ost timid sanctities of life."

With respect to "the Darwinian theory of descent from a kind of ape,"
we have a word for our contemporary. The annual meeting of the British
Association was held at Oxford in 1860. Darwin's _Descent of Man_ had
recently been published, and the air was full of controversy. Bishop
Wilberforce, in the course of a derisive speech, turned to Professor
Huxley and asked whether it was on the mother's or father's side that
his grandfather had been an ape. Huxley replied that man had no reason
to be ashamed of having an ape for a grandfather. "If there is an
ancestor," he continued, "whom I should feel shame in recalling it
would be a _man_"--one who meddled with scientific questions he did not
understand, only to obscure them by aimless rhetoric, and indulgence in
"eloquent digressions and appeals to religious prejudice." This
rebuke was administered thirty-three years ago, but it is still worth
remembering, and perhaps the _Commonwealth_ may find in it something
applicable to itself.

RAIN DOCTORS.

The prolonged drought has already inflicted serious injury on the
farmers. They are, as a rule, a loyal class of men, but their loyalty
will probably be shaken when they realise that the Lord has spoiled
their crops to provide Queen's weather for the Jubilee. An occasional
shower might wet the Queen's parasol or ruffle the plumage of the
princes and princelings in her train. Occasional showers, however, are
just what the farmers want. The Lord was therefore in a fix. Though the
Bible says that with him nothing is impossible, he was unable to please
both sides; so he favored the one he loved best, gave royalty unlimited
sunshine, and played the deuce with the agricultural interest.

Possibly the Lord knows better than we do, but we venture to suggest
that a slight exercise of intelligence, though we admit it may have
been a strain upon his slumbrous brain, would have surmounted the
difficulty. The windows of heaven might have been opened from two till
four in the morning. That would have been sufficient for a proper supply
of rain, and the whole of the day could have been devoted to "blazing"
without injuring anyone. Or, if the early morning rain would have
damaged the decorations, the celestial turnkey might have kept us a week
without water giving us an extra supply beforehand. On the whole, if
we may hazard so profane an observation, the powers above are singularly
behind the age. Their a