aright, come forth from the Father, that we may see and know the love which God hath to us. Let us go forth with grateful hearts to greet this message of the Spring.

Another lesson is of Unexhausted Power. For how many thousands of years these processes of growth and consumption have been going on; and yet there is no sign of exhaustion. To-day the earth is fresh and glad and young as ever: Thou renewest the face of the earth. All things wear and waste away. The power of all things is spent, and they must look elsewhere for new energy. The sun is for ever being consumed; the stars would grow dim and go out. Think, then, of Him Who renews all these. He openeth His hand, and the great sun has its supply; the stars shine on; His energy comes forth to make the earth young again until it sings with gladness; the pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy. Well may our meditation of Him be sweet. Who is a strong God like unto our God? To know Him as our Father through Christ Jesus, to rest in the sure safety of His keeping, to live compassed about with these Almighty Arms, to leave all our cares with Him, and to have the heart satisfied with His goodness, this is blessedness indeed.

And here, too, is Perfect Wisdom. Since first the earth shone out upon the darkness, fresh from her great Creator's hand, no new methods have been adopted. Our God makes no experiments. There are no new discoveries for which old ways are cast aside. Man's way upward is in blundering from step to step, guessing, trying, changing. But since the first Spring gladdened the earth, each year it has come for hundreds of years renewing the earth. Perfection marked the beginning and every step of God's works. Time finds no flaw in it. Experience can suggest no improve

ment; and science is ever unfolding to us new and wonderful proofs of this Eternal Wisdom. Again let the soul delight itself in this gracious Lord. All-wise is He in all His ways

perfect in all His works. To know that He directs all our steps and orders our goings; to know that the discipline of our life, its work and pleasures and troubles are under His direction, is indeed to be blest. Trust in Him

with all the heart Who shows forth His Perfect Wisdom in each grass-blade, and in the least and lowest of His doings. Fear not; thou art much more than all these.

There is in the Spring a glad lesson for ourselves. Alas! the soul, too, has its winter. Bleak and chill and barren is it at times. The cruel frost of unbelief or of neglect withers all within it. The very desires sleep, ice-bound. It puts forth no promise of life-no peeping bud, no hopeful bloom. The flow of our thanksgiving is held back, prisoned by the cold. We remember happier seasons, as we shiver and fear-times of luxuriant summer, times of fruitful autumn, and we wonder when these glad seasons shall come again. O! blessed be God Who reneweth the face of the earth, He restoreth the soul. His south wind bloweth softly. The desires are loosed and begin again to flow out after God. The warmth of His favour touches and melts us. The gentle rain of His Spirit refreshes us. Hope begins to bloom agair Love fills the soul with balmy sweetness. Joy is heard singing once more, and new life comes clothed in new beauty.

All about us are parables for our meditation. The trees and hedgerows and fields preach to us. 'Behold,' they say, 'what God can bring forth from us.'

But the other day the old oak stood bare and twisted and knotted and gnarled—a thing far removed from any gladness, and without a sign of

variation, consecutively preserved, would perish altogether, by mere exhaustion. As at present constituted, the vegetable world, like the animal, must have its time for rest and slumber, and if that be taken away, there can be nothing but harm to expect as the result.

This has, however, received a pleasing and profitable illustration from some experiments by Dr. C. W. Siemens, F.R.S., with the electric light as to its influence on the growth of plants. He communicated an account of these to the Royal Society. He is the first amongst living electricians; and is possessed of the highest qualities needed by an investigator in scientific affairs. Hence his results are of great value. He finds, first, that by exposing plants to the action of electric illumination, their capacity to produce chlorophyl-the green colouring matter of vegetables-is very much increased. An electric centre of light equal to fourteen hundred candles placed at a distance of six and a half feet from growing plants appears to be equal in effect to average daylight at very early Spring; but that more economical effects can be obtained by more powerful light-centres, and that the carbonic acid and nitrogenous compounds which the electric arc generates are not at all deleterious in their effects upon plants enclosed in the same space with it. Further, it appears, from the investigations thus far conducted, that plants do not require a period of rest during the twenty-four hours of the day, but make increased and vigorous progress if subjected during the day-time to sunlight and during the night to the electric light, and that the powerful heat of the electric arc can be used well to counteract the deleterious effects of late and early frosts during the night, and even promote the setting and ripening of fruit in the open air.

Now, there can be no doubt that

this is a useful and interesting discovery, and may be put into valuable requisition by the horticulturist, and even the ordinary gardener. But it must be remembered that this can only have application to plants under domestication: if constantly applied, it must inevitably become exhausting, and in all probability lead to the failure of the vitality of the plant. It would become, in fact, ultimately worn out in its vital powers by continuous action; for, unlike the vegetation of the Polar summer, it would have no equivalent night of rest, and thus the law of vital action would be suspended. This electric luminosity may, therefore, be considered in the light of a stimulant to vegetable forms, and may be very serviceable for commercial and art purposes in its operation on growing organisms; but it cannot be said to be of universal action or application. That it is pos sible that vegetable forms might in the course of long ages, by the survival of competent varieties, become adjusted to such new conditions, is quite conceivable; but only, of course, on the basis of the correlation and equivalence of forces.

But Dr. Siemens is eminently practical, and at once proceeds to discover the mode of application of this method of acting upon vegetation. The expense of 'Electro-horticulture' is a very important item. If under domestication, or artificial cultivation by light, an horticulturist can produce certainly a very large and highly-developed crop of asparagus or strawberries, so as to send them very early into the market, and so secure for them a very high value, the question naturally comes: 'But what will they cost to produce?' This, it is answered, depends mainly upon the cost of mechanical energy, which may be very moderate where

natural sources of such energy as waterfalls can be made available.

It is certainly being fully recog

nized by botanists that the uninterrupted sunlight of the Polar day promotes rapidity of growth, enlargement of leaf, brilliance of flowers, and wealth and size of fruits. But sugar

is not, as we stated last month, so abundantly produced in boreal summer fruits. This depends upon the fact that heat is required for its formation. It will be curious if, by a combination of artificial heat and electric luminosity, we can, in the interests of luxury and civilization, combine the growing qualities of the Northern and the Tropical summer, and produce fruits combining the richest qualities of both.

Dr. Siemens mentions the interesting fact that the human skin is blistered by the action of the electric light, although without any sensation of excessive heat.

The same great electrician has been for some time endeavouring to apply electricity as a motive power for passenger transit of a more refined and compact kind than can possibly be secured by steam. He has undoubtedly succeeded, and his method is now to be put into operation in Berlin. The Council of Magistrates of that city had the whole matter before them a few days since, and the determination is to construct an electric railway across a portion of the capital. There will be two miles of rails, one for the up and the other for the down journey. The viaduct will be over iron pillars, and these will be placed along

the edge of the foot-path, so as to interfere least with ordinary traffic. The carriages are to be narrow and short, containing ten places for sitting and four for standing. The electrodynamic machine, which will propel the carriages, will be placed under the floor, between the wheels, and a stationary engine of sixty-horse power, which will be employed in the production of the electricity, will be placed at the terminus. The stoppages are to be few, and the rate of progress is intended to be about twenty miles per hour.

It is well known that the great St. Gothard Tunnel is now complete. It is interesting to know the vast work that this triumph of modern engineering has accomplished. The total length of the tunnel is over nine miles and a quarter, and its width twentyone feet and a quarter. It has taken seven years and five months to complete it, being four and a half years less than the time taken to complete the Mont Cenis Tunnel. The average daily progress was eighteen feet; the number of holes bored amounted to three hundred and twenty thousand; and four hundred and ninety thousand kilogrammes of dynamite were used in blasting. One million six hundred and fifty thousand diamond drills were consumed, and nearly a million and a half cartloads of debris were taken from the bowels of the mountain.

It was on January 28th, 1879, that I first entered the churchyard of Ekowe, which was afterwards turned into a fort, where three companies and head-quarters of my own regiment, the 99th (the Duke of Edin. burgh's), along with five companies of the 3rd Buffs and one company of the Royal Engineers, and several Mounted Infantry and Natal Native Contingent, in all about

one thousand five hundred, were entrenched for a period of sixty-six days.

This was a Norwegian Mission Station, consisting of a church, a dwelling-house and a few out-houses. When we first entered this place we found it truly a lovely spot; its garden, with all its numerous and various trees, was a modern Eden. A clear, sparkling stream trickled through

masses of tree-ferns, water-lilies and brilliant foliage just below the garden, and to destroy this little Paradise went to our very hearts; but, alas! every tree and flower had to be cut and cleared away by the cruel hand of war.

This, then, is the place where our military and naval forces entrenched themselves, and which, from the 28th of January until the 4th of April following, was cut off from communication with the outer world. Soon after our arrival here, we commenced a Bible-class, the leader of which was our worthy Chaplain, the Rev. G. Robertson, a Church of England Missionary of twenty-five years' experience in Zululand. Our meetings were held every Sunday afternoon, and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings, and were attended by two staff-officers, and between thirty and forty soldiers and blue-jackets; indeed, we could not accommodate more, as the out-house where we had to meet was nearly full of biscuit-boxes and sacks of corn, but these made capital seats for us. Sometimes when our meetings were crowded, the blue-jackets would go aloft,' where they seemed more at home. I often, when speaking to the men, found how delighted they were with the little meetings; which, indeed,theyshowed by frequently attending, even after their hard work on the fortifications, or out on 'cattle-guard' or 'roadmaking.' I have known many instances when on our meeting night we have scarcely had time to even swallow our tea, having just returned from a hard afternoon's work, and without even a wash, rather than miss a meeting we have hurried away to that little old out-house. It did my heart good to find we had such godly men amongst us there. I met with some noble champions of the Cross among our blue-jackets. One of the name of Cook I shall long remember with pleasure, when I think of our English tars. Scarcely a night would pass without Cook giving us some useful and interesting speech, which was ever welcome to us. Those Bible-meetings during our incarceration in the Fort of Ekowe will ever be remembered by very many of us.

I have already said we had a church there, and a lovely little church it was too ; but this was converted into a hospital, hence we had to content ourselves with the little out-house to hold our meetings in. At the close of each meeting our presiIdent would call on one and another to engage in prayer, and it was here that I myself was first led to take up my cross, and for the first time in my life to pray in public. I shall never forget this period of my life; I look back upon it as being one of the happiest I ever knew. One great loss to us there was a scarcity of Bibles.

I am sorry to say that none were procurable there in the English language, and thus often in our meetings we could only muster from three to four, or perhaps six; therefore, we who had them would, in turn, read aloud the subject for that evening's meditation.

Every Sunday we had a church-parade at six a.m., when prayers were read and a suitable sermon preached to us by our Chaplain. We usually had for one of the hymns that memorable one of Sankey's, Hold the Fort; this, as may easily be imagined, was sung by all with great gusto.

We had not long been here before disease and death became rife, and one after another was taken hurriedly away from our midst to his eternal reward. This had a salutary effect upon many minds, and taught us the full meaning of the line: 'No room for mirth or trifling here.' As I stood one evening in our little graveyard there, listening to the reading of the Burial Service, surrounded by open graves, each containing the lifeless remains of a comrade which had just been lowered into it, I could not help being reminded of the lines of our hymn:

'Dangers stand thick through all the ground,

To push us to the tomb.'

One of these was a young man belonging to the Mounted Infantry, who had that morning gone out to his post on vidette duty, about a mile from the fort, and was surprised and overcome by a party of Zulus. His dead body was shortly afterwards found in a 'bush,' perforated by eighteen assegai wounds. Thus poor Kent met his speedy and unexpected death, nobly doing his duty; but his soul, I trust, is with its God. Although none of us were near him to hear his last words, I trust even in that dread and solemn moment he was led by God's Holy Spirit to cast his last agonizing look on the Man transfixed on Calvary,' and die depending on his Saviour.

On the evening of the 3rd of April, we had the unbounded pleasure of welcoming the arrival of the 57th Regiment and 3rd60th Rifles as the relief, and shortly afterwards the 91st Highlanders. And verily the 'Relief of Lucknow' was not hailed with greater delight than was this Relief of Ekowe.

I could not help being reminded or sing ing those lines of the above-mentioned hymn when we caught the first glimpse of the reinforcements marching to our aid, and also saw the flashing signals from the Lower Tugela, at Fort Pearson, which were informing us that our relief had marched from that place :