lightful
meditation.

Instead, then, of regarding our earthly music as a purely human
invention, we may look upon it as a genuine gift from heaven, a
_legitimate_ forerunner of the exalted strains one day to be heard in
the heavenly Jerusalem.

The laws of vibrations producing sound, of undulations giving rise to
light and color, of oscillations resulting in heat, the movements of the
heavenly bodies, the flow of electric and magnetic currents, the
rhythmical beat of the pulse, the unceasing march of mind and human
events, all lead us to the consideration of _motion_ as one of the
greatest of secondary causes in the guidance of the universe. Do we not,
indeed, find the same element in the Divine Trinity of the Godhead, in
the eternal generation of the Son, and the procession of the Holy
Spirit?

THOUGHT.

The stars move calm within the brow of night:
No sea of molten flame therein is pent,
Nor meteors, from that burning chaos, blent,
Shoot from their orbits in a maddening flight.
But in the brain is clasped a flood of light,
Whose seething fires can find no form, nor vent,
And pour, through the strained eyeballs, glances, rent
From suffering worlds within, hidden from sight
And laboring for birth. This chaos deep
Touch thou, O Thought! and crystallize to form,
Resolve to order its wild lightning storm
Of meteor dreams! that into life shall leap
At thy command, and move before thy face
In starry majesty, and awful grace.

THE WAR A CONTEST FOR IDEAS.

One of those curious pamphlets, or _brochures_, as they call them, which
the French political writers make the frequent medium of their
discussions, was lately published at Paris, under the title of 'France,
Mexico, and the Confederate States.' It is less a discussion of the
Mexican question than an adroit appeal, under cover of it, in behalf of
the Southern confederacy. It addresses itself to the enthusiastic
temperament of Frenchmen, with the specious sophism, underlying its
argument, that the South is fighting for _ideas_, the North for _power_.
This is a sophism largely current abroad, and not without its dupes even
at home. The purpose of this paper is to expose the nakedness of it.

Fighting for ideas may be a very sublime thing, and it may likewise be a
very ridiculous thing. The valorous knight of La Mancha set forth to
fight for ideas, and he began to wage war with windmills. He fought for
ideas,