are

SIXES AND SEVEN S.

BY THE AUTHOR OF ALADDIN.

endless variety of fantastic forms, are thrown together in stupendous confusion; but then, what a whole they form! Disorder is very element of beauty. and

and expressions. Cold conventionalisms are the very dis- mitted the dead to visit the scene of their earthly wandersales often great force and vivacity in common phrases Bowend in natures: Majestie shade of Sect. if it is per guises of the soul, and words are too often intended to con- ings'-wouldst thou not frown in a thunder cloud upon the ceal, rather than to reveal, a man's meaning. While we sacrilegious tourist who should say, the Trosachs are all at make to themselves wings and fly away; and were it not larity in the detail, which is the result of magnificent order for the honesty of human emotion, which occasionally in the general; but in art, irregularity is execrable. estopping to pick our words, our thoughts frequently sixes and sevens!' In nature we look for a degree of irregufreshens the surface of the sluggish, half-stagnating stream breaks in upon the conventionalism of the world, and

Order, then-order in its highest manifestation-what an exquisite object of contemplation! Think of this great

bowing, cringing, smiling, smirking automata, should we that just scratch its surface-a globe so vast that its of etiquette and formality, what a set of eating, drinking, globe that we inherit, with the myriads of human mites

mighty Alps, its majestic Andes, are but as the roughness of its rind; this ponderous globe, for ever spinning round the sun, so fast as to sleep upon its axis-so exquisitely poised between the laws of matter and of motion as to perform its revolutions to a hair-breadth regular in its irregularities, the obliquity of its ecliptic path bringing about that charming alternation of the seasons, by which the dreariness of winter blooms into spring, blushes into summer, and glows and deepens into autumn-regular in its irregularities, the trembling nicety of the compass speakturning the eye of the imagination upward, from earth to heaven, how is the intellect overpowered with its infinitely inadequate conceptions of the vast amount of order that prevails-order in disguise, too, for those same diamondpoints that stud the mighty arch seem sprinkled about at random, until science comes in with her suns and systems, her inconceivable distances, her precise planets, her eccentric comets! Ah, could we enter into the mysteries of the moral world-could we penetrate into the sublime arcana of the eternal government, how would the sublimities of physical and material order fade into insignificance!

a

But, to come down from this lofty height, let us look for moment at the apparent irregularity but intrinsic order of nature in her instinctive promptings. Did you ever observe a hive of bees? Of course you have-what an absurd inquiry! But did it never strike you, in that observation, that, with all their incessant activity, there was an apparent infirmity of purpose about those little labourers

not become! Language, we repeat, is peculiarly open to the freezing influence of custom. Founded upon convention, based on the common consent of mankind, no marvel that it sometimes consists not so much of the signs of ideas, as of their tombstones. The induration of habit has a powerful effect in lessening the force of words. How many hundreds-thousands, alas!-sit under the Sabbath-sound of words of such astounding import, that, even should our contracted capacities enter into their meaning with the full earnestness to which those capacities are competent, they would thrill our hearts with unutterable horror, or filling of gradual, progressive, but precise variation. But our breasts with ineffable gladness. We are sometimes aroused to their tremendous import, but habit, with its lethargic influence, settles down again upon our soul, like the blue film upon the torpid lake which the truant pebble has for an instant disturbed. Enough upon a theme so solemn. Our object is to animadvert for a moment upon the vigour and freshness which common phraseology imparts to the smooth diction of civility and etiquette. There must be something poetical in the nature of man; not that he naturally measures iambics or hammers out hexameters, but he is by nature a highly figurative speaker - maker of metaphors, and, as aforesaid, common phraseology often hits upon expressions for which the || author labours in vain. The poets have worked hard to place before us striking images of confusion. Milton, especially, has thrown together some of the most extraordinary expressions to illustrate the idea of disorder; but what is all the poetry in the world to the phrase-sixes and sevens. Take it home-bring it steadily before your mind-think of your own affairs, or those of your friend, at sixes and sevens.' Only fancy what trouble it might have saved Milton, in the description of the angels lying thick as the leaves in Vallambrosa, had he told us, in their confusion, they were lying at sixes and sevens!' Why, the very acme of disorder is involved in the expressionit implies confusion worse confounded.' Six is an even, steady, reputable number. Compared with seven, it puts us in mind of a sober citizen, who shuts up his shop, puts on his greatcoat, and goes home to bed; while seven is flaunting about the streets, serpentining his way, and perhaps needing the assistance of some other number (52, B, we'll say) to see him safe home. If they both use tobacco, ten to one six is sitting by his fireside, knocking the ash out of his steady clay pipe on the hob-seven is strolling about the town, with a rakish cheroot in his mouth, puffing the smoke into peoples' faces. But looking at them as abstract numbers, and without this elegant personification, they are an incongruous couple. We have nothing to say against seven in the abstract, as a number; and it is only when compared with six that ideas of irregularity, disorder, dissipation, are attached to it. We know that much has been written on the use of the number seven, and associations come across us which would be out of place here -the incongruity of the thing consists in coupling them together. They will not nt-they will not do. They are like a man with two left legs or a squint, or a long man on little horse, or a fork with unequal prongs, or a pair of tongs of different length in the legs, or two knives to cut your meat with, or two right gloves, or a boot and a shoe. There is no such thing in nature as 'sixes and sevens.' Accidental grouping, indeed, is more frequent in nature than in art. Wild masses of rock, and straggling trees, and an

apparent only, of course; but still they do seem to act by sudden impulses, rather than by any well-devised plan. Some will come bouncing home, alighting on the little tongue of wood before their door, as if they had fallen from the clouds, instead of arriving thereat by a definite and well-concerted plan; others will come out of the hive in a hurry, blundering over the new-comers, and, after looking very undecided for a few seconds, fly off, as would seem, at random. We have even seen some make their exit upside down! walking, forsooth, on the straw lintel of their doorway-clinging to the upper part of their gateway, instead of the ground. In this case, however, the mead or metheglin, or whatever drink they debauch upon, must have got into their heads; for we are convinced that it is a thing that no well-conducted bee would submit to—a thing that no human labourer (Irish or otherwise) was ever known to do. But this is nothing to the apparent confusion of the scene of their labours. If you have ever examined a glass hive-though, by the way, it is not easy to examine a glass hive, for the little fellows seem extremely jealous of inspection, as jealous as the craftsmen of yore, and appear to dread your taking up the art and mystery of cell-building and honey-making over their heads; but if you have ever successfully inspected a glass hive, you must admit that it does appear a scene of extraordinary confusion. Of the bees, it may truly be said that they seem all at sixes and sevens. But in what does it all result?-a structure formed with such exquisite skill, based upon a mathematical problem so profound as to excite the admiration of the wisest, and afford instruction to the most skilful of human artificers. The mind, indeed, displayed in the construction of their fragile fabric is evidently not their own. They are placed in a position lower than that of the meanest labourer who works upon the detail of a marble palace, to

the architectural conception of which he is unspeakably incompetent.

them in goodly rows upon the shelves, how we have paused and pondered over that fellowless fellow! How we have tried to coax it into a corner, or to wheedle it into a pile! Not even its respectable red edges nor its worm-eaten binding can excite our veneration, or make us treat it with that respect to which its hoary age entitles it.

But, generally speaking, order is in our own hands; disorder is our own fault, and it is a fault that secures its own punishment. We offer invaluable advice, then, when we persuade a man to be orderly in his affairs; but since the advice is old, and a systematic essay on 'order' would attract little attention, we have preferred throwing together a few hints at 'sixes and sevens.'

IOTA.

SOME OBJECTIONS URGED AGAINST THE SCIENCE OF GEOLOGY, CONSIDERED. WITHIN a few years geology has assumed an importance in the public mind which it did not previously possess. It is almost a thing of yesterday; it is in great measure a new science; but it is already of giant proportions; and, by its rapid development, has startled many into a position of antagonism. Were the history of the science traced, however, it would be found that, for many centuries, men have been peeping into the recesses of this earth, and making rude attempts to decipher her mysterious hieroglyphics; but not till the beginning of this century were those who had given themselves to the researches of geology so far advanced in wisdom as to enable them to agree among themselves, and devote all their energies to the careful investigation of facts, on which future theories might be intelligently and securely based. During this period, therefore, the voice of strife has rarely been heard-the only noise has been that of the chisel and hammer of the investigator; and under this reign of peace the work has prospered well. But if harmony has prevailed within in an uncommon degree, discordant sounds have been heard without. The ignorant, the bigoted, the timid, have been roused into active opposition; each, of course, influenced by the motives suggested by his mental state, and each more anxious than the other to check the progress of the impious and godless science. In this paper we shall state and consider several objections frequently advanced against geology, without enquiring into their paternity. It matters little to us in this investigation and defence, whether they be the offspring of ignorance, bigotry, or fear.

Since, then, we can find no real, though there may be some apparent, instances of 'sixes and sevens' in nature, let us look at them in human affairs. Order, in the matters of common life, if not an element of happiness, is certainly a most essential ingredient in comfort. I suppose no time is more thoroughly wasted, more completely thrown away, than that which is spent in looking for lost articles-time wasted, too, in a manner as unpleasant as unprofitable; for there are some employments which, if they afford little advantage, supply not a little gratification. Time, to be sure, is not made the most of, but some amount of personal enjoyment is secured; but-looking for lost articles! one had better be toasting one's toes on the fender, and making out men's faces in the fire. How a man turns over the same things again and again, pauses to recollect, bites his lip, and purses his brow, and looks into a dozen impossible places, and repeats the same round of vexatious experiments, until he is tired, in the desperate hope of having overlooked the lost article. Now, all this is the result of leaving things at 'sixes and sevens.' For the want of a little order, a man first loses his property, then loses his time, and then perhaps loses his temper, which is the worst loss of all. Order, in regard to time, is as important as that per. taining to place; and happy is the man who, like Alfred, can lay out his hours to the best advantage. We can economise our time, and we ought to do so. Not, however, adhering to rules irrespective of circumstances. Summer or winter, heat or cold, long days or short ones, the window seat or the fireside, ought all to be allowed their influence, and to make their modifications. In summer, for instance, a man should make the most of his morningsin winter, of his nights. He should not be slavishly led by the sun. The sun is by no means an unexceptionable guide, for though he is an early riser in the summer months, he sets us a very bad example in winter weather. But one great reason for our making the most of time is, that time, profitably employed, makes the most of us. Our health, our wealth, our happiness, are all promoted by an economy of time. It is hardly possible, indeed, except in special cases, for an active intelligent man to have a superfluity of time; but when a man does not know what to do with his time, it is a sore evil under the sun. It is said, indeed, that time is money, and to the majority of men this may be the case; but there is one grand distinction between time and money—it may be hard to get rid of your time when it hangs heavily on your hands, but it is 'specially FIRST OBJECTION-It is impious to enquire into the easy to get rid of your money when it burns holes in your origin of the earth. The most superficial observer must pockets. Sometimes, indeed, disorder, whether of time or be persuaded that there are numerous objects in nature place, is not your own fault. A fellow will come in, enter- pregnant with interest. Who can look upon the heavens tain you with the most trifling platitudes, overlook all your without being powerfully impressed with this conviction? hints, and put out all your plans; and in regard to place, But it is not the heavens alone that are furnished with however well disposed to order, some odd-shaped articles material for thought, and sources of delight to the human may violate all your notions of physical' fitness. What mind. The earth is not less suggestive, and not less full of an act of anti-social atrocity it is in a publisher to put objects, in proportion to its dimensions, of intense interest forth a queer-sized book! Did you never feel the nuisance to man. The mind itself, too, is so constituted that we of an odd-shaped volume in your library-a fellow that are capable of searching out the mysteries of nature, will not range with the rest-one, indeed, that hath no fel- reading the language of her many-paged volume, and aplow-a stumpy Virgil, a square-shaped Homer, a very preciating, in some degree, the beauties she unfolds. The narrow, tall book, like an attenuated ledger, or a very vegetable kingdom, with all its variety and beauty; the short square one? This latter class is the worse. It is not animal kingdom, with its multitudinous tribes of curiously so much thickness or height in a volume that plagues you, formed creatures; the globe itself, with its gorgeous but breadth one that will stick his back an inch or two landscapes, its fertile vales, and sublime mountain scenery, out of the row, and seems as uncomplying as a surly, fat arrest the attention, and invite the intelligent contempla man in a second class carriage, or some of those old- tion of man. And from this exercise, how rich, and fashioned houses in ancient English towns, that protrude pure, and elevating, is the pleasure one derives! It lifts all sorts of queer angles and odd gables to the thorough- the soul above the grosser objects by which it is surrounded fare, as if they wished to elbow their neighbours out of the in this sinful state; it assimilates the soul somewhat to street, just as a queer-tempered, cross-grained man pokes nature and brings one in contact with nature's God. Can out his sharp angles and salient points into society. Look it be impious to investigate auy department of nature when at the old edition of "Entick's Latin Dictionary. What a she so obviously invites to the exercise? Shall we say that queer-shaped curmudgeon that is! a thing that may suit a it is impious to employ the mind upon a subject to investiyoung tyro, but will put an old philo into a passion. The gate which we have the ability, and in the investigation most abominable book of this kind with which we are ac of which we experience intense pleasure-pleasure, let quainted is an old red and black-titled edition of Bacon's it be observed, not of an enervating, but elevating nature? Essays.' In packing up our books for a removal, or ranging Assuredly not. What stronger and more satisfactory

evidence could we desire to convince us that this beautiful his journey, on the older granite. Besides, the convuladaptation is of Divine appointment, and therefore in- sions in nature have been so numerous and so powerful, tended to press upon us with the authority of a command? that the various formations, whose surfaces were origiBesides, does not the Holy Scriptures assure us, that the nally exposed, have been bent, and twisted, and broken, works of nature are sought out of all them that have and upheaved, sometimes into a highly inclined, and pleasure in them. Adopt the principle involved in the sometimes into a vertical position, so that the very heart objection, and all physical research and philosophical in- of the rocks is laid open to the investigations of the geovestigation will have come to an end. Philosophy will logist. The river-beds, the precipitous cliffs, the hillsit mourning in silence, and science reveal to us no more sides, the mountain-gorges, the sublime heights, are the indolent repose, and the work of progress' stand still. the earth's strata; and when their investigations are consult in the glory of his Creator? It may be replied, that and judgment, which is pre-eminently the case with our ing the end for which man was made-would this re- discrimination, and their conclusions drawn with caution All things shall be stereotyped! But would this be serv- ducted with intelligence, and their facts gathered with

terial. Here lies imbedded the trunk of a tree, and there the skeleton of a land animal; here is a bed of shells, and there a shoal of fishes. And this is precisely the scene which many of the rocks present. The layers of which they are composed, are easily and distinctly traced; the trunks of trees are found enclosed in the mass; and bones, and shells, and parts of fishes are scattered in all directions, thick as autumn leaves. Who can resist the conclusion? As the estuary deposit is known to accumulate slowly, so may we reasonably conclude did the rocky formation. The strata, then, contain within themselves sufficient proof of their gradual and successive deposition; and the arguments they furnish are strengthened by the analogy of lakes and estuaries.

to place it in its proper light; meanwhile we affirm with the utmost confidence, that the above conclusion is not contradictory to the narrative in Genesis, properly understood. 2. Creatures and plants lived upon this globe long ages prior to the creation of Adam, and the creatures and vegetables that beautified his paradise. 3. Animal life had a beginning; but from the moment of its creation (for geology, intelligently and consistently interrogated, yields no facts favourable to the popular idea of development) till the present time the types have been perpetually changing. Away, then, with this objection; he who urges it betrays his own ignorance, or incapacity to grapple with the science he fears, or would depreciate. FOURTH OBJECTION-It is denied that the strata furnish proof of their gradual and successive formation. There FIFTH OBJECTION-The demand that the geologist makes is, perhaps, no geological truth more firmly established upon TIME is derogatory to the power of God. Every in the judgment of one who has studied geology in nature, geologist of note feels that the facts of his science demand than that which this objection is intended to oppose and a stretch of time, to which six thousand years are like so crush. There are three arguments drawn from the rocks many grains of sand, to the accumulated mass that bounds themselves, which settle the question, and which lose the roll of the ocean-wave. But how this opinion can in nothing of their force and cogency by the dogmatic denial any way detract from the glory of the Creator of all contained in this objection. First, the mineralogical things, it baffles us to conceive. Nay, in our own judg character of the strata proves it. Were the reader to ment, it is, beyond all controversy, calculated to enhance visit a district of country, hammer in hand, and to ex- His glory a hundredfold. The notion that God brought amine two beds of rock, the one overlying the other, but this globe into existence, just as it is internally and exwhose edges by fracture or upheaval were exposed, he ternally, six thousand years ago, does certainly give to would be able to decide on the internal character of both. the mind the idea of vast power. But this is a gratuitous Suppose he were to discover in the upper bed certain dictum; and, moreover, it is false in two senses. First, masses or nodules different in colour and in character granting that the earth was truly created at the above from the containing medium, he would be strongly in- date, it has undergone certain important physical changes clined to conclude, that when the rock was forming these since then; but the admission of these changes does not foreign masses were introduced. This conviction would derogate from God's power. If we can prove that changes be strengthened were the masses rough and shapeless, were effected on the mass of our globe previous to that like a newly broken fragment. And would not the con- date, on what principle shall we admit the assumption viction be complete, the moment it was ascertained that contained in the objection? Secondly, the internal and the masses in question were truly fragments of the under- external evidences which the various formations supply, lying bed? That they were so, would be demonstrated in favour of the antiquity of the earth, is, to the mind by their mineralogical character. A conclusion would acquainted with it, irresistible. This opinion, which we necessarily flow from this discovery. In its simplest hold to be the true one, and the principle of which has form it would stand thus before the mind: The lower bed been established in the previous paragraph, is not only is older than the upper; for, if fragments of the former not derogatory to God's power, but is in fact calculated be contained in the latter (and this is the fact ascertain- greatly to enhance it. Let the reader remark, geology ed), the one must have been deposited, consolidated, nay, frankly admits that in the beginning God created the even partially broken up, before the matter of the other heaven and the earth.' On the simple point of creation, began to accumulate. It is impossible, if we are to be therefore, the geologist is equal with the objector. Both guided by reason, to escape this conclusion. But this re- see in it the evidence of vast power; but the objector may lationship between strata, this intermingling of fragments reply, True, but the geologist denies the creation of things of lower rocks with the material of those above them, is as they are. Granted, but can the objector show, that a phenomenon observed at numerous points in the geo- when God created the earth in the beginning, the combilogical scale. Secondly, if the supposed investigator were nations it then manifested, and the condition it was then to stumble on the junction of two sedimentary formations, in, less clearly demonstrated the presence of divine power? the one lying vertically and the other horizontally above Impossible. Where then lies the force of his objection? it, to what conclusion would he naturally come? The It is time now to act on the aggressive. The objector belower mass possessed all the characteristics of an aqueous lieves that six thousand years ago God created all the formation-it was composed of fine quartz sand, contained plants and creatures that found a place upon the earth, water-worn pebbles, and presented numerous regular and or in the sea; and in this act he perceives indubitable beautiful laminæ, like the leaves of a huge volume, rest-marks of power, as well as of wisdom and goodness. On ing on its edge. It had been placed in this unnatural this point there is no dispute, so far as the idea of power position by the internal disturbing forces. The upper is concerned. But the geologist is taught by his science mass was also indubitably aqueous. Can the conclusion to believe in numerous creations of a similar nature, at be resisted, that the latter was deposited, not only after successive points in the flow of time, all of which as disthe former, but after it had been shattered by that mighty tinctly evince the presence and power of God, as the one agency, and raised to its vertical position? Thirdly, the whose record is given in the opening book of the Bible. fossil contents of the strata establish the same truth; but By how many times God is proved to have put forth his as the subject of organic remains shall again come before hand to create, in the past history of our globe, geology us in connexion with another point, and as this article is establishes and extols His POWER; but in no instance does growing, we shall not illustrate this department of our it do this at the expense of His wisdom. argument. It is important to remark, that we are able to bring in the argument from analogy on the point under discussion. In the margins of lakes, the estuaries of rivers, and the bottoms of still and shallow seas, we find vast beds of matter accumulating. When these deposits are examined, the same phenomena are discovered as are known to lurk in many of the rocky masses: all the difference is that the one is soft, and the other is hard. In the deposit of the estuary, there is the successive layers of sand and mud, varying in colour and fineness of ma

THE STRAWBERRY WOMAN.

BY T. S. ARTHUR.

'STRAWB'rees! Strawb'rees!' cried a poorly clad, tiredlooking woman, about eleven o'clock one sultry June morning. She was passing a handsome house in Walnut Street, into the windows of which she looked earnestly, in the hope of seeing the face of a customer. She did not look in vain, for the shrill sound of her voice brought for

ון