A pair of old brass andirons that belonged to one’s grandmother are to-day an almost priceless heirloom in any family. Old spinning wheels, in daily use fifty or more years ago, but for a generation consigned to the garret or remote store room, are now brought down and, freshly polished and decked with ribbons, made to adorn the parlor or the hall. A genuine old sickle is to-day hard to find; the hand fanning-mills are becoming rare, and a real flail is almost never heard. How many of the young ladies of to-day have ever seen one of the foot-stoves their grandmothers used to carry to church, or one of the warming-pans always put to use for the benefit of the friend that in winter time occupied “the best chamber?” How long is it since the side of every kitchen opened into the cavernous depth of the old “brick oven,” the heating of whose great dome was such a labor for the adults, but such a delight for the children? What too have become of the old tin “Dutch ovens” that were used before the open fireplace, and of the iron “bake kettles,” with cover for the burning coals, which were sometimes called by this same name? While for an old tinder box and flint one will search almost in vain unless in some cabinet of carefully guarded relics and antiques. A very wide question is sometimes raised as to how far the absence of such marked types as those of the past indicates an improved age in the present, and whether indeed the opposite of this may not be the case. It may be argued, and not quite without some show of reason, that the tendency to reduce all characters, stations, and kinds of life to a largely universal correspondence, and the merging of markedly distinctive traits into a general resemblance, is an indication of weakness rather than of strength, and that thereby society suffers a loss instead of securing a gain. One may well hesitate before refusing to admit that there may be some truth in such a view. However, without attempting to argue this question, or to draw any inferences from the whole, it is enough for the present purpose to show that many of the strong traits of the past, like strong features seen in old family portraits, are to be recognized only in reduced and softened characteristics to-day, so that we do well in the midst of the uniformity of the life of the present to pause and recall and honor these vanishing types of the past. THE COUNCIL OF NICE. An essay read before the University Circle, of San José, California. “There are four things,” says Hooker, “which concur to make complete the whole state of our Lord: His Deity, Manhood, the conjunction of both, and the distinction of one from the other.” “Four principal heresies have withstood the truth: Arians, against the deity of Christ (denying that he was co-eternal and co-essential with the Father); “Apollinarians, maiming his human nature (denying that he had a human soul);