incipal or pre-eminent. It
comes from the Latin word _cardo_, a hinge. Take cardinal things away
from any science and its foundation is gone. Everything in science turns
upon cardinal things, as the word _cardo_ signifies.

A FUNERAL ORATION.

BY COL. G. DE VEVEU.

Of the future, the hereafter, we are as ignorant as we are of the
infinite conditions through which we have passed during the
eternity which has preceded our brief present existences. If we
could know the history of our past we might get a glimpse of our
future; but no message ever reached man from beyond the grave. The
past is a mere sealed book, the future is a blank. No records are
left to us save those written in the rocks and the evidences
brought before our senses; they tell their own stories. Whence came
we? Whither are we tending? Ah! who can tell? Some profess to know,
but they know not. Where have last summer's roses gone? What will
become of yon dry leaf, torn from its parent stem by this wintry
blast? Like us they disappear and are merged into the ocean of
matter from which they are evolved, ready to be re-combined into
new forms of beauty; for although individual existences perish,
matter is imperishable; having had no birth it will have no death.
Like time and space, it is infinite and eternal. Brought forth into
this world without being consulted, we are hurried out of it
without our consent. Like that leaf, which was the hope of spring,
the pride and glory of summer, we are rudely torn away, the sport
of destiny, to return to the elements of nature from which we
spring--dust to dust. The past is beyond recall; the future is
veiled in obscurity and in doubt; the present alone is ours.

The above is from the Boston _Investigator_. It has gone the rounds of
the press, and it is regarded as a very fine literary production. But
all is not gold that glitters. This oration was delivered as a tribute
of respect to the memory of Mrs. Boulay. It is a curiosity when viewed
from the speaker's standpoint. The man was evidently broken down in the
presence of death. I have sometimes thought it would be well for the
unbelievers to adopt the custom of delivering funeral sermons, for it is
certain, from all that is known of man, that no strong defense of
unbelief, nor even a respectable presentation of it, is made in the
presence of death. W