"I am so relieved and so glad that you are safe home. Did you get the cryptogram?"

"Yes."

"Are Warton and Rague arrested ?"

"Yes," I answered; that is, two men answering their description, but calling themselves Bronson and Joynce, are safely locked up by this time in the Middle District station-house. And all this was done without my having even to show a nice tiny little revolver which I bought expressly for the occasion. Why are you not asleep? You generally go to bed punctually at ten."

"I could not sleep, Al," she answered; "it is so unusual for you to be away from home at night."

"Well, my love," I said, "as I am safe at home, I suppose you can sleep now. I am going to solve this cryptogram, or at least to try very hard to do it before I go to bed. I should not like to do it to-morrow; and I want to know as soon as possible what it means. Besides, my mind is in the very state now for such work; and then Charley is sound asleep and out of the way."

"Let me sit up too?" she asked. "I am so anxious to know what secret that little paper has to tell."

"You had better be asleep, my dear," I replied; "but you can sit up, if you choose. If you do, though, you must not say a word or make the slightest noise."

"Very well," said Elsie. "I will be as still as

But she could not stand it; in less than ten minutes she was sound asleep in her rocking-chair. In the meantime I spread the mysterious paper on a table beside me and examined it. Here is the arrangement of letters it presented:

"Mpsachg Uelfcheul Olxxgilpso G flchps Dgnntxxl Fegchrpl zropsf, 1, gz rulepcheo fseechgrf, seu olgo spsdxlego, chueeepchrf sgffpsf, gz tpseuepso irprfgo ech chruchgo; lpse, gz feschepchulxpgxef oeuiepf, eepchpso sgffpsf, gz erxxlf ugzleeo, psdl upsdopf xgslf efch; g xgslze, gz reelzepcheo oeuchepf, tpsgchpsru sezef; lp cheuugo chuef sezef."

First of all, I turned to the diary of John Rowner, and noted these words in Frederick Miche's communication recorded there :

If I only had a copy of those "instructions !'' If the instructions referred to were in regard to the "indecipherable cipher," of which I had read, or some other cipher (of which a number were used in our late civil war), which required a clue to its interpretation, there was little prospect of my success.

But if these instructions, on the other hand, were only directions to aid the decipherer in solving an ordinary cipher where merely a transposition of the letters of the alphabet was used, there would. not be much difficulty in "unriddling the riddle."

I have before remarked that there are but three words in the English language which have but a single letter, and that these are the article "a,” the personal pronoun "I," and the interjection "O."

Had the letters been all run together, as is often the case, without any division of words, I should have had to resort to remembering that "e" is the most frequently recurring letter, and to have used this knowledge as an entering wedge.

I found that there were two instances in this manuscript of "g" standing by itself, and one of "1." It appeared, then, that one of these represented "a" and other the "i." Neither could represent the interjection "O," for this requires a note of exclamation; and though the cryptogram appeared to be fully punctuated, no exclamation point was used. As "a" more often occurs than “i," the presumption was that "g" stood for "a" and "1" for "i."

Beginning with "g," I found that these letters "gz" were used five times. The words of two letters in the English language beginning with "a" are "am," "an," "as," and "at." The last is the most frequent. The probability was, that "gz" stood for "at.”

If "g" stood for "a," it would seem that the alphabet was pushed forward six letters. The cryptogram in that case would be easily solved.

"Z" answered this hypothesis as well as "g." Thus counting from "a"-b, c, d, e, f, g, six letters; and counting from "t”—u̸, v, w, x, y, z, also six letters.

"L" then did not represent "i," if

g" and

to certain positive demands of its own for proof. In its substructure of argument, it proceeds to build on foundations chosen and circumscribed by its own architects, and it draws upon its own accumulated stores of material to uprear, wall by wall, and girder upon girder, supplied by contractors according to schedule and limit ordinated by its own plan. A goodly superstructure climbs, on these conditions, from earth to heaven, as its builders assert; and they affirm that its foundations are everlasting rocks, and that its towering steep rejoices in eternal light of suns and stars. But if—in simple trust of that Word of God which I inherit as my mother's Bible-I presume to call in question the security of that rocky foundation on which Science builds, and to dispute the altitudes which Science assumes to be compassed by its erections, I am bidden to yield my discontent to the supremacy of Natural Truth embodied in a structure of scientific theories which, to me, are mere cloud-castles, baseless and insubstantial as the adumbrations of a summer sunset. Instructed Instructed by my faith in Scripture, by my experience and observation of natural causes and effects, and through my knowledge that not a single geological or astronomical phenomenon cited by Science as a fact, can be substantiated as truth by other than human dicta, I object to give up my reliance on Scripture testimony in favor of mere abstract philosophy; whereat my geologist and astronomer make common cause to support one another, and decide that I am no party to the controversy, because I deny to either, what he claims, the possession of truth contradictory to the Word of God.

Science says to me: Your postulation is wholly untenable, because your entire fabric of religious belief must rest on Faith alone. To which I reply: What other foundation than scientific faith in scientific theories, can your own geologic and astronomic postulata have? It is I, then, in effect, who at once occupy the vantage ground over Science, because I assume my faith to be based upon Divine light, while Science can only refer her own convictions to a belief in certain theories assumed to be truth under human light.

Wherefore, then, shall I, as a defender of truth, lay down my arms and armor of Scripture declarations? Why shall I submit to a summons from men who brandish a few torches kindled in their own camp-fires, to surrender my defences, and go

forth to their murky hill-tops, from my central Sinai begirt by its immemorial flame? Shall I descend from my altar of Abraham and Melchizedek, to borrow faith from surrounding priesthoods of Baal or Chemosh? To what end shall I seek a reconciliation of Scripture faith with Scientific faith? If it behooves man to uplift his eyes to heavenly lights, let him reconcile the laws he presumes to bind those heavenly lights under, with such plain declarations of Divine purpose as a believer in the Word of God is satisfied to abide by. To attempt the reconciliation of darkness with light is to confound light with darkness. Bible truth appeals for its human effect to no formulas of reasoning, no degrees of ethical culture, no limitations of man's apprehension by scholastic knowledge. Scientific truth, self-evident, requires no reconciliation with Scripture. There is no discovery of Science, whether its promulgation be recent or remote, for which line and verse of authority cannot be shown in that Book of books which enlightens all light. I do not say that discoveries such as relate to human manipulation or deduction, like the application of printing, steam-power, electricity, and photography, are suggested by words in Scripture, but that the operation of natural laws and appliances thereof in facts of Holy Writ, may be noted throughout Old and New Testament. All the lore of Science, resultant in practical proof of its theories, may be reduced to a couple of school-books containing the formulas of chemistry and mathematics. What right, then, has it to exact a primary credence for assertions concerning things that are not facts, because they are only assumptions, and cannot be otherwise, because they are wholly beyond such test as mathematical and chemical truth requires? Science, disparaging Scripture evidence, demands, as a condition precedent to all discussion of ethic or ethnic relations, that matters in dispute shall be tried by "positive philosophy," or else be regarded as ex curia. And, in response to this arrogance on the part of Science, a controversor in some Christian pulpit yields up his own convictions, founded on faith, in order to accommodate his adversary in a lecture-room, with materials for a bridge over which Science may march toward an overthrow of all religious faith whatever.

So in our day we behold a spectacle of defence against attack in polemic warfare, where the garrison, like Colonel Mannering's household, is com

pelled to screen its light with ancient and wormeaten volumes, and a clerical champion like Dominie Sampson, shudders to see bullet-holes made through Thomas Aquinas and all the Fathers by bullets from marauders without, while no shot from a church militant returns the mettle with gospel weaponry. Oliver Cromwell engraved on his secular artillery, "Open Thou our lips, O Lord, and our mouths shall speak forth Thy praise!" but the canons of church doctrine this day are spiked by their artillerymen in advance of fight. Books barricade our pulpit front, it is true, books ranged over books like geologic strata; but our clerical fire from behind them is more divergent even than those eccentric forces of "evolution" and "revolution" which are brought against Scripture by ethnologist and astronomer. My courteous Christian warrior begins his field-day by chivalrous complimenting of his scientific foe; and that foe returns the compliment by an onset upon Biblical truth with weapons snatched from its polite defender. Science utters her war-cry of "Facts!" Modern theology responds from fashionable pulpits. . . "No Faith! No Miracles!" So as between these "harmonizing" truth-seekers, poor Christianity, with all its legions of martyrs, all its influences for civilization, all its irradiations of secular as well as sacred light, and with its antiquities of Scrip- | tural authority admitted even by infidelity, is relegated by our "advanced thinkers" (as they are styled) to such moral pulpits and Sundayschools as may still hold Bible religion dear, if not to men at least to "women and children."

But how now if Philosophy be "brought to book" as well as Christianity? What if I demand, as a preliminary of battle offered against my Christian faith, that Science shall bring proofs unquestionable in support of her alleged "facts?" How, if I require that Astronomy shall show an entire harmony subsisting between the opinions of ancient and modern star-gazers concerning all laws governing stellar causes and effects? How, if I ask for the production of successive witnesses in all ages to those abstruse doctrines on which Philosophy, in our present day-schools, compiles an agreement of supposititious dicta? Suppose, in conclusion, I reject, as ex curia, all inferential propositions, and confine my scientist to such facts and deductions as we may both agree upon? Will he affirm that Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo or

Newton, has demonstrated a single sidereal propositition by other than conjectural laws and supposititious operations of such laws? Can any real subsistence of authority be predicated on imagined planetary relations, void intrinsically of positive evidence? Is it not true that later writers upon stellar ordinations base their assumptions on "facts" assumed to be agreed upon, yet quite barren of demonstrative proof; as for example, the Newtonian propositions respecting "gravitation," which their author himself, in his last hours, avowed to be unsatisfactory? And if, as I maintain, the entire structure of modern astronomy is baseless, as to proven facts, what umpire then, save human credulity in acceptance of delusions, is opposed to my umpire of faith in Holy Writ?

A belief in the sphericity of our earth is ascribed by modern astronomers to Thales of Miletus. I invite them to adduce an acknowledged writing to that effect, handed down to posterity by Thales or any of his Ionic disciples. A plurality of worlds, we are told, and the revolution of our planet on its own axis, were propositions set forth by Animaxander. Let us have book and folio for this scientific Scripture. Pythagoras is credited with a solar theory. Show to us then, such Pythagorean teaching, in the light of press and types, as an authenticated transmission from Crotona's sage. And if, as alleged, Nicetas of Syracuse anticipated Copernicus in his "diurnal rotation," let Schoolmen tell us where Nicetas wrote out his conclusions in attic Greek, and what translations, through medieval centuries, brought those conclusions down to stimulate Galileo's contumacious whisper, "E pur si mouve !" But if I take for granted an impossibility, that Science could validate, by signature and seal, those assumptions of facts without foundation whereon she builds astronomy; and if, moreover, I accept as genuine the remote authorities she cites, what vantage to Philosophy from all she claims? Every allegation of fact resting on old authority is contradicted by some other allegation of authority as old. If Pythagoras instructed his disciples that our earth was globular, and its motion orbicular around the sun, we know that centuries after Pythagoras a Grecian school of astronomers compiled still older theories with deductions of their own, and founded that "Alexandrian" system which was received as summary truth, and subsisted thus until Copernicus, a thousand years after its promulgation,

ventured some feeble arrangement of its "facts," and Galileo interposed his contradiction to its central dogma, that stars revolved around an immovable earth.

And what purblind eyes sought light at first outside of that "Alexandrian school," hoary with mosses of a thousand years! Hardly had Copernicus questioned its "received truth," than Tycho Brahe reiterated its dictum of an immovable earth. And that erudite philosopher who sat at Brahe's feet, abandoned his Gamaliel to publish his "Podromus," maintaining that heavenly bodies were distributed through space in allotments regular as polyhedric proportions. Yes! Kepler himself, who was to make old things new, began his work with such a statement, and supplemented it by assertions that sun, moon, and stars signified the Christian Trinity, and that all solar influences might be referred to magnetic attraction. Aberrations like this opened a way for Descartes with his fancies concerning vortices, or currents of universal ether, moving the heavenly bodies by their flow. Shall I assert that the attrition of these infringing theories elicited no heavenly light; or shall I aver that Sir Isaac Newton, when he balanced his apple of Scientific temptation against all his religious faith, was not a sincere inquirer after Divine light? There is hardly a speculation of ancient or modern astronomers which is not suggestive of sufficient and natural laws, accounting for all sidereal phenomena; and yet the position of Keplerian and Newtonian theories this day is so unstable, that such outspoken dialecticians as Froude confront their cardinal points with simple division. Sir Isaac Newton, in announcing his forces of gravitating particles, now accepted as astronomic law, did nothing more than to restate, in other words, that ordination imagined by Descartes, which gave to every particle of matter its local motive power, an ordination rejected by modern philosophy; and Newton himself, before he died, declared his own faith shaken in that theory of "gravitation" which still upholds its universes over the books and "orreries" of our wondering school-children.

Yet in the face of an enemy whose advance is steady, march by march, over all outworks of Christianity, and whose approaches circumvallate and undermine those bases of human religion which we build and fortify, as upon the "Rock

of Ages," I discern as yet no Christian soldier "Great Heart" lifting a lance against "Giant Despair." I behold the army of Science marshaling its simulacra of stars, as Milton's Lucifer arrayed their personified prototypes for rebellion against him who created their Light. I hear the challenge of Philosophy flinging down defiantly a perpetual wager of battle against all my faith in Scripture. I wait for some stalwart champion of that faith to lead out upon the only safe and sure ground which revealed religion can command as its field of action. And I avow my impatience in witness of such timorous truces as are craved this hour by Christians leaning over pulpits, and such parleying with their deadly foes as from day to day postpones the ordeal of righteous battle. When poisoned lances are leveled at human souls and the stake of conflict is man's immortality, there can be no wise parley between Religion assailed and Science assailing. Philosophy in deriding Genesis, as Moses rehearses its plain record, begins an escalade of heavenly battlements, and with audacious foot, tramping from star to star, spurns recklessly all human hopes and aspirations cherished by wise and simple as Light from God. Severed from Deity, as mankind must be if denied its faith in Moses, what else is proffered to us in lieu of that primary faith but such crude cosmogonies as Egyptian and Greek rehearsed from heathen altars? Precluded from all reference to those mystic genealogies of Scripture which link our first mother in Eden with that mother in Judea whose Son died upon the Cross, what bond remains for the soul of man or woman to connect its yearnings with that Father of All in whom Jew and Christian have reposed their earthly trust and their eternal hopes? Not lightly can our Book of Genesis be yielded under sneers of modern skepticism. Ignore its "Beginning," and we drift away upon chaotic waters with no Light Supernal moving on their face, and with only some drear perception possible of an abysmal deep, over which Science broods in substitution of Deity-from which Science may evoke a world of immemorial ages, and a monstrous succession of reptiles and their "developments"-but no world for Christian faith and love; no world whose Saviour says, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me;" no world of my mother's Bible; no world of my mother's God!