which took place in the geological section to St. Petersburg, examining the hills, | 1842 and 1843. When the British Asso- The actual discovery of the precious metal in Victoria was made by Count Strzelecki; but to Sir Roderick belongs the merit of having first in England predicted its existence. As sometimes happens in science, two men of science, unknown to each other, were pursuing the same study and arriving at the same conclusion. The theoretical discovery of gold by Sir Roderick Murchison in England seems to have been contemporaneous with the indications of the Rev. W. B. Clarke in Australia. After having for five years discharged the arduous duties of secretary to the Geological Society, he filled the office of president in the years 1831 and 1832, and In 1844, Sir Roderick was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society, and was reëlected in the following year. He again became president in 1852, and succeeded in obtaining from the govern ment a grant of £500 annually in aid of its maintenance and public objects. In 1856, he was elected president for the third time. That distinguished honor he holds at the present moment. The African discoveries of Speke and Grant are, perhaps, after the travellers themselves, chiefly due to Sir Roderick Murchison. In addition to the numerous honors to which we have already referred, Sir Roderick has received the honorary de grees of M.A. from the Universities of Cambridge and Dublin, and D.C.L. from that of Oxford. He is a member of all the principal scientific academies of Europe; a trustee also of the British Museum, the Hunterian Museum, and the British Association. Besides the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London, he has received the Brisbane Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which was presented to him at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association. On the death of Sir H. De la Beche, in 1855, a memorial signed by the leading geologists and men of science in every department was presented to the government, and Sir Roderick Murchison was appointed Director-General of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, including the direction of the Government School of Mines. Sir Roderick Murchison has published upwards of a hundred memoirs in the journals and transactions of the learned societies, some of them of great length and elaboration. His memoir On the | a sixth visit to the Alps, occupies more Geological Structure of the Alps, Apen- than three hundred pages of the Quarnines, and Carpathians, published after terly Journal of the Geological Society. [THE poem which I have here attempted to translate has, at any rate, the undisputed merit of antiquity. It comes before us as beyond all doubt the earliest of all extant hymns. Fragments of still earlier date may perhaps meet us in the older liturgies; and when the worshippers join, in the Communion Service of the Church of England, "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven" in their great hymn, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts," or raise their jubilant thanksgiving, "Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good-will toward men," they are probably echoing words which were heard from the beginning, in the upper chambers where the disciples of the first century met together to break bread. But the Ter-Sanctus and the Gloria in Excelsis, in their present form, are of later date, and the hymn of Clement of Alexandria is the one complete relic of the worship of the second century, the one witness, in this form, of the manner in which the Christians of that age and that city sang the praises of their Lord. HYMN. (lessly over the sea of sin, sharing the calm serene a rush That outward character I have endeavored, though with some inevitable dilution, to reproduce. I should not have ventured on a task so difficult had I anywhere found the work ready to my hands. But I am not aware that there is any accessible translation of this hymn into any form of English verse. If, among the many thousands into whose hands this may fall, any have come across such a version of it, I shall be thankful if they will inform me.] A few words are needed, it may be, to enable us to enter into what is, in many ways, so unlike our modern forms of thought. The hymn stands in close relation to a treatise bearing the title Padagogus, the Guide of Children, the Instructor, that is, according to the full meaning of the word, whose function it was less to impart knowledge than to train character, to guard from the contamination of evil, to guide the daily life. The central thought of the treatise is, that the true Guide is none other than the Divine Word, the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus. Entering with a simplicity and minuteness which might almost cause a smile, if it did not also awaken our love and reverence, into all the commonest details of daily life, the good old man passes in review the temptations of luxury, self-indulgence, vanity, licentiousness, to which the young Christians of Alexandria were exposed. As throwing light on the habits and modes of thinking of the time, the contrast between the new Christian Society and the old dying Heathenism of the Empire, these details, however trivial, are often full of interest, and if I should see reason to believe that any who read this hymn would like to know more of the man who wrote it, and of the time in which it had its birth, I will make the attempt to meet the demand with a supply. At the end of the discourse, however, Clement passes from rules and precepts to a higher strain, and pours out, still in the same prose as before, a prayer to this Divine Instructor, that he "would be gracious to his children, grant them by following his precepts to fill up the image of his likeness, to think of God with all their strength as being not an austere but a perfectly gracious Judge. as citizens living in English Poets, p. 18. She assumed, somewhat, I think, too his peace, translated into his city, passing storm-hastily, that her readers would not wish for more. CURB for the stubborn steed, The wild bird's wandering flight; A portion of the hymn, ending with the line which speaks of the Divine Guide as the "Fisher of men," may be found in Mrs. E. Barrett Browning's Greek Christian Poets and Mighty, all-conquering Word; Shepherd and Sower thou, Lead us, O Shepherd true, O Milk of Heaven, that prest Our holy tribute this, The Almighty Son. Lord of our Peace. -E. H. Plumptre. THE BRIDGE OF CLOUDS. Ah, no longer wizard fancy Up the never-ending stair! But, instead, it builds me bridges Where beneath the gusty ridges, Cataracts dash and roar unseen. And I cross them, little heeding Footsteps that have gone before. Baffled, I return, and, leaning And the sounds of life ascending, BY J. E. CARPENTER. SHE took his rifle from the wall, She thought but of her country's wrongs, Oh! well might that proud mother grieve A month before her husband joined A week-his lifeless form they bore Then hastened back to meet the foe, But she must send another forth, And so she took the rifle from And filled the flask, and put it on, "Go," she said, proudly, "o'er the hills: Yet not his death-blow to avenge, It was her bleeding country's wrongs -Bentley's Miscellany. WHO CARES? WHO cares for the last year's rose? Or the flowers of last year's May? Or the leaf dried sweet in a mouldy book Who cares for the cloud gone by? A tress of hair and a faded leaf Are paltry things to a cynic's eyes; But to me they are keys that open the gates Of a paradise of memories. 11 GREGORY'S HYMN. WHAT lies before me? Where shall set my day? Where shall these weary limbs at length repose? What hospitable tomb receive my clay? What hands at last my failing eyes shall close? What eyes will watch me ?-eyes with pity fraught? Some friend of Christ? or those who know him not? Or shall no tomb, as in a casket, lock This frame, when laid a weight of breathless clay? Cast forth unburied on the desert rock, Or thrown in scorn to birds and beasts of prey? This as Thou wilt, the Day will all unite Thy great tribunal, these alone are dread. BIRTH-DAYS. BIRTH-DAYS are mile-posts on the road of time, And new years are the opening of fresh pages In lustrous halos round their hallowed leaves, With him. He counts by deeds, not fleeting hours, A cup of water to a fainting one, Will count more birth-days in Heaven's register Unto himself alone. Now is the seed-time, On earth our erring fingers strike the keys UNSEEN SORROW. WHEN in thy wearied ear sad voices mourn, But something fails them. In the garden gay And they who round their brow the jasmine wreathe And pluck the orange bloom, may sigh to breathe The scent of dewy cowslips far away.-E. H. W. THE SONG OF AUTUMN. I HAVE painted the woods, I have kindled the sky, I have brightened the hills with a glance of mine eye; I have scattered the fruits, I have gathered the corn, And now from the earth must her verdure be torn. No more from the depth of the grove may be heard And their quivering drapery is shaken to air. Plead not, the days are yet sunny and long, For the shores of Earth and Heaven So I think, when days are sweetest, And the amaranth in her hair. Once to meet her, ah! to meet her, Till I blessed her, till she blessed me,- -Bayard Taylor. THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE. "Patience is the key of Content."-Mahomet. That your hues are still brightening, your fibres still To cheer, to help us, children of the dust, strong; To vigor and beauty, relentless am I- And I call on the winds that repose in the north, AUTUMNAL DREAMS. WHEN the maple turns to crimson And the sassafras to gold; When the gentian's in the meadow, And the aster on the wold; When the noon is lapped in vapor, And the night is frosty cold: When the chestnut-burs are opened, And the acorns drop like hail, And the drowsy air is startled With the thumping of the flail,With the drumming of the partridge And the whistle of the quail: Through the rustling woods I wander, Through the smoke of burning summer, When the weary winds are still, I can see her in the valley I can hear her on the hill, In the splendor of the woodlands, More than one angel has Our Father given; But one alone is faithful to her trust, The best, the brightest exile out of Heaven. Her ways are not the ways of pleasantness; Her paths are not the lightsome paths of joy; She walks with wrongs that cannot find redress, And dwells in mansions Time and Death destroy. She waits until her stern precursor, Care, Has lodged on foreheads, open as the morn, To plough his deep, besieging trenches there, The signs of struggles which the heart has borne. But when the first cloud darkens in our sky, And face to face with Life we stand alone, Silent and swift, behold! she draweth nigh, And mutely makes our sufferings her own. Unto rebellious souls, that, mad with Fate, To question God's eternal justice dare, She points above with looks that whisper, "Wait,What seems confusion here is wisdom there." To the vain challenges of doubt we send, No answering comfort doth she minister: She doth not chide, nor in reproachful guise Revives the manly courage of the heart. Daughter of God! who walkest with us here, How fair thy presence by those living streams Where Sin and Sorrow from their troubling cease! Where on thy brow the crown of amaranth gleams, And in thy hand the golden key of Peace! -Bayard Taylor. |