may destroy, in one single instant, by that
convulsion, the whole audacious race of
Japhet.

Is it possible to calculate the epoch of any
new break-up of the present state of things?
And can we guess in what way it is likely to
take place? To the first question, a negative
reply must be given. We cannot predict its
date. It would require a multitude of new
geological observations and discoveries to
resolve the problem in a manner at all
approaching to be satisfactory. Meanwhile,
it must be allowed that the awful phenomenon
may take place to morrow, as likely as a
thousand, or a hundred thousand years
hence. The second inquiry may be answered,
by the help of analogy, with considerable
probability of being approximately true.
The animals at present existing on the earth
may disappear, in consequence of the action
of subterranean fire. The burning spheroid,
which constitutes the major portion of
our globe, might explode and shoot out
a second satellite into empty space, without
the solar system's suffering thereby the
slightest momentary disturbance; but not
without the earth's receiving a terrible
shock, which would reduce every town, and
every human edifice, to dust; which would
utterly destroy mankind by the outbreak
of internal fire, by the crash of ruins, or
by the overwhelming sweep of outpoured
oceans. Either the concussion might be
sufficiently violent to break up the earth into
fragments and to give birth to new telescopic
planets, like Juno, Vesta, and the rest of
them; or, she might resist the violence of the
blow, and our spheroid might melt and then
solidify against the shell at present existing.
In that case, its centre of gravity would be
invariable, and the earth would probably
have a rotatory movement round the sun,
similar to that of her satellite round herself;
namely, an endless summer and an endless
day would fall to the share of one
hemisphere, while eternal night and winter would
envelope the other hemisphere in ever-during
shade. But in which ever way this fearful
catastrophe took place, its necessary
consequence would be the total extinction of every
existing race of animals. Would other races
succeed to them? And would the human
race, in particular, be replaced by another
set of rational beings less imperfect than
our own? Analogy answers, Yes! but the
Great Ruler of the universe alone can tell
whether analogy suggests a true or a false
belief.

Very many learned men have made
themselves perfectly easy respecting the future
condition of the earth. Its present state,
they take for granted, will henceforth remain
invariable; the grand cataclysms, which have
broken it up at former epochs, will never
occur again, and human intelligence has
nothing to do but to develop itself regardless
of the future; for what the earth is to-day,
it will remain for ever. Such an opinion of
the stability of the actual order of earthly
things is doubtless consolatory, and is well
adapted to tranquillize our minds respecting
the lot of future generations; but the
optimists must allow others to differ from
their views. It is scarcely a logical
conclusion to deduce future tranquillity from
repeated antecedent convulsions; and therefore
Monsieur A. Passy, in his ''Geological
Description of the Department of the Seine
Inférieure," is justified in asserting, that the
causes which produced the first crust of the
earth, and which have repeatedly broken up
its second envelope, although restrained in
their action, are nevertheless far from being
exhausted. And Monsieur Élie de Beaumont
states his belief, that it is impossible to be
assured that the period of tranquillity,
apparently so stable, in which we live, will not
one day be interrupted by the sudden apparition
of a grand chain of mountains; another
savant ventures to add, and by the birth of
one or several satellites. And thus, the
boldest deductions of modern science accord
with the declarations of Holy Writ, that the
earth shall one day melt with fervent heat,
and that there shall be new heavens, and
a new earth.

DUST AND ASHES.

I.

BETWIXT your home and mine,
O love, there is a graveyard lying;
And every time you came,
Your steps were o'er the dead, and from the dying!

Your face was dark and sad,—
Your eyes had shadows in their very laughter,
Yet their glance made me glad,
And shut my own to what was coming after.

Your voice had deeper chords
Than the Æolian harp when night winds blow;
The melancholy music of your words
None but myself may know.

And, O, you won my heart
By vows unbreathed,—by words of love unspoken;
So that, as now we part,
You have no blame to bear, and yet—'tis broken!

II.

How shall I bear this blow, how best resent it?
Ah, love, you have not left me even my pride!
Nor strength to put aside, nor to repent it:
Twere better I had died!

You came beneath my tent with friendly greeting;
Of all my joys you had the better part;
Then, when our eyes and hands were oftenest meeting,
You struck me to the heart!

No less a murderer, that your victim, living,
Can face the passing world, and jest and smile!
No less a traitor, for your show of giving
Your friendship all the while!