RELIGION AND MORALITY.

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A person may be outwardly moral without being religious, but he cannot be truly religious without being moral. Religion comprehends the whole of morality, but morality does not of itself constitute one religious. Morality relates merely to the duties of man to man in a social state. is social obligation and duty. Religion pertains to the relation existing between men and God. Morality may exist in a community where such a relation is not recognized, though it will be likely to be very imperfect, having no divine authority or sanction to its law. The moral law of the atheist is not the law of God, but simply the conventionalism of men. With him there is no "higher law"-no eternal principles of justice-no real distinction between right and wrong. In his view it is not expedient to do right because it is right, but expediency makes right. Therefore, whatever a man may think it is expedient for him to do is right for him to do — and there is no such thing as an eternal, unchangeable principle of right in the universe-no real moral law. Such is the moral code of atheism. Hence, its morality, in the midst of the selfish interests of the world, must be very imperfect.

We may suppose a man, who, from various influences, generally does right as between man and man. He is comparatively honest, truthful, temperate and industrious; but if he recognizes no God, and feels no sense of dependence on Him, or of obligation, allegiance or loyalty to any di vine government over him, he is not religious, though he may be comparatively moral. He recognizes no moral kingdom or government of God.

He feels no reverence, adoration or love to any being above man. He lives, in his own apprehension,

at least, "Without hope and without God in the world."

The religious man believes in God as the Supreme Mind of the Universe, as possessing feelings or a disposition, as well as intellect. He regards the Universe as the kingdom of God, and the current of events as under the Divine control-the laws of matter, and of the mind and heart, as the laws of God. He realizes his dependence on God, and feels a sense of obligation and responsibility to Him and to his laws. The mere moralist may possess very little of such a sentiment. He is compara

tively moral from other considerations-from the influence, perhaps, of the example of others, or from the force of habit, or a mere sense of decency and a desire for respectability.

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True religion produces a good, moral life; and no one can be truly religious without being moral. Ă true life is the test of true religion. False religion undervalues morality, and sets itself up as a substitute for moral virtue; hence, there is a class of men who endeavor to make up religion what they lack in real goodness. Their religion consists in a mere blind adherence to a creed, devotion to the interests of a sect, and observance f religious rites and forms. It may be pertinently said to such, in the words of Jesus, "These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the others undone."

The man of truly religious character combines in himself piety toward God and morality in his relations to his fellow-beings. His pure outward life or conduct flows naturally out of his religious life within. He is in harmony with God and man. He loves God because he realized that God first loved him when a sinner; and feels benevolent and kind to his fellows, because the divine love is shed abroad in his heart.

CHANGE OF SEASONS.

And, as fires go out, the blaze growing less, the great sticks turning to coals, the coals to ashes and embers, and these, little by little, dying silently away, until only sparks are left, which one by one fly up or become extinguished, so is it with the summer, that blazes in August, that turns to coals all ruddy in September and October, which pale and hide themselves in November, and whose last sparks are quenched in Decem.

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The spirit goes with the seasons. Our thoughts may not be expressly busy with all these signs in the heaven and on the earth. But we sigh oftener; we sit silent more frequently; our walks are shortened; we remember the absent; we muse upon the worth of life, upon its course and issues. We are not somber, exactly, but we are sweetly sad.

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There is something even touching than this. It is the flight of birds. All summer they have filled the woods. They sing from the trees. They rise from thickets and weed-muffled fences, as in our wanderings we scale them. They sing in the air. They wake us with their matins. They chant vespers with glorious discordance of sweet medley. They flit across the lawn, rise and fall on the swinging twig, or rock to the wind on their aerial perch.

But after August they become mute; and in October days they begin to recede from the dwelling. No more twittering wrens; no more circling swallows; no more grotesque bobolinks; no more larks, singing as if they were heart-broken. They begin now to come in troops in the distant fields. At sunset the pasture is full of flocks of hundreds and thousand. At morning they are gone. And every day brings its feathery

caravan. Every day they pass on. Long flocks of fowl silently move far up against the sky, and always going away from the north. At evening the weary strings of water-fowls, flying low, and wistful of some pond for rest and food, fill the air with hoarse trumpeting and clangor. They are going: the last are going. Winter is behind them; summer is before them; and we are left. The season is bereft. Light is short: darkness is long. Flowers are sunken to rest. The birds have flown away. Winter, winter, WINTER is upon the earth!

At last come the December days. The shortest is reached. Then a few days stand alike. Then the solar blaze creeps forward a minute in the evening. A little more; again more, till half hours ring around the horizon-till hours are strung upon the days--till noons grow warm--till storms are full of melted snow--till the earth comes back-till ponds unlock themselves. The forests grow purple-twigged. The great winds sigh and rage. March blusters and sighs by turns--a giant that now is cross, and now kind. The calves begin to come. Lambs bleat. The warm hills are plowed. At last the nights are without frost.

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At length we wake, some pected morning, and the blue bird's call is in the tree. We throw up the sash. The sun lies flush on all the landscape. There is a smile of soil and leaf in the air. The poplar buds are fragrant as balm. The air is warm and moist. The birds are surely here; they answer each other -the sparrow, the blue-bird, the robin, and, afar off on the edges of the swamp, the harsh twanging notes of the black-bird. It is spring! It is the time of the singing of birds! Nobody forgets the wild thrill of the heart at the first sounds of birds in spring.

Oh, with what a sense of emancipation do we hear the birds sing again! God sends his choirs to sing victory over night and death for us. Winter, that buried all, is herself put away. Death is swallowed up in victory, and nature chants the requiem of the past, and the joy of the future. Now days shall grow longer, and warmer. Now industry shall move freely. Now flowers shall come up. Seed shall be sown. Doors and windows shall stand open all day long. Around about the barn the hens shall cackle and crow. Child. ren shall shout. Spring bas come; and all things rejoice at release. No more locking ice; no more inhospitable snow; no more blight of cold.” All is promise. Men go forth with seed, forth with seed, and roots, and scions. The orchard, the garden, and field, are full of life! -Beecher.

ORIGIN OF POPULAR PHRASES.

After me, the Deluge.-This saying was used by the celebrated Metternich, as implying that no statesman after him would be able to preserve the peace of Europe. But the celebrated mot was not original with him, as Mme. Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV., who died nine years before Metternich was born, was quoted as saying "Apres nous, le déluge," and the wily diplomatist only changed it to "Apres moi." The idea did not originate, however, with her, quickwitted though she was. Cicero ascribes it to a Roman emperor, and Milton supplies the name: "They practice that when they fall, they may fall in a general ruin, just as cruel Tiberius, and is a very ancient. Greek proverb, too old for any discovery of its author. Tertullian ascribes it to Demosthenes, but it turns out only to have been used by him as a common proverb, familiar to the public even in his day.

Lynch Law.--This term, as commonly in use in the United States is a personification of violent and illegal justice. According to some authorities, the term was derived from a Virginia farmer named Lynch. But it can be traced to a much earlier date in Ireland. When, in 1493, James Fitzstephens Lynch was Mayor and Warden of Galway, he traded largely with Spain, and sent his son thither to purchase a cargo of wine. The young man squandered the money intrusted to him, but succeeded in running in debt for a cargo to a Spaniard, by whose nephew he was accompanied in the return voyage to Ireland, where the money was to be paid. Young Lynch, to conceal his defalcation, caused the Spaniard to be thrown overboard, and was received at home with great honor. But a sailor revealed to the Mayor of Galway the crime which his son had committed. The young man was tried before his own father, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged. His family and others determined to prevent the execution. The father, finding that the sentence could not be carried into effect the usual way, conducted his son to a window over

looking the public street, with his own hands fastened the balter attached to his neck to a staple in the wall and acted as his executioner. In the council books of Galway there is said to be a minute that James Lynch, Mayor of Galway, hanged his own son, out of the window, for defrauding and killing strangers, without martial or common law, to show a good example to posterity.

Archimedes' Lever.-The famous Greek philosopher, Archimedes was the author of the apothegm, "Give me a lever long enough and a prop strong enough and I will move the world." The saying arose from his knowledge of the possible effects of

machinery; and however much it might astonish a Greek of his day, would now be readily admitted to be as theoretically possible as it is practically impossible; for, in the words of Dr. Arnott, "Archimedes would have required to move with the velocity of a cannon ball for millions of years to alter the position of the earth by a small part of an inch. This feat of Archimedes is, in mathematical truth, performed by every man who leaps from the ground, for he kicks the world away from him whenever he rises, and attracts it again when he falls."

A Little Bird Told Me.--This saying, sometimes used by those who do not wish to disclose the source from which certain information is obtained, comes from Ecclesiastes 10: 20: "For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which has wings shall tell the matter."

A Fortuitous Concourse of Atoms. ---In J. Smith's Select Discourses, printed in London in 1660, there occurs: "And also how it comes to pass, if they be only moved by chance and accident, that such regular mutations and generations should be begotten by a fortuitous concourse of atoms." A somewhat later instance of the use of the quotation is in Bentley's Sermons (Sermon 2, preached in 1692,)" against Epicureans, that ascribed the origin and frame of the world not to the power of God but the fortuitous concourse of atoms." Cicero has, in reference to the subject, "concursu quodam fortuito," which became in his time a common expression.

The Golden Fleece. The professed object of the Argonautic expedition was the pursuit of gold; and perhaps the account given by Strabo and Appian may be the most probable of any, which state it to be a practice of the Colchians to extend

fleeces of wool across the beds of the torrents that fall from Mount Caucasus, and by means of these to entangle the particles of gold which were washed down by the stream. This mode of collecting gold, which is much the same with the one now practiced on the coast of Guinea, and other rivers of Africa, made Colchis be regarded as the gold coast of that early period, and gave rise to the expression, "The golden fleece."

Half-seas Over.-This phrase, as applied to a state of drunkenness, originated from originated from op zee, which in Dutch means over sea, a name given to a stupefying beer introduced in England from the Low Countries. An inebriating draught was also called an up see freese, from the strong Friesland beer.

Carouse. This word, which is nearly synonymous with reveling, is derived from the name of a large glass, called by the Danes rouse, or from the German words, gar, all, and aus--hence drink all out.

Under the Rose.--This expression took its origin from the wars between the British Houses of York and Lancaster. The parties respectively swore by the red or the white rose, and these opposite emblems were displayed as the signs of the two taverns, one of which was by the side of, and the other opposite to, the Parliament House in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Here the retainers and servants of the noblemen attached to the Duke of York and

Henry VI. used to meet. Here also, as disturbances were frequent, measures, either of defense or annoyance, were taken, and every transaction was said to be done “under the rose,” by which expression the most profound secrecy was implied. According to others this term originated in the fable of cupid giving the rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, as a