and Might. So the mountains in their unbroken silence, like the stars, with no speech nor voice, are always eloquent in their Creator's praise. I know not which most to admire, as I lift up mine eyes to these hills, their beauty or their sublimity. As I look off to the east, their grandeur awes me till I turn to the west, where a world of wondrous loveliness lies in the lights and shadows of the sinking sun. There is a "bridal of the earth and sky." Heaven and hills kiss each other and melt into one.

On one of these evenings, half an hour before sunset, after a bright day, a black thunder-storm swept up the valley of the Delaware. Soon it blotted out the sun and deluged the mountains until it appeared as if the hotel might be washed down into the valley. When the storm reached the Shandaken. Valley in the east and rested on Slide and Panther Mountains, the sun burst forth beneath its track, and spanned its dark expanse with two brilliant rainbows. Rain still fell in torrents, lightnings flamed beneath the rainbows from horizon to horizon, and the sun blazed with noontide splendor from the west. All were gathered on the porch to witness the sublime spectacle which might not be repeated in a lifetime, the world illumined by the sun, the lightnings and the rainbows, clothed in garments of gorgeous colors, adorned with the splendors of a new heaven and a new earth.

When the moon was full in this August, the heavens assumed the peculiar appearance called a mackerel sky. But. instead of long rifts of cloud in successive layers, the whole concave was embossed with white shields, infinite in number, each one an illumined picture; and we stood, hundreds, under the open canopy of heaven, gazing upwards as if we were beneath the dome of the great Cathedral of the Universe, which needeth not the sun or moon to give it light. On such an elevation as this one seems to be between the earth and sky, and marvels whether the one or the other most declares the power, the wisdom and glory of Him who rides on the circle of the heavens, and gilds the mountains with the brightness as he passes by.

What wonderful cloud-effects are constantly before our

admiring eyes! As if some angelic artist, greater than Angelo of the " Eternal City," had stretched his canvas over the globe, and flung upon it with skill divine his colors which excel in strength. The hand that made them is divine.

The everlasting hills! They are here to stay. How they speak of the eternity of Him who laid their foundations! Kingdoms pass away: tribes, nations, dynasties flow along like these babbling streams, but the great mountains, solemn, sublime and silent, are here always.

And how good they are as well as great. They gather the clouds on their heads and along their wooded sides, and the snow cometh down and the rain from heaven: the rills and brooks and rivers water the earth, and make it bud and blossom, to give bread to the sons and daughters of men. The strength of the hills is His. And blessed be his name for ever and ever!

BULL-FIGHTS, PRIZE-FIGHTS AND OTHER

POPULAR AMUSEMENTS.

WHEN I was in Spain—that is a good way to begin a letter; it tells at once that the writer has travelled in foreign parts and ought to have something to say when I was in Spain I heard a great deal about bull-fights; and returning, was often asked if I went to see them. To this question it was my pleasure to be able to answer No. And when further asked why I did not go, I said: "For three good and sufficient reasons. First, they are bloody exhibitions, and would therefore disgust and not entertain me; second they always occur on Sunday, and it is against my views of propriety to attend such places on that day; and third, there was not a bull-fight in Spain while I was there. They are given in hot weather only, and I was not there in summer."

But would you have attended if you could have seen one on a week-day?

"Certainly not. Believing them to be demoralizing and

brutal, unworthy of a civilized people, I would not go near them." But there is no accounting for tastes. I met a refined and delicate American lady who with her husband was travelling in Spain. His business had detained them in Madrid through the summer, and they had frequent opportunities of seeing bull-fights, which she enjoyed amazingly. He was a splendid specimen of man, six feet high and well proportioned, one whom you would select as a champion to enter the lists in a tournament. But he could not bear to look at these fights which afforded such rapturous pleasure to this pretty little wife of his. She laughed at his squeamishness, as she called it, and declared that a bull-fight was far more interesting to her than to see a horse-race or two men knocking each other out with their fists.

I met also in Spain the wife of an American clergyman who expressed the liveliest satisfaction in attending bullfights, and she mentioned some particularly ghastly scenes that gave me uneasy sensations in the stomach, while she seemed to be in ecstasy. Perhaps ladies do not take more delight in these bloody scenes than the sterner sex, but they are more fond of recounting their experiences in the ring, perhaps because it proves them superior to those weaknesses which in our judgment are ornaments and not defects in human character.

It cannot be truthfully denied that there is a tendency in our civilization toward the enjoyment of cruel and bloody games. If true, it is a bad sign. The decline of Roman strength and power was signalized by such exhibitions, where the lives of men and beasts were flung away in horrid combats to make sport for the people. Reverence for life is one of the highest types of Christian civilization: not human life only, but for everything that lives. And our gentle poet Cowper was not morbid when he said he would not have for a friend the man who would needlessly tread on a worm. Sensitiveness to the feelings of other people is a mark of high birth and breeding, and only the low, coarse and brutal despise the sentiment. Gentleness is one of the attributes of real greatness.

This is not a popular doctrine of the age. We have recently had a judicial decision in the courts of this city that is more in accordance with the sense of the times. The law forbids prize-fighting. But the lovers of that amusement had contrived to evade the law by having the fights with gloves, falsely so called so far as they are fitted to prevent injury to the combatants. Two lusty fellows began a combat in the presence of a multitude who had paid for admission to see the fun. They had fought but a few minutes when the police interfered and arrested the men. Brought up for trial, they contended it was not a prize-fight, but merely a friendly setto. And the learned judge made a decision which has not been equalled since the time of Solon for strictness of construction. The amount of it was that if they struck each other very hard they would be liable to the penalty, but a reasonable amount of sparring without getting mad was not illegal. So the sport goes on. Nor is the enjoyment of this amusement confined to the rude, ignorant and unkempt masses, the terror of society, who may some day burst out of their dens and fill the streets with violence and blood. The prize-fights of our day, like the old gladiator spectacles of Italy and the modern bull-fights of Spain, are attended and hugely enjoyed by thousands of men who are supposed to be ornaments of society, good husbands and brothers. Their tastes are certainly depraved, and there is no accounting for them.

No civilized Christian wants to have bull-fights and prizefights domesticated among us as popular amusements. Instinctively the moral sense revolts from the suggestion. Yet it is possible that our admiration of physical prowess may lead to the cultivation of games and plays whose most pronounced features are violence and blood. Woman glories in the vigor of men. She is naturally a hero-worshipper. The Rape of the Sabines is a myth, born of this passion of woman for a conqueror. The Lord taketh no pleasure in the legs of a man, but the athlete is the admiration of the multitude. There is a genuine danger that this passion for the exhibition of strength and agility, and the applause always accorded to

the conqueror, may run away with the judgment and make the culture of the muscle a higher study than that of the mind. These things ought to be done and the others not left undone. In the midst is the way of safety. But the hardest of all ways to travel is that between extremes. The care of the body is neglected far too much. It is rare to find nowadays a youth with a perfectly sound body. The training he needs is what he does not care to go through, except to be a champion. Thus a few only are chosen. The many will not strive unless they can win, and the winners are not many.

Our young people do not play as much as they should. Athletic games are to be encouraged. They tend to health, long life, fitting men to endure hardness as good soldiers. Every man who has hardened his muscles, expanded his chest and cultivated his back-bone is all the better for the struggles and burdens of life. Ministers of the gospel would have less liver-complaints and lung-disease and fewer break-downs if they had made themselves more athletic when they were young students. Use the world as not abusing it. There is no need of being ferocious and brutal in order to be the champion ball-player. Let your moderation be known. Strive lawfully. And in so doing there shall be great reward.

THE HERO OF JACOB'S WELL.

AN ADVENTURE WITH BEDOUIN ARABS.

IN company last evening the conversation naturally turned upon the Arabs and their spears, so terrible just now in the Soudan. I remarked that I was an expert on that subject, having had a fearful experience with Arabs and their spears some years ago while travelling in the East. None present had recollections of the incident, and the story was called for with such importunity as could not be kindly resisted.