on this little feather amount to one million four hundred thousand, which gives the number of fourteen thousand millions to one square inch. On a very minute particle of dust from the wing of a mindge, measuring only one five-hundredth of an inch in width, the number of scales is found to be eighty four thousand, which gives the enormous sum of forty-two thousand millions to one

ful hand the strings of the breathing lyre.Then soft, low tones rolled out upon the ear and roused from his unhappy musings, Israel's mighty Ruler. They found an echo in his heart, and stilled the tide of passion; and a smile returned upon his brow, as it was wont in former days, ere the dark tempter" had found a shrine within his heart. It must have been a holy sight, that young and sinless boy, stilling with power-square inch. We observed also large sizes ful spell the tumult in a mind which hitherto had been impervious to all proffered sympathy, and closed its portals against the approach of kindness. It might almost seem as though some angel haud from the "un trodden spheres" ad swept those golden harp strings, and rolled from thence those magic strains.

A POWERFUL MICROSCOPE.

of the cat and common house flea, the eye of the fly, and the wing of a small bug, the latter presenting the most brilliant colors and beautiful shawl-pattern we ever beheld, with a magnificent border elaborately ornamented.

AMERICAN AUTUMN SCENERY.

BY N. P. WILLIS.

The first severe frost had come, and the miraculous change had passed upon the leaves which is known only by AmericaThe blood-red sugar maple with a leaf brighter and mo.e delicate than Cireussian lip stood here and there in the forest like the Sultan's standard in a host-the solitary and far seen aristocrat of the wilderness-the birch, with its spirit-like and amber leaves, ghosts of the departed summer, turned out along the edges of the woods like a lining of the palest gold; the broad sycamore and the fan-like catalpa flounted their saffrou foliage in the sun, spotted with gold, like the wings of a lady-bird; the kingly oak, with

A German namel Hassert, residing in Cincinnati, has invented a microscope which has a magnifying power of six hundred times. The Cincinnati Times, speaking of its extraordinary powers, says, that the dust which, by contact with the wings of a butterfly, adheres to the finger, was shown to be a number of feathers; on these little feathers are observed longitudinal and transverse lines: but this has been, so far, the utmost that has been seen. This new microscope, however shows, that between each pair of longitudinal lines there are five or six rows of scales, like those of a fish, and appear to have the same form in all the feathers, differing only in size. A dust par-its aummit shaken bare, still hid its majestic ticle, taken from the back of the body of a sphinx, which is the largest of these feathers shown, measuring one-fifth of an inch in length, and one two-hundredths of an inch in breadth, had one hundred and four longitudinal lines. Between each pair of lines, six rows of scales were visible, making the number of these little scales, laterally, six hundred and twenty-four; the number of scales longitudinally, downwards would be two thousand two hundred and twenty eight; therefore, the entire number of these scales

trunk in a drapery of sumptuous dyes like a stricken monarch gathering his robes of State about him to die royally in his purple; the tall poplar, with its minaret of silver leaves stood blanched like a coward in the dying forest, burdening every breeze with its complainings; the hickory paled through its enduring green, the bright berries of the mountain ash flushed with a more sanguine glory in the unobstructed sun, the gaudy tulip-tree, the sybarite of vegetation, stripped of its golden cups, still drank the in

NIL DESPERANDUM-OTHER SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES, &c. 543

toxicating light of noon-day in leaves than pastures and still waters of peace. You which the leaves an Indian she'l were nev-shall yet unbuckle your dusty armor, while er more delicately tinted; the still deeper-soft breezes shall fan your victor temples.dyed vines of the lavish wilderness, perish-Nil desperandum !

ing with the noble things whose summer they had shared, out shone them in their dedine, as woman in her health is heavenlier than the being on whom in life she leaned; and alone and unsympathizing in this universal decay, outlaws from nature, stood the fir and the hemlock, their frowning and sombre heads darker and less lovely than ever, in contrast with the death-stricken glory of their companions.

"NIL DESPERANDUM."

OTHER SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES
MAY SUPERSEDE STEAM,

source of

IN speculations like these, the probable, if not certain progress of improvement and discovery, ought not to be overlooked; and such a period of time shall have rolled away we may safely pronounce that, long before other and more powerful mechanical agents will supersede the use of coal. Philosophy already directs her finger at a source of inexaustible power in the phenomena of elecNo, never! Every cloud has a silver tricity and magnetism. The alternate delight; and He who wove it knows when to composition of water, by electric action, has turn it out. So every night, however long, too close an analogy.to the alternate procesor dark, there shall yet come a golden mor- ses of vaporization and condensation not to ning. Your noblest powers are never de-occur at once to every mind. The developveloped in prosperity. Any bark may ment of gasses from solid matter by the opglide in smooth water with a favoring gale; eration of the chemical affinities, and their but—that is a brave and skilful oarsman who subsequent condensation in the liquid form, rows up stream against the current, with ad- has already been essayed as a verse winds, and no cheering voice to wish power. In a word the general state of physhim "God speed." Keep your head above ical science at the present moment, the vigthe water; let neither sullen despair, or or, activity, and sagacity with which resweak vascillation, drag you under. Heed searches in it are prosecuted in every civilized not the poisoned arrow of sneaking treache-country, the increasing consideration in ry, that whizzes past you from the shore.- which scientific men are held, and the perJudas sold himself when he sold his mas- soual honors and rewards which begin to be ter; and for him there dawned no resurec- conferred upon them, all justify the expection morning! 'Tis glorious to battle on tation that we are on the eve of mechanical with a brave heart, while cowering pusilla- discoveries still greater than any which have nimity turns trembling back. Dream not of yet appeared; that the steam engine itself, the word "surrender!"When one frail human with its gigantic powers, will dwindle into reed after another breaks, or bends beneath insignificance in comparison with the eneryou-lean on the "Rock of Ages.". The gies of nature which are yet to be revealed; Great Architect passes you through the fur-and that day will come when that machine, nace to purify. The fire may scorch, but it which is now extending the blessings of civshall never consume you. He will label ilization to the most remote skirts of the you "FINE GOLD." The narrow path may globe, will cease to have existence, except be thorny to your tender feet; but the in the page of history.-Lardner on the "promised land" lies beyond! the goal of Steam Engine. Hope may be seen with the eye of faith;

your hands yet grasp them; your eyes re

Youth indulges in hope, old age in

vel, from the mountain top over the green remembrance.

WEBSTER ON THE EVIDENCE OF inpress upon every man the conviction that

CHRISTIANITY.

he must stand or fall alone--he must live for himself and die for himself, and give up A few evenings since, sitting by his own his accounts to the omniscient God, as fire side, after a day of severe labor in the though he were the only dependent creature Supreme Court, Mr. Webster introduced the in the Universe. The Gospel leaves the indilast Sabbath's sermon, and discoursed in vidual sinner alone with himself and his animated and glowing eloquence for an God. To his own master he stands or falls. hour on the great truths of the Gospel. I He has nothing to hope from the aid and cannot but regard the opinions of such a sympathy of associates. The deluded adman in some sense as public Property.-vocates of new doctrines do not so preach— This is my apology for attempting to recall Christ and his Apostles, had they been desome of those remarks which were uttered ceivers, would have not so preached. in the privacy of the domestic circle.

If clergymen in our days would return to the simplicity of the Gospel, and preach more to individuals and less to the crowd, there would not be so much complaint of the decline of true religion. Many of the ministers of the present day take their text from St. Paul, and preach from the newspapers. When they do so I prefer to enjoy my own thoughts rather than to listen. I want my pastor to come to me in the spirit of the Gospel, saying you are mortal, your probation is brief; your work must be done speedily. You are immortal, too. You are hastening to the bar of God; the Judge standeth before the door.' When I am thus admonished, I have no disposition to muse or to sleep. These topics," said Mr. Webster, "have often occupied my thougnts; and if I had time, I would write on them myself.

Said Mr. Webster: Last Sabbath I listened to an able and learned discourse upon the evidences of Christianity. The arguments were drawn from prophecy, history with internal evidence. They were stated with logical accuracy, and force; but as it seemed to me, the clergym in failed to draw from them the right conclusion. He came so near the truth that I was astonished he missed it. In summing up his arguments, he said the only alternative presented by these evidences is this: Either Christianity is true, or it is a delusion produced by an excited imagination. Such is not the alternative, said the critic; but it is this: The Gospel is either true history, or it is a consummate fraud; it is either a reality or an imposition. Christ was what he professed to be, or he was an impostor. There is no other alternative. His spotless life is in his The above remarks are but a meagre and earnest enforcement of the truth, his suffer- imperfect abstract, from memory of one of ing in its defence, forbids us to suppose the most eloquent sermons to which I ever that he was suffering an illusion of the listened.-Congregational Journal.

heated brain.

MAINE LAW CONVENTION.

Every act of his pure and holy life shows that he was the author of truth, the advocate of truth, the earnest defender of truth, and AT the recent Maine Law Convention in the uncomplaining sufferer for truth. Now New Jersey, a thousand delegates were in considering the purity of his doctrines, the attendance from every section of the State. simplicity of his life, and the sublimity Judge Kennedy, the U. S. Marshal for the of his death, is it possible that he would State, presided, and the Hon. Theodore Frehave died for an illusion? In all his preach-linghuysen was chairman of the committee ing the Savior made no popular appeals.-on Resolutions. The committee reported a His discourses were all directed to the indi- series of resolutions, which were unanimousvidual. Christ and his Apostles sought to 'ly adopted.