But thou didst teach me to resign
    What God alone can claim;
He giveth and he takes away,
    Blest be His holy name!"

The father gazed upon his babes,
   The mother drooped apart,
Whilst all the woman's sorrow gushed
   From her o'erburdened heart;
And with the striving of her grief,
   Which wrung the tears she shed,
Were mingled low and loving words
   To the unconscious dead.

When the sad sire had looked his fill,
   He veiled each breathless face,
And down in self-abasement bowed,
   For comfort and for grace;
With the deep eloquence of woe,
   Poured forth his secret soul,
Rose up, and stood erect and calm,
   In spirit healed and whole.

"Restrain thy tears, poor wife," he said,
   "I learn this lesson still,
God gives, and God can take away,
   Blest be His holy will!
Blest are my children, for they live
   From sin and sorrow free,
And I am not all joyless, wife,
   With faith, hope, love, and thee."

THE LABORATORY IN THE CHEST.

THE mind of Mr. Bagges was decidedly
affected— beneficially— by the lecture on the
Chemistry of a Candle, which, as set forth in
a previous number of this journal, had been
delivered to him by his youthful nephew.
That learned discourse inspired him with a
new feeling; an interest in matters of science.
He began to frequent the Polytechnic
Institution, nearly as much as his club. He also
took to lounging at the British Museum;
where he was often to be seen, with his left
arm under his coat-tails, examining the
wonderful works of nature and antiquity, through
his eye-glass. Moreover, he procured himself
to be elected a member of the Royal
Institution, which became a regular house of call
to him, so that in a short time he grew to be
one of the ordinary phenomena of the place.

Mr. Bagges likewise adopted a custom of
giving conversaziones, which, however, were
always very private and select—generally
confined to his sister's family. Three courses
were first discussed; then dessert; after
which, surrounded by an apparatus of glasses
and decanters, Master Harry Wilkinson was
called upon, as a sort of juvenile Davy, to
amuse his uncle by the elucidation of some
chemical or other physical mystery. Master
Wilkinson had now attained to the ability of
making experiments; most of which, involving
combustion, were strongly deprecated by the
young gentleman's mamma; but her
opposition was overruled by Mr. Bagges, who
argued that it was much better that a young
dog should burn phosphorus before your face
than let off gunpowder behind your back, to
say nothing of occasionally pinning a cracker
to your skirts. He maintained that playing
with fire and water, throwing stones, and such
like boys' tricks, as they are commonly called,
are the first expressions of a scientific tendency
—endeavours and efforts of the infant mind
to acquaint itself with the powers of Nature.

His own favourite toys, he remembered,
were squibs, suckers, squirts, and slings; and
he was persuaded that, by his having been
denied them at school, a natural philosopher
had been nipped in the bud.

Blowing bubbles was an example— by-the-
bye, a rather notable one— by which Mr.
Bagges, on one of his scientific evenings, was
instancing the affinity of child's play to
philosophical experiments, when he bethought him
Harry had said on a former occasion that the
human breath consists chiefly of carbonic acid,
which is heavier than common air. How
then, it occurred to his inquiring, though
elderly mind, was it that soap-bladders, blown
from a tobacco-pipe, rose instead of sinking?
He asked his nephew this.

"Oh, uncle! " answered Harry, " in the
first place, the air you blow bubbles with
mostly comes in at the nose and goes out at
the mouth, without having been breathed at all.
Then it is warmed by the mouth, and warmth,
you know, makes a measure of air get larger,
and so lighter in proportion. A soap-bubble
rises for the same reason that a fire-balloon
rises—that is, because the air inside of it
has been heated, and weighs less than the
same sized bubbleful of cold air."

"What, hot breath does! " said Mr. Bagges.
"Well, now, it's a curious thing, when you
come to think of it, that the breath should be
hot—indeed, the warmth of the body
generally seems a puzzle. It is wonderful, too,
how the bodily heat can be kept up so long as
it is. Here, now, is this tumbler of hot grog
—a mixture of boiling water, and what d'ye
call it, you scientific geniuses?"

"Alcohol, uncle."

"Alcohol—well—or, as we used to say,
brandy. Now, if I leave this tumbler of brandy-
and-water alone—"

"If you do, uncle," interposed his nephew,
archly.

"Get along, you idle rogue! If I let that
tumbler stand there, in a few minutes the
brandy-and water— eh?—I beg pardon—the
alcohol-and-water—gets cold. Now, why—
why the deuce if the brand—the alcohol-and-
water cools; why—how—how is it we don't
cool in the same way, I want to know? eh?"
demanded Mr. Bagges, with the air of a man
who feels satisfied that he has propounded a
"regular poser."

"Why," replied Harry, "for the same
reason that the room keeps warm so long as
there is a fire in the grate."

"You don't mean to say that I have a fire
in my body ?"

"I do, though."

"Eh, now? That's good," said Mr. Bagges.