and selected an eligible stretching-place. This animal displayed as much ingenuity as the traveller who, according to the well-known story, ordered oysters for his horse for the purpose of clearing the fireside. ECSTATIC EXALTATION. This rapturous excitement is not unfrequently the province of the physician. Fortunately perhaps for the patient, it is an incurable malady, illustrating the lines of Dryden, There is a pleasure, sure, in being mad, Which none but madmen know. If we admit this state of ecstasy to be a mental aberration, it is surely of an enviable nature, since it elevates the soul to a beatitude which is rarely the lot of man. No definition of this state can equal that given by St. Theresa of her own feelings. By prayer she had attained what she calls a "celestial quietude,--a state of union, rapture, and ecstasy." "I experienced," she continues, "a sort of sleep of all the faculties of the soul--intellect, memory, and volition; during which, though they were but slumbering, they had no conception of their mode of operation. It was a voluptuous sensation, such as one might experience when expiring in raptures in the bosom of our God. The soul is unconscious of its actions; she (the soul) knows not if she speaks or if she remains silent, if she laughs or if she cries. It is, in short, a blessed extravagance, a celestial madness, in which she attains in the knowledge of true wisdom, an inconceivable consolation. She is on the point of merging into a state of languor; breathless, exhausted, the slightest motion, even of the hands, is unutterably difficult. The eyes are closed by a spontaneous movement; or, if they remain open, the power of vision has fled. In vain they endeavour to read: they can distinguish letters, but are unable to class them into words. Speak to a person in this absorbed condition, no answer will be obtained; although endeavouring to speak, utterance is impossible. Deprived of all external faculties, those of the soul are increased, to enjoy glorious raptures when conversing with the Deity and surrounding angels." These conversations the blessed St. Theresa relates; and she further states, that after having remained about an hour in this joyous trance, she recovered her usual senses, and found her eyes streaming in tears, as though they were weeping for the loss she had experienced in being restored to earthly relations.