Taking for his text the first verse of Genesis, he paraphrased it: 'In the beginning, all things projected themselves from within outward, and evolved a Final Cause out of the depths of their individual consciousness.' As soon as he had got through his discourse and gratefully asked a blessing on all that we had 'learned and taught,' the sexton, who apparently entertained unusually high and comprehensive view of the duties of his calling, attended the preacher to the vestry. Thence presently issued cries indicative not only of remorse, but of some kind of physical distress. The two are often connected as intimately as mysteriously in the discipline of the visible world, although we are often assured by those who must know, that they have nothing whatever to do with each other In the invisible. On the reappearance of the offender, as he meekly wiped his eyes and passed down the aisle, he was heard, in a broken voice, inquiring of the deacons where a Hebrew dictionary could be bought; and I have since been credibly informed that before he arrived at maturity he had learned a good deal. Now anybody can read German; in fact, a great many persons seem wholly unable to stop. But if we do not keep a theological boy to read our Greek and Hebrew for us, then what do we keep one for? Or, to make the question intelligible to those among us who speak the Sweden-borgian tongue, what 'uses does he perform?' THE DEVIL'S CANON IN CALIFORNIA. This wonderful ravine is more generally known under the name of the _Geysers of California_, an ambitious misnomer, which associates it with the grand Geysers of Iceland, and has given rise to erroneous ideas in regard to the nature and action of the springs it contains. The prevalent idea of a geyser is a hot fountain, sometimes quiescent, but at others rising in turbulent eruption. The mere existence of a hot spring does not imply a 'geyser,' for, if such were the case, their number would be very great, hot springs in many parts of the world being frequent if not general accompaniments of volcanic action. Unquestionably, the Geysers of Iceland, the 'Strokr,' and the spring of the Devil's Canon, the 'Witches' Caldron', are the results of volcanic action; but that action differs essentially in its operation. The 'Strokr' and the 'Great Geyser' are intermittent, and are accounted for by the siphon theory: the 'Witches' Caldron' is always full and boiling, and no difference is seen in it from one year's end to another. It is not, moreover, a fountain, but a basin in the hillside, in which a black and muddy spring is always bubbling without overflowing.