upside down, topsy-turvy, on its side. There
was no breakfast, no dinner, in regular fashion.
Nor did the relations with the servants— at all
times peculiarly delicate— permit of any despotic
manners. It was understood, however, that they
too were to share in the general largess that was
approaching, and during the interval suspended
all hostile action. Wonderful old Spartan! she
controlled everything, and found everything, and
thought of everything, brought everything gradually
into shape. There are many such wives,
widows, and martyrs, labouring about us, who do
more in their own way than the most slaving
lawyer who ever struggled to earn his bread, or
to become Attorney-General and Chancellor.

MILK.

IF any one thing had to be selected which
should prove more clearly than any other, the
utter impossibility of comparing the perfection
of divine with the imperfection of human skill,
few better examples could be chosen than that
familiar fluid, Milk.

Set an accomplished chemist, aided by a first-rate
cook, to manufacture by their united skill,
an universal aliment, which should suffice in itself
alone for the nutriment of man and beast; which
should suit all ages, from the infant to the
octogenarian; which should neither cloy the
palate nor clog the stomach, when taken in
moderation; which should supply growth, sustain
strength, and satisfy the cravings of appetite,
— it is quite certain that they would not invent
such a compound as milk, if they had not milk
before them as a pattern to copy.

Our mother's milk is one of the few articles
of food we ever swallow without its having
cost a money payment or an equivalent for a
money payment. It comes exactly when we
want it; and its quality, at its first coming, is
exactly what we want— purgative. The milk
first secreted, called colostrum, differs considerably
from the normal liquid. The fatty
globules contained in it vary greatly in size,
often being very large. Consequently, babies
who are prevented by circumstances from taking
a good draught of their mamma's first milk, are
treated, instead, with a nice little dose of castor-oil.
With cows and other animals, the colostrum
possesses similar properties.

Moreover, our mother's milk alters in quality
as we advance in age, and ceases naturally when
we ought to do without it as our main subsistence.
We are created to be omnivorous; that
is, to replenish the earth, to till and subdue it—
to have dominion over the fish of the sea, as
well as over bird and beast. During the days
of our strength and manhood, we are not to
depend on milk alone. But that we may never
be utterly deprived of this beneficent elixir,
Providence has given us races of animals whose
habits and structure peculiarly adapt them for
the purpose. Sea, land, and air, provide us with
aliment; we consume fish, flesh, fruits, vegetables,
grain; but the ruminants only, with few
exceptions, furnish milk for our daily use.

Milk is remarkable as being the characteristic
of one grand division of animated creatures, at
the head of which we, mankind, stand. The
class Mammalia, the mammals, derives its name
from " mamma," a teat. However differing in
size, habit, form, and structure— from the tiny
shrewmouse to the enormous elephant; from the
ape, who has four hands, to the horse, who has
none; from the human being, who walks erect, to
the seal, who grovels on the sand, and crawls on
the rock for want of having hind legs to walk
with; from the bat and the vampire who fly in the
air, to the whale and the porpoise who float in the
ocean— all agree in having teats, and in feeding
their new-born young with milk.

The offspring, therefore, of all mammals are
truly parasitic on their parents during their
early infancy. None of them can, like chicken
just escaped from the shell, feed at once exclusively
on the diet which is to sustain them as
adults. Even those which, like the foal, walk
and run soon after their birth, still do not graze
for a certain period afterwards of various duration,
but are fed by sucking the udder only.
Without milk (or some imitation of milk, in
which itself enters in considerable proportion)
they could not be kept alive. We all know the
helpless condition of little puppies and kittens.
Blind, and scarcely capable of locomotion, they
draw their sustenance and growth solely from
the fountain of the mother. Rats and mice
(and several other rodents) are still more
rudimental and dependent when they first enter
the world. The most so of all probably are the
young of the marsupials, or pouch-bearing
animals, the kangaroos and opossums, which
are almost shapeless little lumps of flesh, with
scarcely a feature distinguishable except their
mouth, by means of which they hold on to the
dam, and feed, much as a leech fast fixed to its
prey— only without ever being satisfied, and
quitting hold— until due development and
strength are attained. A day-old kangaroo is
as parasitic a creature as a tapeworm.

A curious subject is opened up by the study
of the means and the matters which fulfil the
offices of milk in nourishing young organisms
not belonging to the mammalia, whether amongst
animals or vegetables. There is no room to
enter upon it here; but we may merely indicate
the store of nutriment laid up in seeds, nuts,
and grain, for the early support of the future
plant; the absorption of the yolk in oviparous
creatures, and the ready-digested food (in various
stages of preparation, according to the time
elapsed since hatching) with which many birds
feed their callow young. In pursuing this
inquiry, it will be found that God has taken
the same precautions to ensure the early growth
and subsequent increase of the humblest blade
of grass, as of the noblest animal. We hesitate
which to admire the more: the simplicity
and unity of the means employed, or the diversity
and grandeur of the results obtained. If celestial
phenomena fix our wonder by their perfect order