than wood, they built their walls of a goodly | are silvered by a mixture of tin and mercury, thickness, to counterbalance the drawback. which combine in definite proportions and The experience that is not recorded has to crystallize on the glass. The date of the disbe bought anew; for a practice may seem covery is uncertain, but according to the absurd if the reason is unknown. When best evidence it proceeded out of Venice, at old houses are pulled down, and the quantity a period when the alchemists were busy with of rubbish within the walls is brought to metals in the wild expectation to transmute light, it is common to hear a good many them into gold. In searching for a chimera gibes at former folly. "A little more they lighted upon a beautiful domestic invensolidity," it is said, "in the masonry, instead tion. Their science had many similar results. of a loose mass of dirt and stones, and half Of them might have been written the fable the thickness of the wall might have been of the dying father, who bid his sons dig in spared." But it was exactly the thing they the vineyard for a deposit of gold. did not wish to spare, for they considered warmth no less than strength, and to have warmth there must be thickness. They filled in rubble for its cheapness; and though solid masonry would have stood longer, it is not for modern builders, upon a question of durability, to take antiquity to task. We are beginning to discover that there is something else to be considered in houses besides security from tumbling down. The thin walls so common during the last half-century reverse every effect that it is desirable to produce the sun's heat penetrates them in the height of summer, and the heat of the fires filters through them in the depth of winter. We have heard the inhabitants of modern streets in London complain that they spend three months in a frying-pan and six in a well. It may be long before better knowledge produces improvement; for houses are built by speculators not to live in but to let.

Patients long bedridden with disease suffer from the continued pressure on the skin, till at length the slightest movement is pain, and sickness is denied its own poor privilege-to toss. Dr. Arnott provided a preventive in the water-bed, which has saved many hours of agony to lingering illness, and would save many more if patients had always the strength of mind to conquer their first repugnance to its use. But though every one is familiar with the properties of fluids upon which the value of the water-bed depends, it is very unlikely that the thought would have occurred to Dr. Arnott unless he had been a scientific man. Such instances are numerous. The contemplation of nature draws attention to resources which, ordinarily unobserved, are courting the notice of watchful eyes, as a man who walks upon the shore may tread, without perceiving it, upon a precious pebble that is picked up by another who searches for what he can find. But science has chiefly assisted art in the appliance of the less conspicuous powers of nature, which are little known save to those who make them their special study. Mirrors

To whatever capital invention we turn our attention, we find that elementary science was at work in its production. A scientific amateur, the Marquis of Worcester, described in his Century of Inventions a rude method of employing steam to force up water. Captain Savery, a Cornish miner, who contrived the first engine of practical service, borrowed the idea from Lord Worcester's book; of which, anxious to conceal his obligation, he purchased and destroyed all the copies he could find. His own improvements were by no means small, and they were founded upon a very trifling scientific experiment. The engine was next taken in hand by Newcomen, an ironmonger, and Cawley, a glazier, who were no mathematicians, nor, in a wide signification, natural philosophers; but they studied the science connected with the subject, and by a mixture of skill and luck greatly increased the utility of the machine. The boy Humphry Potter next comes upon the stage. A fabulous story, introduced by the suspicious formula "it is said," is related by writer after writer to the effect that, having to turn the cocks upon which the working of the engine depended, he one day observed, in the agony of his anxiety to join his companions at play, a method of attaching cords which would make the machine perform his office for itself. The original source of the anecdote is the narrative of Desaguliers, who was contemporary with the events, and investigated them with care. The authority is the refutation. The steam-engine, he tells us, was self-acting before, and the effect of Potter's improvement was solely to increase the working speed. It was, too, a complex invention, perplexed with catches and strings," which it was quite impossible to have extemporized upon an impulse. Many of the authors who have related the fable must have seen the truth in Desaguliers, whom they quote-and, strange circumstance for men trained in the rigors of science, could not resist the temptation to relieve their

history by romance. Humphry Potter must attention to final causes, and his followers, who be taken from the catalogue of idle boys, and could not rival him in his genius, have not placed in the list of thoughtful and invent- degenerated from his piety. It has been ive minds. He was a pupil in the best their delight to dwell upon the fact, that school, the school of example, and living in though a casual survey of the world prothe midst of ingenious mechanical contrivan- claimed a Maker marvellous in goodness and ces was incited to add another to the number. in power, yet every hidden law which was Here was the starting-point of Watt, and it brought to light afforded additional evidence is well known that he brought to his task of design, and showed him beyond what man acquirements more profound than can be in- could conceive, "wonderful in counsel and cluded under the designation of popular sci- excellent in working." With us the excepence; but the information it supplies would tions at least have been few, and none of them have sufficed for his principal invention-the deserve to be remembered. But in France separate condenser-as well as for the ma- atheism, without limitation or disguise, has jority of the improvements which the steam- too often been blended with an extensive engine, in its multiform applications, has since acquaintance with natural philosophy; and received. Slight knowledge, directed some- a living man of science, M. Comte, imputing times by talent, and sometimes by genius, ac- to the works of creation the imperfections tually made many of the steps in the most which in reality are in his own judgment, has surprising creation of modern days, and was come to be of the opinion of that impious all that was needed to have made many king, who said that if the Deity had conmore. A large volume would not contain descended to consult him he could have given the history of kindred examples. As science him some good advice. Supposing it imis diffused the more they will be multiplied, possible that a philosopher who had run the for what escapes one mind occurs to another. range of physics, and written a bulky work Contrivances which seem obvious have not in which he contends for the utmost strictbeen always the earliest made. The build-ness of reasoning, could take up a dogma ing a separate channel for smoke does not appear to us a far-fetched idea; yet Greek and Roman magnificence was polluted from their inability to devise the arrangement. Shot, which is made by passing lead through a cullender that separates it into drops, lost its globular form, which is essential to its carrying true, by alighting while it was soft, till a Bristol workman in 1782 hit on the simple expedient of letting it fall from a tower, that it might cool in the descent. Invention is not exhausted. Every year something is found out, and we have often less reason to wonder that the discovery has been made than that it should never have been made before. Newton met Bentley accidentally in London, and asked him what philosophical pursuits were going on at Cambridge. "None," replied Bentley, " for you kill all the game; you leave us nothing to pursue." Not so," said Newton, you may start game in every bush, if you will but beat for it." Lord Bacon assigns to science a twofold object, the relief of man's estate, and the glory of the Creator. There has never, in this country, been a disposition to underrate its last, and most honored use. In the same spirit in which they studied the "book of God's word," Englishmen have studied the "book of God's works." Maclaurin heard Newton observe that it gave him particular pleasure that his philosophy had promoted the

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which shocks the instincts of mankind, without some plausible pretense, we read his observations with close attention and painful interest. We laid down the book astounded at their imbecility and could only re-echo the Psalmist's declaration, that it is the fool which has said in his heart there is no God. His argument might have been penned expressly to prove that there is a credulity of scepticism as well as a credulity of belief, and it is difficult to assign any motive for his creed except the morbid passion for distinction which leads some men, and especially Frenchmen, to prefer the elevation of a gibbet rather than walk upon level ground. Yet he had every advantage, for he only undertook to insinuate objections, which must always be easy on mysterious questions, about which knowledge is imperfect.

Atheists are cowards in discussion; they dare not meet the united evidence, and set out in a formal shape the contending system by which they are bound to establish that the contrivances of the world did not call for a contriver. Even of cavils we can fix upon nothing tangible, amidst the cloudy language of M. Comte, except that the arrangements we make are usually superior to the arrangements we find. And this is the argument which is to disprove that there is. a maker and governor of the world! Is it. so much as a defect in the scheme that man

From the New Monthly Magazine.

DENMARK-ITS PEOPLE AND ITS FAITH.

ranean to the ice-bound coasts of Iceland and Greenland—this unity, it is true, again disappeared. But the unity of the Church, such as St. Paul describes it, "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," nevertheless continues, and similar feelings to those manifested by the Christian Romans to their stranger co-reli

THE ancient kingdom of Denmark, which at one time played a prominent part in the history of Europe, but afterwards sank into the obscurity of a third or fourth-rate power, has within a very recent period again occupied the attention of the world in general, and of the British public in particular. The European renown of the Danish sculptor Thorwald-gionists are now often evinced in inquiries adsen, first reminded foreign nations of the little kingdom of the North, from which in ancient times a race of heroes had issued to make conquests in more happy climes; translations of the modern productions of Danish literature next created an interest in the country which gave them birth; and within the last twelvemonth, the manly and unanimous exertions of the Danish people to maintain the rights of their king and of their country have gained for them the esteem of all impartial minds. A cursory glance at the historical development and present condition of this people, with a view to ascertaining how far the national character has influenced the government with regard to the honorable position it has assumed on recent occasions, will therefore not be without interest, particularly as Denmark is at this moment, in all internal matters, undergoing a transformation, the bearings of which are of great general importance; for, to be of any use to us, our judgments of the effect of institutions on the development of national excellence and prosperity must be based on the experience of all nations.

To the Christian reader no facts recorded in history are perhaps more interesting than the earliest manifestations of the new bond of union which had been introduced among the nations and individuals of the earth, as evinced in the brotherly welcome tendered by the early Christians of Rome to every co-religionist, whatever his country or his calling, and which so strongly excited the astonishment of the pagan Romans. The outward union which was subsequently manifested in the identical forms of worship observed in Westminster Abbey, in the Cathedral of Palermo, and under the dome of Thrond hiem; in the universal sway of the Church of Rome, extending from the sun-lit shores of the Mediter

dressed by members of one national church to those of another, in questions such as these: "What is the position of the church in your country?" "In what relation does it stand to the state?" "What are its peculiar tenets and forms?" "How fares it with regard to sects and parties?" Does not the fact, that questions such as these are often the first which are interchanged between intelligent persons of different countries, prove that they feel that they possess in common one essential good, and that with regard to these matters the advantages and disadvantages of each are those of all? At the present moment members of the Protestant Church have indeed additional reasons for making these inquiries of each other; not only because the Roman Catholic Church, strengthened from within, has been making conquests in the dominions of her adversary, but still more because the German Protestant Church, the Mother Church of Protestantism, is in a state of dissolution and internal decay. This fact renders the position of the Scandinavian Church, which will probably soon be the sole representative of the Lutheran Church, doubly interesting; for in the three northern kingdoms the tenets, symbols, and forms of worship of the Lutheran Church, universally adopted at the period of the Reformation, have suffered no modification since then. The history of the Scandinavian, but more particularly of the Danish Church, cannot indeed boast of any period of peculiar brilliancy; it has exercised no influence abroad; it has been receptive and assimilating, rather than active and conquering; and has therefore remained without any influence on the character of the Protestant Church in general. But in this quiet, self-contemplating, outwardly cold and moderate character, there

Ansgarius's piety and disinterestedness, he had allowed the latter to adopt whatever means he pleased for the spreading of Christianity in his dominions, and he requests the Swedish king to do the same, as Ansgarius would never propose anything which was not good and right. Still more remarkable is the

king, who expressed the best wishes for his success, and promised to speak in his favor to the people, and that whatever he desired should be done, provided the gods and the people would give their consent.

is much that is interesting particularly so, as the same character is revealed in all the most important points of the history of the northern nations. In Scandinavia, Christianity was not, as among the Saxons, established by compulsory baptism, nor either by royal example as in Lithuania, whose Grand-duke Jaghello, on becoming King of Poland, allow-reception given to Ansgarius by the Swedish ed himself and his whole people to be baptized. The Frankish monk, Ansgarius, the father and founder of the Scandinavian Church, who was sent by Louis the Pious to Denmark to preach the Christian doctrines, and who afterwards proceeded to Sweden, opened the hearts of the people for the reception of the new faith, by the holiness of his life and the Christian meekness and gentleness of his character. Not until the Christian religion had for a whole century been quietly working its way forward, and noiselessly gaining many adherents, did King Harold of Denmark, though he had for some time in his heart adopted the new faith, submit to receive baptism, which he had until then refused for fear of exasperating his pagan subjects. Many of the most powerful of these, headed by Harold's son, Svend-who afterwards became so renowned as the conqueror of England--did indeed make armed resistance to the progress of Christianity; but Svend was ultimately obliged to yield to the spiritual power of the new faith, and even submitted to acknowledge its supremacy by receiving its baptism. However, not until the reign of Canute, the son of Svend, can Christianity be said to have become the established religion in Denmark. To this consummation no doubt the connection with England contributed considerably, as previous intercourse with England had contributed to the introduction of Christianity into Denmark.

The acceptance of the Christian faith in the Scandinavian countries was thus a matter of conviction-a purely spiritual event; oppression and persecution were but transient phenomena in the history of its progress, for liberty of thought and faith were sacred in the eyes of the Northmen. The pagan religion had indeed been, in the full force of the word, the religion of the state and of the people, and the kings were the religious as well as the civil chiefs; but the power which was thus vested in them was used by them for the protection of mental liberty. A remarkable proof in support of this assertion is afforded by a letter in which a king of Jutland* recommended Ansgarius to the Swedish king, and in which he says, that fully convinced of

*This was before all the Danish lands were gathered under one crown.

The gods having been consulted by the means of the drawing of lots, decided that the new doctrines might be preached, and the people assembled in the Thing likewise gave their assent. Yet it must not, therefore, be supposed that Christianity gained easy access into the Scandinavian countries, or that the mental character of the people predisposed them for its reception. On the contrary, the religion of peace and love was contemptible in the eyes of the warlike Northmen; its meekness and forbearance were looked upon as cowardice and weakness, or it was treated as a kind of poetic fancy of the South. Not until after a struggle of two hundred years did the iron spirit of the North bend to the gentle spirit of Christianity. But the struggle was essentially a spiritual struggle; no law forbade the promulgation of the new creed; to do this was considered unworthy, and, perhaps, even superfluous; the new doctrines were allowed to be preached with a view to their being considered and weighed, but there was no thought of accepting them until they had conquered by the strength of conviction.

The same characteristics prevailed at the period of the Reformation. Young Danes, who had imbibed the opinions of Luther in Wittemberg, returned to their homes and preached the purified faith. To all appearances Catholicism in Denmark, at that period, was in possession of potent means of coercion and repression, for the whole power of the state was in the hands of the clergy and their allies, the nobles. The kings were favorably inclined towards the Reformation, it is true, but they were powerless, and it was the decided bearing of the burgher class alone which rendered the adoption of severe measures of repression impossible; it was indeed soon proclaimed as a principle of government, that the state ought not to interfere with the liberty of instruction; that all opinions were equally to enjoy this liberty, and that all parties were under the protection of the king. Not until the Reformation, assisted by the