ME OJLLAFt PER ANNUM INVARIABLY IN ADVANCE, TOWANDA: Jliursiian {Homing, Dctcmbtr 10,1837. Stlcdcb |3octni. [From The Atlantic Monthly.) THE WIND AND THE STREAM. A brook came stealing from the ground ; You scarcely saw its silvery gleatn Among the herbs that hung around The borders of that winding stream, — A pretty stream, a placid stream, A softly gliding, bashful stream. A breeze came wandering from the sky, Light as the whispers of a dream ; He put the o'erhanging grasses by, And gaily stooped to kiss the stream,— The pretty stream, the flattered.stream, The shy, yet uureluetant stream. The water, as the wind passed o'er, Shot upward many a glancing beam, Dimpled and quivered more and more. And tripped along a livelier stream, — The Battered stream, the simpering stream, The fond, delighted, silly stream. Away the airy wanderer flew To where the fields with blossoms teem, To sparkling springs and rivers blue, And left alone that little stream, — The flattered stream, the cheated stream, The sad, forsaken, lonely stream. That careless wind no more tame back ; lie wanders yet the fields, I deem ; But on its melancholy track Complaining went that little stream.— The cheated stream, the hopeless stream, The ever murmuring, moaning stream gfli s 1111 aitto ns. Chinese Foot-Cramping. While the badge of the man is in the head, that of gentility in the woman is in the foot. One of the earliest inquiries of a foreigner, when he visits that monster curiosity-shop— " the flowery land"—is anent this point ; and anv uew-eomcr from the West, be he ever so modest, is sure to watch the pedicles of the fust Chinese beauty or ugly he meets. But, should he bring up in the Southern waters of China, the impression (common throughout Christendom,) that the stinted foot is uni versal among Chinese woman is at once bro ken. The Canton boatmen, who are most ex pert at the oar, are the earliest to hail your approach to the shores, ai d they show by their naked foot that they find it more convenient to -uffer this member to grow to its natural rize. And generally speaking, the female domestics of the Canton province preferred this freedom of nature. With truth too, it mav be averred, that, among the lower clas s's, the popularity of this objectionable fash ion is often but local. Thus, in-Chusan and Ningpo, where I resided for eighteen months, in 1*42 and 1543, 1 can scarcely recall a sin gle instance of a natural-sized foot among the women, even the maid servants. But a sub sequent residence in the North, particularly mv travel through the interior of the Canton, K:ange, and Chihkiang provinces,daily brt/t instances of females to whom the undistorted foot seemed indispensable for the sake ol live lihood. Hut. as it is an error to say that the cramp el foot is universal in China, it is no less a mistake to state, what I have seen in print, " that only parents of the wealthier sort can afford to their daughters tiie luxury of small feet."' The streets and houses, in every town accessible to foreigners, abundantly testily how tiiis fashion is mimicked by ail classes. Even among the poor, who are likely to appreciate tiie value of preserving it in its natural size, there is another mode of calculating the profit and loss of the bandaged foot. When their daughters are given in marriage, " the golden i liics" (as their delicate feet are politely call ed,' come in as a matter of no trilling pecunia ry consideration. It is not at all improbable thnt many who have submitted to the torture til! marriage, have felt it absolutely necessary to unloose the bandages and set themselves free, to assist their husbands in the garden or in the fields, &c. Yet, it is unquestionable, t at among the lowest orders too, as well as t'ie richer, the custom is popular and fashiona ble. In gangs of female beggars which have passed me in the streets of some of their ci ties, 1 have seen those whose bodies were co v,rd with rags and vermin, but whose feet ! "ud as tightly and squeezed to as minute di mensions as you might witness in any wealthy family. Not unusually, what to your eye seems a foot duly bound and bandaged, is all sliarn, and got up for the sake of aping respectabili ty A nurse in the family in her evolutions by day, will sport quasi cramped feet ; but, *hen suddenly called up at midnight, will ex pose feet of ordinary and nnmutilated dimen sion. The pretence is admirably kept up, in some instances, by wearing short stilts, with •mall wooden feet in elegantly embroidered ■ toes. The writer has seen the part of a Chi nf">e actress played, one of whose chief attrac tions was a remarkably small and elegant f< ot. gait, the manner were entirely feminine. However, it turned out to be nothing but imi- Utiou to the very feet —all performed by a youth ! twine Europeans, I sec, who conceive that I mre is no species of monstrosity but what ttu? t be laid at the door of the Tartar conque boldly assert that the cramped foot was I" r °di!ced by them 200 years since, when "•"> mounted the throne of China. There is the slightest foundation, however, for such assertion. The written accounts of the na ij";tracing this custom, go touch further i ''k than 200 years. Oue author ascribes ,' or 'g>n to an infamous woman, Tuukey, who t,p ' c - 1.100. She was empress at the Having been born with club-feet, she, ■'"marvellous influence over her husband, v r' 1 . 0110 Her form of foot as the ' beauty, arid to enforce, by imperial edict, the compression of the feet of female in fants down to this imperial standard. Others are of opinion that the detestible custom arose 1,700 years after her, or A. D. 600. Accord ing to them, the then reigning monarch Yang te, ordered a pet concubine to bandage her foot. On the sole of her shoe he had stamp ed the Lotus flower ; and each step this royal mistress took, she left on the grounds a print of the Lotus or water-lily. On this account, to the present day, the bandaged feet of Chi nese ladies are complimented as " golden fil lies." But another account maintains that the fashion owes its existence to a whim of Le-ynli, a licentious and tyrannical prince of the Tang dynasty, who held his court at Nan king about A. D. 916. It seems that one day as lie was amusing himself, the thought struck him he might improve the* appearance of the feet of a choice favorite in his harem by bond ing the instep, and raising it into an arch, in his imagery something resembling the new moon. How a resemblance was effected it is difficult to imagine. Nevertheless, the cour tiers were so taken with admiration of this contortion, that the novel form was immediate ly introduced into their families. During the anarchy that prevailed at the opening of the present dynasty, a notorious robber-chief, who had a particular detestation of the club-feet of Chinese women, chopped off the feet of a large number of females and rais ed a vast pile of them. But tiie manes of those injured women are described not as cry ing for vengeance upon the bandit chief, but upon the head of that unpopular and unlucky Prince Le-yuh, whom they regard as the real occasion of their sufferings. Heaven is repre sented as responding to the appeal of these unfortunates by sentencing the tyrant to make 1.000,000 pair of shoes for the women ot Chi na with his own fingers. Generally, the result of such binding is.that fonr of the toes are bent under the sole, the big toe only being left free, and the instep is forced up into a bulge. Accordingly the walk of " the little-footed celestials" is a short and quick step, with a swinging of fhe arms—pre cisely as in walking on one's heels. The Chi nese compare this to the waving of a willow before a gentle breeze ! Frequently, to sup port themselves in walking, these " waving willows" use an umbrella, make a walking stick of an attendant, or lean upon the shoul der of a respectful grandson. It cannot be doubted that cases of gangrene have occurred from such severe compression of the foot ; and ioss of both feet, or of life, and other evils, might be detailed as arising out of this perni cious rule of fashion. But, trom all I have seen, I incline to the opinion that the injur ious effects of life and health from this tortu ous position, are not so certain as has been imagined.— Life in China. A SIBERIAN' WINTER. —A traveller in Sibe ria during the winter, is so enveloped in furs that he can scarcely move ; and under the thick fur hood, which is fastened to the bear skin collar and covers the whole face, one can only draw in as it were by stealth a little of the external air, which is so keen that it caus es a very peculiar and painful feeling in th • throat and lungs. The distance from oue halting place to another takes about ten hours, during which time the traveller must continue on horseback,as the cumbrous dress makes it insupportable to wade through the snow.— The poor horses suffer at least as much as their riders, for besides the general effect of the cold they are tormented by the ice, form ing in their nostrils and stopping their breath ing. When the icy ground is not covered by snow their hoofs often burst from the effects of the cold. The caravan is also surrounded by a thick cloud of vapor ; it is not only living bodies which produce this effect, but even the snow smokes. The evaporations arc instantly changed into millions of needles of ice. which fill the air and cause a constant slight noise, resembling the sound of torn satin or silk.— Even the reindeer seeks the forest to protect himself from the intensity of the cold. In the Tundras, where there is no shelter to be found, the whole herd crowd together as close as possible to gain a little warmth from each other, and may be seen standing in this way quite motionless. Only the dark bird of win ter, the ra\-en, still cleaves the icy air with slow and heavy wing, leaving behind hiin a lone line of thin vapor ; marking the trace of its solitary flight. The thickest trunks of trees are rent asunder with loud sound, which in these deserts, full on the ear like the signal gun at sea; large masses of rocks are torn trom their ancient sites ; the ground in the Tundras and in the Rocky valleys crack, forming wide yawning fissures, from which the waters, which were beneath the surface, rise giving off a clond of vauor, and become immediately cha rig ed into ice.* The effect of this degree of cold extends beyond the eaith. The beauty of the deep solar star, so often and so justly praised, disappears in the dense atmosphere which the intensity of the cold produces. —The stars still irlisten in the firmament, but their brilliancy is dimmed.— [Travels in the North. LORENZO DOW. —On one occasion he took the liberty, while preaching to denounce a rich man in the community, recently deceased. The result was an arrest, a trial for slander, and an imprisonment in the county jail. Af ter Lorenzo got out of limbo, he announced that, in spite of his (in his opinion) unjust punishment, lie should preach, at a given time, a sermon about " another rich man." lhc pop ulace were greatly excited, and a crowded house greeted his appearance. With great solemnity lie opened the Bible, and read " And there was another rich man who died and went to " Then stopped short, and seemed to be suddenly impressed. He con tinued—" Brethren, I shall not mention the place which this man went to, for fear he has relatives in tltis congregation, who will sue me for defamation of character." The effect cn the assembled multitude was irresistible, and he made the impression permanent by taking another text, and never alluding to the subject again. PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY AT TOWANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., BY E. O'MEARA GOODRICH. " RESAR.DI.ESS OF DENUNCIATION FROM ANY QUARTER." THE RETURN OF THE NIAGARA. The arrival of the Niagara will revive the interest in the telegraphic scheme lately nearly extinct. A new expedition will sail with the spring, and, in view of this, an analysis of the cause of the recent failure, and the cbauees of future success, is not inappropriate. The first cause of the failure was the change of plan, by which a beginning was made at the eastern terminus instead of in the middle of the ocean. By starting in mid-Atlantic the difficulties of the enterprise are gradually over come as the vessels near the shore. The cable is laid from deep water into shoal, as cending, instead of descending, the mountain sides that divide the deep from the shoal wa ter —a material advantage. The immediate cause of the loss of the cable was the injudicious application of the brakes while the Niagara was 111 motion, the responsibility of which rest on the engineering department. Those on board agree that the brakes were suddenly applied, without stopping the ship, bringing the immense strain, caused by her motion while in a heavy sea, to bear upon the cable, which parted instantaneously. That it was not parted by its own weight is evident, for supposing the the depth to have been double what it really was, and the cable suspended not in water but iu open air, the strain would not have tested its sustaining power by one third. A distinguished person op board, intimately connected with the tele graph Company, affirms that the process of laying the cable was going on as successfully at the time of the rupture as previously. It has been insinuated that the loss is partly attributable to the currents, but their deflect ing power must have been very trifling ; for over that very spot the hemp sounding line of the Arctic, weighing fifty pounds to one hun dred fathoms, sunk to the bottom, even with out tiie assistance cf any weight—a phenome non that could only have happened in still wa ter. This was confirmed by the Cyclops' soundings, immediately after the parting of the cable, when her line sunk undettected by any current to a depth of two thousand fathoms. If the loss of the cable was not occasioned by either the straiu, by its weight, or by a cur rent, but simply by the miscalculation of those on board, to decide on whom the onus of re sponsibility falls becomes a delicate task, which we will not attempt. It is enough to atlinn that it cannot be traced any of our officers, the entire care of the cable lying wholly be yond their province, and resting with the com pany's engineers in charge of Mr. Bright.— There is a discrepancy in that gentleman's offi cial account and the affirmations of those 011 board, on the very material point whether he was or was not at the brake at the time. Aside from tiiis, the responsibility of the lo.is of the cable rests in no small degree with those who advised the adoption of the present apparatus for checking the paying-out of the cable. Before tiie sailing of the expedition, the London Times devoted a whole column to show that it was too cumbrous and heavy for the management of a slender wire not thicker than a man's finger. Other experiments have proved this. Oa the steamer Arctic, a sound ing cable, as heavy when suspended in the wa ter as tiie Atlantic cable, is managed with a single drum six feet long vith all tlie ease of a spool of thread. The truth of this is now felt by the company, who have resolved to abandon it and substitute ft lighter arrange ment for the coming season at the cost of £7,500. Although the loss of the cable can in no way be attributed to either the the Niagara or her officers, still it is a source of regret that it occured on board of our vessel. She is, doubtless the most suitable vessel afloat for that special purpose. The disposition of the cable was faultless neither causing her to pitch nor liable itself to /.ink as it uncoiled itself from the immense mounds. It wdl be remem bered that this tendency to twist in paying out was considered by many a difficulty that 110 ingenuity could overcome Tiie experience of>ilie Niagara shows that, if properly stowed, this sort of danger does not exist. Of the plans of the coming year we have been able to learn something. Under what soever management the attempt is made, the plan of starting in the middle the ocean will be observed. The r ason of the change of plan was the knowledge that if any ruptiye had occurred after the parting of the ships, it could not have been known from which vessel to at tempt to repair the damage ; but the practical difficulties of reeling in the cable are so great that this imaginary advantage has been given over. The amount of available cable will next vear be increased to 3,001) miles, or double the distance from Trinity Bay to \ alentia, to allow for the slack line needed as an offset against the inequalities of the bottom, the de flections of tiie currents, and the general waste inseparable from the laying of these subma rine cables. \Y hutever remains wijl be useful for the secondary submarine lines from the head of Placentia Bay to Novia Scotia —adis tanee of some 000 miles. It is to be presumed from the fact of the expensive machinery connected with the laying of the cable being still on board, that the Ni agara will be again used for telegraphic pur poses during the coming year. The action of tiie Secretary, however, is immaterial to the success of the scheme, as the English govern ment has offered the loan of another vessel in her place, should ours, from motives of economy, decline. It is to be hoped that na tional generosity will prevent the entire surren der of the whole enterprise into British hands. In laying the cable from the middle of the 1 ocean, the Agamemnon should take the east ern and the Niagra the western part of the line, the difference in the speed and power of the two vessels being about an offset against the force of the winds and easterly currents.— If the work is to commence from either side, the western would be preferable, owing to the direction of the currents and the winds. One of the most serious causes of danger in volving the loss of the cable, is the event of a gale. Naval authorities nt home have suggested that in such an event the only chance of sav ing the cable would be by attaching to it Manilla hawsers, then passing this over the bow, the further end of the hawser being suf ficiently submerged to create an amount of friction in the water that would moor the ship, assisted by her steam power. The immense power of a single rope to bear such an enor mous strain, by reason of the friction of the water, has been shown iu the deep sea sound ing experiments of the Arctic, where the .steam er was, as it were, moored in a heavy sea by a wire line 10,000 feet long, and weighing 1,- 700 lbs. The New Foundland fisherman know this, and ride out heavy gales ou the banks, depend not on their tiny anchors, but on the holding power of several hundred fathoms of line. In event of the breaking of the machinery either of the telegraph ships iu a gale, the only hope is to dritt away, veering out the ca ble just fast enough to prevent its breaking.— This contingency, however is not to be expect ed if the proper season of the yearjs selected. Experience shows that the latter part of June is the time when the ships should meet in the middle of the Atlantic, when the days are in their geatest length, and the nights are illumined by the full moon. This year the at tempt was made too late, and the absence of this uninterrupted light was, probably, among other reasons, the cause of the loss of the cable. Any person at all conversant with the changes of the North Atlantic can prophesy the character of the weather at this season, for several days in advance, with considerable cer tainty, so ar as to time the exact moment when the laying of the cable should commence commence. The time from the separation of the ships to the landing of the cable at either terminus should not exceed six days, involving a speed of between five and six knots. The chances of bad weather, during these six days, are not one in five hundred. Tiie Dolphin, en gaged in making deep-sea soundings on the Plateau during the entire summer, did not ex perience a day that would have impeded the laying of the cable until the middle of Au gust. Another important point is, that a sufficient number of vessels should be in attendance as tenders, both with the steamers laying the cable, and at cither terminus of the route. After the cable is once laid, the most serious causes of danger will be in the in shore portions of the route, where ice, or the anchors of ves sels, or other disturbing causes from the sur face, could injure it. During the past sum mer, a thorough survey of the American side has been made by Capt. Berryman, developing the fact that that spot had been chosen where all along our whole coast these dangers exist in the least degree. The cable passes in the deep water to the north of the Grand Banks. The entrance to Trinity Bay is easy, the depth immense, nearly 200 fathoms, and the bottom of a character ensuring the protection of a ca ble. The exact point of landing is in Bull's Arm, a bay admirably suited—sheltered and deep. The details of similar surveys made on the Irish coasts we have not learned, but are as sured that the lauding offers no difficulties ; the bottom is of hard sand, gradually shelving —the coast bold and easily made. The cable is considered by the company as being all they could wish. Still we are of opin ion that another form could have been adopt ed with advantage. A specimen was made at the Coast Survey Office, in which the conduct ing wires, forty-nine in number, gave the strengtli and consistency to the cable. In the present one the telegraphic wire may be part ed without a rupture of the whole cable. The insulating medium was of India-rubber and sulphur. DEATH IN LIFE. — is from an article by Oliver Holmes,in the last number of the North American Review : "If the reader of this paper live another year, his self-conscious principle will have mi grated from one tenement to another, the raw materials of which even are not yet put to gether. A portion of that body of his which is to be will ripen in the corn of his next har vest. Another portion of his future person he will purchase for him, headed up in the form of certain barrels of potatoes. A third frac tion is yet to be gathered in the Southern riee field. The limbs with which he is then to walk, will be clad with flesh borrowed from the tenants of many stalls and pastures now unconscious of their doom. The very organs of speech, with which lie is to talk so wisely, plead so eloquently, or speak so effectively, must first serve his humble brethren to bleat, to bellow, and for all the various utterances of barn-yard life." RiST A letter was lately found, in which one friend spoke so freely of another that it led to an irreconcilable quarrel. " I am sur prised," observed \V., " that such bitter hos tility should arise out of so trivial a cause." " I ain not at ail," replied J., " it is quite na tural ; for a friend becomes a funcl'if you drop a letter." Si.iGrrrcAi.LY So.—A man was once relating a story of being on a locomotive that struck a cow standing on the track, and threw her seve ral rods into the field, where she lit squarely upon her feet, with her head towards the train, and strange to tell, she wasn't hurt a mite.— " But didn't she look scared ?" inquired a lis toner. " Well, 1 don't know whether she was scared or not, but she looked a good deal dis couraged." CONUNDRUM. —Why are the profits of a drinking saloon like the purchases tuade now-a days at some of our fashionable dry goods establishments l Because they are bargains. Btgr Louis XVI. asked Count Mnhony if he understood Italian. " Yes, please your Majesty," answered the Count " if it i? spoken in Irish," | PECULIARITIES OF GUTTA PERCHA.—IN its ! crude state or in combination with other ma terials, gutta percha may be heated and le heated to tiie consistency of thin paste, with out injury to its future manufacture, while In dia rubber, if but once treated in the same manner will be destroyed and unfit for further use. Gutta percha is not dissolved by fatty substances ; indeed one application of it is for oil vessels, —while India rubber is soon dis solved by coming in contact with fatty sub stances, as is well known. Gutta percha is a non-conductor of cold, heat, and electricity, and its natural state is non-elastic, and with little or no flexibility ; India rubber, on the contrary, is a conductor of heat, cold, and electricity, and by nature highly elastic and flexible. The specific gravity of gutta percha is much less than that of India rubber—in proportion as 100 of gutta percha is to 150 of India lubber, and is of much finer quality, and a far better conductor of sound. Fabrics wrought of India rubber require a separate varnish to give tliera a polish, but the gutta percha possesses a nature of inherent polish, equal in lustre to varnish. When it is quite pure the color of gutta percha is of a grayish white. It has a greasy feel with a peculiar leathery smell. It is not affected by boiling alcohol, but dissolves readily in boiling spirits of turpentine, also in naptlia and coal tar.— The gutta is highly inflammable : a strip cut off takes light and burns with a bright flame, emitting sparks and dropping a black residum iu the manner of scaling wax, which in its com bustion it very much resembles. But the spe cial peculiarity of this substance is the effect of boiling water upon it. When immersethfor a few minutes in water above 150 degrees. Fahrenheit, it becomes soft and plastic, so as to be capable of being moulded to any requir ed shape or form which it retains upon cool ing. if a strip of it be cut off and plunged into boiling water, it contracts in size both in length and breadth. Tiiis is a very anomalous and remarkable phenomenon. FREEMASONRY IN RUSSIA. —The Berlin cor respondent of the London Tims savs : " The last striking innovation that has been made on Russian prejudices and religious feel ings by the reforming spirit of the present Em peror, is the toleration accorded by him to Freemasonry in Russia. The society of Free masons has hitherto been strictly prohibited from constituting itself on the soil of Holv Russia ; the emp'oyees of the state were al ways required to bind themselves never to be long to it ; and the Greek Church has an anathema upon it. For more than half a year however, " lodges " have been forming in the interior of the empire, und entering into cor respondence with other lodges iu foreign conn- and there are indications of different kinds Hint this phenomenon in the Rus.-ian State is far from unwelcome to the powers that be. Two results are, as it would seem, expected from the benevolent working of this society, viz—a better spirit on the part of the various government functionaries, and a grea ter willingness to co-operate in the gigantic task the government has entered upon of com muting serfdom into a free relation of land owner and tenant. I believe 1 shall not be far wrong in imputing this change of tactics toward the " Soeiety of the Free and Accept ed Masons " on the part of the Emperor Alex ander, to the influence of his uncle, the Prince of Prussia, Avho has for manv years belonged to it, in spite of the disinclination of the King, his brother, towards it. DISTANCE OF THE SUN FROM THE EARTH.— The German journals have given some tables which prove that the distance between the earth and the sun is increasing annually, and argues from it that the increasing humidity of our summers and loss of fertility of the earth, are to be attributed to this circumstance.— No credit lias heretofore been given to the tra dition of Ancient Egyptians and Chinese, ae cording to which these people have formerly said the sun's disc was about four times as large as we now see it ; for they estimate the apparent diameter of the sun as double that which it is seen in our day. If, however, we pay attention to the continual diminution of the apparent diameter of the sun according to the best observations for several centuries, we must suppose that the ancients were not mista ken in the estimates they have transmitted to us. In the course of six thousand years from the present time, they assume that the distance will be so great that only one-eight part of the warmth that we now enjoy from the sun will be communicated to the earth ; and it will then be covered with eternal ice, in the manner as we now see the plains of the north ; where the elephant formerly lived arid have neither spring nor autumn. MARRIED LIFE has its trials and sorrows.— Temper may prove incompatible, and call for forncaranee. Fortune may be chary of its favors, and enforce self denial. Children may be ungrateful, and sting tiie poor heart that has pillowed them. Sickness may come and haunt a household for years. But ask the poor man, struggling along with hisdebts, and the weary woman, toiling early and late, ac complishing the ruin of all her beauty and buoyancy, if they would be placed apart could competence be given them, and all their trials brought to an end. The answer would be— " There is something sweeter in this compan ionship of suffering than anything the world can offer from its storehouse of jovs outside of it, and something which would make even se verer trials than ours only iron bands to draw us more firmly together." IfeaF* Two Quakers in Vermont had a dis pute ; they wished to fight, but it was against their principles ; they grasped one another ; one threw, and sat on the back of the other, and squeezing his head in the mud, said : "On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life." The other, how ever began to deal blows against his opponent's head, saying : " It is written, the reed of the [ vntnari c hnll brim? the rpent's head " VOL. XVIII —XO. 27. THE SPHYNX. —Near the Pyramids, mora wonderotis and more awful than nil else in the land of Egypt, there sits the lonely Sphyux. Comely the creature is. but its comeliness is not of this world ; the once worshipped beast is a deform fv, and a monster to this genera tion, and yet you can see that those lips, so thick and heavy, were fashioned according to some ancient mould of beauty—some mould of beauty now forgotten—forgotten, because that Greece drew forth Cylher.i from the dashing foam of the Aegean, and in her image created new forms of beauty, and made it a law anion;? men that the shot t and proudly wreathed lip should stand for the sign ami the main condition of loveliness, through all generations to come. Vet still there lives ou the race of those who were beautiful in the fashion of the older world ; and Christian giris of Coptic blood, will look on yon with the sad, serious gaze, and kiss your charitable liaud with the big, pouting lips of the very Sphyx. Laugh ami mock if yon will at the worship of stone idols, but mark ye this, ye breakers of images, that in one regard, the stone ido' bears awful semblance of Deity—uttcbango fulness in the midst of change—the saint seeming will and intent forever and ever inex orable ! Upon ancient dynasties of Ethiopian and Egyptian Kings—iq ou Greek and Roman, upon Arab and Ottoman < ©nquercrs —upon Napoleon dreaming of an Eastern Empire— upon battle and pestilence —upon the cease less misery of the Egyptian race—upon keen eyed travelers—llcrotoJns yesterday, and Warbnrton to-day—upon all, and more, this unworldly sphynx has watche I, and watched like a Providence with the same earnest eyes, and the same sad, trampiil mien. And we, wo shall die, and Islam will wither away ; and the Englishman, leaning far over to hold his loved India, will plant a firm foot on the banks of the Nile, and sit in the seats of the faithful ; and still that sleepless rock will lie watching and watching the work of the new, busy race, with those same -ad, earnest eyes, and the same tranquil mien everlasting. You dure not mock at the Sphynx.— Eol/itn. ASPODOTK OF THE EIXCTMCAL TELEGRAPH. I think the most curious fact, taken alto gether, that I ever heard of the electric tele graph, was told me Ity a cashier of the Bank of England. " Once upon a time, then on a cer tain Saturday night, the folks at the bank could not make the balance come right by just £IOO. This is a serious matter in that little establishment ; I do not mean the cash, but tbe mis'ake in arithmetic : for it occasions a world of scrutiny. An error in balancing has been known, I am told, to keep a delegation of clerks from each office at woik sometimes through the whole night. A hue and cry was of course made after this X 100, as if the old lady of Thrcadneedle street, would be in the G 'zetle for want of it. Luckily on the Sun day morning a clerk felt a suspicion of tho (ruth dart through his mind quicker than any flash of the telegraph itself. He told the chief cashier 0:1 Monday morning that perhaps the mistake might have occurred in packing some boxes of spe< ie for the West Indies, which had been sent to Southampton for shipment. Tho suggestion was immediately acted upon. Ilero was a race—lightning against steam ! and -team with forty-eight hours' start given.—* Instantly the wires asked, " whether such a vessel had left the harbor ?" " Just weigh ing anchor" was tho answer. " Stop her," frantically shouted the electric telegraph. It was done. " Have upon dec k certain box es marked so and so ; weigh them carefully." They were weighed ; and one—the delinquent —was found heavier Ivy just one packet of a hundred sovereigns than it ought to be. "L r, t her go," said the mysterious telegraph. The West India folks were debited with just XIOO more, and the error was corrected with out ever looking into the boxes or delaying the voyage by an hour. Mow that is what may be called "doing business."— Letters cf R. E. If. Grey sen. : TRIE CHRISTIANITY. —Whoever truly wor ; ships, pouring out the prayer, not of inter | est or four, nor chiefly of personal gratitude, !>ut of aspiration, reverence and trust, feels ir | resistildy assured that he is yielding to no weak ! ness, I nit is falling into the atitude congenial ito higher natures. Can it he denied that the deep sense of God is a haunting accompani ment to the deepest and grandest man ? that however it may co exist with weakness and I exempt itstlf without forfeiture to certain siormv force, it was ever inseparable from the large and balanced soul, the spring at once of tenderness and strength. What ever is wise, or strong, or loving enough in this world to out last the changes of human admiration, will bo found to luive the tincture of inb use faith.— The natures which have affected the fate of mankind, have done so by giving them a Christ! And in each nation tie highest man, whether in thought or action, Socrates, Scipio, Dante, Luther, Pascal, Cromwell and Newton, havu not attained their great dimensions, without bearing a divine secret in their sorL ; they have been men of trust and prayer ; ari l, fa miliar with Infinite Presence, having attained the Mature which throws so great a shadow over history. Take away from these miuda their religion, reduce the philosophers among them to their dialect and mathematics, the gen erals to ihcir strategy, the poet to his fill in epic fiction ; suppose them to think, to act, to sing, for secular profit and entertainment, ami not for truth and justice, dear eternally to Go