woman who will deceive a loving husband, or withhold from him anything that is in her power to give; and rare qualities of character, indeed, must a woman possess, who does not make herself very disagreeable when she finds herself snubbed, tyrannised over, her wishes denied, and herself daily and hourly humiliated by her husband's conduct. The finer the fibre of her nature, the keener her suffering. Those who serve for the wages of love must have payment in love's coin, which is the expression of love; for a man may love his wife well, yet, labouring under a mistaken idea that wives must subject themselves in all things to their husbands, feel it to be beneath his dignity to make this payment. Never expressing the affection that he feels, and for which the wife is heart-starved, her life becomes burdensome to her. Long as she may, and will to the end of her days, for the roses of love, she gathers only the thorns of duty. A husband who withholds the beautiful words of endearment and affection designed for use is like the burly peasant who enjoys his food in a brute way when he is hungry; while he who continues after marriage to give expression to his tenderness of feeling in words is like the true epicure, whose palate is as sensitive to taste as the nicest ear is to music, and who is able to discriminate perfectly all the subtle semitones and chords of flavour. The beasts of burden work more cheerfully when encouraged by kind tones or gentle touch; and a woman can bear the heaviest burdens which life can place upon her shoulders, if she have the encouragement which affection and sympathy are able to bestow. It must be a hardened heart or a coarse organisation that does not need them. ," wrote a daugh "I have been reading 'Daniel Deronda,' ter to her mother many years since, "and the tears ran down my face when I came to the passage where Gwendolen says, 'Poor mamma! who never knew what it is to be happy,' for I thought of you, my own dear mother." Yet outside of that family there was no one who knew that the wife and mother was unhappy, so loyally did she bear the burdens that were unnecessarily laid upon her. Millet wrote: "Oh, life, life! how hard it is at times, and how we need our friends and heaven to bear it!" Great souls, it is said, are always loyally submissive to whatever befalls them; and to such is given the faith to believe that despite the chaos, the turmoil, and fret of daily life, all is rounding to a perfect whole. "Loose as the events of life seem to hang upon one another," wrote South, "yet they are all knit and united together in a firm chain, and the highest link of that chain is held and managed by an unerring Providence. The chain may wave and shake this way and that, but still the Hand that holds it is steady, and the Eye that guides it is infallible." Blessed are those who by severe discipline have been led to say, "I have grown patient, seeking not to choose Mine own blind lot, but take that God shall send, I know the loss will work some blessèd end, – Could ever compass underneath the sky." "Our life is determined for us," says George Eliot, “and it makes the mind very free when we give up wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing what is given us to do." Yet it is hard, when we think how little love it takes to sweeten life, that it should ever be denied, and that we must give up wishing for it. accomplish nothing more in life than to Though a woman have made home the happiest spot on earth for her husband and children, she has fulfilled the highest and holiest mission that it is in the power of a woman to fill. Marriage," said Madame Patterson-Buonaparte, "offers no such comforts as to induce 66 rational beings to give up their independence without some return other than the torment of bringing up a family of children." It was her father who wrote this truth to her: "Intercourse with our family is, after all, the only chance for happiness in this world." Peace and comfort are said to constitute the happiness of the aged. It is all that is necessary for their happiness, as love always reigns where peace is found. Turning the leaves of a family Bible not long since, a time-stained letter (written by one who has been for years beyond the veil) was found, carefully preserved by the wife to whom it was written : MY DEAR WIFE, This is my Christmas gift. It is a testimonial that you have fully performed your duties as a wife. You have been to me as a minister of happiness and peace; at your approach trouble has flown, and my home has become to me the dearest place on earth. Receive this, my tribute of gratitude, and value it for my sake. Should it fall to your lot to be left alone, this expression of grateful love will give you far more happiness than any gilded bawble that I could give you. Your loving husband. Such words must fall like balm upon a mourner's lacerated heart; but not even in widowhood are they needed as in the hourly companionship of married life, to keep the courage up, and to make life sweet and strong. "Give willing words to-day: let no fond message wait For well-earned praise in hours of pain. They need them not within the grave.” Would that, instead of educating our young girls with the notion that they are to be wives or nothing, - matrons, with an acknowledged position, we could instil into them the principle that, above and before all, they are to be women, women whose character is of their own making, and whose lot lies in their own hands. Every girl ought to be taught that a hasty, loveless union stamps upon her as foul dishonour as one of those connections which omit the legal ceremony altogether. DINAH MULOCK CRAIK. 66 'CHILD, thou art born to suffer, endure, and hold thy peace," whispers the Mexican over the cradle of his newborn babe. Man is born for happiness; but Nature's laws, when violated, lead men away from happiness, and misery is the result. Said Godkin: "Morality is nothing more than a calculation of consequences: virtue is a right calculation; vice is a wrong calculation." Ignorance of Nature's laws is the occasion of much misery that we are plunged into from birth to death, for what do we know of the laws of Nature? Absolutely nothing, Buckle tells us. Nature is an unceasing progress. The universe is a perpetual becoming, a never-ending ascent. The present epoch of our history possesses no greater importance in the general history of the universe than does an ant-hill in the infinity of space. Who can say, asks Cammille Flammarion, that the science of dynamics will not one day reveal to the student of the heavens the religion of the future? The unknown of to-day is the reality of to-morrow. What is this strange vanity, this naïve presumption of ours, to imagine that science has said its last word; that we know all there is to know; that our five senses are sufficient to comprehend the nature of the universe? The learned Dr. Hufeland asserts that we stand before the dawning of a new day in science and humanity, a new discovery, surpassing any that has been hitherto made, which promises to afford us a key to some of the most recondite secrets of Nature, and to open up to our view a new world. The error of our time in questions of research among physicists and physicians seems to be in having persistently investigated the phenomena of material organisation as the sole province of physics, regarding physical research as lying outside. The term "physics" is derived from a Greek word signifying "nature." Nature does not limit herself to matter and mechanism. The phenomena of the will, or mind, or spirit, is as much a part of Nature as are those of matter. "The physicians," says Flammarion, "to whom I communicated fifteen years ago the magnetic phenomena shown by me in certain experiments, one and all denied absolutely the reality of the facts observed. I met one of them recently at the |