going on
therein is virtually the same as that in our own sun. There, too, is
flaming hydrogen, and there is carbon and oxygen and iron and sodium
and potassium and many other of the leading elements of what we thus
know to be universal nature. The suns are all akin; they are
cousins-german. They are of the same family--they and their progeny.
They were born of the same universal fact. They are of the same
Father! They are builded on the same plan, and they have a common
destiny. Aye, more, the nebulae that float far off, swanlike, in the
infinitudes, are of the same family. The nebulae may be regarded as the
mothers of universes. It is out of their bosoms that the life and
substance of all suns and worlds are drawn! And these, too, are
composed of the common matter of universal nature. It is the same
matter that we eat and drink. It is the same that we breathe. It is
the same that we see aflame in our lamps and grates. It is the same
that is borne to us in the fragrance of flowers planted on the graves
of our dead. It is the common hydrogen and carbon and oxygen and
nitrogen of our earth and its envelope. It is the soda of our bread;
the potassa of our ashes; the phosphorus of our bones and brain!
Indeed, the universe throughout is of one form and one substance, and
there is one Father over all. Sooner or later the concepts of science
and of religion will come together; and the small agitations and
conflicts of human thought and hope will pass away in a sublime unity
of human faith.

Progress in Discovery and Invention.

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT AND ITS MAKER.

On the night of the second of July, 1798, a man at a little old tavern
in Bardstown, Kentucky, committed suicide. If ever there was a
justifiable case of self-destruction, it was this. No human being is
permitted to take his own life, but there are instances in which the
burden of existence becomes well-nigh intolerable. In the case just
mentioned, the man went to his room and took poison. He was a little
more than fifty-five years of age, but was prematurely old from the
hardships to which he had been subjected. He had not a penny. His
clothes were worn out. A dirty shirt, made of coarse materials, was
seen through the rags of his coat. His face was haggard, wrinkled,
written all over with despair, the lines of which not even the
goodness of death was able to dispel.

The man had seen the Old World and the New, but had never seen
happiness. He had fol