the processes by which God develops the child so wonderfully, both in knowledge and in power, during the period of unconscious education before the child goes to school. Pestalozzi aimed to give definite ideas by the use of real things, as a foundation for intellectual strength. Froebel provided the means of training the emotions as well as the sensations, and of guiding them in the formation of character by right self-activity. Pestalozzi's pupils observed and imitated either with voice or hand. Froebel's children observed and invented. Pestalozzi's pupils were reproductive. Froebel's were creative. Pestalozzi's pupils were trained in expression; Froebel's in self-expression. Pestalozzi was satisfied with productive activity. Froebel required productive self-activity. Carlyle caught Froebel's creative idea, when he said to each individual: "Be no longer a chaos, but a world or even worldkin. Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it in God's name." Both these great teachers knew that the religious nature of man is the highest; but Froebel realized with much greater clearness than Pestalozzi the fact that spiritual growth must come from within, and that the spiritual nature of the child finds its satisfaction and growth in the symbolism of the real things around it. In his "Mutter and Koseleider" he has given a definite and consecutive system, which is marvellous in its comprehensiveness and beauty, for defining the child's pure emotions, for enlarging its spiritual view, and for incidentally awakening its conceptions of its relationships and duties towards nature, home, society, and God. Pestalozzi was an intuitional philanthropist who used education to make men wiser and happier. Froebel was an educational philosopher, who aimed through education to make men grow forever "consciously towards God." Pestalozzi's ideal was-I must do good to the child. Froebel's ideal was I must increase good through the child. Froebel's underlying principle of growth was spontaneity, the self-activity of the child in accomplishing its own purposes. His fundamental thought was unity; unity in the elements of individual power, unity of the race, unity of creation, unity with God. DEAR Lord, my eyes are clouded, The road lies open all the way, PALIMPSEST LITERATURE. BY REV. W. HARRISON. By " palimpsest" is meant a parchment, papyrus or any other material on which a second or even a third writing has been made over an earlier writing. The practice of repreparing parchment already used, for a further record, goes back to a very remote antiquity. When the process of obliterating the first writing was marked by haste or incompetent hands, it has been found that very many ancient manuscripts, whilst showing the second writing, also contain the original record, which may be read without serious difficulty, though centuries may have passed between the two records which the document contains. In the manuscript department of the British Museum, among others is found a palimpsest in which the original text of Homer's "Iliad" has been partially erased to give place to a theological treatise in Syriac, the latter writing having been done some three hundred years after the first. Large and exceedingly valuable additions to our knowledge of the contents of the earliest known manuscripts of the New Testament, and strikingly confirmatory of the received text, have been secured from the testimony of the palimpsest literature. The chief, if not the sole, interest and importance of this class of documents lies in the very ancient writing which they contain, and their value largely depends upon the degree of legibleness which the original record still retains. In some departments of research, especially in all that pertains to Biblical investigation, every scrap of this remote testimony has an independent value. The merest fragment may throw light on some important critical question, or supply a very significant commentary upon facts otherwise ascertained. A very remarkable discovery in the Convent of St. Catherine, at Mount Sinai, has recently been made, which has caused no little excitement in religious circles throughout the world. A palimpsest of the old Syriac Gospels, dating as far back, at least, as the sixth century, has been unearthed; and the original text is being deciphered by competent scholars. The story, as related by one of the discoverers of this last important manuscript, which makes another bright epoch in New Testament studies, possesses a charm which the creations of some brilliant romance fail to impart. Writing from Egypt some time ago, Mrs. Lewis, referring to their reception at the convent at Mount Sinai, says: "We were received by the monks with great cordiality. Among the Syriac books which they showed us, I soon picked out a volume of 178 leaves, nearly all glued together with some greasy substance. I separated them, partly with my fingers and partly with the steam of a kettle. It had the more fascination for me that no human eye had evidently looked upon it for centuries, and I soon perceived that it was a palimpsest, whose upper and later writing contained the stories of saintly women, whilst the under or earlier one was the four Gospels. I therefore determined to photograph the whole of the palimpsest. The work of transcribing the first writing is well advanced, and before long the whole message of this remarkable manuscript will be told. The discovery of precious metals is not of such vital importance as the digging up from the heavy shadows of far-off vanished years records which touch directly the greatest and best communications that have ever moved and blessed this world. Heroic men, and women too, inspired by loftiest and purest aims have dared the furious passions of half-civilized tribes; for months and even years have relinquished the refinements and pleasures of society, home and friends, and have gone through the solitude of the far-stretching deserts; have mastered the most difficult languages of earth, have come face to face with imminent peril and barbaric prejudice, that they might stand on historic ground, mark the spot where epoch-making influences and events have reached a crisis, and where empires have breathed their last and laid themselves down in their lone and colossal graves. These high-priests of the spade and indomitable apostles of discovery have despised no toil or sacrifice, if they could only snatch some record just about to vanish into the great sea of forgetfulness, or lift from the obscurity of their long-sealed tombs, some document or testimonial which might bear in its dusty and century-dimmed leaves messages brighter in their meaning than the loveliest robe of sunbeams, and of more account in the intellectual and moral markets of the world than the rarest jewel that ever flashed in a monarch's crown. To say that many such splendid relics have been rescued from the ruin, darkness, ignorance, prejudice and destructive influences of the past is only stating what is one of the delightful and inspiring facts which greet us as we look abroad among the treasures and priceless spoils of the world of to-day. Then what tedious, patient, heroic labour has been expended to read through and below the upper or second, and sometimes third writing, the first faint record which the palimpsest or parchment contains! The most searching gaze, and toil of the brightest, keenest eyes, the most powerful glasses known to science, supplemented with all manner of chemical revivers and finest photographic equipments, have been required to reach down the deep, dark valley of still deepening shadows, and accomplish a resurrection of the almost perished lines. If these old parchments had lips to tell all that they have seen in their pilgrimage through the glory and wreck of old-time nations, of the massive vice and ignorance, the burning passions, the bright and glowing phases of this world's dramatic career, it would be a story full of pathos and of power. The best learning of the century hails with intense gratification these scarred, begrimed and age-worn documents, bringing, as they do, in their hoary pages fresh corroborations of important truths, and of a literature of untold value in the mental and religious education of the world. And yet, older than the oldest papyrus, or parchment, or monumental pillar, is the record in the massive chronicles and literature of the hills and rocks beneath our feet. The earth is its own biographer, and keeps its diary with the cold impartiality of a recording machine. The earlier chapters in this oldest book are like the under writing of the palimpsest, but the geological ages are giving up their secrets, and this old library of stone is being read as never before. Someone has said, that "The globe is a hoary old volume Whose leaves are the layers of stone And on them, in letters of fossil, “To read it we gather the fossils And tracks where the Saurians And bring them in patience together The earth is all covered with memoranda and signatures, and every object is scribbled o'er and o'er with hints whose meanings are being deciphered by processes which cannot but win our admiration and applause. And more wonderful still is the living palimpsest,-the human, conscious documents with which the world is strewn to-day, and on which the spirit of evil has scrawled his obscene characters, but under which is deeply hidden, and in many cases apparently obliterated, the first writing of God on the human soul. The worst of influences have been at work to despoil and forever erase the Divine handwriting in the constitution of the human spirit, but amid all the confusion and strife of pernicious tongues, there is a teacher and a book which searches all things, yea, the deep hidden things of God. The work of restoration is going on by and through the grace and mighty spirit of God. The original lines are coming into view in many a soul, and the whole nature is being cleansed and recovered by the redeeming Gospel of the Son of God. Coleridge rested his faith in the Divine origin and authority of the Scriptures, because of their power to find him at deeper depths of his being than any other book had ever done or could do. Let us be thankful that the wonderful literature, whether in parchment, palimpsest, in the leaden leaves of earth's old, old volumes of soil or stone, or in the mysterious and thrilling book of a human life, is being read with an intelligence and interest as never before. SACKVILLE, N.B. THE SILENT CITY. BY IDA H. WILSON. ITs streets are girt about with grass and clover, Sigh gently and caress them as they pass. In sheltered nooks where cool green shadows nestle, While others sleep upon some sunny hillside, Where bees' low hum is heard among the flowers, Are breathing perfume through the summer hours. A silence which for aye would be unbroken In hope we raise them ere those tears are shed. |