each particular soil or country are obtainable in superfluity. They are infinitely more in quantity than the people by whom and amidst whom they are produced have need of; while other and distant peoples are in a like situation, having a superfluity of some products and an insufficiency or a total absence of others. The people of South Carolina and Georgia have a superfluity of cotton, and the people in the West India Islands have a superfluity of coffee and tobacco; the people of Louisiana have a superfluity of sugar; the people who inhabit the vast valley of the Upper Mississippi and Missouri have a superfluity of corn and cattle; the people of civilized Europe have a superfluity of the products of mechanical labour; those of France have a superfluity of silk goods; those of England, of manufactured cotton, porcelain, and hardware. Each of these various peoples is able and willing to supply the others with those productions in which themselves abound, and to receive in exchange those of which they stand in need, and which abound elsewhere.-LARDNER'S' Railway Economy.'

1. This use of the word progress, with | ism, but it may now be considered estathe accent on the second syllable, was blished.

for a long time resisted as an American

THE tree, like the animal, is not nourished by food alone; air is also necessary to it. If this be supplied in such extreme quantities as is usual in exposed situations, the tree will suffer from the action of the cold, like a man in an inclement climate, where he is, indeed, furnished with enough of pure air, but where the cold that attends it deranges his organic system. In like manner, when placed in a situation where air is excluded, both the vegetable and the animal are reduced to a state of suffocation equally fatal to their health, and, at a certain period, to their existence. Both productions of nature have, however, their resources ;-the animal, exposed to a painful and injurious degree of cold, seeks shelter; man, however, often condemned to face the extremity of cold, supplies his want of warmth by artificial clothing; and the inferior animals in the polar latitudes, on the Himalaya mountains, and so forth, are furnished by nature with an additional thickness of furs, which would be useless in warmer regions.

Trees placed in an exposed situation have also their resources the object being to protect the sap-vessels, which transmit nutriment, and which lie betwixt the wood and the bark, the tree never

fails to throw out, and especially on the side exposed most to the blast, a thick coating of bark, designed to protect, and which effectually does protect, the sap-vessels and the process of circulation to which they are adapted, from the injury which necessarily must otherwise ensue. Again, if the animal is in danger of suffocation from want of vital air, instead of starving by being exposed to its unqualified rigour, instinct or reason directs the sufferer to approach those apertures through which any supply of that necessary of human life can be attained, and induces man, at the same time, to free himself from any coverings which may be rendered oppressive by the state in which he finds himself.

Now it may be easily proved, that a similar instinct to that which induced the unfortunate sufferers in the Black Hole of Calcutta to struggle with the last efforts to approach the solitary aperture which admitted air to their dungeon, and to throw from them their garments, in order to encourage the exertions which nature, made to relieve herself by perspiration, is proper, also, to the noblest of the vegetable tribe. Look at a wood or plantation which has not been duly thinned; the trees which exist will be seen drawn up to poles, with narrow and scanty tops, endeavouring to make their way towards such openings in the sky as might permit the access of light and air. If entirely precluded by the boughs which have closed over them, the weaker plants will be found strangely distorted by attempts to get out at a side of the plantation; and, finally, if overpowered in these attempts by the obstacles opposed to them, they inevitably perish. As men throw aside their garments, influenced by a close situation, trees, placed in similar circumstances, exhibit a bark, thin and beautifully green and succulent, entirely divested of that thick, coarse, protecting substance which covers the sap-vessels in an exposed position.-SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THERE is a change going on in the world, connected closely with the progress of science, yet distinct from it, and more important than a great part of scientific discoveries; it is the diffusion of existing knowledge among the mass of mankind. Formerly knowledge was shut up in convents and universities, and in books written in the dead languages, or in books which, if in the living languages, were so abstruse and artificial, that only a few persons had access to their meaning; and thus, the human race being considered as one great intellectual creature, a small frac

tion only of its intellect was allowed to come into contact with science, and, therefore, into activity. The progress of science in those times was correspondingly slow, and the evils of general ignorance prevailed. Now, however, the strong barriers which confined the stores of wisdom have been thrown down, and a flood is overspreading the earth; old establishments are adapting themselves to the spirit of the age; new establishments are arising; the inferior schools are introducing improved systems of instruction; and good books are rendering every man's fireside a school. From all these causes there is growing up an enlightened public opinion, which quickens and directs the progress of every art and science, and through the medium of a free press, although overlooked by many, is now rapidly becoming the governing influence in all the affairs of man. In Great Britain, partly, perhaps, as a consequeuce of its insular situation, which lessened among its inhabitants the dread of hostile invasion, and sooner formed them into a united and compact people, the progress of enlightened public opinion had been more decided than in any other state. The early consequences were more free political institutions; and these gradually led to greater and greater mprovements, until Britain became an object of admiration among the nations. A colony of her children, imbued with her spirit, now occupies a magnificent territory in the new world of Columbus; and although it has been independent as yet for only half a century, it already counts more people than Spain, and will soon be second to no nation on earth. The example of the Anglo-Americans has aided in rendering their western hemisphere the cradle of many other gigantic states, all free, and following, although at a distance, the like steps. In the still more recently discovered continent of Australasia, which is nearly as large as Europe, and is empty of men, colonization is spreading with a rapidity never before witnessed; and that beautiful and rich portion of the earth will also soon be covered with the descendants of free-born and enlightened Englishmen. From thence, still onward, they, or their institutions, will naturally spread over the vast archipelago of the Pacific Ocean, a track studded with islands of Paradise. Such, then, is the extraordinary moment of revolution or transit in which the world at present exists! And where, we may ask again, has the Creator predestined that the progress shall cease? Thus far at least we know, that he has made our hearts rejoice to see the world filling with happy human beings, and to observe that the increase of the sciences can make the same spot maintain thousands in comfort and godlike elevation of mind, where with ignorance even hundreds had found but a scanty and degrading supply.

The progress of knowledge, which has thus led from former barbarism to present civilization, has gone on by certain remarkable steps which it is easy to point out; and which it is very useful to consider, because we thereby discover the nature of human knowledge, with the relations and importance of its different branches; and we obtain great facilities for studying science, and for quickening its farther progress.—ARNOTT's Elements of Physics.'

INSTRUCTION,

FROM heaven descend the drops of dew,
From heaven the gracious showers,
Earth's winter aspect to renew,

And clothe the spring with flowers;
From heaven the beams of morning flow,
That melt the gloom of night;
From heaven the evening breezes blow,
Health, fragrance, and delight.

Like genial dew, like fertile showers,
The words of wisdom fall,
Awaken man's unconscious powers,
Strength out of weakness call:

Like morning beams they strike the mind,
Its loveliness reveal;

And, softer than the evening wind,

The wounded spirit heal.

As dew and rain, as light and air,
From heaven Instruction came,
The waste of Nature to repair,
Kindle a sacred flame;

A flame to purify the earth,

Exalt her sons on high,

And train them for their second birth-
Their birth beyond the sky.

Albion on every human soul
By thee be knowledge shed,
Far as the ocean-waters roll,
Wide as the shores are spread:

Truth makes thy children free at home;
Oh! that thy flag, unfurled,

Might shine, where'er thy children roam,
Truth's banner round the world.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

SECTION VII.

RELIGIOUS AND MORAL.

THE BIBLE AND ITS AUTHOR.

Discourses.
Expiring.

Sagacity.
Excruciating.

Perceived.
Attested.

Precepts. Eulogized. THIS divine book, the only one which is indispensable to the Chiistian, needs only to be read with reflection to inspire love for its author, and the most ardent desire to obey its precepts. Never did virtue speak so sweet a language; never was the most profound wisdom expressed with so much energy and simplicity. None can arise from its perusal without feeling himself better than he was before,

The majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment, and the sanctity of the gospel addresses itself to my heart. Look at the volumes of the philosophers, with all their pomp; how contemptible do they appear in comparison to this! Is it possible that a book, at once so simple and sublime, can be the work of man? Can he who is the subject of its history be himself a mere man? Was his the tone of an enthusiast, or of an ambitious sectary? What sweetness! What purity in his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his instructions! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses! What presence of mind, what sagacity and propriety in his answers! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, suffer, and die, without weakness and without ostentation!

When Plato described his imaginary good man, covered with all the disgrace of crime, yet worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ. The resemblance was so striking, it could not be mistaken, and all the Fathers of the church perceived it. What prepossession, what blindness, must it be to compare the son of Sophroniscus to the son of Mary! What an immeasurable distance between them!

Socrates dying without pain, and without ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was anything more than