Mists or hoar frosts on tde tenth of March betokens (sic) a plentiful year, but not without some diseases.

If, in the fall of the leaf in October, many of them wither on the bows, and hang there, it betokens a frosty winter and much snow.

Under "The Signs of Rain in Creatures" we have the following:

When the hern or bitron flies low, the air is gross, and thickening into showers.

The froggs much croaking in ditches and pools, &c., in the evening, foretells rain in little time to follow: also, the sweating of stone pillars or tombs denotes rain.

The often doping or diving of water-fowl foreshows rain is at hand.
The peacock's much crying denotes rain.

TELEGRAPHING THROUGH WATER.

Dr. Franklin, in 1748, thus wrote to his friend Peter Collinson of London ::

Chagrined a little that we have hitherto been able to produce nothing in this way of use to mankind, and the hot weather coming on when electrical experiments are not so agreeable, it is proposed to put an end to them for the season, somewhat humorously, in a party of pleasure on the banks of the Schuylkill. Spirits at the same time are to be fired by a spark sent from side to side through the river without any other conductor than the water; an experiment which we some time since performed to the amazement of many. A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electric shock, and roasted by the electric jack, before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle; when the health of all the famous electricians of England, Holland, France, and Germany, are to be drunk in electrified bumpers, under a discharge of guns from the electrical battery.

LIFE AND DEATH.

1. To die is better than to live.

I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun-Ecoles. iv. 2, 3.

Great travail is created for every man, and a heavy yoke upon the sons of

Adam, from the day that they go out of their mother's womb, till the day that they return to the mother of all things.-Ecclus. xl. 1: cf. 2 Esdr. vii. 12, 13.

Never to have been born, the wise man first

Would wish; and, next, as soon as born to die.

Anth. Græc. (Posidippus).

In the affecting story of Cleobis and Biton, as related by Herodotus, we read :—

The best end of life happened to them, and the Deity showed in their case that it is better for a man to die than to live.

Διέδεξέ τε ἐν τούτοισι ὁ Θεὸς ὡς ἄμεινον εἴη ἀνθρώπῳ τεθάναι μᾶλλον ἢ ζώειν. -Herod., KAEIQ. i. 32.

As for all other living creatures, there is not one but, by a secret instinct of nature, knoweth his owne good and whereto he is made able. Man onely knoweth nothing unlesse hee be taught. He can neither speake nor goe, nor eat, otherwise than he is trained to it: and, to be short, apt and good at nothing he is naturally, but to pule and crie. And hereupon it is that some have been of this opinion, that better it had been, and simply best, for a man never to have been born, or else speedily to die.-Pliny's Nat. Hist. by Holland, Intr. to b. vii

Happy the mortal man, who now at last

Has through this doleful vale of misery passed;
Who to his destined stage has carry'd on
The tedious load, and laid his burden down;
Whom the cut brass or wounded marble shows
Victor o'er Life, and all her train of woes.
He, happier yet, who, privileged by Fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight,
Received but yesterday the gift of breath,
Order'd to-morrow to return to death.
But O! beyond description, happiest he

Who ne'er must roll on life's tumultuous sea;

Who with bless'd freedom, from the general doom

Exempt, must never face the teeming womb,

Nor see the sun, nor sink into the tomb!

Who breathes must suffer; and who thinks must mourn;

And he alone is blessed who ne'er was born.

Prior's Solomon, b. iii.

"I have learned from religion, that an early death has often been the reward of piety," said the Emperor Julian on his deathbed. (See Gibbon, ch. xxiv.)

2. Judge none blessed before his death.

"Ante mortem ne laudes hominem," saith the son of Sirach, xi. 28.

Of this sentiment St. Chrysostom expresses his admiration, Hom. li. in. S. Eustath.; and heathen writers afford very close parallels:

“ Πρὶν δ ̓ ἂν τελευτήση επισχέειν μηδὲ καλέειν κω ὄλβιον ἀλλ ̓ εὐτυχέα,” says Solon to Crœsus (Herod., KAEIQ. i. 32): cf. Aristot., Eth. Nic. ch. x., for a comment on this passage.

Sophocles, in the last few lines of the Edipus Tyrannus, thus draws the moral of his fearful tragedy:—

Ὥστε θνητὸν ὄντ ̓, ἐκείνην τὴν τελευταίαν ἰδεῖν
Ἡμέραν ἐπισκοποῦντα, μηδέν' ὀλβίζειν, πρὶν ἂν
Τέρμα τοῦ βίου περάσῃ, μηδὲν ἀλγεινὸν παθών.

Elmsley, on this passage, gives the following references:Trach. I. Soph. Tereo, fr. 10; ibid. Tyndar. fr. 1; Agam., 937; Androm., 100; Troad., 509; Heracl., 865; Dionys., ap. Stob., ciii. p. 560; Gesn., cv. p. 431; Grot. To which may be added the oft-quoted lines :

Ultima semper

Expectanda dies, homini dicique beatus

Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet.

In farther illustration of this passage from Ecclus., let us consider the Death of the Righteous.

"Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" exclaims the truth-compelled and reluctant prophet, Numb. xxiii. 10.

The Royal Psalmist, after reflecting on the prosperity of the wicked in this world, adds :

Then thought I to understand this,

But it was too hard for me,

Until I went into the sanctuary of God :
Then understood I the end of these men.-

-Ps.

And again:

I have seen the wicked in great power,
And spreading himself like a green bay-tree;
Yet he passed away, and, lo! he was not;
Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.

Mark the perfect man,

And behold the upright,

For the end of that man is peace.

Ps. xxxvii. 35–37: cf. the Prayer-book version,

The prophet Isaiah declares :—

The righteous man is taken away because of the evil;
He shall go in peace, he shall rest in his bed;

Even the perfect man, he that walketh in the straight
path.-Ch. lvii., Bp. Lowth's Trans.

Sure the last end

Of the good man is peace! How calm his exit !
Night-dews fall not more gently to the ground,
Nor weary worn-out winds expire so soft.
Behold him! in the evening tide of life,

A life well spent, whose early care it was
His riper years should not upbraid his green :
By unperceived degrees he wears away;
Yet, like the sun, seems larger at his setting!
High in his faith and hopes, look how he reaches
After the prize in view! and, like a bird
That's hamper'd, struggles hard to get away!
Whilst the glad gates of sight are wide expanded

To let new glories in, the first fair fruits

Of the fast-coming harvest.-Blair's Grave.

How blest the righteous when he dies!

When sinks the weary soul to rest!

How mildly beam the closing eyes!

How gently heaves the expiring breast!

Whom neither thought disturbs nor care encumbers,
Tired with long play, at close of summer's day

Lies down and slumbers.

A holy life is the only preparation to a happy death, says Bishop Taylor. And we have seen how much importance even heathen minds attached to peace at the last. Truly, as Kettlewell said while expiring, "There is no life life a happy death."

"Consider," says that excellent writer, Norris of Bemerton, "that this life is wholly in order to another, and the time is that sole opportunity that God has given us for transacting the great business of eternity: that our work is great, and our day of working short; much of which also is lost and rendered useless through the cloudiness and darkness of the morning, and the thick vapours and unwholesome fogs of the evening; the ignorance and inadvertency of youth, and the disease and infirmities of old age; that our portion of time is not only short as to its duration, but also uncertain in the possession: that the loss of it is irreparable to the loser, and profitable to nobody else :. that it shall be severely accounted for at the great judgment, and lamented in a sad eternity."-"Of the Care and Improvement of time," Miscel., 6th edit., p. 118.