must ultimately hit upon something. With a patience like that of Kepler, he pursued guess after guess, combining electricity or magnetism and light in all manner of ways, and at last he was rewarded with a result: a most unexpected one it seemed. A very powerful magnet has to be excited, and its two poles have to be pierced with holes, in order that a beam of light may travel from one to the other along the lines of force; then, as ordinary light is of no use, we have to get a beam of plane polarized light and send it between the poles; but no result is obtained until we interpose a piece of out-ofthe-way material which Faraday had himself discovered and made- -a kind of glass, which contains a sort of borate of lead, and is very heavy or dense, and must be perfectly unannealed.

When all these arrangements are completed, all the result we obtain is that if a prism, known as an analyzer, which in a certain position of rotation stops out the light, be so arranged as to do this and make the field quite dark before the magnet is excited, then, directly the battery is connected and the magnet called into action, a barely perceptible brightening of the field occurs; which disappears as the analyzer is slightly rotated. No one understood this, not even Faraday; he seemed to conclude that the magnetic lines of force were rendered luminous or that the light was magnetized. It was one of the discoveries made, as it were, too soon; and it was reserved for Sir W. Thompson clearly to point out, and Clerk Maxwell fully to develop, its most important consequences. This is the fundamental experiment on which the relation between electricity and light is built. Many new facts are, however, now coming in; and Kundt and Röutgen, of Germany, have just demonstrated that to an exceedingly small extent air exhibits the same

phenomenon. Dr. Kerr, of Glasgow, has extended the result to opaque bodies, and has shown that if light be passed through magnetized iron, its plane is rotated. The film of iron has to be greatly attenuated, because of its opacity and the smallness of the observed rotation of the plane of light. Mr. Fitzgerald has shown that Maxwell's theory would have enabled Dr. Kerr's result to be predicted.

But another requirement of the theory is, that bodies which are transparent to light must be insulators or non-conductors of electricity, and that conductors of electricity are necessarily opaque to light. Observation amply confirms this; metals are the best conductors, and are the most opaque bodies known: insulators, such as glass and crystals, are transparent whenever they are sufficiently homogeneous, and the researches of Professor Graham Bell, within the last few months, have shown that even ebonite, one of the most opaque insulators to ordinary vision, is certainly transparent to some kinds of radiation, and that in no small degree.

Then we have the remarkable action of light on the metal selenium. The fact was discovered by an assistant in the laboratory of Mr. Willoughby Smith, who noticed that a piece of selenium conducted electricity very much better when light was falling upon it than when it was in the dark. The light of a candle is sufficient: it instantaneously brings down the resistance to something like one-fifth the original value; clearly indicating the close relation between electricity and light in some way. It is this (as we have pointed out in previous Notes) that has been utilized by Professor Bell in his most striking and ingenious Photophone, which transmits sounds by light-rays: telegraphs audibly by properly-directed beams of light.

It

Turning to the deeply-interesting pages -which we urge all our readers to study-where a bird's-eye view is given of the work on the various Stations, we find that to our good German brethren in the Metropolis the past has been a year of trial and financial strain, but of spiritual prosperity and added numbers. No truer HomeMission work is done in our land than that carried on at Hackney-Wick. ought to be a specially-favoured child of Methodism. This work should not be suffered to slacken or cease for want of men or means. From the various other Stations in England, Scotland and Wales there is sounded out in most cases a note of thankfulness for manifest tokens that the Master is working with His servants; though some strains in a minor key tell of opposition and discouragement, and sinkings of heart at the sight of abounding wickedness and pitiable poverty. Many places sorely need larger grants than the state of the Fund will allow.

The special work of the District Missionaries is still signally owned of God. A few instances of conversion are recorded as samples of many equally satisfactory, whose record is on high. The zealous Missionaries, spent with weeks of toil and excitement, must feel repaid on hearing such a testimony as was given by a navvy who was converted in a revival at Newhaven: I was dreadfully wretched after hearing you preach, I was carrying a ton weight about with me all day. When you came down to the works and spoke

to me, I had to turn away, the tears would come. But in the evening, I stayed behind, and you spoke to me about Jesus. Then that great weight lifted all away, and going home I felt so light, I hardly felt the ground under my feet.' Another old man, who had walked in darkness for upwards of seventy years, under the delusion that he had never been called,' was led to accept Christ at the Missionary's invitation, and, as he swayed himself to and fro, was heard to say: "What a fool I have been to be deceived by the devil for seventy-two years!"'

Cheering tidings, too, come from the Newcastle District, where Mr. Champness's earnest, glowing appeals have been responded to by large numbers, especially of young people, who have been gathered into Junior Society-classes. Very blessed results have also followed the faithful, diligent labours of our Evangelists in various other districts. In some places paid lay-agents have recently taken up fresh work with energy and patience that must, by God's blessing, succeed, in spite of the fallow ground which has to be broken up. 'The place swarms with backsliders,' one writes; 'yet even here there are tokens of blessing.'

Our limits forbid more than a hasty glance at one of the most interesting branches of the great enterprise-our Army and Navy Work, At Aldershot, the cause still steadily prospers under the solemn influence of sickness and death, busy in camp and town,' and everything cries to us to work while it is day. Above all, we need a rich outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Rev. John Burgess writes very hopefully.

From Secunderabad, in the Deccan, the Rev. W. Burgess reports: 'The work among the English soldiers in this largest military depôt in India is very encouraging. My Class-meetings are well attended, and there is a grand spirit of earnestness manifested among the members. We have also begun a Mothers' Meeting, and the women seem thoroughly to appreciate our efforts to do them good. Now the great question with me is: "When is the promised man coming out?""

grammatical, which Meyer hardly ever is; yet we note no little of that great critic's lexical expertness. He is even more tiresome than Meyer in spending so much precious time in the statement and the demolition of superficial, captious commenting. The pathology of exposition may be highly interesting to professionals and experts, but it is time that much of it should be transferred to the museum. It would be a good work to publish an edition of this noble series of Commentaries, expurgated of the mere mildew of unhelpful and unwholesome annota

tion.

Unlike Meyer, Dr. Lünemann is Calvinistic; of course, not on grammatical, but apparently on barely confessional grounds. He makes no attempt at exegetical vindication of his Calvinistic positions. He is much less positive and preposterous than most recent commentators on St. Paul's assumed expectation of an almost immediate Second Advent. How strange the persistence in forcing on St. Paul a mistaken notion, which, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, he took such pains to repudiate!

The Temperance Bible Commentary, etc. By Dr. Lees and D. Burns, M.Ă. London: Partridge and Co.-This is the fifth edition of a work the object of which is to prove, first, 'that there is nothing in the nature and usage of the words for wine, etc., in the Bible which at all teaches that the use of intoxicating drink is in harmony with the Divine will'; and, secondly, that the Bible teaches, clearly and fully, by a series of continuous and consistent testimonies, that intoxicating drink is an evil article, etc.' The authors display considerable learning and ability in support of their views. They tell us that in several instances our English Version is at fault in the rendering of Hebrew words supposed to signify wine. There are thirteen such words in the original which our translators so render, but which do not all and always mean wine, but sometimes vinegar, sometimes the juice of the grape. It is contended, therefore, that when the Bible seems to countenance the use of wine, it means the unfermented grape-juice. To the objection, wine cannot be kept in this state, the authors assure us that it can be so kept for years. Again, it has been affirmed that unfermented wine is not now made in Syria; but of this, the authors say there is not sufficient proof, but that the English word wine is applied in Syria to the fresh juice of

the grape.

On the numerous passages in which wine is referred to, the writers comment with much care; and though we cannot accept all their criticisms, we doubt not that they are often right. We think there is force in their notes on 1 Timothy v. 23. They contend that Timothy had been an abstainer, but St. Paul recommends him to take a little wine medicinally. Did he mean fermented wine? This, they think, by no means follows; for there was an unfermented wine which, in Timothy's feeble state of health, would do him good. But even if he partook of some weak alcoholic wine and derived benefit, no general conclusion in favour of using alcohol, even in disease-much less in health-could be philosophically deduced."

The work has met with some severe criticisms, to which, in this edition, the authors have replied. The questions involved in the controversy are of deep interest in many respects; to Ministers especially. We rejoice that the cause of temperance is making progress. To stem the torrent of intemperance which is sweeping away thousands year by year, the Christian Church should have recourse to every judicious means, and should be prepared to make any sacrifice but that of truth and charity.

Mr.

The Bible and Temperance. By the Rev. Thomas Pearson.-This is another work on this subject just issued by the same publishers. It takes the same ground, and is a very able summary of the argument. The author has evidently studied the subject in all its details, and replies to the Rev. A. M. Wilson's work on The Wines of the Bible in a very masterly and effective manner. Pearson first gives all the Hebrew and Greek words for wine employed in the Bible, and the passages in which they occur. He next examines all these words with a view to show what is their real force; and then he gives a number of testimonies that unfermented wines were used by the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews. The principal Hebrew word for wine, yayin, and the Greek ovos, Mr. Pearson contends, is used indifferently for a fermented or an unfermented wine. too, maintains that our Lord did not change the water at the marriage-feast into a fermented wine; that St. Paul did not recommend fermented wine to Timothy, and that our Lord did not use fermented wine at the Paschal Feast. This book is deserving of the study of all who are interested in the subject. And who ought not to be? Mr. Pearson's treatment of the question is worthy of the attention of Christian readers.

He,