Ladies' Department. Sound Advice Eloquently Expressed. Though the following extract may apply to very few females either young or old in this or any other community, yet it may be read with profit by them all. It contains sentiments worthy of imitation by every female, and not by females alone, either. There are such tale-bearers, back-biters, slanderers and busy bodies, quite as mischievous and quite as dangerous as females of the same class, and even more so. In their case the vile practice results from innate depravity and from a pure love of mischief, while in the case of the latter, they are in most instances influenced by no real malice of heart, but become scandal mongers because they have nothing better to do. The proverb that "an idle head is the devil's work shop," is especially applicable to young females, and it is the duty of their mothers to take care that no such cause sxists.-Auburn Daily Advertiser. "There are great laws of duty and religion which should govern our conversation; and the divine Teacher assures us that, even for our idle words we are accountable to Him who has given us the power of speech. Now, I by no means believe that there is any principle of our religion which frowns upon wit or merriment, or forbids playful speech at fit seasons and within due limits. The very fact that the Almighty has created the muscles which produce the smile and the laugh, is a perpetual rebuke to those who would call all laughter madness, and all mirth folly. Amusement, in its time and place, is a great good; and I know of no amusement so refined, so worthy an intellectual being, as that conversation which is witty and still kind, playful, yet always reverent, which recreates from toil and care, but leaves no sting, and violates no principle of brotherly love or religious duty. [No. IV. dal, are different names for one of the chief dangers to be guarded againt in conversation; and you are doing much towards defending yourselves against it by the generous mental culture which you enjoy in this The demon of slander loves an empty seminary. house. A taste for slander betrays a vacant mind. Furnish your minds, then, by useful reading and study, and by habits of reflection and mental industry, that you may be able to talk about subjects as well as about people-about events too long past or too remote to be interwoven with slander. But, if you must talk about people, why not about their good traits and deeds? The truest ingenuity is that which brings hidden excellence to light; for virtue is, in her very nature, modest and retiring, while faults lie on the surface, and are detected with half an eye. "You will, undoubtedly, be careful to have your words always just and kind, if you will only take a sufficiently thorough view of the influence of your habits of conversation, both in the formation of your own characters, and in determining the happiness of others. But how low an estimate do many of us make of the power of the tongue! How little account we Have we not all, at are apt to take of our words! times, said to ourselves: 'Oh! it is only a word!” when it may have been sharp as a drawn sword, have given more pain than a score of blows, and done more harm than our hands could have wrought in a month? Why is it that the slanderer and the tale bearer, regard themselves as honest and worthy people, instead of feeling that they are accursed of God and man? cause they deal in evil words only, and they consider words as mere nought. Why is it that the carping tongue, which filches a little from everybody's good name, can hardly utter itself without a sneer, and makes every fair character its prey, thinks better of itself than a petty pilferer would? It is because by long, though baseless prescription, the tongue has claimed for itself a license denied to every other member and faculty. It is be But, in point of fact, your words not only express, but help create, your characters. Speech gives definiteness and permanence to your thoughts and feelings. The unuttered thought may fade from the memory-may be chased away by better thoughts-may, indeed, hardly be a part of your own mind: for, if suggested from without, and met without a welcome and with disapproval and resistance, it is not yours. But b "Evil speaking, slander, detraction, gossip, scan-speech you adopt thoughts, and the voice that ut them is as a pen that engraves them indelibly on the suicide; I would beseech them, if they are determined to sell their souls, to get some better price for them than the scorn and dread of all whose esteem is worth having. soul. If you can suppress unkind thoughts, so that, when they rise in your breast, and mount to your very lips you leave them unuttered, you are not, on the whole, unkind-your better nature has the supremacy. But if these wrong feelings often find utterance, though you call it hasty utterance, there is reason to fear that they flow from a bitter fountain within. "Consider, also, how large a part speech makes up for the lives of all. It occupies the greater part of the waking hours of many of us; while express acts of a moral bearing, compared with our words, are rare and few. Indeed, in many departments of duty, words are our only possible deeds-it is by words alone that we can perform or violate our duty. Many of the most important forms of charity are those of speech. Alms giving is almost the only expression of charity, of which the voice is not the chief minister; and alms, conferred in silent coldness, or with chiding or disdainful speech, freeze the spirit, though they may warm the body. Speech, too, is the sole medium of a countless host of domestic duties and observances. There are, indeed, in every community, many whose only activity seems to be in words. There are many young ladies, released from the restraints of school, and many older ladies, with few or no domestic burdens, with no worldly avocation and no taste for reading, whose whole waking life, either at their own homes or from house to house, is given to the exercise, for good or evil, of the tongue —that unruly member. And how blessed might they make that exercise-for how many holy ministries of love, sympathy and charity might it suffice-how many wounds might it prevent or heal-did they only believe and feel that they were writing out their own characters in their daily speech! But too many of them forget this. So long as they do not knowingly and absolutely lie, they feel no responsibility for their words. They deem themselves virtuous because they refrain from vices to which they have not the shadow of temptation; but carp, backbite and carry ill reports from house to house, with an apostle's zeal and a martyr's devotedness. To say nothing of the social effect of such a life, is not the tongue thus employed working out spiritual death for the soul, in whose service it is busy? I know of no images too vile to portray such a character. The dissection of a slanderer's or tale. bearer's heart would present the most loathsome specimen of morbid anatomy conceivable. It is full of the most malignant poison. Its life is all mean, low, serpent-like-a life that cannot bear the light, but finds all its nourishment and growth in darkness. Were these foul and malignant forms of speech incapable of har. ming others did human reptiles of this class creep about in some outward guise in which they could be recognized by all, and their words be taken for what they are worth and no more—still I would beg them, for their own sakes, not to degrade God's image, in which they were created, into the likeness of a creeping thing; I would entreat them not to be guilty of the meanest and most miserable of all forms of spiritual "In this connection we ought to take into account the very large class of literally idle words. How many talk on unthinkingly and heedlessly, as if the swift exercise of the organs of speech were the great end of life? The most trivial news of the day, the concerns of the neighborhood, the floating gossip, whether good natured or malignant, dress, food, frivolous surmises. paltry plans, vanities too light to remain an hour upon the memory-these are the sole staple of what too many call conversation; and many are the young people who are training themselves in the use of speech for no higher or better purpose. But such persons have the threatened judgment visibly following their idle speech. Their minds grow superficial and shallow. They constantly lose ground if they ever had any, as intellectual and moral beings. Such speech makes a person of however genteel training, coarse and vulgar, and that not only in character, but even in voice and manners, and with sad frequency obliterates traits of rich loveliness and promise. The merely idle tongue is only very readily betrayed into overt guilt. One cannot indulge in idle, reckless talk, without being implicated in the current slander and calumny, and acquiring gradually the envious and malignant traits of a hackneyed tale-bearer. And the person who in youth can attract the attention and win the favor of those of little reflection, by flippant and voluble discourse, will encounter in the very same circles neglect, disesteem and dislike before the meridian of life is passed; for it takes all the charms that youth, sprightliness, and high animal spirits can furnish, to make an idle tongue facsinating or even endurable. "Let me ask you now to consider for a moment the influence which we exert in conversation upon the happiness or misery of others. It is not too much to say, that most of us do more good or harm in this way than in all other forms beside. Look around you—take a survey of whatever there is of social or domestic unhappiness in the families to which you belong, or among your acquaintance. Nine-tenths of it can be traced to no other cause than untrue, unkind or ungoverned speech. A mere harsh word; repented of the next moment-how great a fire can it kindle! The carrying back and forth of an idle tale, not worth an hour's thought, will often break up the closest intimacies. From every slanderous tongue you may trace numerous rills of bitterness winding round from house to house, and separating those who ought to be united in the closest friendship. Could persons who with kind hearts, are yet hasty in speech, number up at the close of a day, the feelings that they had wounded and the un. comfortable sensations that they had caused, they would need no other motive to study suavity of manner, and to seek for their words the rich unction of a truly charitable spirit. Then, too, how many are the traits of suspicion, jealousy and heart-burning, which go forth 3. They agree in representing the work of creation as progressive, after the first creation of matter at the beginning. The regular progression of the work of the six days of creation, is stated in Genesis, and the law of progress and development is written upon every stratum in Geology. from every day's merely idle words, vain and vague all geological changes, on our globe, viz: water, fire surmises, uncharitable inferences and conjectures! and heat. Water is named in Genesis; fire in 2 Peter "These thoughts point to the necessity of religion as 3, 10; the voice of God, as using them, Psalm 104, 2, the guiding, controlling element in conversation. All 7. Thus what the voice of God is said in scripture to conversation ought to be religious. Not that I would use, as the agent in geological changes, the geologist have persons always talking on what are commonly declares to be the only two agents that has ever been called religious subjects. Let these be talked of at fit-employed. The one theory being called the Neptunian, ting times and places, but never obtrusively brought or Water theory of Werner-the other the Plutonian, forward or thrust in. But cannot common subjects be or theory of fire, by Hutton. Either of these theories talked of religionsly? Cannot we converse about our agrees with the Bible, and both combined agree still plans, our amusements, our reading, nay, and our neigh-more perfectly. bors, too, and no sacred name be introduced, and yet the conversation be strictly religious? Yes-if throughout the conversation we own the laws of honesty, frankness, kind construction and sincere benevolence-if our speech be pure, true, gentle, dignified-if it seek or impart information that either party needs-if it cherish friendly feeling-if it give us kinder affections towards others-if it bring our minds into vigorous exercisenay, if it barely amuse us, but not too long, and if the wit be free from coarseness and at no one's expense. But we should ever bear it in mind, that our words are all uttered in the hearing of an unseen Listener and Judge. Could we keep this in remembrance, there would be little in our speech that need give us shame or pain. But that half hour spent in holding up to ridicule one who has done you no harm-that breathless haste to tell the last piece of slander-you would not want to remember in your evening prayer. From the flippant, irresponsible, wasteful gossip, in which so much time is lost, you could not with a safe conscience, look up and own an Almighty presence." Physical Science. From the Clarksville Chronicle. Extract from a Lecture on Geology, delivered before the cit- In conclusion, allow me to notice, for a moment, the coincidence and apparent discrepancy between the volume of nature, as read by Geologists, and the volume of Holy Writ. They agree in many particulars, but they differ in none. The apparent contradictions all vanish as we approach them, and the christian with his Bible in his hand, meets the Geologist with all his “five books of nature," with their many pages closely written over with fossil organic remains of past generations, at the foot of the throne of the great and blessed God, to bow down in holy adoration of his wisdom, power, and goodness. 4. They agree in the fact, that man was among the latest of the animals created to inhabit our globe. This is a most important fact. Had geologists thought that the fossil remains of man were found in the transition formation, when vast forests covered our earth, when the Trilobites swarmed in millions; or at a period when no warm blooded animal could live on our globe, there would have been a flat contradiction between Geology and the Bible. Or had it taught that the remains of man were found in the secondary formation when the earth was inhabited alone by Saurians, the seas filled with great lizard fish, the earth with lizards 40 or 50 feet long, and the air with immense flying lizards or Pterodactyles, then indeed would geology conflict with the Bible. Rut so far is this from being true, that geology fully confirms the fact, that the huIman race cannot have been on the earth more than 5,000 or 6,000 years. No traces of man can be found except in the most recent formation called the AlluviCuvier has demonstrated this point, and all later geologists only confirm it. So that geology and the Bible agree in the age of man. um. 5. They agree in the fact, that the epoch, when existing races of plants and animals were placed upon The remains of our globe, was comparatively recent. these plants and animals are found embedded in the alluvial deposits, which are the latest formed, and prove that the race of men, and the present plants and animals on earth, commenced their existence about the same time, and the Bible declares this to be the fact; so that Geology agrees with scripture in proving man, and the present races on earth to be, not over 6,000 years old. 6. They agree that the future destruction of the world will be by fire. Geologists teach, that less than 30 miles from the surface, the internal condition of the earth is in a state of fusion, the materials all melted into a liquid, and that, these immense fires within, have their outlets, safety valves, escape pipes, through the various volcanoes of the earth, and that these reservoirs of fire can be brought into action at the command of the Almighty, and instantly destroy 2. They agree as to the agents employed to produce our earth, or cause it to pass through another revolu 1. Scripture and Geology agree as to the fact, that both the eastern and western continents were covered over with the waters of the flood, or of the oceans. No truth is more clearly demonstrated by the facts of Geology than this; thus Geology confirms the scrip tures. Thus in six important particulars we find scripture and geology hamonizing most beautifully, while we can find but two points, on which they appear to differ seriously. But these are only apparent and vanish as we approach them. 1. They appear to differ as to the age of the world. Geology proves, that the changes, that have taken place, in our globe, must have occupied vast periods of time. From the nature of the different strata, as well as from the remains of the various orders of beings, that have inhabited the earth in its different states, we must believe that each of these periods occupied thousands of years; no mind can tell the number. But the earth has passed through some 30 or 40 such long periods while the Mosaic account seems to make it only a short time before the creation of man. But it is not necessary to understand the Mosaic record in any such sense. It says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void" &c. How long the earth continued in this chaotic state, before God commenced the six days creation, is not said, nor can any human being guess. It may have been ten millions of years, for aught the Bible says to the contrary; so that we read the first of Genesis, as an independent sentence, announcing the fact, that in the beginning, whenever that may have been, God created all the material worlds. And after this, God organized our present system of nature, with man, as the last crowning work of his hand. As Dr. Chalmers is good authority, let him explain this: "Does Moses ever say, that when God created the heavens and the earth, he did more at the time alluded to than transform them out of previously existing materials? Or does he ever say there was not an interval of many ages between the first act of creation, as described in the first verse of the book of Genesis, and said to have been performed at the beginning, and those more detailed operations, the account of which commences at the second verse, and which are described to us, as having been performed in so many days? Or, finally, does he ever make us to understand that the genealogies of man went any farther than to fix the antiquity of the species, and of consequence, that they left the antiquity of the globe a free subject for the speculation of philosophers?" Evidences, ch. 7. Then, however old geology may make the materials of our globe, or however far back it may place the first act of creation, it fully agrees with Moses, that man was made about the time of the six days' works. There is no contradiction, but perfect harmony be tween them. 2. The last point of apparent discrepancy is, as to the time when death commenced upon our globe. The facts in Geology show, that the trilobites, and other living creatures of the transition series died upon their own strata, so of the saurian of the secondary: and the vast thick-skinned animals of the tertiary groups, show that death has taken place in the earth, ages and cycles of ages, before man was created. While the Bible says, "By man came death." "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Thus they appear to conflict. But where does the Bible teach that death to the animal race, took place as the result of the sin of man? The death spoken of here refers to man, and the human race alone, and not to death in the vegetable or animal kingdoms. God made many animals carnivorous, to feed on other smaller ones, so he made many other herbivorous, who feed on plants, leaves, and grass. But the microscope shows, that even in every leaf of the forest vast numbers of small living creatures live, and rejoice, so that the very food of all herbivorous animals seems to imply that death must necessarily have existed from the beginning. Death, among the animals, results from the very nature of the constitution given them by their creator. Death seems to be the universal law of organic beings, and not the result of these in man. Then the death that Geology proves to have taken place, in all the stages and changes of our globe, was according to nature. The death mentioned in scripture, as coming into the world by the sin of man, was the death of the human race, that would otherwise have been immortal. Then there is no semblance of a contradiction. From the whole subject we make this deduction: that Geology develops the most striking evidences of the goodness and benevolence of God to our world; that throughout the many changes, and long ages of the past, the Deity has been preparing the evidences of his goodness for man. We learn that all things had a beginning, and Geology forever refutes the doctrine of an eternal succession of things, by taking us back to the primary, crystalline rocks, where no traces of living beings can be found, and then the next formation shows the early origin or beginning of things, which have continued ever since. Thus the special goodness of God is seen in giving life at all the various ages of the world, suited to the state of things on the globe. When the earth was unsuitable for animals, it was covered with immense forests, which contribute to form the vast coal formations that now contribute so much to the happiness of man. While the mud, in which these forests were buried, became the iron ore for the various uses to which we apply it, and the limestone to assist in melting it, was formed in the same region. Did he consult our convenience, our happiness in these ancient deposits? Did he cause the volcanic forces from beneath to throw these materials up to the surface of our hills for our benefit? How striking the wisdom and benevolence of such arrangements? So in all the stages through which the earth has passed, life has been given to such animals as the state of the globe best suited! To sau rians at one time, to lacustrine quadrupeds at another, till all the present races commenced their existence. The benevolence of God is seen in the wise arrange ment of causing the limestone, the sand and the sandstone to alternate with the strata of clay, marl, &c., in order to preserve water near the surface, that man by wells and springs, might be abundantly supplied. The water would pass through the sand and lime, and go beyond the reach of wells, but for the clay and marl strata placed between them to retain it. The same is true of the deposits of salt for the benefit of man at a distance from the sea. He has made the ncw red sand stone a deposit of salt to which men may sink wells and obtain it at the most distant points from the ocean. The same benevolence is manifest in the mingling of the flint, the sand, and the clay, in preparing the soil necessary for the production of vegetation for the use of man. Neither of these alone would ever produce any thing, being perfectly barren, but properly mingled, they produce the richest soil and most luxuriant vegetation. Finally, Geology displays the greatness and grandeur of the plan of God's operation. He has ages in which to work, and all agents and means at his command. He has displayed on the most grand and magnificent scale the operation of the great law of progress. This law may ever continue in operation, as Peter intimates that our globe shall pass, by fire through another change, and as many other stars are appearing and disappearing from our heavens. This great law may continue through eternity, and each sun, and each system, continue accordingly its perpetual progress to higher, nobler, and happier states of existence, or even approximate the throne of the great, eternal, and ever blessed God. Modern Chemistry. That the Greeks during the period which clapsed between the fifth century, and the taking of Constantinople in the fifteenth, believed in the possibility of transmuting the base metals into gold and silver, and that the process by which this was supposed to be capable of being effected, was known under the general designation of Chemistry, is abundantly apparent from a variety of authors who flourished during that era. Under the Caliphs of the family of Abassides, the Arabians, about the beginning of the ninth century, directed their attention to this art at the period when the enlightened zeal of the Fatimites in Africa, and the Ommiades in Spain, encouraged the general cultivation of such of the sciences as were then accessible. Some two centuries earlier, however, Geber professed an acquaintance with the materials of which the philosopher's stone was supposed to be composed, and with the mode of preparing it. His works are mainly devoted to the improvement of the medical science, and he undertook to teach the mode of converting the different metals known in his time into medicine. He was succeeded by Avicenna, who ranked next to Aristoe and Galen, as a physician; but added very little to the knowledge of chemical science. The Alchymists regarded all the metals as compounds, and held that the base metals contained the same elementary constituents with gold, contaminated, indeed, with various impurities, but susceptible on their removal of assuming all the characteristic properties of gold. The substance by which this transmutation was capable of being effected, was denominated by them the philosopher's stone, and was usually described as a small red powder, of a peculiar odor, possessing not only the property of converting the baser metals into gold, but that of curing all diseases Considered as a science, Chemistry is of compara- and preserving human life to an indefinite extent. The tively modern origin. Centuries of observation and continued and various experiments which during a experiment have indeed been consumed in the effort space of several centuries were made by the professors to accumulate and arrange the principles upon which of this absurd art, and their indefatigable and perseit is based; but it was not until the latter half of the vering industry in the combination, mixture and callast century that it can be said with any propriety to cination of the various metals, could not fail to accomhave assumed the rank of a science. As an art, how-plish results which, while they served to demonstrate ever, it is readily traced to periods of remote antiqui- the utter futility of the theory in support of which ty. Hermes or Mercurius Trismegistus, the favorite minister of the Egyptian King Osiris, by some supposed to be Canaan, the son of Ham, is said to have been familiar with the transmutation of metals, and Zosymus of Chesmirus or Panopolis, in Egypt, to have composed the first treatise upon the art. From two passages in Suidas, a Greek writer who is supposed to have lived in the eleventh century, it would seem that Chemistry was known to the Greeks at that time, and that it was then understood to mean the art of making gold and silver. This author is also of opinion that the Egyptians, in the time of the EmpeFor Dioclesian, were acquainted with this art; and he affirms that a book describing the process of making gold, existed at the time of the fabled Argonautic Expedition, 1225 A. C., the object of which was to obtain this book under the denomination of the Golden Fleece. they were undertaken and prosecuted, at the same time, essentially subserved the interests of true science. Their labors were, accordingly, from time to time, rewarded by the discovery of new and valuable substances, and among others of the sulphuric, nitric and muriatic acids. From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Alchemy, or the art of making gold and silver, was cultivated with considerable assiduity in Germany, Italy, France and England. Albertus Magnus, his pupil Thomas Aquinas, and the celebrated Roger Bacon, were among its most illustrious and distinguished professors. Raynond Lully, who was a pupil and friend of the latter, and a very voluminous writer, appears also to have been well versed in the science. Basil Valentine, at the commencement of the fifteenth century, although one of the ablest as well as the last of the Alchymists, |