spiritual universe, or enjoy the excellent privileges of a rational worship, with a clear and fixed idea of the first law of action. That is to say, without a clear, precise, and fixed idea of the nature of moral action, or holiness, and its relation to all extraneous power, whether human or divine. The law of motion, springing from the passivity of matter, is the key to the system of the material universe; and, in like manner, the law of action, growing out of the activity of mind, is the key to the system of the spiritual universe. Matter only move as it is moved ab extra. But mind is self-active, or it does not act at all. Necessitated motion is the only kind of motion that exists in nature, or that is con eivable by the mind of man. But a necessitated volition is a contradiction in terms. It is, at one and the same time, both a free and a forced act. It is, in other words, a self-active will, which, like inert, passive matter, only moves as it is moved ab extra. It is the centre, and the sum, of all metaphysical contradictions and absurdities, which has darkened, and still darkens, all things in heaven and earth.

But whosoever would possess this golden key to the inner sanctuary of the glorious temple of the spiritual universe, must make it his own by his own patient meditations. It was a fundamental maxim with Galileo, that no one man can teach another, but can only help him to teach himself. It was the same sentiment which led Socrates to compare himself to a midwife, who could not create thoughts for other men, but could only help them to develop and deliver their own thoughts. Hence, he eschewed the proud title of teacher, and assumed the humble office of midwife to the intellectual offspring of other minds. He only wished them to be co-workers with him, as he was with them, in promoting the growth and development of the genius of truth, which God himself had planted in their minds,

We must all meditate, indeed, and pray without ceasing, if we would bring our thoughts to coincide with the thoughts of God, and in his light see light, instead of wandering amid the dark thoughts and systems of men. On no other condition can we ever enjoy the glorious liberty of the sons of God.'

It is the most delightful reflection which accompanies the student of the mathematics, that his thoughts do, in reality, coincide with the thoughts of God. He feels, as he follows the laws and the demonstrations of physical astronomy, that he is treading, with adoring wonder, in the footsteps of Deity. But in the study of mental and moral science this sublime consolation deserts him. Why? Because in the study of mind, which is infinitely superior to the study of matter, he allows self to become the sport of prejudice and passion. Because, in this most important study, he allows the horror of a painful suspense of judgment to precipitate him into all sorts of half-formed truths and preconceived notions. If, on the contrary, he would only acquire the habit of patient and protracted thought, which stands in fixed and immovable meditation, until the clear light of truth appears, he may see the glory of God reflected in the universe of mind, with far greater effulgence and beauty than it is in the universe of matter. It is for this reason that we have repeated, and shall continue to repeat, as well as to illustrate and prove, the great truth, that no mere power, however great, can turn the Will from sin, and cause it to become holy as God is holy, without its own free volition and coöperation. If the pious reader starts at this apparent paradox, and trembles as in the pres ence of a deadly heresy, he will only do as we ourselves did when it first occurred to our meditations. But if, in his impatience, he casts this apparent paradox from him, no more to be patiently considered, we can only warn him that he has thrown away the golden secret of the world, that he has lost the key to the holy of holies of the inner sanctuary of the great temple of Truth. We can only warn him, that he has despised the only clue out of the labyrinth of error, darkness, and confusion, in which the old apparent truism has involved the past, into the open light of God's infinite beneficence and love.

We can only warn him! We can also show, unless we are greatly mistaken, that, in the solution of problems, the new paradox possesses an unspeakable advantage over the old truism. But this trial of the two principles must be reserved

for another article, in which it will be shown, as we humbly trust, that the old truism involves a hundred great questions relating to God and his Christ, in profound enigmas, as dark as night, while the new paradox affords a solution of them as clear and atisfactory as the sun. The reader will then have an opportunity to judge for himself. We only beg him, in the meantime, to think for himself patiently, and to meditate profoundly, with a single eye to the love of truth and the glory of God. Otherwise his final decision, whate it may be, will be of little value to others and of little service to himself.

ART. VII.-1. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. Vols. 40 and 41, for 1870 and 1871. London.

2. Papers on the Northern and Eastern Extension of the Gulf Stream. By Dr. A. Petermann, Gotha, Germany. Translated and republished by the U. S. Hydrographic Office, Commodore R. H. Wyman, Chief. Washington, D. C. The Edinburgh Review. No. cclxxvi. April, 1872.

3. Thermal Paths to the Pole. 2d edition. By Silas Bent. St. Louis, Missouri.

4. Paper read by Dr. William B. Carpenter before the Royal Institution (1871), and Report on Deep Sea Researches, Nature, April, 1871. London.

Some one has said that the sea is the temple of contemplation.' It is, however, to be regretted that, while affording the grandest displays of the Creator's power on our globe, and the noblest fields for scientific research, its majestic currents, its mysterious caverns, its fauna and its flora have been made too much the theme of speculation, and too little the subject of severe and careful investigation. The great discovery of the circulation of blood in the higher animals, announced by

Harvey in 1619, is not of greater moment to medicine than is the true theory of oceanic circulation to terrestrial physics. Geologists tell us that the earth has been sculptured by water'; and this fact may give some idea of the mighty agency and wonderful climatic influence of the lager watermasses which are ceaselessly travelling over the earth from pole to pole. To determine the law of their movement, and the limit of their individual, geographic channels, in the bed of theean, has occupied the human mind, according to Humboldt, since the time of Peter Martyr de Aughiera and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in the sixteenth century; that is to say, ever since it was found that the sea was not in the custody of a fickle and lawless power, and that the authority of Neptune was one of the most unfortunate of classic myths. At the present time the sciences of navigation, meteorology, and biology, are patiently waiting, for their further development, upon the solution of the great oceanic problem. Little by little light has been thrown upon it, but it is still obscure, and the cause of popular and practical science demands its earnest prosecution.

In this discussion we are at once drawn toward the Atlantic, whose currents and meteorology are better known than those of any other ocean, and where we at once behold the greatest of all explored oceanic phenomena, the Gulf Stream.

The discussion of the Gulf Stream has very lately excited, and is still exciting, more popular and scientific interest, all over Europe and America, than any other physical question that can be named, and we propose now to examine the facts which elucidate its circulation.

The theories which, from time to time, have been put forth in explanation of its mysteries may be briefly summarized. Without going back to the labors of Dr. Franklin, or Capt. M. F. Maury, or Sir John Herschel, it will be sufficient to mention:

First, the views of Mr. A. G. Findlay, of England, as formally propounded in 1869, before the Royal Geographical Society of London.

Second, the beautiful hypothesis of Prof. William B. Carpenter, of England, now being so eloquently pleaded by himself in all the popular discussions, and in the popular newspapers of his country.

Lastly, he eclectic oceanic theory of Capt. Silas Bent, which has apparently become the favorite in America, and was once noticed in these pages.

The first mentioned of these differing interpretations of the Gulf Stream maintains that the Gulf Stream per, discharging through the Florida Straits, has not sufficient width and depth to advance to the shores of Europe, or affect its climate, as with its diminishing velocity it would require one or two years to accomplish that distance, during which time it would part with its heat; and, further, that the Gulf Stream . on reaching Newfoundland is totally annihilated.'

The hypothesis of Dr. Carpenter, proposed as a substitute for this, or rather as an addition to it, is very simple and easily explained by its able author and advocate. To account for the phenomenon of a warm current running from the Equator to the Arctic ocean, and a return submarine cold currert, observed by Dr. Carpenter is his own deep sea researcher, the eminent explorer and physicist assigns a law of general circulation.

The fact of an arterial circulation of the sea, and the interchange of places by currents of polar and equatorial waters, had long been a matter of theoretical conjecture. Dr. Carpenter's soundings in the North Atlantic, year before last, removed the great deduction from the territory of speculation into that of certainty. By the following ingenious and yet simple experiment, made in his original lecture before the Royal Society, he illustrates his meaning. In the long glass trough represented in the diagram here given, as drawn by himself, the experimenter placed a quantity of water nearly sufficient to fill it, and, in imitation of the two great forces of an equato. rial sun and arctic or polar refrigeration, he subjected the fluid in the ends of the trough to simultaneous heat and cold. This miniature reproduction, in the laboratory, of the great nat