with malicious vehemence, until at last, with a roar of mingled pain and rage, he throws up into the air a column of water forty feet high, which carries with it all the sods that have been chucked in, and scatters them scalded and half-digested at your feet. So irritated has the poor thing's stomach become by the discipline it has undergone, that even long after all foreign matters have been thrown off, it goes on retching and sputtering, till at last nature is exhausted, when, sobbing and sighing to itself, it sinks back into the bottom of its den.

Put into the highest spirits by the success of this performance, we turned away to examine the remaining springs. I do not know, however, that any of the rest are worthy of particular mention, They all resemble in character the two I have described, the only difference being that they are infinitely smaller, and of much less power and importance. One other remarkable formation in the neighbourhood must not pass unnoticed. Imagine a large irregular opening in the surface of the soft white clay, filled to the very brim with scalding water, perfectly still, and of as bright a blue as that of the grotto Azzuro at Capri, through whose transparent depths you can see down into the mouth of a vast subaqueous cavern, which runs in a horizontal direction beneath your feet. Its walls and varied cavities really looked as if they were built of the purest lapis lazuli, and so thin seemed the crust that roofed it in, we almost fancied it might break through, and tumble us all into the fearful beautiful bath.

On

We had now been keeping watch for three days over the Geysir, in languid expectation of an eruption. the morning of the fourth day a cry from the guides made us start to our fect, and with one common

impulse rush towards the basin. The usual subterranean thunders had already commenced. A violent agitation was disturbing the centre of the pool. Suddenly a dome of water lifted itself up to the height of eight or ten feet, then burst, and fell; immediately after which a shining liquid column, or rather a sheaf of columns, wreathed in robes of vapour, sprung into the air, and in a succession of jerking leaps, each higher than the last, flung their silver crests against the sky. For a few minutes the fountain held its own, then all at once appeared to lose its ascending energy. The unstable waters faltered-drooped-fell, "like a broken purpose," back upon themselves, and were immediately sucked down into the recess of their pipe.

The spectacle was certainly magnificent; but no description can give any idea of its most striking features. The enormous wealth of water, its vitality, its hidden power-the illimitable breadth of sunlit vapour, rolling out in exhaustless profusion-all combined to make one feel the stupendous energy of nature's slightest movements.

With regard to the internal machinery by which these waterworks are set in motion, I will only say that the most received theory seems to be that which supposes the existence of a chamber in the heated earth, almost, but not quite, filled with water, and communicating with the upper air by means of a pipe, whose lower orifice, instead of being in the roof, is at the side of the cavern, and below the surface of the subterranean pond. The water, kept by the surrounding furnaces at boiling point, generates, of course, a continuous supply of steam, for which some vent must be obtained; as it cannot escape by the funnel-the lower mouth of which is under

water, it squeezes itself up within the arching roof, until at last, compressed beyond all endurance, it strains against the rock, and pushing down the intervening waters with its broad strong back, forces them below the level of the funnel, and dispersing part, and driving part before it, rushes forth in triumph to the upper air. The fountains, therefore, that we see mounting to the sky during an eruption, are nothing but the superincumbent mass of waters in the pipe, driven up in confusion before the steam at the moment it obtains its liberation.Lord Dufferin's "Letters from High Latitudes."

LESSON LXXX.-LUTHER AT THE DIET OF WORMS.

After being crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 28th January, 1521, Charles V. had proceeded to Worms, where he assembled his first Diet of the sovereigns and states of Germany. It was the great object of the papal leaders to have Luther condemned unheard; and they succeeded so far as to induce the Emperor to issue an edict for the destruction of the reformer's books; but the Estates refused to publish it, unless Luther had first an opportunity of confronting his accusers under a safeconduct, and answering before the Diet the charges preferred against him. Nothing could be more congenial to the temper of Luther. It was exactly what he most desired, to confess the truth before the assembled powers of Germany. He made up his mind at once to obey the summons, and wrote bravely to Spalatin (the Emperor's secretary), "I will be carried thither sick, if I cannot go sound. . . . Expect everything from me but flight or retractation."

Nothing can well be grander than this passage in the

history of the Reformation-the journey of Luther, with its strange and mixed incidents-his appearance in Worms before the Diet, his prayer beforehand, his fears, his triumph, the excitements that followed his triumph, his seizure on his return, and residence in the Wartburg. It would be difficult to find anywhere a nobler subject for a great poem.

He entered Worms on the 16th April, escorted by his friends and numbers of the Saxon noblemen, who had gone out to meet him. As he passed through the city, so great was the crowd that pressed to see him, that he had to be conducted through back-courts to his inn. More than two thousand assembled at the "Deutscher Hof," where he took up his abode, and till night his room was thronged by nobles and clergy, who came to visit him. After his room was cleared, a different picture presented itself. The bold monk is seen prostrate in an agony of prayer. His voice was heard in snatches by his friends as it rose to heaven, and it is impossible to read anything more touching and awe-inspiring than the fragments of this prayer which have been preserved. On the following day he received notice to attend before the Diet the same afternoon, and amidst the dark frowns of Spanish warriors and ecclesiastics, and the whisperings of affectionate and courageous sympathy, he was ushered into the imperial presence.

The scene which presented itself to the monk was one well fitted to move him. The Emperor Charles V., seated on his throne, with the three ecclesiastical electors on the right, the three secular on the left; his brother Frederick on a chair of state below the throne; the nobles, knights and delegates of the free cities around, the Papal nuncio in front. The sun, verging to its

setting, streamed full on the scene of worldly magnificence, strangely varied by every colour and form of dress; the Spanish cloak of yellow silk, the velvet and ermine of the electors, the red robes of cardinals, the violet robes of bishops, the plain sombre garb of deputies of towns, and priests. The solitary monk, with his head. uncovered, pale with recent illness and hard study, with little or none as yet of the brave rotundity of his later age, a pale slight figure," encircled by the dark flashing line of the mailed chivalry of Germany." Little wonder that at first he seemed bewildered, and that his voice sounded feeble and hesitating. His old adversary Eck was spokesman, and loudly challenged the monk,-first, as to whether he acknowledged the books before him as his writings; and secondly, as to whether he would retract and recall them. To the first question he replied in the affirmative; in answer to the second, he demanded a day's delay to consider and frame an answer. Many thought he was at length frightened, and would temporize; but on the following day they were abundantly undeceived. All signs of timidity and hesitation had then vanished; he had had time to meditate an adequate reply, and in a speech of two hours, first, in German, and then in Latin, he expressed his determination to abide by what he had written, and called upon the Emperor and the States to take into consideration the evil condition of the church, lest God should visit the empire and German nation with His judgments. Being pressed for a direct answer, yea or nay, whether he would retract, he answered finally in the memorable words, "Unless I be convinced by Scripture and reason, I neither can nor dare retract anything: for my conscience is a captive to God's word, and it is neither safe