witnesses. No man ever said he had seen Jupiter changed into a bull or a swan; Neptune striking the earth with his trident; or the chariot of the sun. These were mere tales of old women and nurses, consecrated by a blind respect for antiquity, and adorned by the charms of poesy, of music, and of painting: and as these fables were formed in different countries, and at various times, they were filled with contradictions which it was impossible to reconcile. The same thing is apparent among the Hindoos, and all other modern idolaters, who believe in the most preposterous and extravagant relations, advanced without any corresponding circumstances of time or place, and without any regard to the statements of credible history.

It is true, we are acquainted with the origin and progress of Mahometanism; but here we find nothing su pernatural. A bold, cunning, and eloquent man, though otherwise very ignorant, seduced men as ignorant as himself, under pretext of overthrowing an idolatrous worship, which had long before fallen into disrepute, and proposed in its place a creed without mystery, and practices conformable to their manners. He established

it by the sword; and made conquests which have been extended by his successors. In all this there is nothing out of the ordinary course of human events. Those who have attributed any miracle to Mahomet wrote long after his time; and indeed he himself, who is entitled to belief on this point, expressly declared to those who demanded proofs of his mission, that God had not sent him to perform miracles, Moses and Jesus having already performed a sufficient number: nor do we find that this religion has subsisted either under persecution or a foreign government.

It is, therefore, the character of the true religion, to be equally certain and marvellous. Miracles were necessary to testify that it was God who spoke, and to open the eyes of mankind accustomed to view the wonders of nature without admiration. Miracles were yet more necessary, because the faith was rational, and opposed to that blind credulity which follows, by chance,

whatever is proposed to it as wonderful. But the same goodness which caused God to perform so many miracles to draw us to himself, caused men to perform them before the face of the world; that is, in those times and places most proper to preserve the recollection of them. Moses performed his miracles in Egypt, in the capital city, in presence of the King, at the time when the Egyptians were the most learned and polished nation in the world; and he had the testimony of an entire people whom he had delivered, and to whom he had given laws written by himself in the same book that contained all his miracles. Jesus Christ appeared in the time of Augustus, the most brilliant period of the Roman empire, of which so many writings remain to the present time, and which is better known to us than the reigns of some of our earlier kings. He was born in Judea, in accordance with the prophecies; he taught his doctrine and performed the greater part of his miracles at Jerusalem, the capital; and there he was crucified, and rose again from the dead. His disciples soon spread throughout the Roman empire, and shortly afterwards, over the whole world. They preached in the great cities of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome itself; they taught at Athens, at Corinth, and throughout all Greece; in cities the most learned, corrupt, and idolatrous. It was to the face of all nations, Greeks and Barbarians, learned and unlearned, people and princes, that the disciples of Jesus Christ bore testimony of the wonders they had seen with their eyes, heard with their ears, and touched with their hands, particularly of his resurrection. They persisted in this testimony without any self-interest, and contrary to all the dictates of human prudence, until their latest breath, and then sealed it with their blood.

IN the Nicobar Islands the natives build their vessels, make the sails and cordage, supply them with provisions and necessaries, and provide a cargo of arrack, vinegar, oil, coarse sugar, cocoa-nuts, cordage, black paint, and several inferior articles, for foreign markets, entirely from the cocoa-nut tree.-FORBES's Oriental Memoirs.

FECUNDITY OF PLANTS.

THE rapidity with which individual species have the power of multiplying their numbers, both in the animal and vegetable world, is well worthy of observation.

Our attention has been more forcibly attracted to this subject by reading the following fact in an Irish newspaper:-"During the past season a single grain of potato oats, on the lands of the Rev. Mr. Mills, Ballywillan, near Coleraine, produced thirty-two stalks, all growing from the same root, and containing in all nearly 5,000 grains of corn."

If each of these 5,000 grains were, in the ensuing year, to be endued with the same power of fecundity as their parent seed, 25,000,000 grains would be produced; and these multiplying once again, in the same ratio, would yield a harvest of oats which would amount to nearly 30,000 quarters.

But though this be a remarkable instance of fruitfulness, there are cases on record which afford still greater evidence of the prolific properties of the grain-bearing plants. Of these several examples are to be found in the volume on "Vegetable Substances used for the Food of Man." We select the following quotation from Sir Kenelm Digby, who asserted, in 1660, that "there was in the possession of the fathers of the Christian doctrine, at Paris, a plant of barley which they at that time keptas a curiosity, and which consisted of 249 stalks, springing from one root or grain, and in which they counted above 18,000 grains or seeds of barley."

In the same volume there is another well-authenticated fact relative to the power of increase residing in wheat. The result, however, was in this instance obtained by careful cultivation. As the plant tillered or sent up stalks, it was divided and subdivided, till at length the original root was multiplied into 500 plants, each of which produced more than forty ears. "The wheat, when separated from the straw, weighed fortyseven pounds and seven ounces, and measured three

pecks and three quarters, the estimated number of grains being 576,840."

The seeds of many kinds of vegetables are so numerous that, if the whole produce of a single plant were put into the earth, and again this second produce were made to yield a harvest, and so on, in a very few years the entire surface of the earth would be too limited for the sowing of the seed thus abundantly supplied. The hyoscyamus, or henbane, which, of all known plants, produces the greatest number of seeds, would for this purpose require no more than four years. According to some experiments the hyoscyamus produces more than 50,000 seeds; but assuming the number to be only 10,000, the seeds would amount, at the fourth crop, to 10,000,000,000,000,000, and as the quantity of solid land on the surface of the globe is calculated to be about 1,400,350,599,014,400 square feet, it follows that each square foot must contain seven plants, and therefore the whole earth would be insufficient to contain the produce of a single hyoscyamus at the end of the fourth year.

The author of the Essay on the human understanding was unquestionably one of the deepest thinkers and most profound reasoners that ever lived: his writings did as much to extend our knowledge of the world of mind, as

those of Newton did for that of the material universe; and besides the general gratitude to which his labours, as a philosopher, entitle him, he has special claims to the consideration of Americans, as a sufferer in the cause of liberty, and the advocate of those constitutional principles which justify our revolution. He was, moreover, employed by the Chancellor of the exchequer in drawing up the fundamental constitution of Carolina, and was befriended by William Guen; when in consequence of being accused of the authorship of certain tracts against the government, he was arbitrarily ejected from his stu dentship of Christ, church by the King's command. Locke was born at Wrington in Somersetshire on the 29th of August 1632. His father was a captain in the service of parliament during the civil war. At a proper age young Locke was sent to Westminster school and in 1651 was elected to Christ Church College, Oxford. After a course of study in which he distinguished himself by his great application, and proficiency, he took the degree of Master of Arts in 1658, and then applied himself to the study of Physic. In 1666 he was introduced, in his medical capacity to Lord Ashley, afterwards the celebrated Earl of Shaftesbury, who formed so high an opinion of his general powers that he prevailed upon him to take up his residence in his house, and urged him to apply his studies to politics and philosophy. In 1670 he began to form the plan of his Essay on the human understanding, and about the same time he was made a fellow of the Royal Society. While Lord Shaftesbury was in power, he was employed in various public capacities and when that nobleman was obliged to retire to Holland, he accompanied him in his exile. After the death of his patron, aware that his liberal principles had rendered him odious to the predominant faction at home, he chose to remain abroad, which he did until the revolution, when he returned to England in the fleet which conveyed the princess of Orange; and being deemed a sufferer for the principles on which the revolution was established, he was presented with a public employment. During his absence in Holland he had