half an ounce; water, half a pint. Dose, a tablespoonful or two twice a day in a wineglassful of water. 3. Citrate of quinine and iron, a drachm; spirit of cloves, half an ounce; water to half a pint. Take two tablespoonfuls twice a day. 4. Quassia chips, a quarter of an ounce; cold water, a pint. After standing for half an hour, strain. The infusion is then ready for use, and may be taken, a wineglassful at a time, alone or mixed with a teaspoonful or two of "malt extract." N. B. This infusion of quassia may be used instead of water in Form 2 or 3.

Yule. The romance is taken out of this old name for the Christmas festival, if we believe the interpretation of those who maintain it is derived from Ol-i.e. ale, much used at one period in the church festivals, such as Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide. The old name intensified became Iol, from which Illos naturally follows. Iol was changed to Yule afterwards.

Barrow-in-Furness.-Mr. Hyde Clark, a veteran engineer, says that when he first came to Barrow-in-Furness he saw that if it had its railway, its splendid harbour could be utilised, and it was now recognised as one of the best between Scotland and Wales. It had been put in connection with the other systems of railway, and was not only a port of great importance for the shipment of iron ores, but had an important connection with the other ports of the world. There were still 40,000 acres to be reclaimed and capable of becoming good agricultural land. If reclaimed it would enable a railway to be carried across the bottom of the bay. There was now a population in Barrow-in-Furness of 50,000, and

although there had been great depression, there were elements which pointed to a probable increase to 100,000 or 200,000 persons. If the town got its railway accommodation, it would be in a position to take that part in the trade of the country which was now held by other ports having less natural facilities and capabilities. It would be a shame if the Crown or if the Duchy of Lancaster hindered the employment of capital in reclaiming the now submerged land, and thereby interfered with plans of national benefit.

Apples. At the great national apple show at Chiswick, in the autumn of 1883, about a thousand varieties were exhibited. Mr. Barrow, the superintendent of the gardens, is attempting to form a catalogue of three hundred carefully selected and named varieties. By thus reducing the number of local and fanciful designations, and introducing some uniformity of nomenclature, a great benefit will be rendered to Pomology.

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Mr. Bright on Luther's Reformation.-Referring to the great work of Luther in earlier times, Mr. Bright says: Every conflict does not need a Luther. Our battles are not so fierce, and the strength and passion of the great reformer are scarcely called for in our time. Our triumphs are not after battles with confused noise and garments rolled in blood.' They come of discussion and gradual change of opinion, and not of great catastrophes, which is a thing to be thankful for. I hope, though we may not have Luthers, we may have teachers whose voice or pen may reach all corners of the land, and guide our people to a higher moral standard. There is a growth-we wish it were more rapid, and must learn to have and to exercise patience in this as in other things."

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