is a crown to nobility, and admired of the gods.

Dross is abundant; gold, rare; but one grain of the latter is worth pounds of the former. Commercially and socially regarded, culture has an intrinsic worth or value far greater than gold; while swagger, at its best, is a base infliction.

Power.

THE sudden acquisition of power, be it financial or political, by those not “to the manor born," inspires an inordinate passion to use their strength in a degree regardless of consequences; the refluence of which as often wrecks as it strengthens the citadel of their most cherished plans.

Bridging the Skies.

UNLIKE the investigation of some of the sciences, the study of the heavens never becomes monotonous or uninteresting. On the contrary, every feature of astronomy excites our admiration and interest, and every discovery associated with the stars is an endless wonder.

A study of their enormous magnitude, their number and distance from us and each other, their depth, color and beauty, their ceaseless and rapid flight through endless time and boundless space, at first intoxicates, and then inspires our conception of the power and purpose that gave the stars their birth and life, their lightning speed on wings of fire, making night with its dome of brilliant worlds and burning orbs, nature's grandest sight, and the consummation of all that is

sublime within the range of mortal vision. The depth, breadth, and extent of the view as seen with unassisted eyes, compared to that revealed by the aid of the telescope, in contrast would be as a handful of water to the contents of a thousand oceans.

It is estimated that as many as a thousand million stars can be seen with the aid of the best glass; and could we quadruple the penetrating power of our telescopes, we would quadruple the number of visible stars, some of which are supposed to be thousands of times larger than our Sun.

When we reflect that each and every star, like our Sun, has its individual system or empire of glittering worlds, we may, in a degree, appreciate their extent, grandeur, and beauty. Of their distance

from us nothing is definitely known beyond the fact that the nearest is beyond a certain limit, but how far beyond is to man unknown. And the limit referred to is as much farther from us than the Sun, as the earth is broader than a grain of sand. And the distance between any two stars is likely to be quite as great as the distance between them and us. And God has put us just far enough from these shining worlds to make the vista perfect.

What are known as star depths consist of innumerable clusters, groups, and galaxies presenting nearly every config. uration. The cluster, of which our Sun is a member, is supposed to contain from twenty to thirty million Suns, and that of Andromeda a much greater number. It is said that Lord Rosse's great telescope

has revealed star clusters so remote as to "take their light, at two hundred thousand miles a second," thirty million years to reach the earth.

We are especially impressed with the incomprehensible rapidity of revolution and flight of the solar and stellar spheres; for we see in the stars, suns like our own with their systems of subordinate worlds, spinning as a top in limitless space, and moving with omnipotent speed and power around these distant central orbs. And they too, with their escorts of shining worlds, revolve around the center of the cluster or group to which they belong, and these starry empires may be supposed to move in grand procession around the center of an infinite universe.

Motion, like time and space, can only