darkness that once overhung the whole earth, so helping Religion to break, like a sun, through the noxious vapors, and illumine the world. Those who are committed to the impossible task of identifying with Religion dogmas and customs that cannot bear the light may well be jealous of Science and her work. For just so certainly as she is of the race of the immortals, so certainly they must die. It is the old battle between Apollo and the dragons; and the issue is not uncertain. . . . Science can destroy only God's enemies and ours; for she is the very leader of the divine armies of light and truth. 8. One more point I wish to set down, not as an achievement, but as a hope, if not a prophecy. I dare to believe that some day this same Science will discover immortality. However firmly we may believe, we cannot yet say we know. I am aware that many have no question, and say they care for no more proof. But, when any man says, "I know," the utmost that he can honestly mean is that he feels a very strong assurance. I, too, believe. "I cannot think the world shall end in naught, "That e'er oblivion's shoreless sea shall roll O'er love and wonder and the lifeless soul." Neither have I any prying curiosity as to the details of that other life. But, in regard to the simple fact, I should like to feel beneath my feet the solid rock of demonstration. For could we not all bear with bravery and patience the incidents of a journey that leads to such an issue? Now, if this other life be a fact, and if its realities be not far away, if its activities press close upon us and mingle themselves with our daily lives, I see nothing unreasonable in supposing that one day this may be demon strated to the satisfaction of all candid men. Such, at least, is my hope. These, then, are some items in the debt of Religion to Science. Religion is man's search after right relations to God and to his fellow-man. Science, distrusted so long, is found to be the unfallen Lucifer, the light-bearer, God's very archangel, come to guide Religion into the discovery of these relations. Let them hereafter work hand in hand in completing the foundations and rearing the homes and temples of the city of God, which is the city of a perfected humanity. THE FAUN AND THE NYMPH. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. [The selection which we here present to our readers is from "The Marble Faun," in the opinion of many the finest of Hawthorne's works. We might readily have selected passages of more dramatic interest, but no part of the work more fully displays the peculiar faculty of its author than that here taken. The picture of the intense delight in and close communion with nature which Donatello displays, and his seeming lack of any powers of thought beyond those of mere physical enjoyment, form a brilliant realization of the Greek conception of the Faun, and the scene would have been fittingly laid under the glowing sunshine of Greece, three thousand years ago. Donatello passes from the antique to the modern world, in the birth of a soul, through the agency of crime, and thenceforth the purity and simplicity of his communion with nature are lost, though he grows to nobler heights.] DONATELLO, while it was still a doubtful question betwixt afternoon and morning, set forth to keep the appointment which Miriam had carelessly tendered him in the grounds of the Villa Borghese. . . . The scenery amid which the youth now strayed was such as arrays itself in the imagination when we read the beautiful old myths, and fancy a brighter sky, a softer turf, a more picturesque arrangement of venerable trees, than we find in the rude and untrained landscapes of the Western world. The ilex-trees, so ancient and time-honored were they, seemed to have lived for ages undisturbed, and to feel no dread of profanation by the axe any more than overthrow by the thunder-stroke. It had already passed out of their dreamy old memories that only a few years ago they were grievously imperilled by the Gaul's last assault upon the walls of Rome. As if confident in the long peace of their lifetime, they assumed attitudes of indolent repose. They leaned over the green turf in ponderous grace, throwing abroad their great branches. without danger of interfering with other trees, though other majestic trees grew near enough for dignified society, but too distant for constraint. Never was there a more venerable quietude than that which slept among their sheltering boughs; never a sweeter sunshine than that now gladdening the gentle gloom which these leafy patriarchs strove to diffuse over the swelling and subsiding lawns. In other portions of the grounds the stone-pines lifted their dense clump of branches upon a slender length of stem, so high that they looked like green islands in the air, flinging down a shadow upon the turf so far off that you hardly knew which tree had made it. Again, there were avenues of cypress, resembling dark flames of huge funeral candles, which spread dusk and twilight round about them instead of cheerful radiance. The more open spots were all abloom, even so early in the season, with anemones of wondrous size, both white and rosecolored, and violets that betrayed themselves by their rich fragrance, even if their blue eyes failed to meet your own. Daisies, too, were abundant, but larger than the modest little English flower, and therefore of small account. These wooded and flowery lawns are more beautiful than the finest of English park-scenery, more touching, more impressive, through the neglect that leaves Nature so much to her own ways and methods. Since man seldom interferes with her, she sets to work in her quiet way and makes herself at home. There is enough of human care, it is true, bestowed, long ago and still bestowed, to prevent wildness from growing into deformity; and the result is an ideal landscape, a woodland scene that seems to have been projected out of the poet's mind. If the ancient Faun were other than a mere creation of old poetry, and could have reappeared anywhere, it must have been in such a scene as this. In the openings of the wood there are fountains plashing into marble basins, the depths of which are shaggy with water-weeds; or they tumble like natural cascades from rock to rock, sending their murmur afar, to make the quiet and silence more appreciable. Scattered here and there with careless artifice, stand old altars bearing Roman inscriptions. Statues, gray with the long corrosion of even that soft atmosphere, half hide and half reveal themselves, high on pedestals, or perhaps fallen and broken on the turf. Terminal figures, columns of marble or granite porticos, arches, are seen in the vistas of the wood-paths, either veritable relics of antiquity, or with so exquisite a touch of artful ruin on them that they are better than if really antique. At all events, grass grows on the tops of the shattered pillars, and weeds and flowers root themselves in the chinks of the massive arches and fronts of temples, and clamber at large over their pediments, as if this were the thousandth summer since their winged seeds alighted there. What a strange idea-what a needless labor-to construct artificial ruins in Rome, the native soil of ruin! But even these sportive imitations, wrought by man in emulation of what time has done to temples and palaces, are perhaps centuries old, and, beginning as illusions, have grown to be venerable in sober earnest. The result of all is a scene, pensive, lovely, dream-like, enjoyable, and sad, such as is to be found nowhere save in these princely villaresidences in the neighborhood of Rome; a scene that must have required generations and ages, during which growth, decay, and man's intelligence wrought kindly together, to render it so gently wild as we behold it now. The final charm is bestowed by the malaria. There is a piercing, thrilling, delicious kind of regret in the idea of so much beauty thrown away, or only enjoyable at its half-development, in winter and early spring, and never to be dwelt amongst, as the home-scenery of any human being. For if you come hither in summer, and stray through these glades in the golden sunset, fever walks. arm in arm with you, and death awaits you at the end of the dim vista. Thus the scene is like Eden in its loveliness; like Eden, too, in the fatal spell that removes it beyond the scope of man's actual possessions. But Donatello felt nothing of this dream-like melancholy that haunts the spot. As he passed among the sunny shadows, his spirit seemed to acquire new elasticity. The flicker of the sunshine, the sparkle of the fountain's gush, the dance of the leaf upon the bough, the woodland fragrance, the green freshness, the old sylvan peace and freedom, were all intermingled in those long breaths which he drew. The ancient dust, the mouldiness of Rome, the dead |