infectious and corrupts everything it touches, I would direct the devout reader's attention to a practical lesson in connection with demonstrative evidence of design in the structure of the eyes of an insect.

First, that he may not think we are fighting with a shadow, let me quote, from a periodical called the National Reformer (!), the sentiments of one who, without any concealment of his name and officebeing one of the recognized teachers of the people at the Governmental School of Art, South Kensington-writing a series of articles under the heading of "Design in Nature," is not ashamed or afraid to write of the Almighty in this manner

“I will only select one striking case of blundering on the part of the almighty Designer.. Blunders of the most execrable kind, on the design assertion, they are helpers to the evolutionist of almost incalculable value. That certain unfortunate members of the human race should be born devoid of the sense of hearing is a blunder of the cruelest kind. . . . That this loneliness should result from the deliberate planning of God seems evidence that God is not good. I do not refer now to the many cases of long or short sight daily encountered amongst us, though even these cry 'shame' on God. . These are as so many arguments against clear-thinking design on the part of the planner of the universe."

...

The author of these and many similar atheistical remarks is, you must observe, a governmental teacher in our great public school; and unless such deadly materialism is controverted and dispelled, it may spread amongst the students, who will carry it with them into their schools and disseminate it amongst their pupils.

The so-called "blunders" of the public teacher-the patron and companion of the expelled atheistical member-remind us of the devout Pascal's saying: that what we call Nature has perfection in order to show that she is the image of God; and defects in order to show that she is only His image.

Now let me give you my illustration.

I have already reminded you of the mechanical structure of the eyes of insects-how, that exactly as our most perfect optical instruments contain a number of lenses all geometrically ground, one upon another, so we find the eyes of insects; while different descriptions of eyes are found to be placed exactly in and where the particular insect or other animal requires it. Now, then, for our experiment.

I take down my microscope, and calling your attention to Sir John Lubbock's statement that insects only see part of the object with each eye, the whole combining to form an image on the optic nerve, with all submission to that celebrated naturalist I think we shall find him mistaken; because first, you see, I have contrived to cut out of the

bon-bon paper wrapped round our sweets a big and very gaudy butterfly it measures an inch from wing to wing; it is about the size of life.

Could we see this paper fly through the microscope with our lowest magnifying power of thirteen diameters, or 429 times, we should find that in order to see it correctly we must, as usual, invert its position, placing it head downwards. But if we moisten the picture, and fasten it on to the flat side of the condensing lens, turning its convex side towards the lamp, so throwing the image on to the mirror below, and then employ a magnifying power of 850 diameters, or 722,500 times, looking at the fly through the beetle's eye, we shall behold a perfect but very greatly diminished butterfly in each.

A similarly interesting experiment was made some time ago with a watch, the face of which was removed. The works were seen in motion in each of the insects' eyes, the balance wheel and spring, although extremely minute, being distinctly visible.

Amongst other lessons suggested by these experiments may be that an object seen by the living fly may appear very considerably smaller than it appears to us; but, passing to a more important inquiry, don't you think this effectually disposes of the idea that insects see only a portion of the object in each eye?

But, what relates more particularly to our experiment for the latter remark is only incidentally introduced for the purpose of showing that some of our most learned men, not atheistically inclined, may be easily mistaken, and that we must, therefore, receive even their remarks with caution, and sometimes even suspicion-is the fact that, passing the image through the eyes of the insect, we no longer need to invert the image, because the cockchafer's 8,820 eyes form a correcting lens.

"Ah! but the condensing lens!" you doubtingly exclaim. That does not affect it; and, that I may clearly prove to you the illustration, I will now take my own initials, "J. C.," and I will print the date, "1882," under them and together, in thick type, each character being about from one quarter to half an inch in length; they are shown thus, 1882. J. C. I place the card with these letters and figures inscribed on it on the mirror, using the latter for a table, and this time use the condensing lens for another purpose, throwing all the light from the lamp on to the card, looking at the object through the eight thousand eyes, which I lay on the stage of the microscope in an ordinary way, placing, you must observe, the card in a proper, not an inverted, position, and we then see the image, not inverted, but just as we should did we look at it in an ordinary manner without any optical assistance, but still a perfect image in every one eye.

Clearly, therefore, the insect's eyes form a correcting lens.

Now let us examine the belongings of the instrument, invented by man-an excellent evidence of human ingenuity you will admit.

Here is another lens, called by the optician a "meniscus," from the Greek mene, the moon; it is concave on the one end, and convex and plain on the other, having a sharp edge, the flat side going towards the object, and concave side towards the eye of the spectator. It measures, in the brass tubing, about three inches in length, and fits into the body of the instrument.

This "meniscus " lens was invented to correct the image, for you will observe that on placing any object on the stage of the microscope, with the correcting lens in the body, we no longer require to place the object in an inverted position, but as we would see it after the ordinary manner; so that the conclusion at which we arrive is this, that what the meniscus is to the microscope the eye is to the insect; and this, too, in every eye, though each shall be no larger than the fine point of a small needle.

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Now what would you say of me as a teacher were I to say to youMy dear friend, all this has nothing whatever to do with design; it is all the effect of accident, The sand and the flint and the alkali all happened to tumble into such juxtaposition that they accidentally made the glass; and by accidental friction it came to pass that while one glass which, you see, happened to fall into its place, came out concave, the other happened likewise to have one side plain and the other convex. And then as for the brass metal into which these compound glasses accidentally slipped. Ah, you know the composition of brass, don't you? Well, first the copper went after the tin, and then the one became united to the other-as an illustration of the schoolboy's arithmetic, 'two's into two, one.' So here, for the copper and the tin became a new metal, and the brass tubing, circular and perfect in its form from end to end, was all the result of accident and nothing more, the whole together forming the meniscus."

What would you think of me?

What I think of a public teacher who declaims against design in nature, and is not ashamed or afraid to cry" shame" on God, whom he accuses of "blundering" in His almightiness.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God," says the Psalmist. "Yes," said a working man once, "in his heart, not his head, because his reason would have been against his theory; his affections are all in a wrong direction."

In the original Hebrew the words "there is" are not to be found; in our translation you will find them in italics, to supply the English sense: "no God"!—that is, the "fool" does not want there to be a God.

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CHAPTER IX.

SYMPATHY.

Nothing is more odious than that insensibility which wraps a man up in himself and his own concerns, and prevents his being moved with either the joys or sorrows of another."-BEATTIE.

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Sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected."-Burke.

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HE ants are a people." Some people have very curious opinions of other "people"; and so some two-legged animals have very singular ideas of our six-legged friend. In Ceylon the natives believe the ants feed serpents who live underground, by picking the leaves from the trees and conveying them through their subterranean chambers; and because reptiles' appetites are insatiable, the ants have always to go on working. It is astonishing what quaint ideas attach to insects in various parts of the world. From Oxfordshire another letter just reaches me describing a peculiar caterpillar, which if it should get on to one's fingers would wring one of them from the hand; and so the "natives" call them " "wring-fingers."

Nor need we wonder at the horror and superstition attached to insects, when we consider what they are capable of doing.

To all the misfortunes of Turkey there happened only last season that which appears to be incredible. Mr. Goschen, describing some of that unfortunate country's disasters which have crowded upon it lately, says "I am sorry to say I have not exhausted the list. A plague of locusts came on the shores of Asia Minor and laid low the crops, and only this morning (in July, 1881) I received a letter telling me that the plague had reappeared, devastating crops and corn in some parts of Asia Minor. My correspondent states that one thousand seven hundred tons of young locusts had to be buried in his district alone." "But now," asks some one, 66 can you tell us what may be the use of such a mighty host as this? Why do you suppose they were sent ?"

That locusts, like ants, have some special work to do, I am as fully persuaded as that you and I have something to do. Often it pleases God to chastise wicked nations with a sorer punishment than war. Not the invading hosts of Russia, not the anarchy and bad government of Turkey, not the tremendous influx of Mussulman emigrants which, rushing from Muscovite rule, poured into the already overflowing cities-not any or all of these were calculated to visit the doomed land as that "army" of God sent into the interior to destroy the staff of life there, producing poverty and starvation indescribable. The readers of our Bible will remember the accurate description given by the prophet Joel where, under the figure of an invading army, an extraordinary plague of locusts, such as has happened recently in Turkey, is described: the same fierceness and speed in flight, the same regularity in their march; the same darkness at noonday, caused by the great clouds of insects; the havoc they should occasion, the places they should attack, and their method of invasion; the appalling