THERE ARE NO RULING GODS.

WHAT Could they gain from such a race as ours?
Or what advantage could our gratitude

Yield these immortal and most blessed powers,
That they in aught should labor for our good?

But even had the science ne'er been mine

Of first beginnings, and how all began,
I could show clearly that no power divine.

Helped at the work, and made the world for man; So great the blunders in the vast design,

So palpably is all without a plan.

For if 'twere made for us, its structure halts
In every member, full of flaws and faults.

Look at the earth: mark, then, in the first place,
Of all the ground the rounded sky bends over,
Forests and mountains fill a mighty space,

And even more do wasteful waters cover,
And sundering seas; then the sun's deadly rays
Scorch part, and over part the hard frosts hover;
And Nature all the rest with weeds would spoil,
Unless man thwarted her with wearying toil.

Mark, too, the babe, how frail and helpless; quite
Naked it comes out of its mother's womb;

A waif cast hither on the shores of light;
Like some poor sailor, by the fierce sea's foam
Washed upon land, it lies in piteous plight,

Nor speaks, but soon as it beholds its home,
Bleats forth a bitter cry; oh, meet presage
Of its life here its woful heritage!

But the small younglings of the herds and flocks
Are strong, and fatten on the grass and dew.
They need no playthings, none their cradle rocks,
Nor ask they with the seasons garments new.
They have no need of walls, and bars, and locks
To guard their treasures; but, forever true
To them, the earth her constant bounty pours
Forth at their feet, and never stints her stores.

NATURE, NOT DEITY, THE AUTHOR OF ALL.

RID of her haughty masters, straight with ease Does Nature work, and willingly sustains

Her fame, and asks no aid of deities.

For of those holy gods who haunt the plains Of Ether, and for aye abide in peace,

I ask, Could such as they are hold the reins Of all the worlds? or in their courses keep The forces of the immeasurable deep?

Whose are the hands could make the stars to roll
Through all their courses, and the fruitful clod
Foster the while with sunlight? always whole-
A multiplied but undivided god?

And strike with bellowing thunders from the pole,
Now his own temples, now the unbending sod;
And now in deserts those vain lightnings try
That strike the pure and pass the guilty by ?

MARTIN LUTHER.

MARTIN LUTHER, the eminent German theologian and reformer, born at Eisleben, in Saxony, Nov. 10, 1483; died there, Feb. 18, 1546. He entered the University of Erfurt at the age of eighteen, graduating as Master of Arts in 1505. His father had destined him for the law, and was greatly disappointed when his son determined to "renounce the world," and become a monk.

In 1505 Martin Luther entered the Augustine convent at Erfurt; in 1507 he took orders, and the following year was called to be Professor of Scholastic Philosophy in the University of Wittenberg. In 1512 he took the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and began to lecture upon the Scriptures, and for several years there was not in all Christendom a more sincere and earnest Catholic than Doctor Martin Luther. But in 1516 the public sale of "Indulgences" was set up in Germany, its management being placed in the hands of John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, whose abuses are admitted by all to have been scandalous. The indignation of Luther was aroused; and on Oct. 31, 1517, he posted up on the doors of the Schlosskirche at Wittenberg a series of ninety-five "theses" or propositions, which he proposed to maintain against any and all opponents.

The publication of these theses was the occasion of that great movement which has come to be known as the Reformation. Luther's translation of the Bible into German, begun in 1521 and completed in 1534, with the assistance of Melanchthon and others, bears much the same relation to the German language that the Authorized English Version does to our own language. Luther also wrote several hymns which have stirred the German heart as few other poems have done. Among these is the " Martyrs' Hymn," and the lyric "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," which may be styled the national song of Protestant Germany.

LETTER TO MELANCHTHON.

GRACE and peace in Christ! In Christ, I say, and not in the world. Amen.

As to the justification for your silence, of that another time,