ploy the best possible means to effect His end. Now, it is quite palpable that the best possible way to bring about an Infinite Purpose, cannot be to leave the creation of its producing causes to a finite being's self-originated will and pleasure. In the first place, this Finite Being does not know what the end is, and therefore cannot will to bring it about; and, in the second place, this Finite Being is so weak and erring, that, even if the end were in his view, he could not so control the circumstances surrounding him as to shape them to the purpose.

Once more,-If God does not ordain the means, as well as the End-the causes as well as the result-man does; and this is inconsistent with the very first principle of Divinity. Whoever invents a means, is the Author or Originator, or First-Cause thereof; and a Plurality of First-Causes is a Plurality of Gods.

In every view of the case, then, man's free will is inconsistent with the Divine attribute of Omnipotence; and the doctrine of Necessity is strictly accordant with it.

CHAPTER IV.

THE DOCTRINE OF NECESSITY PROVED FROM GOD'S OMNISCIENCE.

I have drawn an argument in favour of Necessity from the Omnipotence of the Deity-his Omniscience supplies me with another.

All-wisdom is all-knowledge, and therefore includes Fore-knowledge. The Deity must know all things, not only as they happen, but before they happen. We feel this to be necessary to His superiority and supremacy. Now, how can He know all things before they happen, unless He has determined that they shall happen? It may be said, it has been said, that this is a mystery which is altogether beyond our reason, but let me stay to make a slight distinction here. There are things which are beyond reason, and things which are opposed to reason; and to say that any Being can fore-know what is entirely dependent and contingent upon the free and uncaused will of another being, is not incomprehensible, but absurd; and may be safely ques

tioned and denied.

Fore-knowledge inevitably implies necessity. You say the Divine mind knows what is to happen; very well! then all things must happen according to that fore-knowledge. They cannot come to pass differently from His fore-knowledge, but must precisely agree with it; in other words, they are bound by this fore-knowledge. And what in the name of fate itself is this compulsion but Necessity?

CHAPTER V.

THE DOCTRINe proved by GOD'S OMNIPRESENCE.

THE Deity is Omnipresent. He pervades all things and inhabits all things. He is as much in an atom as in a world; and as much in an action as in an atom. He is in every atom, and in every thought. He is in the motion, too, as well as in the matter of every atom; in the thoughts as well as in the acts of every man's mind. Nothing goes on in the physical or mental world in which he is not concerned. In all matter, and in all thought, he is ever acting, too. He is notHe cannot be idle or passive-dormant while his creatures are

doing-looking on whilst they are struggling with the thousand conflicting circumstances which they cannot control; but he is ever present-ever acting-ever disposing. He is present, too, not subserviently, but directingly. We cannot conceive of Him as merely controlling events, caused by his creatures, as merely an agent to work out their will. It is an insult to the Majesty of Heaven to think of the Creator as anything but the Supreme Director, Controller, and First cause.

Of all events, therefore, the Deity is the sole, absolute, and direct originator, and man is but the agent employed to produce them.

Is the Pure One the author of evil then? asks the reader. I shall reply to this question, and fully consider the point in a future paper.

SONGS OF THE COLOURS.-YELLOW, No. 3.

See far below worlds come and go
Swift through the night of space,
With choral song they bound along
No eye their path can trace.

You scarce can see the girdling sea,

The ocean of thin air,

(Whose waves are winds) that, zone-like, binds

Each spinning orb so fair,

Away-away, half night, half day,

The fair young Earth is bounding,

Winding along through the firezoned throng

Of worlds its path surrounding.

Each glancing star is bearing far

From yon midmost fire-sphere, light,

I dwell in its halls, whose flashing walls
Would blast a mortal's sight.

From its golden dome my burning home
I sail through space afar,

And gorgeous hues I rain, like dews,

O'er earth and each sister star,

That in beauty robe the half of each globe,
From out of the night swift gliding

While with pause nor stay it hastes away
In darkness from me hiding.

The radiant boat in which I float

Of pellucid light is built,

Its sails rays twine of the sweet sunshine,
And beams by the bright sun gilt.

Palmyra stands 'mid desert sands

Where the deep still hush alone

Is broken when falls from its crumbling walls
Some centuries-aged stone,

And slumbering sound, by silence bound,
Upstarting hears decay,

Laugh in the crash of the ruins that dash
From its mouldering halls away.

On the sands I lie and list to the sigh,

Of the winds round each timeworn wall,
Watching the strife it wages for life
With ruin before it fall,

For, though storm and blast through ages past
Have temple and tower assailed,
Destruction to climb o'er all sublime,
And bow them down has failed;
Though in its fell grasp desolation clasp
Each column and marble arch,
Long ages away shall flee ere decay,
Triumphant o'er all shall march.

My watching eyes saw slowly rise
The pyramids' giant forms,
Erect they stand on the amber sand
And cleave the rushing storms.
Mountains of stone, all still and lone,
They watch years come and go,
Nor dares decay on them to lay
Its grasp to bow them low;

Yet they who defy all-rending Time I

Am tombing year by year,

And, ere ages have flown, myself will I throne
Where their forms no more appear.

Uproused I fly with tossed sands on high

At the dread Sirocco's call,

I whirl, in fierce wrath, round the caravan's path,
Then sinking bury all.

When the year grows old I turn to gold
The forest trees' leaves of green,

Till their branches are bare, in the clear cold air,
By mortals I'm dancing seen.

I bring joy and mirth to the dwellers of Earth
For, ere winter comes with cold,

Autumn laughs to see her cornfields by me
Made waving seas of gold.

W. C. B.

TWILIGHT.

Blest star of the twilight, I love thy appearing, Although thou dost speak the departure of day; "Tis not when the Sun's in his glory careering,

That Nature appears in her sweetest array.

And 'tis thus with the heart in the hour of sadness,
The bright star of Hope will arise 'mid the gloom,
But too oft when the lip is proclaiming its gladness,
The canker in silence is sealing its doom.

'Tis the hour for reflection, each shadow declining
Reflects on the heart, like a dream of the past,
And we ask, while our thoughts on these thoughts are reclining,
Oh! why doth the Beautiful vanish so fast?

We sigh as some long-buried feeling comes o'er us,
Of lov'd ones departed and pleasures long dead,
And we feel that no present delight can restore us
That thrill of enjoyment, which lost ones have shed.
Yet, wherefore be mourning?-the Sun on the morrow
In glory will rise from the tomb of the night,
And the dearest from whom we have parted in sorrow,
Shall meet our blest souls in the regions of light.

ADA.

ODD LEAVES FROM AN ODD MAN'S NOTE-BOOK.—No. 4.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ODD MAN HAVING QUITTED HIS RETIREMENT IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT, FINDS HIMSELF IN THE GREAT METROPOLIS; AND HAVING LEFT HIS GOOD GOOSE

QUILL BEHIND HIм (vide Chap. xi.) SCRIBBLES HARD SAYINGS WITH A STEEL

PEN.

HERE then I am!-in London-grand-mighty-gaudy-guilty London. And being here, for what am I come? To change loneliness for society, and to lend my little aid to poor bowed-down Humanity, as it pursues its wonderful course towards the Great End.

I have been away from the busy world so long, that the scene is to me as extraordinary as if I had never beheld it. All things seem strange, and after the smiling country-cold and repulsive. I see Beauty-but it is the beauty of Art; earth-made beauty. I see splendour, but it is all of MAN's workmanship. Alas! I sigh and sicken, and long to see Nature again!

They say that London is the home of the friendless: 'tis a wicked falsehood! It is the most lonely place on earth; the wretched may walk its whole length and breadth and never meet a friend. In London, aye in its busiest haunts, desolation may be more truly felt than in the most perfect solitude. To be what the world calls alone, is still to have pity in one's own thoughts, strength in one's own soul, communion with the still but not voiceless scenes that surround us : but to be in a thronged city and to meet the cold, heartless, freezing gaze of the unheeding thousands that pass contemptuously by; to feel that a million hearts surround you, but that not one feels for you, not one has the slightest esteem or care for you; to feel human and to be without Humanity's sympathy; to dwell in the midst of a crowd with the knowledge that there is no voice to speak kindly to you; no eye to smile on you; no hand to help you in your trouble-this is real desolation-this is true loneliness.

And I have felt it doubly; for I deemed that thou, Invoked One, would'st be here to be my companion and my guide. Didst thou not hear my cry? By what strong spell shall I call thee?

Where shall my spirit go to seek for thine,

Thou vanish'd Angel of my destiny?

Where in the Soul-Land's high and vast confine
Can I discover Thee?

I deem'd when thou wert taken from my sight,
That still thy Angel-Part would near me stay-
Hold converse with my soul, and be the light
To cheer my Life's dark way:

But the fond dream was vain; and I am left
A lonely watcher by a vacant shrine:

Of Hope and Love-of almost Life-bereft-
Oh! what a woe is mine!

I've sought Thee in the solemn midnight hour,

By the lone stream, and in the untrodden wood,-
I've sought to lure Thee to me by the power

Of sacred solitude;

Through the dark realm of dreams, with tireless wing
My soul hath wander'd in its search for Thee;
I've crav'd the angels of the night to bring

Thee once more near to me:

With bitter tears and bursting heart I've pray'd
To the Great Sovereign Lord of Souls of Heaven,
That, for a moment only, thy sweet shade
Might to my sight be given;

But all in vain ;-Thou comest, speakest, not,—
And Echo mocks my unavailing cry ;-

Oh! must I deem then that thou has forgot

Our Souls' long sympathy?

By our fond vows!-by my deep passionate love!-

By thine own words,-"Death ne'er our souls shall part"!— By the eternal bond our spirits wove!

Speak to my breaking heart!

By the bright Heaven in which thy spirit dwells!—
By my lone life's wild agony of grief!—

By the despair with which my bosom swells!-
Speak for my soul's relief!"

Still dumb?—Then Woe, return thee to my breast,
Thy empire o'er my riven soul resume!"

My dying heart hath done with peace and rest,
DESPAIR! where is my tomb?

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ODD MAN FINDS HIS FIRST PIECE OF POETRY, AND TRANSCRIBES IT, WITH SOME OTHER BOYISH RHYMES.

I have found, to-day, the first verse I ever wrote. Oh, how it brings back to me my merry boyhood, when sorrow was unknown to me, and I began to feel the glory and sublimity of life;-how it calls to mind my early love for the spirit of the Beautiful-my wild and vague longings after something purer and more thrilling than the world affords. What a glorious period of the life that is when these thoughts first come to the young soul, and the great world of Beauty and Infinity begins to be perceived by the spirit. Yes! for then we do not know that there are clouds and storms in that sphere -we deem it all sunshine and happiness. To me, looking back upon my dark and tempestuous sorrows-soul-sorrows all, the words of my boyhood seem strange.

TO POESY.

Beautiful vision! I bow the knee

At thy radiant throne;

I offer my soul's purest homage to thee,

Thou SUBLIME UNKNOWN!

In thy fairy fields

Let my spirit roam

Be thy bowers of beauty
For ever my home!