you to understand when he says that in dying we have the advantage over the evil spirits who cannot by death get rid of their sufferings? I will read this book," he added, closing it, and putting it in his pocket. "I wish you would," I said; “for although I confess you are logically right in your conclusions, I know Sir Thomas did not mean anything of the sort. He was only misled by his love of antithesis into a hasty and illogical remark. The whole tone of his book is against such a conclusion. Besides, I do not doubt he was thinking only of good people, for whom he believed all suffering over at their death." "But I don't see, supposing he does believe in immortality, why you should be so anxious about his orthodoxy on the other point. Didn't Dr. Donne, as good a man as any, I presume, argue on the part of the suicide?" "I have not read Dr. Donne's essay, but I suspect the obliquity of it has been much exaggerated." "How do you make that out, Miss Clara?" asked Charley. "I'm aware it's the general opinion, but I don't see it myself." "It's surely cowardly to run away in that fashion." "For my part," returned Charley, "I feel that it requires more courage than I've got, and hence it comes, suppose, that I admire anyone who has the pluck." "What vulgar words you use, Mr. Charles!" said Clara. "Besides," he went on, heedless of her remark, "a man may want to escape not from his duties he mayn't know what they are - but from his own weakness and shame." 66 But Charley dear," said Mary, with a great light in her eyes, and the rest of her face as still as a sunless pond, "you don't think of the sin of it. I know you are only talking, but some things oughtn't to be talked of lightly." "What makes it a sin? It's not mentioned in the ten commandments," said Charley. "Surely it's against the will of God, Charley dear." "Why should you? I never saw any argument worth the name on the other side. We have plenty of expressions of horror but those are not arguments. "He hasn't said anything about it anyIndeed, the mass of the vulgar are so how. And why should I have a thing afraid of dying, that, apparently in terror forced upon me whether I will or no, and lest suicide should prove infectious, they then he pulled up for throwing it away treat in a brutal manner the remains of when I found it troublesome?" 66 Charley.' -- "Well, if I must be more explicit I was never asked whether I chose to be made or not. I never had the conditions laid before me. Here I am, and I can't help myself-so far, I mean, as that here I am." the man who has only had the courage to Surely I don't quite understond you, free himself from a burden too hard for hun to bear. It is all selfishness - nothing else. They love their paltry selves so much, that they count it a greater sin to kill oneself than to kill another manwhich seems to me absolutely devilish. Therefore, the vox populi, whether it be the rox Dei or not, is not nonsense merely, but absolute wickedness. Why shouldn't a man kill himself?" Clara was looking on rather than listening, and her interest seemed that of amusement only. Mary's eyes were wide-fixed on the face of Charley, evidently tortured to find that to the other enormities of his unbelief was to be added the justification of suicide. His habit of arguing was doubtless well enough known to her to leave room for the mitigating possibility that he might be arguing only for argument's sake, but what he said could not but be shocking to her upon any supposition. I was not ready with an answer. Clara was the first to speak. "But life is a good thing," said Mary, evidently struggling with an almost overpowering horror. "I don't know that. My impression is that if I had been asked But that couldn't be, you know." "Then it wasn't fair. But why couldn't I be made for a moment or two, long enough to have the thing laid before me, and be asked whether I would accept it or not? My impression is that I would have said - No, thank you; —that is if it was fairly put." I hastened to offer a remark, in the hope of softening the pain such flippancy must cause her. "And my impression is, Charley," I said, "that if such had been pos It's a cowardly thing anyhow," she siblesaid. "Of course," he interrupted, "the God you believe in could have made me for a if there be a God, he would not have comminute or two. He can, I suppose, un-pelled us to be, except with the absolute make me now when he likes." "Yes: but could he have made you all at once capable of understanding his plans, and your own future? Perhaps that is what he is doing now - making you, by all you are going through, capable of understanding them. Certainly the question could not have been put to you before you were able to comprehend it, and this may be the only way to make you able. Surely a being who could make you had a right to risk the chance, if I may be allowed such an expression, of your being satisfied in the end with what he saw to be goodso good indeed that, if we accept the New Testament story, he would have been willing to go through the same troubles himself for the same end." 66 "No, no; not the same troubles," he objected. According to the story to which you refer, Jesus Christ was free from all that alone makes life unendurable - the bad inside you, that will come outside whether you will or no." "I admit your objection. As to the evil coming out, I suspect it is better it should come out, so long as it is there. But the end is not yet; and still I insist the probability is, that if you could know it all now, you would say with submission, if not with hearty concurrence-Thy will be done.'" "I have known people who could say that without knowing it all now, Mr. Cumbermede," said Mary. I had often called her by her Christian name, but she had never accepted the familiarity. "No doubt," said Charley, "but I'm not one of those." 66 "If you would but give in," said his sister, you would in the end, I mean say, 'It is well.' I am sure of that." "Yes - perhaps I might after all the suffering had been forced upon me, and was over at last when I had been thoroughly exhausted and cowed, that is." "Which wouldn't satisfy any thinking soul, Charley-much less God," I said. "But if there be a God at all foreknowledge that when we knew all about it, we would certainly declare ourselves ready to go through it all again if need should be, in order to attain the known end of his high calling." "But isn't it very presumptuous to assert anything about God which he has not revealed in his word?" said Mary, in a gentle, subdued voice, and looking at me with a sweet doubtfulness in her eyes. "I am only insisting on the perfection of God - as far as I can understand perfection," I answered. "But may not the perfection of God be something very different from anything we can understand?" "I will go farther," I returned. "It must be something that we cannot understand but different from what we can understand by being greater, not by being less." - "Mayn't it be such that we can't understand it at all?" she insisted. "Then how should we ever worship him? How should we ever rejoice in him? Surely it is because you see God to be good. "Or fancy you do," interposed Charley. "Or fancy you do," I assented, that you love him - not merely because you are told he is good. The Fejee Islander might assert his God to be good, but would that make you love him? If you heard that a great power, away somewhere, who had nothing to do with you at all, was very good, would that make you able to love him?" "Yes, it would," said Mary, decidedly. "It is only a good man who would see that God was good." "There you argue entirely on my side. It must be because you supposed his goodness what you call goodness not something else that you could love him on testimony. But even then, your love could not be of that mighty absorbing kind which alone you would think fit between you and your God. It would not be loving him with all your heart and soul and strength and mind - would it? It would be loving him second-hand not because of himself, seen and known by yourself." "But Charley does not even love God second-hand," she said with a despairing mournfulness. Mary gave a slight inarticulate cry. "Dear Miss Osborne," I said, "I beg you will not misunderstand me. I cannot be sure about it as you are- - I wish I could — but I am not disputing it in the least; I am only trying to make my to love him argument as strong as I can. I was go- him about ing to say to Charley - not to you that to be good. 66 Perhaps because he is very anxious first-hand, and what you tell God does not seem to him Surely neither man nor wo man can love because of what seems not good! I confess one may love in spite of what is bad, but it must be because of other things that are good." She was silent. "However goodness may change its forms," I went on, "it must still be goodness; only if we are to adore it, we must see something of what it is of itself. And the goodness we cannot see, the eternal goodness, high above us as the heavens are above the earth, must still be a goodness that includes, absorbs, elevates, purifies all our goodness, not tramples upon it and calls it wickedness. For if not such, then we have nothing in common with God, and what we call goodness is not of God. He has not even ordered it; or, if he has, he has ordered it only to order the contrary afterwards; and there is, in reality, no real goodness —at least in him; and, if not in him, of whom we spring where then? and what becomes of ours, poor as it is?" My reader will see that I had already thought much about these things; although, I suspect, I have now not only expressed them far better than I could have expressed them in conversation, but with a degree of clearness which must be owing to the further continuance of the habit of reflecting on these and cognate subjects. Deep in my mind, however, something like this lay; and in some manner like this I tried to express it. Finding she continued silent, and that Charley did not appear inclined to renew the contest, anxious also to leave no embarrassing silence to choke the channel now open between us - I mean Mary and myself- I returned to the original question. "It seems to me, Charley - and it follows from all we have been saying that the sin of suicide les just in this, that it is an utter want of faith in God. I confess I do not see any other ground on which to condemn it provided always, that the man has no others dependent upon him, none for whom he ought to live and work." "But does a man owe nothing to himself?" said Clara. Nothing that I know of," I replied. "I am under no obligation to myself. How can I divide myself, and say that the one-half of me is indebted to the other? To my mind, it appears a mere fiction of speech." But whence then should such a fiction arise?" objected Charley, willing, perhaps, to defend Clara. "But why say the unknown God, Mr. Cumbermede?" asked Mary. "Because I do not believe that any one who knew him could possibly attribute to himself what belonged to Him-could, I mean, talk of an obligation to himself, when that obligation was to God.” How far Mary Osborne followed the argument or agreed with it I cannot tell, but she gave me a look of something like gratitude, and my heart felt too big for its closed chamber. At this moment, the housemaid who had along with the carpenter assisted me in the library, entered the room. She was rather a forward girl, and I suppose presumed on our acquaintance to communicate directly with myself instead of going to the housekeeper. Seeing her approach as if she wanted to speak to me, I went to meet her. She handed me a small ring, saying, in a low voice. "I found this in your room, sir, and thought it better to bring it to you." "Thank you," I said, putting it at once on my little finger; "I am glad you found it." Charley and Clara had begun talking. I believe Clara was trying to make Charley give her the book he had pocketed, imagining it really of the character he had, half in sport, professed to believe it. But Mary had caught sight of the ring, and, with a bewildered expression on her countenance, was making a step towards me. I put a finger to my lips, and gave her a look by which I succeeded in arresting her. Utterly perplexed, I believe, she turned away towards the bookshelves behind her. I went into the next room, and called Charley. "I think we had better not go on with this talk," I said. "You are very imprudent indeed, Charley, to be always bringing up subjects that tend to widen the gulf between you and your sister. When I have a chance, I do what I can to make her doubt whether you are so far wrong as they think you, but you must give her time. All your kind of thought is so new to her that your words. cannot possibly convey to her what is in your mind. If only she were not so afraid of me! But I think she begins to trust me a little." "It's no use," he returned. "Her head is so full of rubbish!" "But her heart is so full of goodness!" "I wish you could make anything of her! But she looks up to my father with such a blind adoration that it isn't of the slightest use attempting to put an atom of sense into her." ing and arranging the volumes on a shelf at the height of her eyes. "I think this is your ring, Miss Osborne," I said, in a low and hurried tone, offering it. Her expression at first was only of questioning surprise, when suddenly something seemed to cross her mind; she turned pale as death, and put her hand on the bookshelves as if to support her; as suddenly flushed crimson for a moment, and again turned deadly pale - all before I could speak. "I should indeed despair if I might only set about it after your fashion. You al- Don't ask me any questions, dear Miss ways seem to shut your eyes to the men- Osborne," I said. And, please trust me tal condition of those that differ from this far: don't mention the loss of your you. Instead of trying to understand ring to any one except it be your them first, which gives the sole possible mother. Allow me to put it on your chance of your ever making them under-finger." stand what you mean, you care only to present your opinions; and that you do in such a fashion that they must appear to them false. You even yourself seem to hold these for very love of their untruth; and thus make it all but impossible for them to shake off their fetters: every truth in advance of what they have already learned, will henceforth come to them associated with your presumed backsliding and impenitence." 66 "Goodness! where did you learn their slang?" cried Charley. tence, if you like,-not backsliding. I never made any profession. After all, however, their opinions don't seem to hurt them I mean my mother and sister." She gave me a glance I cannot and would not describe. It lies treasured for ever, God grant! in the secret jewelhouse of my heart. She lifted a trembling left hand, and doubtingly held half held it towards me. To this day I know nothing of the stones of that ring not even their colour; but I know I should know it at once if I saw it. My hand trembled more than hers as I put it on the third finger. What followed, I do not know. I think But impeni-I left her there and went into the other room. When I returned a little after, I know she was gone. From that hour, not one word has ever passed between us in reference to the matter. The best of my conjectures remains but a conjecture; I know how the sword got there nothing more. "They must hurt them, if only by hindering their growth. In time, of course, the angels of the heart will expel the demons of the brain; but it is a pity the process should be retarded by your behaviour." "I know I am a brute, Wilfrid. try to hold my tongue." 66 I will Depend upon it." I went on, "whatever such hearts can believe, is, as believed by them, to be treated with respect. It is because of the truth in it, not because of the falshood, that they hold it; and when you speak against the false in it, you appear to them to speak against the true; for the dogma seems to them an unanalyzable unit. You assail the false with the recklessness of falsehood itself, careless of the injury you may inflict on the true." I was interrupted by the entrance of Clara. "If you gentlemen don't want us any more, we had better go," she said. I left Charley to answer her, and went back into the next room. Mary stood where I had left her, mechanically shift I did not see her again that day, and did not seem to want to see her, but worked on anongst the books in a quiet exaltation. My being seemed tenfold awake and alive. My thoughts dwelt on the rarely revealed loveliness of my Athanasia; and, although I should have scorned unspeakably to take the smallest advantage of having come to share a secret with her, I could not help rejoicing in the sense of nearness to and alone-ness with her which the possession of that secret gave me; while one of the most precious results of the new love which had thus all at once laid hold upon me, was the feeling-almost a conviction -- that dream was not a web self-wove in the loom of my brain, but that from somewhere, beyond my soul even, an influence mingled with its longings to in-form the vision of that night-to be as it were a creative soul to what would otherwise have been but loose, chaotic, and shape the re less vagaries of the unguided imagination. | much, I confess, with any hope that she The events of that night were as the sud- might cast light on my difficulties, as in den opening of a door through which I the assurance that she would not only incaught a glimpse of that region of the su- fluence me to think purely and nobly, but pernal in which, whatever might be her would urge me in the search after God. theories concerning her experiences there- In such a relation of love to religion the in, Mary Osborne certainly lived if ever vulgar mind will ever imagine ground for any one lived. The degree of God's pres- ridicule; but those who have most ence with a creature is not to be meas- garded human nature know well enough ured by that creature's interpretation of that the two have constantly manifested the manner in which he is revealed. The themselves in the closest relation; while great question is whether he is revealed even the poorest love is the enemy of or no; and a strong truth can carry many selfishness unto the death; for the one or parasitical errors. the other must give up the ghost. Not only must God be in all that is human, but of it he must be the root. I felt that now I could talk freely to her of what most perplexed me- not so translated by Mr. Scott, at page 193, there is a chart of the tracks of the cyclones of the Chinese Sea, which shows that they occur in all months from June to November, and that the later in the season the nearer to the equator is usually their track, In the Chinese Sea, where they are called typhoons, they are most numerous in the summer months; in the Bay of Bengal they are most numerous after the if we regard the cyclone region of the Chinese Sea as an extension of that of the Bay of Bengal; it will then be seen that the cyclones follow the sun. This, however, must be understood with the qualification that they follow the sun at some distance; the number of cyclones in the Indian Ocean appears to reach its maximum a month or two after the equinoxes. This is for the same reason that the warmest period of the year is not at but after Midsummer. ORIGIN OF CYCLONES.— In NATURE of 23rd of June, 1871, there is an account of a paper, by Mr. Meldrum, on the origin of storms in the Bay of Bengal, showing reason to believe that the cyclones of the Bay of Bengal, and the Southern Indian Ocean originate in the meeting of the trade-winds of the northern and southern hemispheres at some distance north or south of the equator. I do not know of any equally complete evidence on the subject for the cy-equinoxes. This will appear quite intelligible clones of other parts of the world, but there is very strong reason for thinking that they always so originate. The line along which the two trade-winds meet each other approximately coincides with the equator: when it actually or nearly coincides with the equator, no cyclones are formed, because the rotation of a cyclone depends on that of the earth, and the earth at the equator has no rotation round an axis drawn vertical to the horizon. Over the greater part of the Pacific, cyclones do not appear to be formed: tho reason of this probably is, that in consequence of the temperature of the sea changing but little with the seasons, the two trade-winds over the Pacific meet each other nearly on the equator all the year round; though I do not know how far this is confirmed by observations on the winds of that ocean. But we know that in the Indian Ocean the trade-winds cross the equator and are deflected into monsoons, so that in the summer of the northern hemisphere they meet to the north of the equator, and in the summer of the southern hemisphere they meet to the south. (This statement as to seasons will have to be qualified presently.) We may consequently expect to find that the farther the sun is from the equator, the farther from the equator will be the meeting of the trade-winds, and consequently also the cyclones. This is the fact. In Dove's "Law of Storms," The distribution of cyclones in the West Indian Seas is to be explained in the same way. The two trade-winds meet in the Atlantic a little to the north of the equator; for this reason cyclones are frequent in the West Indies but unknown over the South Atlantic, and they are most numerous at the end of summer. Nature. AN attempt to obtain European ice for India by the Suez Canal has failed. Out of ninety tons of Alpine ice shipped only four arrived. It is probable the parties did not know the business so well as the Americans. As it is the Alps do not at present supply the Mediterradean, many parts of which use frozen snow from Mounts Olympus and Tmolus. Nature. |