ful Mosses, by M. de Brebisson, which has been announced for some time, this botanist states, that a pond in the neighbourhood of Falain having been rendered dry, during many weeks in the height of summer, the mud, on drying, was immediately and entirely covered, to the extent of many square yards, by a minute compact green turf, formed of an imperceptible moss (the Phaseum axillare), the stalks of which were so close to each other, that upon a square inch of this new soil might be counted more than 5000 individuals of this minute plant, which had never previously been observed in the country."

There seems no reason to doubt the statement as to the springing up of the Broad Hedge-Mustard, or London Rocket (Sisymbrium Iris), after the great fire in London, 1666. The fact is given on the authority of Ray, one of the ablest botanists and closest observers of his day. Yet the experiments of the committee of the British Association tend to lead to a different belief on this subject than the common one. And what most strikes us on this point is, the comparatively short period some of the seeds had been kept, when many of them were found to have lost their vital power. Thus, of 3700 seeds, of twentytwo different kinds, gathered in 1844, and sown at Oxford in June 1848, only sixty-nine of these vegetated-namely, twenty-seven out of one hundred of Argemone Mexicana, and forty-two out of two hundred of Malva Maritima. In the report given in by the learned professors to the meeting at Liverpool in 1854, the results of experiments are brought out as even more striking. The seeds subjected to experiment had been gathered in 1834 to 1841. More than two thousand of those gathered in 1834 and

U

1835 were sown, and none vegetated. Above three thousand of those collected in 1836 were planted at Oxford, and only five of them took root. These were in the proportion of five to a hundred of a kind of lupin (Lupinus polyphyllus). Wheat gathered in 1841, and sown in 1854 to the extent of two hundred grains, turned out a complete failure. In 1854, no fewer than 5966 seeds, of seventy-eight different kinds of plants, gathered in 1842, were sown at Oxford, and only seventy vegetated. The same experiments were conducted at Cambridge and Chiswick, with results nearly the same, the only difference being that the Cambridge experiments shew a higher average of vegetating seeds than either Oxford or Chiswick. We cannot fail to discover in these results of experiments many suggestions of a useful kind. The limit of retention of vital power, in most of the smaller kinds of flower seeds, is much shorter than was supposed, before the attention of the British Association was directed to the subject. May not the frequently returning disappointment in regard to the Annuals, which we count upon as the yearly ornaments of our gardens, find an explanation in the seed sown having been too long kept?

But, while the seeds experimented with have shewn a comparatively limited period of power to retain their vital and vegetative energy, there can be no doubt but that life in certain seeds is very tenacious. An illustration of this can be given from our own experience. Many years ago,

a little girl gathered a number of Laburnum seeds, when they were beginning to harden, pierced them with a needle, strung them on a thread, and having steeped

them in ink in order to colour them, she made a child's necklace of them. They fell aside for nearly eighteen years, when they were found lying among other memorials of childhood. It occurred to some that as many fresh and loving memories of old friends were associated with the gathering of the seeds, and with the old Laburnum. trees from which they were taken, they should be sown, and a trial made to rear a plant from them. Twelve of the seeds were accordingly put in a place believed to be favourable to their growth. This was in the autumn of 1844, and in the spring of 1845 three of the twelve seeds sent up a sprout. Two of them were very sickly and soon died, but the third was strong and healthy, and it has now grown a vigorous tree, hanging out its branches of yellow blossom in spring, and being loaded with abundance of seed in autumn.

One of the apostles appears to have noticed this difference between seeds which retain their vegetative energies for a long time, and those which lose it speedily. In 1 Peter i. 23, we find these words "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." Doubtless, the fact that in some seeds there is a longcontinued vital energy had led him to take these as illustrative of the endless life wrapt up in every word of God, which by the soul of man is heard from the lips of Him who is the Wisdom of God, and who in another scripture is represented as "crying and putting forth his voice, as standing in the top of high places, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the gate," and as saying, "Unto you, O voice is to the sons of men." I call, and men, my

Bringing out views like these, the apostle's observation of the long-continued vegetative power in some seeds affords him a ground of contrast, which the Spirit of God makes use of to bring out one of the most affecting views of life. In this contrast we meet with the everlastingness of Jehovah's Word and the short-lived character of the body-that for which man, often forgetful of the higher life in the soul, labours with greatest earnestness. The grass and the flower of the grass illustrate the latter, the seemingly deathless vital energy in some seeds the former. "For," he continues, as enforcing the exhortation implied in the verse already quoted, "all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."

CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE.

Now, it is a most secure truth, that although the particular ordinances divinely appointed for special purposes at any given period of man's history may be by the same Divine authority abrogated at another, it is impossible that any character of God, appealed to or described in any ordinance past or present, can ever be changed, or understood as changed, by the abrogation of that ordinance. God is one and the same, and is pleased or displeased by the same things for ever, although one part of his pleasure

may be expressed at one time rather than another, and although the mode in which His pleasure is to be consulted may be by Him graciously modified to the circumstances of men. Thus, for instance, it was necessary that, in order to the understanding by man of the scheme of redemption, that scheme should be foreshown from the beginning by the type of bloody sacrifice. But God had no more pleasure in such sacrifice in the time of Moses than he has now; He never accepted as a propitation for sin any sacrifice but the single one in prospective; and that we may not entertain any shadow of doubt on this subject, the worthlessness of all other sacrifice than this is proclaimed at the very time when typical sacrifice was most imperatively demanded. God was a Spirit, and could be worshipped only in spirit and in truth, as singly and exclusively when every day brought its claim of typical and material service or offering, as now when He asks for none but that of the heart.

So, therefore, it is a most safe and sure principle, that if in the manner of performing any rite at any time, circumstances can be traced which we are either told, or may legitimately conclude, pleased God at that time, those same circumstances will please Him at all times, in the performance of all rites or offices to which they may be attached in like manner; unless it has been afterwards revealed that, for some special purpose, it is now His will that such circumstances should be withdrawn. And this argument will have all the more force, if it can be shewn that such conditions were not essential to the completeness of the rite in its human uses and bearings, and only were added to it as being in themselves pleasing to God.