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Fortunately their weight broke the traces which attached them to the vehicle, and it was left standing on the edge of the precipice. Pascal fainted. He was long in re

covering from the swoon, and in the debility and sleeplessness which ensued, he imagined that he saw from time to time a precipice at the side of his bed, over which he was about to fall. He regarded this event as a message from heaven calling on him to renounce all connexion with the world, and live henceforth for God alone. Accordingly, he withdrew from busy life, and ceased to hold intercourse save with those who were of the same religious sentiments as himself.

The abbey of Port-Royal was then at the height of its fame. It was presided over by Angelica, sister to the celebrated Anthony Arnauld. At Port-Royal he met the two Arnaulds, Saci, Le Maitre, Nicole, &c. Pascal was introduced to these distinguished men, and soon formed a close friendship with them. Without becoming a permanent resident in their establishment, he paid them. an occasional visit of three or four months.

The war between the Jansenists and Molinists was then raging in France. In this dispute the Port-Royalists ranged themselves on the side of Jansen, the Jesuits on the side of Molina. The occasion of the dispute was a posthumous work of Cornelius Jansen, Bishop of Ypres, in which he sought to develop, in systematic form, the doctrines of Augustine. The book, heavy in style, would have soon sunk out of sight, but for the distinguished men who brought it into notice. The Abbé de St Cyran lauded it to the skies. Shortly after the recluses of PortRoyal publicly expressed their approbation of it. By

these means it rapidly became popular. The Jesuits, enraged at the popularity of a book, which they regarded as an indirect censure of themselves, set themselves to obtain its condemnation. For this purpose they produced five propositions, which they affirmed to be extracted from it, and prevailed on Pope Innocent X. to condemn them, in a bull dated 31st March 1653. Nor were they satisfied with the condemnation of the book; their malice aimed at the destruction of its abettors. Of these none was more obnoxious to them than Anthony Arnauld, upon whom the leadership of the Jansenists had devolved, on the demise of St Cyran. A pretext under which they might vent their rage against him was not long wanting. In 1656 he published two letters, in which he declared that he had not been able to find the obnoxious propositions in Jansen, and added an opinion on grace. The first of these assertions was regarded as derogatory to the holy see, the second was charged with heresy. The Jesuits seized the opportunity to procure his expulsion from the Sorbonne. While his process was pending before it, a few of his friends, of whom Pascal was one, were in the habit of meeting privately together at Port-Royal, to consider what measures should be adopted. At one of these conferences, one of their number said to Arnauld, "Will you allow yourself to be condemned like a child, without saying a word?" Moved by this appeal, he wrote a long and serious vindication of himself, which he read in the presence of them all. Guessing their opinion of it from their silence, he said, "I see you are not pleased with my production, and I believe you are right;" but, addressing Pascal, "you, who are young, you might do

something." To this appeal we owe the "Provincial Letters." Pascal retired to his room, and in a few hours produced the first of these famed productions. On hearing it read, Arnauld exclaimed, “That is excellent! that will take! we must have it printed immediately." It was followed by other seventeen, as excellent in their several kinds. Their popularity was immense, but it was not greater than their deserts. Reverent yet fearless, clear yet profound, sparkling with wit, yet powerful and convincing in argument, now salted with the keenest irony, and now soaring into sublime eloquence, these letters are unequalled in literature. The encomium of Voltaire is well known :- "The 'Provincial Letters' are models of eloquence and pleasantry. The best comedies of Molière have not more wit in them than the first letters; Bossuet has nothing more sublime than the concluding ones." Other writers, native and foreign, have been as liberal in their praise.

The remainder of Pascal's life was almost a perpetual agony. In the intervals of his sufferings, he occupied himself with an apologetical work on Christianity, which he had long meditated. His custom was, when a thought occurred to him suitable for his plan, to jot it down on the first piece of paper which came to hand. Of his intended work, these jottings are all that is left us. edifice, but only the precious materials of an edifice, remain; for, alas! ere the building was completed, the hand of the builder lay cold in death. These fragments were published seven years after his death, under the title of "Thoughts."

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Pascal died on the 19th of August 1662, in the thirty

ninth of his age. year He had been seized, about two months before, with a severe colic, from which he never recovered. To the tortures of this disease were added excruciating headaches, yet no murmur of impatience or complaint ever escaped from his lips.

If we remember that he died at the age of thirty-nine, that from the age of eighteen till his death he was not a single day without suffering, and that under these disadvantages he attained the rank of a first-rate mathematician, established the true theory as to the weight of the atmosphere, wrote the "Provincial Letters," meditated the "Thoughts," and that, in addition to these titles to distinction, to him belongs the merit of doing for the French language what Luther did for the German, we shall be willing to regard him as being the first among the great men of a justly distinguished age.

INSECTS-FEIGNING AND FIGHTING.

"DEAD-stone dead," cried our little boy, when he saw a great house-spider fall from the corner of one of the topmost panes of the window. He had been watching its movements; and, as children will experiment on flies, and moths, and bees, and butterflies, and spiders, he had touched it with the point of an unstrung bow which he had in his hand, and down it came with such force as made the wood of the window-sill sound again. "Dead-stone dead," he said, as he examined the little black ball now

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in his power. But the whole affair was, as some would say, "a dodge," and a very artful one. We lifted Mr Pholcus, for in the society of the learned, that is Spider's manly-looking name, and gave him a gentle squeeze, but this did not arouse him. He was very tenderly poked with the head of a pin, but this had no effect, he really seemed "dead-stone dead,” after all. Our young friend proposed the point of a needle as the most effective way to quicken him, if he were not stone dead. This led to a lecture on cruelty to animals; but, just as we were on the point of giving it a personal application, the would-be culprit sung out a clear merry laugh, as he exclaimed, See, he is not dead-he is creeping cunningly away.” So it was; the spider, wishing that the lecture might not be lost, took the opportunity, during its delivery, to get up out of its feigned trance, and slip out of sight.

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But our young observer met with a different experience soon after. A wasp, finding the dining-room window open one bright warm summer morning, and attracted by the sweets in the sugar-basin, alighted on the breakfasttable, and ran with fluttering wing along the cloth. This was too much. "Get away," said the child, as he stretched his little hand toward the wasp. But he had better not have "suited the action to the word." In an instant the wasp pounced on the hand, and pierced it with its sharp and poisoned sting. Retaliation was as sudden, for before the irritated temper could be checked, a blow fell on it which struck it dead.

These simple incidents indicate two lines of defence to which insects have recourse. Some, when touched by man, feign that they are dead, others fight for their com

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