rather say, as you see the streams gushing down, | great and simple application of natural law to and chafing and splitting into spray on projecting rocks-rather say, The power is plentiful in nature; when it is intercepted, and tamed, and yoked to industry, how vast will be the resources of the nation! n Those who, in our day, assume the functions of statesmen, would do well to study the construction of canals. Some very wise and very respectable people reduce all statesmanship to one comprehensive rule; and that is, to compress every swelling stream sternly within the old embankments. Keep everything as it was in our fathers' days; shut the door, and shut in all newfangled aspirations. A barber in the town of Greenock once adopted the same line of policy, and solaced himself with the same confidence in its success. The Shaws Water, a small but impetuous stream, flowing from the heights which overhang that thriving seaport, has been confined by an embankment or a shelving ledge half-way up the hill. The reservoir is of immense service both for water supply and mechanical power. From its position, however, it is eminently dangerous, and there is a proportional necessity for great strength of retaining-wall. Several times within a generation the barrier has burst, and made havoc both of life and property. On one of those occasions a worthy barber, whose business lay in the eastern part of the town, was spending the evening socially after the hour of work with friends in the extreme west, when a messenger burst in upon the festive party, breathless and pale with fear, exclaiming-" Barber, the Shaws Water has broken out, and your shop has been carried away in the flood!" "That canna be," rejoined the imperturbable barber, as he continued leisurely to sip his tea-"that canna be, for I locked the door and put the key in my pocket." To let the pent-up waters out into a safe, useful place by a lawful channel of our own making, is better than to leave them shut in until they make an unlawful channel for themselves some night while we are asleep. Navigable canals occupy a high place among the works of art by which the human family have been enabled to utilize the earth. The method by which a loaded ship can climb a hill without leaving its own peculiar element, is a economic uses. A ship bound for the far West successfully crosses the ocean, and sails up the St. Lawrence to Ontario. But between that lake and Erie the vast precipice of Niagara effectually bars its further progress. Industry and art have completely overcome the obstacle. The Welland Canal constitutes a liquid stair, by which ship and cargo softly, silently mount through fertile fields and fruitful groves, from the plain to the higher table-land of Western Canada. In this way a vast and beneficent traffic turns the flank of the obstructive cataract, flowing and reflowing without impediment, to interchange the produce of the fertile West for the products of the overcrowded mechanical Eastern world. The Suez Canal, long a theme of political and scientific debate, is now an accomplished fact, The Mediterranean and Red Seas have kissed each other, and the kindly contact has opent i a new track for the commerce of the world. It was from the first a French project. In England the political circles, for the most part, streuuously opposed it; but English merchants waited in silence for the result. Now, as usual, when success has crowned the effort, we obtain tie lion's share of the profit. It is announced that seven-tenths of the tonnage that passes through. the canal hail from our own country. This is a very remarkable fact, when viewed in connection with our geographical position. Of all Eropean nations, we derive the least benefit from the new route, in respect of shortened di tance. France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Russia with ports on or opening into the Mediterranean save a much greater distance than we, by the Suez Canal in the voyage to India and the Fast All these nations have a greater interest in using the short route, and obtain a greater advantag from the use of it than we; and yet our trafi over it is more than double that of all other L tions combined. This gives an interesting inc dental glimpse of our commercial supremacy This is an empire at once more profitable to our selves and more beneficent to the world, than th empire which is maintained over a continent } the power of arms. Adapting the words of Ser ture to the ordinary affairs of time, we may we say that, nationally, our lines have fallen in pleasant place, and that we have obtained a goodly | and advanced, much in the same manner as order heritage. succeeded order in preceding stages. The vessel has entered the last lock, but has not yet reached its summit. Humanity first joined company at the head of the one immediately below. This was the last step, and the greatest. The distance between the highest of the inferior animals and man is, in virtue of his immortal spirit, to our minds infinite. And the distance between man and God is another infinitude. When the ship-canal shall have been constructed across the Isthmus of Panama, joining the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as the Suez Canal joins the two inland seas, the same or a very similar result will emerge. Owing to our vast interests in Australia and the eastern coasts of Asia, we should distance all competitors in the use of the liquid stair across the attenuated waist of the Western Continent, except, perhaps, our twin-sister nation, the United States, who would naturally find the canal the most convenient passage for navigation between the two parallel coasts of their own gigantic continent. The progression of life on this earth, from its initial stage on the borders of primeval chaos to its consummation in redeemed and perfected humanity, is like the advance of a ship through the locks of a canal to the summit-level of the land. In both cases, the end seems to be sought or reached by a series of perpendicular risings, alternating with horizontal advances. It is now a great heaving upward, and then a long progress on the higher level. Again a sudden ascent, followed by a period of quiet normal development. At a period far remote, with no landmarks standing near, by which its distance from the present might be measured, life, in the lowest type of vegetation, leapt at the Creator's call from the amorphous mass. The ship has left the weltering sea, and accomplished its first ascent. At this elevation occurs a considerable stretch of level navigation. Then comes another rise, succeeded by another level reach. Progress upward is obtained, not by a gradual incline, but by sudden perpendicular elevations. Forgetting the things that were behind, and reaching forth to those which lay before, created life has advanced, forward and upward, not like a train on a railway, but like a ship on a canal. From lichens, mosses, ferns, to pines, and from pines to more perfect organizations, life advanced by leaps, until it reached the platform of the animal and locomotive. Another series of locks, alternating with level reaches, and passing through the various stages of fishes, lizards, birds, and mammals, leads at last to man. Life will not now ascend into a higher order; but this order must be elevated We are in the last lock; as yet we can neither move forward nor see around. Whirlpools boil beneath us, dead walls frown on either side, and water is dripping down upon our heads. It is the water coming down and boiling up that causes the commotion; but the water, which seems to be only disturbing, is insensibly but surely elevating us. Fear not, Christians; the Lord knoweth them that are his, and knoweth, too, the best method of perfecting that which concerns them. Do not be surprised at a commercial crisis here, and an Indian rebellion there; at a war in America at one time, and a war in Europe at another. Our Redeemer sits King on all these floods. He has given orders to open some of the sluices in the hidden depths, that the ingushing of the waters may elevate his ark. If the process of elevation also agitate, he knows the distress, and will provide the consolation. Those portions of man's wrath which are permitted to spurt out, he will employ for his own purpose, and the remainder of that wrath he will restrain. As these boiling waters dash fiercely against the ship's sides and over her deck, the little child cries out in terror; but his "Father at the helm " gently answers, "Fear not; if these waters were not permitted to rush in, you would not be lifted up." The great commotions of our day indicate that the lock is filling fast. These are the last times, and they seem near their fulness. We are imprisoned, and no effort will avail to liberate us before the time. No power can open the twoleaved gates, until the water within rise to the level of the water without. When the fulness has come at last, a gentle gurgle indicates that the muddy stream-"the ten thousand years of sorrow" has ceased to flow: what remains of earth is already calm like heaven. From the window of their ark, now floating on the summit, the voyagers may without obstruction sweep the horizon of history, and see from beginning to end the works of God. No more plunges into chaotic waters, chafing on dark girdling walls, in order to reach a higher style of life: this is the highest. These are now the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear fully what they shall be. Their sins are forgiven, their natures are renewed, their discipline is done. The Son has made them free, and they shall be free indeed. When the Redeemer has gotten all his own from all continents and all generations thus lifted up, time shall be no more. Attending angels touch the gates; they open easily. At the opening, purified and perfected humanity glides gently forth from its ancient prison-house, and joyfully bears away for the better land. CHAPTER XIII. CANALS-MECHANICAL POWER. CLOSELY allied in nature to canals constructed for the purpose of navigation, though very different in use, are those which are designed and employed to generate mechanical power. This species of power, brought by man to bear on the utilization of the earth, is vast in the aggregate, widely distributed, beautiful in action, and beneficent in effect. A water-wheel of first-rate dimensions in motion is a sublime spectacle. It seems, by its grand, steady, sober revolution, to set in motion a system of machinery within the spectator's brain, as well as within the neighbouring factory, and throwing a woof of mind-generated imaginations into a waft of observed and remembered facts, to draw forth an endless ream of beautiful speculation. Make a devout pilgrimage, my reader, the next time an opportunity occurs, to a great water-wheel. Stand near, and gaze reverently. It will draw some of the frivolousness out of your spirit, and impart a measure of its own sobriety. I know not a saint in all the calendar whose shrine or well possesses so much healing power for a human spirit. | scape. In some districts of America, such as the Genesee Falls in the state of New York, the existence of water-power in almost unlimited quantity attracts the population to the spot, and determines the character of its industry. In a few places within our own country, chiefly on the Clyde above Lanark, and on the Tay at Stanley, cotton-factories have been erected beside great waterfalls, for the purpose of obtaining sufficient mechanical power without the expense of steam. It seems, however, that the carriage of the raw material, and the congregating of a population suicient to supply the factories with hands, present difficulties that counterbalance the advantage of obtaining propelling power gratis; and the cotton manufacture has settled down in great cities where it can easily obtain workers, and near mines where it can cheaply obtain coal, in preference to picturesque glens, where a river volunteers to turn the machinery all the year round without fee or reward. Galashiels and Selkirk are two neighbouring habitats of the Scottish woollen manufacture, known in commerce by the general designation, Tweeds. Either cluster of factories possesses a stream with a fall sufficient for mechanical purposes, and the water-power is in both cases carefully economized; but Galashiels, as you approach it, displays a forest of tall enginechimneys, whereas its neighbour is destitute of I never saw a windmill in Scotland; but in that modern architectural ornament. An ancient many parts of England, even after the introduction Scottish lady put the difference pithily in her of steam, the inelegant gyrations of their giant own vernacular- thus: Selkirk gives you a arms constitute a distinctive feature of the land-landscape; Galashiels a lumscape! Why do the manufacturers of one town construct steam- | treasures on the earth again: which parable, engines in addition to water-wheels, while those who carry on the same trade in the other are content to depend on the water-power? The reason of the difference presents an object of interest, and supplies some useful lessons. The stream on which the town of Selkirk stands is the classic Ettrick. One of its affluents, the equally classic Yarrow, flows, in its upper reaches, through a beautiful lake, celebrated in gentle Scottish literature and fierce Scottish civic strife under the name of St. Mary's Loch. The manufacturers of the town, at an early period of their industry, entered into arrangements with the rural proprietors of the valley for liberty to draw off the contents of the lake to the extent of five feet of its perpendicular depth. By a skilful engineering work, which does not in the least mar the amenity of a most lovely scene, they have acquired the power of operating at will upon this great reserve. By taking an inch every day when the stream in summer becomes too feeble, they can keep their mills going for sixty rainless E days; and experience shows that there is little cause to dread a longer drought in our beloved but watery fatherland. Thus, by having a little of the needful stored, not indeed for a rainy day, but for a day that is not rainy, the men of Selkirk are free from the fear of want, and save the expense of erecting auxiliary steam-engines; while their neighbours in Galashiels, living always, in the matter of water, from hand to mouth, must at great cost construct steam machinery to keep the mill going and the pot boiling in a period of drought. A vast machinery spread over the whole nation, and a mighty quantity of fuel, in the shape of money, must be provided to keep mouths going when mills stop in Lancashire and Lanarkshire. We are gladly thankful, now that we have safely passed the crisis, for the force of national benevolence which bore us through the cotton famine; but the manufacturers of Selkirk will show us a more excellent way. If every factory hand possessed a St. Mary's Loch snugly ensconced among the green hills, he would be able to draw from his own store every day as much as would suffice to keep his mill going round, until the clouds should break and pour their being interpreted, meaneth,-If each mechanic, when times are good, should store his surplus in the savings-bank, he would be enabled to bear himself through the next crisis without being obliged to any man; nay more, the aggregate of such savings in the hands of well-conditioned workmen, would prevent the crisis from occurring. A stream, coming with a steep gradient from the mountains, when manufactures have congregated on its banks, presents an aspect of great natural beauty, and suggests a train of useful lessons. A small river flows through a narrow valley, at some places over rocky precipices, and at others through level meadows. As you trace its course downward from the hills, you discover that ere it has emerged from the higher ground into the plain an artificial barrier has been thrown across its bed in the form of a massive weir of solid masonry. The proud young river, like a colt not yet inured to the bridle, frets and foams wildly against the intruder, but after a world of noisy opposition, is subdued, and compelled to turn aside tamed, and to flow along silently in a canal that has been prepared for its reception. After it has marched about half a mile in its highlevel bed, it is poured out all suddenly upon a huge mill-wheel. This wheel, driven by the steady pressure of the stream, drives in turn many thousand looms and spindles in the neighbouring factory. The river has been caught, when it was running wild, and yoked to useful industry. Man, the lord of creation, has need of the river's service in his warfare, and impressed it into his service accordingly, as other absolute monarchs are wont to do. Foaming, and hissing, and spluttering, the weary water is now dismissed from its enforced labour, and permitted to go free again. Forthwith it rushes back into its natural bed, thinking it is again its own master, and determined that henceforth it shall have its own way. Like a prisoner recently liberated from the tread-mill, it greatly rejoices in its newly-acquired freedom. But lo! ere it has flowed many paces at liberty, it is again intercepted, and compelled to labour at another factory further down on the opposite side. This process is repeated: as soon as the stalwart labourer is released from one task, | he is caught again and harnessed to another; nor does he cease to toil until he is lost to view in the king's heart is the doing of the Lord, and it the ocean. is marvellous in the king's eyes when, in his subsequent career, he has gained an elevated viewpoint. He As man turns and uses rivers, God turns and employs for his own purpose the stream of a human life. In youth the volume of living thought and passion gushes forth like water from a lake among the mountains at a river's birth. Onward the young life bounds, leaping from rock to rock, laughing and sparkling in the sun. The young man seems happy, lordly, and free. is his own master, and intends to take his own way. But suddenly a strong barrier is thrown across the impetuous torrent by an unseen hand. The "king's heart" resists and resents this interference in a kingly way: it dashes itself against events, as the river dashes itself against the rocks, and with the same result. It is soon subdued. It must yield, for the hand of God is there. The life that was bent on its own self-pleasing course is arrested and turned aside into a path which the man himself would not have chosen. But probably, ere he has travelled far on the path into which the mighty folding-gates of Providence have shut him, he will find that all his force and all his faculties have been diverted from a channel in which they were useless, and sent full tilt upon some great and necessary work-some work that is glory to God in the highest, and beneficent to brother men upon the earth. This work he would certainly have missed if he had been allowed to have his own way. The turning of I mention one case out of many that I know. A young man, an emigrant in Canada, finding himself far from home, and counting the public worship dull, arranged with some companions to enjoy a boating excursion on the next Lord'sday. Before the time arrived, a tree, which workmen were felling in the forest, fell on him and broke his leg. When the day of expected pleasure arrived he lay on his bed in pain; his companions launched their boat on the lake, were overtaken by a squall, and all drowned. When the young man rose from his bed his life-course flowed in another direction-the king's heart had been turned by the hand of the Lord as a river of water. He has long been and still is a minis ter of the gospel. But it is not necessary to adduce examples. All history is a series of examples: every one of us is a monument of the fact. Who of us have all our days been permitted, like a river on an uninhabited continent, to run his course after the desire of his own heart? Useful lives are like useful rivers: they have been turned aside from the path which they would have chosen for themselves, and led in a way which they knew not and liked not, where they might serve the Lord and bless the world. |