EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION.

1. Spelling schools! Have you forgotten them? 2. Give him a capital M, for he is entitled to it.

3. The challenged are ranged on one side of the house; the challengers on the other.

4. Moses comes down like a tree, and Susan flutters there still.

5. There are hearts that flutter, and hearts that ache.

6. Some of them are sorrowing, some are dead.

TH

XXVII. THE WORKS OF GOD.

HEN the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,

Who is this that darkeneth counsel

By words without knowledge?

Gird up now thy loins like a man;

For I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

2. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Declare, if thou hast understanding.

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest?

Or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened?
Or who laid the corner-stone thereof,
When the morning stars sang together,

And all the sons of God shouted for joy?

3. Or who shut up the sea with doors,

When it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?

When I made the cloud the garment thereof,

And thick darkness a swaddling-band for it,

And brake up for it my decreed place,

And set bars and doors,

And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further;

And here shall thy proud waves be stayed?

4. Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days;

And caused the dayspring to know his place;

That it might take hold of the ends of the earth,
That the wicked might be shaken out of it?
It is turned as clay to the seal;

And they stand as a garment,

And from the wicked their light is withholden, And the high arm shall be broken.

5. Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?
Or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee?
Or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of
death?

Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?
Declare if thou knowest it all.

6. Where is the way where light dwelleth?

And as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
That thou should'st take it to the bound thereof,
And that thou shouldest know the paths thereof
to the house?

Knowest thou it because thou wast then born?
Or because the number of thy days is great?
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?
Or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,

Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, Against the day of battle and of war?

7. By what way is the light parted,

Which scattereth the east wind upon the earth? Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflow

ing of waters,

Or a way for the lightning of thunder;

To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is;
On the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
To satisfy the desolate and waste ground;
And to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring
forth?

8. Hast thou given the horse strength?

Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder? Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? The glory of his nostrils is terrible;

He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength:

He goeth on to meet the armed men.

From the Bible.

ONE

XXVIII.—A BATTLE OF ANTS.

NE day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with each other. Having once got hold, they never let go, but struggled, and wrestled, and rolled on the chips incessantly.

2. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants; that

it was not a duellum, but a bellum—a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black.

3. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging-internecine war-the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other.

4. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear; and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out.

5. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vise to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members.

6. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was, Conquer or die. In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe or had not yet taken part in the battle-probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs—whose

mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it; or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus.

7. He saw this unequal combat from afar, for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red; he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame.

8. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat, even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference.

9. I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer's eyes shone with ferocity, such as war only could excite.