A calm consideration of the facts collected on this subject, after due weight has been given to the able arguments advanced on either side, would seem to lead to the following conclusions: First, we have reason to know that the various bodies of the solar system have a composition resembling one another; on the Sun, the most unlikely of all, many of the elements of the Earth are found, iron, sodium, etc. This remark may be extended to the fixed Stars. Second, we feel satisfied that the same laws which rule the solar system rule the Universe; in the case of the law of gravity a demonstration can be easily offered, the binary Stars revolving around their common centre of gravity according to it.

not propose for comets the function of penal | I can not believe that on our little globe alone,
settlements for the planets, their wretched in- among the infinity of worlds, life has been pos-
habitants being whirled, for sins committed, sible, because only on it surrounding circum-
through fierce extremes of heat, now approxi- stances have been favorable. It seems more
mating the sun and made two thousand times in accordance with reason to believe that there
as hot as molten iron, now traversing space may be on many other globes intelligent beings,
100° below zero.
formed on the same plan as we are, but differ-
ing, on some perhaps for the better, on others
for the worse. On our own globe we see what
an influence such conditions as heat, moisture,
etc., have on the inhabitants of the various
zones. At the poles, where man struggles with
difficulty to procure a precarious livelihood, in-
tellect is at a low ebb, and exhausts itself in
efforts to obtain food; at the equator, amidst
the bounteous provision on every hand, mind
and body are oppressed by a languor that seems
only broken by the passions. In the temperate
zone, our own happy latitude, the seasons con-
duce to activity; but thoughts of subsistence
need not occupy all the time, enough can be
spared to originate the most sublime ideas in
science and the arts. It must be thus in the
Third, we may be sure that Nature, opera- universe; though the general plan is the same
ting upon like substances by similar laws, will throughout, there may be worlds that have
ever produce the same results. There is a never passed the state in which the earth was
unity of scheme pervading the universe, there in early geological times, while on others con-
are immortal types or exemplars, the Divine spiring circumstances may have allowed life to
Ideas, according to which things are framed develop even beyond our standard, and to reach
with an infinite variety of modifications, de-a point that we may hope in the future to at-
pending on the surrounding physical conditions. Į tain.

THE SPECTRE.

HERE is a wrinkled old man

Twith thin and silvery hair,

A lean and withered old man,

And his name, I know, is Care.
He sits by my bed through the night,
He walks at my side in the street,
In the broad and open light,

Unseen of the people I meet.

His cheeks are hollow with age;
His eyes are sunken and dim,
The high and the lowly of earth
Alike are acquainted with him.
Only the child has not known,
Since its infant life began-
Like a blossom newly blown-

The face of this wrinkled old man.

When Youth's bright summer is past,

And the dreams that we dreamed are fled;
When doubts, like a cloud, arise

And the hopes we cherished are dead;
When the castles that we reared
Have vanished at last in air,
Where their portals once appeared
Sits this withered old man called Care.

He stands by the mother who kneels
At the bedside of her child,
As she cools the fevered brow

And the lips that so sweetly smiled;
And across her sad, pale face,

Uplifted a moment in prayer,
A likeness to him you may trace
Imprinted indelibly there.

Unseen he raises the latch,

And creeps past the crazy door,
Up the narrow flight of stairs
To the garret of the poor-
And there by the dreary hearth
He sits at the close of day,
Where is heard no sound of mirth,
And where shines no cheering ray.

He enters the mansions of wealth,
The palaces stately and grand,
And all uninvited he takes

His place at the master's right hand-
He heeds not the time as it flits,

He counts not the moments that pass, But silent and thoughtful he sits,

And drinks from the master's own glass.

Though aged he never has known
Youth's promise or manhood's prime,
But this lean and withered old man
Will live to the end of time.
He will enter, and speak not a word,
The lofty and wide palace door,
And climb the weak staircase unheard
To the dreary abode of the poor.

There is but one house that I know
Where this wrinkled old man can not come,
In the quiet and gloom of the grave

He shall find neither rest nor a home.
In that narrow house under ground
All unheeded the years shall go by,
As folded in slumber profound,
Undisturbed by his presence we lie.

"EASTER LILIES."

dark hazel eyes, who lingered at the font and asked for a flower. And he smiled politely as THE triumphal Easter anthem filled the he offered her a cluster of dazzling lilies, glit

T church, and seemed to drift through arch tering like sunlight on snow.

and architrave up to the very throne of God. The very building, with its cold, gray-stone walls, thrilled and pulsated with tuneful sound, and upon that joy-tide many a desolate soul floated upward nearer to heaven than ever before. Mrs. Thorne leaned back wearily in her pew, as if the strain uttered nothing that could reach her heart: "Christ the Lord has risen to-day!" She speculated vaguely about it, as she did about most things: it did not touch her-it was a dim and distant thing, like a story in Grecian History. And there was a fierce struggle in her innermost heart, a strange purpose with which she was wrestling, a horrible, haunting idea that rose again and again, like a vexed ghost, and would not be laid, which shut her eyes to the heavenly vision and her ears to celestial harmonies. The Easter flowers filled the font, and made a summer atmosphere of bloom and fragrance. Lilies, waxen white, yet with a sun-tinge in them; large golden-dusted cymes of laburnums, with feathery moss dewy and glistening; fragrant pale-blue mignonnette that sent a breath of balm through the aisles like incense; and some rosecolored blooms warming the whole. Mrs. Thorne had an appreciation for the lovely coloring of these, for she had an artist's eye. She had earned her bread by painting once, and had been "good at her art for a woman," they said. For five years she had not touched pencil or brush, for it was just five years to-day since she had married John Thorne, M.D.

Mrs. Thorne did not go home. She turned instead out of the close, compact little town, and walked with tireless feet on and on, till the pavements came to an end, and straggling lanes, beginning to have a tender greenness hovering over them, lay before her. The distant hills shone yellowish gray or dimmed away into silver. The trees, with their delicate tracery of boughs against the blue sky, held each their store of different-colored buds half unfolded; the rock maples, with their salmon-colored leaves; white and red oaks and the birches spreading out a pale-green mist before a grove of sombre pines.

Clusters of white dog-wood starred the woods, and pink columbines festooned the trees. Careless of the wet, Mrs. Thorne penetrated through the damp, sedgy ground to a stream that ran in the distance, treading on fairy-like mosses with slender, scarlet-tipped stems, some holding tiny brown cups like acorns, or gay dots of crimson flowers. All was clothed in the beautiful verdure of spring. Then the birds! a whole summer of joy and sunshine lay before them, and they kept high carnival. Margaret Thorne sat down on a bit of gray rock and watched a goldfinch rocking itself in the thin, sunny branches of a white birch that pulsated in the wind. She half rocked herself also, and murmured some lines that had echoed through her heart the whole morning:

Wild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?

Dark, dark night, wilt thou never pass away?
Cold, cold heart, in thy death sleep lying,

Thy Lent is past, thy Passion, but not thine Easter
Day."

And so she sat through all the long April after-
noon, shivering and drawing now and then the
soft Cashmere shawl about her; but letting the
folds of her violet silk trail carelessly on the
gray mosses and dead leaves. Reader! you
have heard long ago of the fierce battle fought

At last the service was over, the last words died away on the air-a hushed stillness, and then a subdued rustling showed that the people were going. Mrs. Thorne sat still as one in a dream. She had come in expecting something, some hope or comfort perhaps, which she had not received. Was there no blessing there for her? Other people brought their burdens there and found them roll away as Christian's did at the foot of the cross. Why did such an idle fic-between Christian and Apollyon, in that strange, tion haunt her? Christ, if there was a Christ, sat afar off, beyond the sunsets, and the cries and groans of the desolate never pierced that vast expanse of ether. She got up drearily then, for the young minister stood waiting in the chancel, and went forward. She would take something with her, if only a flower-something sweet and fresh and natural, that might whisper. Hush! that thought again.

quaint old legend of Bunyan. Ah! we all know there are unseen contests which no papers chronicle, and where no bulletins are sent from the seat of war; but the pen of the Recording Angel writes the record and a tear drops when the banners are trailed in the dust. Well, Margaret Thorne fought her battle with Apollyon that afternoon, and lost!

When the slant sunbeams lay on the ground penetrating the long shadows of the trees she rose to go. She was weary with the contest; but calm-calm as if her heart, like her hopes, had died within her-" and she pitied her own heart, as if she held it in her hand."

How kind and mild he looked! Perhaps he could minister to a mind diseased. Perhaps there was some good in the old Romish confessional after all. But this was a Protestant church. Margaret Thorne smiled grimly as she imagined how those mild blue eyes would dilate The lights were beginning to stir the town with surprise if she threw herself passionately at as she reached it, like friendly eyes to greet his feet and poured out all her thoughts, her her; but she hurried blindly on with shudderwild regrets, her half-formed purposes, her skep-ing chills to the prim red brick house that was tical doubts. Instead of this the minister only her home. "Dr, Thorne" decorated the brass saw a stately-looking lady with rather eager, plate on the door, and the light of a street-lamp

emblazoned it finely for the suffering public this night. In the little office at the side, from whose window ruddy beams streamed out, the Doctor was still at work with a bullet-headed boy putting up prescriptions or concocting some patent medicine. Faugh! Margaret thought she could smell the fumes already. How she hated it all! Was this life? Was this all? Was this dull round of days of petty cares-this dreary sameness- -the prim order-the strict drill rules-all she was made for? Had she not crossed the threshold with other dreams five years ago?

"She had her nurse, I suppose," said Margaret, coldly.

"But, my dear, you look rather flushed," said Dr. Thorne. He never interfered with his wife's movements as long as she transgressed no rules. "I think a little powder-"

"Nothing, thank you—I shall do very well," answered Mrs. Thorne, beginning to eat to overcome the faintness which she began to feel in every limb.

It was a relief when they began to talk of a Sanitary Fair which was to be held in Philadelphia in June. "Would you like to go, Margaret? I'm pretty busy; but I'd take the time to give you pleasure."

"It would give me no pleasure," she replied, indifferently.

The light-gray eyes grew colder than before. "If I knew what you would like," he said, drearily. "I hear it will be worth seeing-fine pictures. You must own to liking pictures, Margaret ?"

"I believe I did care for them once!"

She looked at Dr. Thorne again with a flickering gleam of the old feeling, half gratitude, half love, which had made the prim house seem pleasant in those old days to the poor girl who had been left without friends or home. But she fiercely turned upon herself for the lingering tenderness. It would not do now-now when her purpose was formed, the fiat passed. She had believed that foolish feeling had burned itself out long ago to dead gray ashes; could it be there was life in it yet? He came to the "And wonders of machinery, and antique afwindow and looked out. A small man, with fairs, and curiosities of the vegetable world, and sandy hair and rather a delicate face-a very an arctic zone, where a ship stands fast locked quiet and serious face you would call it-some-in icy fetters on a frozen sea, and a torrid zone, what lacking as to coloring or mobility of ex- where the strange growth of the tropics may be pression-set-cold, it may be. Large light-seen," continued Dr. Thorne. gray eyes without much speculation in them, "Bless me!" interrupted Aunt Hetty; "do and a good firm mouth. A man of rules-you could almost see that at a glance-and already taking out his watch and looking impatiently at the hour. "So he would do if I were dead!" said Margaret, fiercely, as she opened the door softly and ran up stairs, remembering for the first time that she had been away from her child all day.

tell! Who's goin to contribbit them air zones, and how do they keep the ice froze continniwal? Sakes alive! but I'd like to get the receipt for our ice-cream."

But Dr. Thorne talked no more, and even the garrulous old lady seemed to feel that there was an unusual call to silence. The meals were always silent in that house. Margaret had never Poor little Dot!-she had some other ancient questioned herself how far it lay within her to and Puritanical name after John's mother-so make them otherwise. The dining-room was Margaret always called her Dot, and rejoiced dingy, she thought; hard and stiff as its owner. that she stretched out her little fat hands at the The chairs were covered with brown leather name, and never noticed Aunt Hetty's sounding studded with brass nails-slippery, shiny chairs, reiteration of her proper one. Poor little thing! that never held one cordially, but seemed ready with her peach-tinted cheeks and flossy, golden to give you the slip. A brown mixed carpet rings of hair. Had Margaret thought of her and curtains, and a pervading drug odor, made weighed things truly for her in the matter? the place hateful to Margaret. If she could She only bent down over the crib and kissed have had "carte blanche in those first pleasthe pinky cheek, saying over and over again, inant days she would have made a bright, cheeran unreasoning, passionate way, "She is mine -she is mine!" And she put the lilies down by her own pure little lily. Then she began hurriedly to dress for dinner. She shivered still, though a fever was in her veins and burned on cheek and lip. She wondered bitterly what sent the strange, glittering light to her eyes when all within was so dark. Then she went down into the dining-room, where John stood ready, knife in hand, to carve the roast, and Aunt Hetty gave a deprecating hem! as she entered, while the bullet-headed boy regarded the meat with watery eyes, and sniffed continually. "Sakes alive, Margaret!" commenced Aunt Hetty, "where on airth have you bin? The child took on awful, an at last cried herself to sleep."

ful place of it," she said; but she could not have carte blanche. John could not afford it, he had told her, but she had only half believed him: and that was the first cloud. She found afterward that he loved old things and dreaded innovation. The house had been his father's, and his mother had died there. He would have nothing changed. He was a quiet conservative in every thing. Margaret was a redhot radical. She asked too much, perhaps, and he yielded too little.

So, long before the honey-moon was over the honey was all gone, and nothing left but the jars. So it came to pass that these two people, bound together by eternal ties, sitting at one table, breaking the daily bread of life together-one by the usages of the world and the

sanctities of religion-with the daily courtesies, | were depths in his nature that she had never and perhaps endearments, of life on their lips, fathomed! What if she were wounding him were as utterly apart as if a broad continent, cruelly, fatally, in taking the child away! with its reaches of land, and wooded slopes, and Thought after thought seemed turning, whirlbelts of forest, lay between them. So it came ing in her weary brain, like the wheels of a that this woman-Margaret Thorne-with her ponderous machine; but some wheel was wantpassionate, enthusiastic nature, struggling with ing, perhaps, and so the rest clashed on in a her undisciplined heart so long, had fought her blind and aimless way, and worked out nothing. last battle in the fresh green woods that afternoon, asking no aid from God or man, looking only on nature and not to nature's God-had so fought, and lost! For she meant to leave home and husband this night.

Yes, she would go. She could live her life better alone-freer, more untrammeled-a true and beautiful life. For she would give herself to art. She had earned her bread in that way once, and could do more now, with dear little Dot to nerve her to steady effort. After all, it was a glorious future-lonely, perhaps; so much the better, art reigned best alone: no divided throne for divine art. She would go to Germany-to Munich it might be—and study hard. She and Dot could live on so little there; and it would be sweet to leave all old scenes behind -better far that the broad ocean should roll between her and her old home and John. Safer too; for surely in any spot or nook of the United States John would find her out. "He would want Dot at least," she said, bitterly.

Then Aunt Hetty came in. She was John's aunt-a bustling, gossiping, meddling old lady, truly kind at heart; but Margaret had always rebelled against her. She took all the cares and household tasks and burdens off Mrs. Thorne's dainty shoulders; but then those very cares might have been healthful for one who knew not how to use the energies of life. And so Margaret grudged her the bustling cheerfulness with which she set about the preserving, and had tussles with the baker, and jokes with the butcher, and saved John a peck of coal a day by having the cinders sifted, and made her life as varied and pleasant to herself as though every phase was as important as the things we dramatize. She grumbled at Margaret sometimes; indeed, Mrs. Thorne was wont to say that her temper, like her pickles, was a "pleasant sour." But then Margaret did not make John happy; more than this, she did not try to make John happy; and Aunt Hetty recognized no greater sin.

"I've brought ye a cup o' pennyryal tea, Margaret, for you looked kind o' peakit at dinner; an no wonder-you seem clean beat out a-walkin. In my young days married ladiesnor young ones neither-didn't go scouring round the country like mad, a-spiling good silks that their husbands arned."

So she hurried about while Dot still slept, putting up her most precious things. She could not take much, you see-no traveling trunks loaded with treasures-only jewels that might be sold, and what clothes she could take in her hand, and some money. Her head ached madly; a whirling and noisy din seemed to fill the silent room. Oh, but for one quiet, painless moment for her to think of what she should need! Not John's picture certainly, Margaret thought her own thoughts, and though it seemed to come under her hands ev-hardly heard a word.

Sharp Aunt Hetty! she had seen the country soil on the violet silk.

ery where, as if bewitched. Ah well! perhaps "I tell you, Margaret," said Aunt Hetty, in for Dot: She might like to see one day what a solemn way, 'you hain't got a mother, an I her father was like. He was loving enough to must stan in her place. I tell you you ain't a her, poor little Dot! There are tears in Mar- doin yer dooty by John. You an he seem to be garet's eyes, but she dashes them away and says gittin farther apart every day. Now if you call they are for little Dot. yourself a Christian woman-"

What was it that favored her-Fate or Providence-she wondered vaguely, as she pressed her hands to her burning, throbbing head, that John should be called out into the country? He came up hastily, and she brushed her things into a drawer and sat down by the fire, which made the plain room cheerful on this April night. There was a home glow about it after all-a friendly cheer that made the dark chill streets seem uninviting. He brushed his hair hastily, saying:

"Do not sit up for me, Margaret. I have a long ride before me."

"I shall not sit up," she said, with a tremor in her voice at the hidden meaning of her words. Would she ever see him again? Why should he bend over the child's crib and kiss her? He loved her, of course; but it had been in a quiet, passionless way, she thought. What if there

"But I do not," interrupted Margaret, fiercely. "Sakes alive!" said Aunt Hetty, putting up her fat hands in horror, "if yer a heathen tain't no use a-sayin nothin-if ye hain't the fear of God before your eyes, I can't expect ye'll care much about yer vows to man; but ye did, ye know ye did, stan up in God's house an promise to love, honor, and obey an the rest of it. How ye've kep the promise ye know in yer heart."

"If John does not complain it is nothing to you," said Margaret, with oh such an aching heart and head, such a mad longing to stop her ears, to be rid in some way of this dreadful woman who was arraigning her at the bar of justice, and bringing fearful charges to which she must plead "guilty!"

"Is he the kind of man to complain?" said Aunt Hetty, drearily; "but don't I see him

growin silenter every day. An a thinkin, think- | dow that lifted itself up and floated away like a in, I know, of what he hoped his home would bubble; then the boy before her, loaded with be, when he brought such a bright, hansome her bundles, seemed to be cresting the huge, gal as you was to it. An how it's a growin dark wave of some unseen ocean, and to rise darker every day. He complain! I think I and fall with its tideless current. Were they see him complainin of you. He's like them all sinking together, and was this the wages of Spartan boys in the history, he wouldn't flinch sin? But she held Dot fast through all. though the great grief was a tearin at his vitals." "My head aches," said Margaret, wearily, wondering if John had really suffered any thing, so quiet, so self-contained as he had always been. Why, she would have loved him almost if he had appeared to be wounded, if she could have stung him to passion or indignation, or in any way moved him from the quiet, settled tenor of his ways.

room now.

Ha! there was the boat: it blinked up the street with a dozen shining eyes of light, and a white moon made a long silver path behind it on the dark water. The clang of a bell shrilled through the night-air and seemed to strike her head like a blow. People were hurrying on, and she drifted with them. A happy young couple passed her with pleasant chat between them about getting their state-room. She remembered that she had never traveled alone before. Did she envy the young woman who sank luxuriously upon a sofa while her husband bustled about and tended to every thing! Did this first entrance on the world of Ah! a clear field now-Fate or Providence, strife appall her? Oh no! Better, she said, which? Margaret roused herself from a trance the fiercest wrestling with outer life if one has of pain and gathered her bundles again. She peace within. But where was the inner peace? could take more now, for there was nothing in Ah! that would come in time when she had the way of her hiring a boy in the street to carry gathered together and rewoven again the threads her baggage. She looked at her watch anxious- of her old life. ly. There was yet time to take the down boat and be in New York in the morning.

"Well, good-night! I'm a-goin up to my You're up here, an it's kind o' lonesome down stairs. I hope ye'll take it kindly what I said. It's for the happiness of ye both, I'm sure."

She took Dot out of the little crib, and the child opened sleepy eyes like dew-wet violets, and laughed at the gay scarlet cloak that was wrapped around her. "She does not know that she is losing home and father to-night," said Margaret, sadly, as another tear rolled down her cheek. All for Dot, of course.

The young woman near her leaned over and looked at Dot. "A little angel," she said, smiling; "how happy you must be!"

Margaret wondered bitterly if this enviable creature envied her. Perhaps every one was wretched, and all appearance of happiness was but a mask-perhaps all joy was but the outer shell, that in every heart was a "seething, restless hell." Did not "the whole creation groan and travail together in pain until now?"

The young woman was a Yankee, and walked in wisdom's ways by the help of questions. "Is your husband below ?" she asked.

Margaret winced, and said "No."
"Are you alone with that little thing?"
Margaret nodded.

"Well, I'll make Will get you a state-room,"

Well, all was ready. There was no need to wait; no need for Margaret to lay her head on the pillow where she should never rest again, and shed hot tears, almost of regret; no need that she should put more wood on the fire, so that, looking back from the dark street when far on her way, she might see the ruddy glow like a kindly farewell from the old home; no need, certainly, that she should put John's slip-she said, good-naturedly; "he's the dearest felpers to the fire, and his dressing-gown on the arm-chair for him to use when he came back from that long, chill ride. Poor fellow! he would meet a deadlier chill by that household fire than night or storm could bring him. As if he could take his comfort when he knew all. Poor John!

How weak she was growing! She must hurry away before this soft, pitying mood spoiled all. She had chosen. But men pitied the foe some times, even when they struck the death-blow, and she might pity John. He was not her foe, he had meant to be kind perhaps, but she was going to strike him a deadly blow for all that. She pictured his first entrance, his first surprise, his horror, his fright, his eager, fruitless search. Poor, poor John!

low-but I'd give my eyes for a baby like that." And Margaret thanked the friendly young woman, but shrank from her nevertheless-the contest was too new, the wound too terrible to be touched by the kindest hand.

When Dot was asleep again she went on deck for a little while. It was a cloudless night-only fair and pearly fragments of cloud hung low at the horizon-above, all was gold-starred azure. The water lay sparkling, phosphorescent-plowed by the boat, it fell back in showers of diamonds, or a delicate silvery spray. On the banks were wooded hills crested by fair homes. It looked like dream-land in that pallid light-too unreal a world for men to suffer and toil in. How fast they went! Margaret was glad to hear the wheels' swift turnings and the labored panting Well-she was in the street now, and the wind of the great machine like a monster struggling blowing fresh from the river. Somehow things for breath. How many miles already between seemed drifting away strangely like the scenes her and the old life! yet she could not realize in a panorama; now it was a lighted shop-win- it. It haunted her yet, and weighed her down,