Science, too, has felt the force of the benefit of its more northern home. With a temperature unshocked by extremes, the highest mental industry yields more, or rather different, fruit than the richest intellectual soil. The wheat and the corn of the necessaries to progress, are gathered only where the wine and the oil of luxury do not grow. That Tyre and Sidon were marts for the cosmopolite, and now are but the refuge for the wanderer, while Boston, New York, New Orleans were the seaboards of the savage, and are now the emporiums of a hemisphere, is as true as that the causes are to be found in some degree dependent upon the influences of climate. That Rome was the mother of nations, the terror of thrones, and the great entrance into eternity, and now is the dismantled wreck of her illustrious past—while the hunting-grounds of the “Six Nations” are transformed into a mighty empire, is but the melancholy picture of the past, gorgeous in its dilapidation, under the luxurious warmth of an Italian sky, while the other is the picture of the present, more magnificent and vigorous, tinted by the rays of a western sun. Climate was not alone in producing these changes, yet its influence was potent. The Religion of Nazareth took its metaphors from the land of Aristotle, its enthusiasm from the nations on the “seacoast,” its energy from the Northmen, but _its divinity from God_! The songs of labor are heard loudest and sweetest where the valley and forest yield an annual tribute over the grave of all that is beautiful, born of the spring; while the songs of the sentiments take their melodies from the land of soft sunlight, scented with perennial perfumes. In considering the Future let us look at the Past, and among the most remarkable of physical causes which have marked their existence on the history of nations and of men, climate will be found to have exercised by no means an inconsiderable influence. * * * * * TO MY WIFE. BY S. D. ANDERSON. Gladly to thee, amid the wreck of years, Will memory’s pinions wing their eager way; To thee, who ever through this life of tears Has lit its darkness with thy sunny ray; Thou wast my empress in the morning hours, The star amid my dreams of poesy; The single rose amid the dewy bowers, That lured my soul to thoughts of purity. As rivers glancing in the glorious sun, Voice out their gladness to the perfumed air, So ’neath the presence of that treasured one My hopes were mirrored in a world more fair; A magic world, within whose blesséd light All things the richest and the best did come, Bringing unto the weary dreams as bright As those that flit around our quiet home.