precarious footing, hanging, as they do, upon
the will of a man who has absolute authority
over the lives of his subjects, and who
possesses not the desirable quality of being
able to hold in check a temper willful and
capricious, not to say cruel.  Thus there is a
constant danger of his infringing upon the
rights of foreigners in more ways than one,
should his anger at any time inadvertently
be roused.

  The Second King's eldest son and heir
presumptive to the crown, the Prince George,
is a fine youth.  He has not yet shown any
symptom of having inherited his father's
love for foreign languages and literature,
except in so far as they minister to his own
convenience and amusement.  Up to the
present time, his principal interest has been
shown in every kind of athletic sport, and
especially in riding, wherein he excels.

EVERYTHING AFTER ITS KIND.

  EVERYTHING after its kind, is the unchanging
law which pervades the organic world.
Although, from its being constantly before our
eyes, we pay it little heed, its absolute sway
over every particle of created matter is one of
the chief wonders of science.  We are accustomed
to mark the laws of the chemical
affinity which produces many changes of
shape and colour; but we are apt to pass
over, unnoticed, the power of self-preservation
which resists the disturbing force of chemical
attraction, and urges all the particles of a
crystal, for example, to adhere firmly together
in one definite form.  Divide it as you will,
grind it to the finest powder, mix with it a
thousand other substances, and then, by dissolving
it in water, allow its innate power to
act, and as the water evaporates the crystal
will be formed again, ever and always in the
same mathematical figure which it had before.
Nay, more; break off a portion, and so mar
the beauty of its form: when it meets with its
kind in solution, the loss is repaired, and the
figure of the crystal is made perfect again,
before any increase of its size takes place.

  Why sulphate of potash should always
assume the form of six-sided prisms, and
bicarbonate of potass that of eight-sided
prisms, we, of course, do not know, any more
than we know the full reason of anything else.
But it is certain that every substance in the
created world does manifest a tendency
to keep itself uninjured, and to assume the
most perfect form of which it is susceptible —
always after its kind.   From the smallest crystal
which the microscope can show us, to the
most perfected of created beings — man himself
— the same absolute individuality is present.

  A pure crystal will never assume a figure
not its own, any more than will an acorn
grow up into an ash-tree, or a bird spring
from a quadruped.  There would seem to be
no difference in the nature of the power; but
as we ascend in the scale of created beings, it
is very much more clearly and beautifully
manifested.  What is more wonderful, when
we consider it rightly, than to contrast the
development of an acorn and a chestnut?
They do not seem to differ much, except in
shape.  They are both put into the same
ground; they are both exposed to the same
influences, and the same materials are offered
to them both.  The acorn seizes on these
materials, and, by the life that is in it, moulds
them into an oak-tree similar in form and
size to its parent; similar also in the length
of time through which it must pass before it
arrives at maturity, subject to the same
diseases, and destined to die at about the same
age as the tree from which it sprung.  Yet,
not to die until it has transmitted to its
ripened fruit a portion of the same energy
by which it also may run the same course.
The chestnut also absorbs into itself the same
materials as did the acorn.  But the energy
at work is utterly different, and it moulds
them into a tree of another kind.  The one
takes the dust of the earth and makes of it
an oak; the other takes the same dust and
makes of it a chestnut-tree.  Call this power
life, organic force, rational creative force, or
germ-power, we do not understand it by one
name better than by another.  We only know
that every varied form in nature is the exponent
or outward manifestation of a separate
perfectly distinct force; the great law of
these powers being their complete individuality,
each " after its kind."

  There have been learned men who, in tracing
the ascent from the lower forms of
animated nature to the higher, have endeavoured
to prove that each grade might be
made, by cultivation, and under favourable
circumstances, to attain to the excellences
of the grade above it.  They have almost implied
the possibility of getting a monkey's great
toes to expand into thumbs, and gradually
to develop him into a man.  But this doctrine
is utterly unsupported by facts.  There
is always manifested by the germ-power a
striving after perfection, an untiring effort to
cast out any disturbing or contaminating
influence, but always strictly " after its kind;"
not to attain to the excellences of another race.

  If a part of the body of an animal be
destroyed, there will be an effort to repair
the loss.  And it seems that the more the
energy of the germ-power is exhausted in
perfecting the development of an animal, the
less is it able to reproduce the parts of the
body which may have been accidentally lost.
In man, a broken bone will be united by
new bone, and a few other parts will be repaired
by new substance.  But if his leg be
amputated he must be content with an artificial
one.  A lobster, however, will not
mourn the loss of his claw for the rest of his
life; for another claw will grow; and, if
you cut a worm in half, as every school-boy
knows, both parts will live.  Still, however
active the vital energy may be, the law is