tinually hearing and seeing and feeling things which it is not lawful to utter. At times they rise in the soul in quick sympathy with almost any outward manifestation of nature. All the way from the high hosts of glittering stars down to the tender blade of grass, from the roaring of the ocean to the rustling of the leaf, from the howling of the storm to the sighing of the gentle breeze, there are sights and sounds that now and then stir the depths of an ineffable life.

Who shall say that at such times we do not catch the sounds and feel the impulses of that life which has no end-that we do not hear the murmurings of that mysterious river of the water of life which flows on and on forever?

THE SECRETS OF THE FIELDS.

Does the laborer in the fields as he guides the plow or wields the hoe, ever think of the world of mystery around and beneath him? Does he ever realize that he is dealing with a vast mysterious presence pervading earth and sky, quivering in every blade of grass, swelling in the big crops of corn and cotton and surcharging the very ground on which he treads with instincts of life and power? We call this mysterious power Nature, and in our feeble efforts to picture it on the mind we personify it as feminine, and we talk more or less learnedly

of Nature's works, Nature's plans and Nature's laws, with hardly the shadow of an understanding of what we are saying.

We are aware that during the season for the cultivation of the crops the farmer has been so absorbed in the work that pressed upon him, that he has found little favorable opportunity for reflection or contemplation. He has worked for results and paid only a perfunctory regard to causes that lay beyond the limits of his active operations. But now, when that season is over and his broad fields are waving their green glories before his gladdened eyes as if to cheer him with the promise of rich reward for his toil, we invite him to let his thoughts expand beyond the limits of the tangible material results before him, and to contemplate some of the mysteries that lie behind all that he sees with his natural eyes.

First, there is the great mystery of all, that these fine crops that cover his fields, that rustle in the passing breeze and flash their rich tints in the summer sunlight, stand there as actual, palpable results of causes which measured by human reason, must forever remain entirely inadequate. A few months ago you deposited the dry seeds in the furrows and covered them from sight. Your faith was strong that in due time you would see the tender stalks peep above the ground, because you knew that Nature, that power you had taken into partner

ship, was true and would not disappoint you. She will cooperate with you but you must not see her processes. Your part of the work has been performed in the light; hers must be developed in darkness. What secret legerdemain she practices down there under the ground, so as to swell the seed into an embryonic plant, to start the root downwards and the body of the plant upwards, is one of her secrets which she is chary of revealing to vulgar ears. The Botanist and the Chemist will talk learnedly about the habits of plants, the conditions of germination, the food deposited in the seed to support the plant until it can throw out roots and make its own living, about the ascending and descending axis, the plumule and the cotyledons, about nitrogen, silica, ammonia and phosphorus, and many other strange and highsounding things, and when they have finished their learned disquisitions, they will have the hardihood to think and to ask you to think that they have explained. But does not a moment's thought convince any one that behind their learned enumeration of causes, lies an infinitely greater cause than all these combined-a cause which can never be handled in test tube nor crucible, which no analysis can detect and no explanation can reach. Can any thinking man believe that air, sunshine, moisture, temperature, a few invisible gases and a half dozen familiar substances in the soil, are the adequate

causes and producers of all the varied phenomena of the vegetable world? No, a sensible child would be shocked with the absurdity of such an assertion. There are wonders in a single blade of grass-in the tiniest flower of the fields-that all these things with all their known properties in active operation either conjointly or separately can never produce nor intelligently explain.

There must then somewhere be an unseen cause of these visible causes, and in our vague conceptions we are usually satisfied to call that cause Nature and thus avoid a too definite and lively realization of a power which might overawe our faculties and fill our souls with overwhelming emotions.

There is a degree of appropriateness, too, in personifying that power as feminine, for in many of the exhibitions of that power, there is a tinge of womanly kindness and faithfulness and often of womanly whims and caprices.

In many fields of early corn this year there is an unusual number of blasted ears. Who can explain that phenomenon? On one stalk hangs the full grown ear, while on another that grew by its side under the same conditions and treatment, you find in the place of an ear a great black, unsightly, shapeless monstrosity of mushroom structure, looking as if Nature had got into utter confusion and dashed all of her materials together without the

least regard for appearances or consequences. Did she fly into a passion at some fancied insult from her partner, the farmer, and resolve to make him. feel the weight of her anger, just as women habitually kind and true, under strong provocation sometimes break loose from all restraints and make themselves felt in spoiling the plans of a household? Or did insects puncture the stalk and derange her plans for the ear, and did she then in her disappointment withdraw from the process and leave it all to work out by chance? We should really like to know, but who is to tell?

Again, in a field of corn that we have watched with interest, we find many other things for which we can offer no explanation. There is now, the first week in August, corn in that field in every stage of development, from the first appearance of the shoot and tassel, to the fully grown and partially hardened ear. Yet there was no replanting done and the corn all had the same treatment. While one stalk grew vigorously and rapidly to naturity, another one in the same row lagged behind, fooled around, with no apparent appreciation of its opportunities and responsibilities, and it will come in a month behind with only a nubbin; and another still here and there will fail to produce anything in return for all the care and toil bestowed upon it, standing there a dead failure as corn but a