Very remarkable is it that Christ's holy cause best prospered, was purest, most powerful for good when most persecuted, "The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church." From the auto da fe arose the anthem that thrilled the Pagan heart. From prison cells poured forth paeans of praise that caused princes to kiss the cross. From the outlawed conventicle went forth a holy zeal that carried millions to the throne of grace,--from the gloomy midnight meeting there burst a light that illumed the world. The stones cast by avowed enemies were the steps by which the Cause of Christ mounted from poverty and obscurity to thrones and wealth, to name and fame,--the wings with which it encircled the great round globe, the power that enabled it to break down the barriers of the most obdurate hearts. It is the stones cast by professed friends--the stones of Selfishness and Pride, of Intolerance and Vain-glory,--of Hate and Discord masquerading in the garb of Love and Law--that cause the wounds on Calvary to bleed afresh, the tears in Gethsemane to flow anew, the Crown of Thorns to once more burn the throbbing brow, the scourge to fall across the naked shoulders of the Son of God. Are you Throwing Stones at Christ and His Cause? * * * LOOKING BACKWARD. When it comes to "Looking Backward," Bellamy isn't in it a little bit with Prof. Herman V. Hilprecht. The retrospective glance of the latter covers a period of at least 11,000 years; and what is of infinitely more importance, it is that of a learned paleologist instead of a sensation-mongering empiric. The Professor has succeeded in lifting a corner of that black veil which hangs between the prehistoric and the present, in affording us a fleeting glimpse of our fellow man as he appeared long ages before the birth of Abraham. He has demonstrated that man has been a civilized animal much longer than is popularly supposed--that at least 5,000 years before the supposed advent of Adam he not only lived sociably in cities and had gods and kings, but was able to read and write! For eight years past the Professor and his co-laborers, under the patronage of the University of Pennsylvania, have been carrying on their explorations. The site of Nippur, the ancient capital of Kengi, later known as Babylonia, is the scene of their labors. Hitherto Nippur has been supposed to have been the world's oldest city; but the excavations made not only prove that it rose upon the ruins of others, but affords some knowledge of a long line of kings who lived so long ago that their very names were forgotten before the flight of the Israelites from Egypt, or even the building of the Tower of Babel. "What is the story of this buried past? Were all its doors flung wide, For us to search its rooms? And we to see the race, from first to last, And how they lived and died."