in the scale of humanity. They have acted as pioneers in opening up new countries, although it has often happened that the ultimate benefit has not been to the natives of the country, but to the higher races who have entered into possession of their inheritance; the lower races having moved into some farther-off region, or disappeared, not being able to withstand the temptations of civilisation. It would almost seem that this is Nature's method of getting rid of the lower types of humanity when they have fulfilled their purpose in the world's economy; but the help in resisting this law of decay which has been given by our common Christianity-often as it has been vaunted--has been very small indeed. How commonly has the remark been made by our missionaries that they have only sown the seed and that the harvest is still in the future? In the precept, 'All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,' we have the true and healthy rule of the duty of man towards his fellow-man. This, which is directly opposed to the selfishness of the natural man, recommends itself to one desirous of doing his duty both to himself and to others, and he soon finds that in so doing he has his highest happiness, and that he is acting in harmony with the divine law of the universe. Of the working of this law in all our relations to God, to our fellow-man, and to ourselves, much has to be learnedor rather our knowledge of it is as yet very limited—but we may be sure that, when carried out in its fulness, it will be found that when the best is done for others, the best also is done for ourselves. Would that this was aimed at by every one of us, and in our national as well as in our individual capacity. Then truly 'the work of righteousness would be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever,' We have seen that work in some form is a necessity of man's nature. In nothing perhaps is the story of man's expulsion from Eden further from giving a true reading of nature's laws, than when it tells us that labour was imposed on man as his portion of the punishment for disobedience. The author of this idea must have been of the same Semitic stock as as the wandering Amalekite of old, the Bedouin of our own. day. To him the greatest enjoyment is his 'kaif,' or perfect idleness, and he will do nothing to-day which can possibly be put off till to-morrow. The consequence is that the race has made no progress towards a higher civilisation, but remains exactly as represented in the time of Abraham. The progress of humanity is not on these lines. All that we know of the workings of the Almighty, and all the secrets of nature which have been vouchsafed to us, have been reached only by the steady and persevering labour of the student and experi menter of the honest seeker after truth in all its forms and details. In Many problems have been solved, or are in a fair way to be so, but, as we have seen, those solutions only clear the way for others more numerous and more advanced. some measure, and in some countries, man has now admitted woman into the scientific circle from which, in spite of some splendid examples she has given of her resources and powers, she had too long been excluded. There is work for both for ages to come, and this work, if good work, can only, as in the past, open up to us more and more fully the laws, physical and moral, by which God governs His universe. It is not given to all to aid in the investigation of the laws of nature. But the duty of all is to know these laws, so far as they have been ascertained, and so far as they bear on conduct, and in all things to act in harmony with them. Here there is room for infinite progress ere we reach the day when 'know |