called — and travel over Germany, seeking to
carry good from house to house among the
poor; or they become preachers and teachers
in the colonies. To go abroad they seldom
wish, although invited often; their chief
desire is to obtain admission as gaolers into
the prisons, and win over the criminals to
virtue.

Of course, at the Rauhe Haus, there is a
great deal of teaching to sing. There is a good
deal of happy playing too. The staff of
Brothers being large, their labour is divided
and shifted, so that each has a various
experience. At the same time, one brother
presides over the playhouse; another, over
each of the several trades; another, over each
little family. There is a brother for the
novitiate or newly-admitted boys. There are
four brothers, whose work it is to preserve
the home affection in such children as have
parents out of doors. They take them often
to their families, and foster to the utmost
every young thought that can be brought to
shape itself into a kiss. The brothers who
go thus among the most desolate of the poor,
acquire knowledge of their future duties; they
also visit the poor generally, and already
commence labour in adjacent prisons. There is a
"Child's Hospital " in which they teach—and
learn; and there are also model lodging-
houses, in which they hold services three
times a week. Besides all regular duties, the
good brothers are perpetually in request
throughout a large circle of neighbours who
require often the aid and comfort of a kindly
heart and ready sympathy.

The institution at the Rauhe Haus is, of
course, self-supporting, and the land is able
to accommodate an increasing number of
children. Two brothers watch at all times to
prevent the escape of children who are not
yet fairly softened; but there is no wall, there
are no locked gates to frown down at the
home among the flowers.

NEW DISCOVERIES IN GHOSTS.

ECLIPSES have been ascribed sometimes to
the hunger of a great dragon, who eats the
sun, and leaves us in the dark until the blazing
orb has been mended. Numerous instances
are ready to the memory of any one of us, in
illustration of the tendency existing among
men to ascribe to supernatural, fantastic
causes, events wonderful only by their rarity.
All that we daily see differs from these things
no more than inasmuch as it is at the same
time marvellous and common. We know very
well that the moon, seen once by all, would be
regarded as an awful spectre: open only to
the occasional vision of a few men, no doubt
she would be scouted by a large party as a
creation of their fancy altogether.

The list of facts that have been scouted in
this way, corresponds pretty exactly to the
list of human discoveries, down to the recent
improvements in street lighting and steam
locomotion. The knowledge of the best of us
is but a little light which shines in a great
deal of darkness. We are all of us more
ignorant than wise. The proportion of
knowledge yet lying beyond the confines of our
explorations, is as a continent against a cabbage
garden. Yet many thousands are contented
to believe, that in this little bit of garden lies
our all, and to laugh at every report made
to the world by people who have ventured
just to peep over the paling. It is urged
against inquiries into matters yet mysterious
— mysterious as all things look under the
light of the first dawn of knowledge — why
should we pry into them, until we know that
we shall be benefited by the information we
desire? All information is a benefit. All
knowledge is good.  Is it for man to say,
" What is the use of seeing?"

We are in the present day upon the trace
of a great many important facts relating to
the imponderable agencies employed in nature.
Light, heat, and electricity are no longer the
simple matters, or effects of matter, that they
have aforetime seemed to be. New wonders
point to more beyond. In magnetism, the
researches of Faraday, and others, are beginning
to open, in our own day, the Book of
Nature, at a page of the very first importance
to the naturalist; but the contents of which
until this time have been wholly unsuspected.
Behind a cloudy mass of fraud and folly, while
the clouds shift, we perceive a few dim stars,
to guide us towards the discovery of wondrous
truths. There are such truths which will
hereafter illustrate the connexion, in many
ways still mysteries, between the body of man
and the surrounding world. Wonderful things
have yet to be revealed, on subjects of a delicate
and subtle texture. It behoves us in the
present day, therefore, to learn how we may
keep our tempers free from prejudice, and not
discredit statements simply because they are
new and strange, nor, on the other hand,
accept them hastily without sufficient proof.

On questionable points, which are decided
by research and weight of evidence, it would
be well if it were widely understood that it is
by no means requisite for very man to form
an Ay or Nay opinion. Let those who have
no leisure for a fair inquiry play a neutral
part. There are hundreds of subjects which
we have never examined, nor ever could or
can examine, upon which we are all, nevertheless,
expressing every day stubborn opinions.
We all have to acquire some measure of the
philosophic mind, and be content to retain a
large army of thoughts, equipped each thought
with its crooked bayonet, a note of interrogation.
In reasoning, also, when we do reason,
we have to remember fairly that "not proven"
does not always mean untrue. And in accepting
matters on testimony, we must rigidly
preserve in view the fact, that, except upon
gross objects of sense, very few of us are qualified
by training as observers. In drawing
delicate conclusions from the complex and