optical investigations occupied his attention | Royal Society, over which he continued to preside during the remainder of his life. In 1705, Queen Anne bestowed upon him the honor of knighthood. The death of this truly wonderful man occurred on the 20th of March, 1727, and after having lain in state in the Jerusalem Chamber eight days his body was deposited in Westminster Abbey and a stately monument erected to his memory, with a Latin inscription, of which the following is a literal translation: for many years, in the course of which he demonstrated the divisibility of light into rays of seven different colors, all possessing different degrees of refrangibility. The admirable work in which he has given a detailed account of these discoveries is entitled Optics; or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colors of Light. Besides these, he published various profound mathemathical works, which it is not necessary here to enumerate. Like his illustrious contemporaries, Boyle and Locke, Newton devoted much attention to theology as well as to natural science. The mystical doctrines of religion were those which he chiefly investigated, and to his great interest in them we are indebted for his Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, particularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, published after his death. The manuscripts left by him were perused by Dr. Pellet, at the request of his executors, with the view to publish such as were thought fit for the press; the report returned, however, was that, of the whole mass, nothing but a work on the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms was fit for publication. That treatise accordingly appeared, and many years afterward An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture, from Newton's pen, was published by Dr. Horsley. Notwithstanding the extent of Sir Isaac Newton's scientific and literary labors, his whole life was not passed in his laboratory or as a recluse student. He served repeatedly in Parliament as member for the university, was appointed in 1695 warden of the mint, and in 1703 became president of the Here lies interred Isaac Newton, knight, who with an energy of mind almost divine, guided by the light of mathematics purely his own, first demonstrated the motions and figures of the planets, the paths of comets and the causes of the tides; who discovered what before his time no one had even suspected-that rays of light are differently refrangible, and that this is the cause of colors; and who was a diligent, penetrating and faithful interpreter of nature, antiquity and the sacred writings. In his philosophy he maintained the majesty of the Supreme Being; in his manners he expressed the simplicity of the gospel. Let mortals congratulate themselves that the world has seen SO great and excellent a man, the glory of human nature." TH ABRAHAM MILLS, A. M. THOMAS GRAY. HOMAS GRAY, author of the Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, was born at Cornhill, London, on the 26th of December, 1716. His father was by profession a scrivener, and, though a respectable citizen," he was a man of so harsh and violent a temper that his wife was compelled to separate from him. Cast by this circumstance upon her own resources, the excellent 66 mother of Gray commenced the millinery | by frequent excursions to the country to business, with a sister as her partner, and pass brief periods with his learned and so far succeeded as to be able to bestow attached friends. upon her son a learned education, first at Eton, and afterward at the University of Cambridge. The painful domestic circumstances of his youth gave a tinge of melancholy and pensive reflection to Gray's mind which is visible in all his poetry. At Eton the young student had secured the friendship of Horace Walpole, son of the English prime minister; and when his college education was completed, Walpole induced him to accompany him on a tour through France and Italy. After they had passed about a year together exploring the natural beauties, antiquities and picture-galleries of Rome, Florence, Naples and other important places, a quarrel took place between them; the travellers separated, and Gray returned to England. Walpole took the blame of this difference on himself, as he was vain and volatile and not disposed to trust in the better knowledge and somewhat fastidious tastes of his associate. Gray immediately after his return repaired to Cambridge to take his degree in civil law, but without intending to follow the profession. His father was now dead, and, though his mother's fortune was small, still they possessed sufficient to supply all their wants. He fixed his residence at Cambridge, and amidst its noble libraries and learned society passed most of the remainder of his life. He devoted himself chiefly to classical learning, though not without attending to architecture, antiquities, natural history, and other branches of useful knowledge. His retired life was varied by occasional visits to London, where he would revel among the treasures of the British Museum, and In 1765, Gray took a journey into Scotland, and at Glammis Castle met his brother-poet Beattie. He also penetrated into Wales, and journeyed to Cumberland and Westmoreland to view the scenery of the lakes. The letters in which he describes these excursions are remarkable for elegance and precision, for correct and extensive observations, and for a dry scholastic humor peculiar to the poet. On his return from these agreeable holidays Gray would set himself calmly down in his college retreat, pore over his favorite authors, compile tables of chronology or botany, moralize on "all he felt and all he saw," correspond with his friends, and occasionally venture into the realms of poetry and imagination. He had studied the Greek and Latin poets with such intense devotion and critical care that their very spirit and essence seem to have sunk into his mind and colored all his efforts at original composition. At the same time, his knowledge of human nature and his sympathy with the world were varied and profound. Tears fell unbidden among the classic flowers of fancy, and in his almost monastic cell his heart vibrated to the finest tones of humanity. In 1747, Gray published his Ode to Eton College, and two years after appeared his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. His Pindaric Odes appeared in 1757, but met with comparatively little success. His fame, however, was now so widely spread that he was offered the situation of poetlaureate, vacant by the death of Colley Cibber. Gray declined the appointment for the more lucrative situation of professor of modern history in the university, at a salary of four hundred pounds per annum. For some years he had been subject to hereditary gout, and as his circumstances improved his health declined. While at dinner one day in the college hall he was seized with an attack in the stomach, which was so violent as to resist all the efforts of medicine, and after six days of suffering he expired, on the 30th of July, 1771, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was buried, according to his own request, by the side of his mother, at Stoke, near Eton, adding one more poetical association to that beautiful and classic district of England. Gray's poetry is all comprised in a few pages, and yet as a poet he holds a very high rank. His two great odes, The Progress of Poesy and The Bard, are the most splendid compositions in the Pindaric style and measure in the English language. Each presents rich personifications, striking thoughts and happy imagery: "Sublime their starry fronts they rear." The Bard is more dramatic and picturesque than The Progress of Poesy, yet in the latter are some of the poet's richest and most majestic strains. THE ABRAHAM MILLS, A. M. CHARLES KINGSLEY. HIS distinguished writer stands before the world in many forms, preacher, poet, novelist, essayist and-most important of all-social reformer. He was born at Holne vicarage, Devonshire, where his father was incumbent, on the 12th of June, 1810; he was educated at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and on his graduation be gan the study of the law. This he soon abandoned, and took orders; he was first curate, and then rector, of Eversley, in Hampshire-a cure which he retained till his death. In 1844 he published a volume of Village Sermons, clear, simple and addressed principally to the working-people. In 1848 he made his first real literary venture in a serious drama entitled The Saint's Tragedy, based upon the life of the saint and martyr Elizabeth of Hungary. He had from the first enlisted as the champion of the working classes. Of this spirit the first manifesto is found in his novel of Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet, which appeared in 1850. It made a great stir, and was accused by the conservatives of being revolutionary in tendency. A pendant to this appeared in another story, entitled Yeast, in which he discusses the problem of poverty as it affects individuals and society, and maintains that the great leveller, upraiser and regenerator is Christianity. He was called "the Chartist clergyman," and certainly suffered, as to pro.motion and social consideration, for his convictions, but he gained a larger reputation. Among his other principal works, the following may be noted: In 1854, Alexandria and its Schools and Westward Ho! a story of English adventures in America during the reign of Elizabeth; Hereward, the Last of the Englishmen, is a splendid description of the days just after the Conquest; in 1852 he published Andromeda, and Other Poems, and continued to write. occasional verses, among which "The Three Fishers" has gone to the ends of the earth. In 1874 he came to America, and was received with great hospitality and distinction, but not long after his return to England he died on the 23d of January, 1875. His Life and Letters were issued by his wife, and they present a singularly pure, simple, unselfish man who had tried to elevate his kind. Ο PREACHING.* NE of the most remarkable things about the preacher's methods of work is the way in which they form themselves in the earliest years of his ministry, and then rule him with almost despotic power to the end. I am a slave to-day, and so I suppose is every minister, to ways of work that were made within two or three years after beginning to preach. The newness of the occupation, that unexpectedness of everything to which I alluded when I began to speak to you this afternoon, opens all the life, and makes it receptive; and then the earnestness and fresh enthusiasm of those days serves to set the habits that a man makes then, to clothe them with something that is almost sacredness, and to make them practically almost unchangeable. They are the years when a preacher needs to be very watchful over his discretion and his independence. When the clay is in the bank, it matters not so much who treads on it. And when the clay is hardened in the vase, it may press close upon another vase and yet keep its own shape. But when the clay is just setting and the shape is still soft, then is the time to guard it from the blows or pressures that would distort it for ever. Be sure, then, that the habits and methods of your opening ministry are, first of all, your own. Let no respect, however profound or merited, for any hero of the pulpit make you submit yourself to him. Let your own nature freely shape its own ways. Only be sure that those ways do really come out of your own nature, and not out of the merely accidental circumstances of your first parish. And let them be intelligent-not merely such as you happen into, but such as you can give good reasons for. And let them be noble, framed with reference to the large ideal and most sacred purposes of your work, not with reference to its minute conveniences. And let them be broad enough to give you room to grow. It is with ideas and methods of work as it is with houses to remove from one to another is wasteful and dispiriting, but to find the one in which we have taken up our abode unfolding new capacity to accommodate our growing mental family is satisfactory and encouraging. It gives us the sense at once of settlement and progress. He is the happiest and most effective old man whose life has been full of growth, but free from revolution; who is living still in the same thoughts and habits which he had when a boy, but has found them as the Hebrews say that the Israelites found their clothes in the desert during the forty years-not merely never waxing old upon them, but growing with their growth as they passed on from youth to manhood. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D. D. SPIRITS. * We are indebted to the kind permission of the pub- SUPPOSE there is not a man in the lishers, Messrs. E. F. Dutton & Co. of New York, for this selection from the Lectures of Dr. Phillips Brooks. world who could form any intelligent idea of what a spirit is. It is very easy |