CAMP-FIRE LYRICS. II.--NIGHT--LAKE HELEN. I lie in my red canoe On the water still and deep, And o'er me darkens the blue, And beneath the billows sleep, Till, between the stars o'erhead And those in the lake's embrace, I seem to float like the dead In the noiselessness of space. Betwixt two worlds I drift, A bodiless soul again-- Between the still thoughts of God And those which belong to men; And out of the height above, And out of the deep below, A thought that is like a ghost Seems to gather and gain and grow, That now and for evermore This silence of death shall hold, While the nations fade and die And the countless years are rolled. But I turn the light canoe, And, darting across the night, Am glad of the paddles' noise And the camp-fire's honest light. EDWARD KEARSLEY. * * * * * MILL'S ESSAYS ON RELIGION. An interest attaches to Mr. Mill's posthumous _Essays on Religion_ which is quite independent of their intrinsic value or importance. The position of their author at the head of an active school of thinkers gives them to a certain extent a representative character, while, in connection with the curious account of his mental training presented in his autobiography, they merit perhaps still closer attention as a subject of psychological study. It is not, however, in this latter light that we can undertake to examine them here. Our object is merely to point out some of the fallacies and contradictions which might escape the notice of a cursory reader, and which show with how uncertain a step a philosopher who piqued himself on the clearness and severity of his logic moves on ground where a stronger light than that of reason was needed to irradiate his path.