1. First, one thinks of sin, the negation of eternal life, the condition that renders it impossible. To whom, as men who have sinned, can we go for words of eternal life? Who but the Christ has ever spoken of the forgiveness of sins in a way to satisfy the fears and moral instincts of the soul? Is it not the consciousness of sin in us which makes the fitness and grace of Christ the Saviour so great? If we were faultless beings, we might be more indifferent to him-we should not so need him. Because we are sinners we so crave him, so rejoice in him. His name is called Jesus, because he saves his people from their sins. To whom else can we go? He only has the words of eternal life. He who himself never sinned-he who took upon him our sins—he who died for our sins-who else has such words of eternal life ?

2. Then we think of our moral disorder, of our inability to resist evil, of the damage and degradation of its power; and He speaks as the great Physician. He himself has never known its disease. No one could convince him of sin. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." His very example is the first great hope for the sinful. Humanity had never before known a sinless being. He proved that sin is not a necessity of our nature. And then, how holily he taught!-every word was a holy inspiration. And what wondrous ways of holy helping he unfolded! The Comforter would convince us of sin-would dwell within us as an inspiring, sanctifying power —would make us new creatures, would renew us day by day. Whoever spake words of eternal life like these? Our hearts confess them; they exactly meet our sense of need. We need much more than teaching, we need spiritual renewal. speaks the very thing. Can we turn away from the only Teacher who ever spake the great words that men needed?

He

3. Then we think of the sorrows and trials of life; and he speaks to us as the great Comforter -speaks to human sorrow as no one ever did before-to the tempted, the fallen, the afflicted, the bereaved. How wisely, how sympathetically, how tenderly he spake! How he was touched with the feeling of our infirmities! What tears he shed over human sorrow! Where among the benefactors of men is so Divine a pity as his to be found. If we turn away from him, to whom shall we go? With what a sinking heart we should relinquish his Divine comforts!

4. Then there is the great darkness and helplessness of death that must befall us all; death, that wraps up life in a mystery; death, through fear of which we are all our lifetime subject to bondage-the shadow feared of man. Who else has spoken words of resurrection life? Where else can

Who else has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light? Who else has the keys of hell and death?

Now just think of these four great necessities of human beings-sin, sinfulness, sorrow, and death; and test the words of Christ by the consciousness of want. Who speaks concerning these like him? Who can say anything concerning them that can give comfort at all. Turning away from him, to whom shall we go? To rationalism— the unaided speculations of human reason? To scientific materialism—the desperate negations of men who ignore half the phenomena of human life? To philosophic scepticism-the imaginations of men like Comte, whose brightest speculations go out in utter darkness? The world has no other system of thought at which the heart does not shudder. The words of Christ are the only words which satisfy it and make it glad.

It is this practical realisation of what Christ is, of the fitness and preciousness of his words and of his salvation, that is our talisman against all infidelity, temptation, and sin. Whatever men may say about Christ, whatever difficulties they may start, whatever disregard and dislike they may show, he is all this to our individual hearts. It is the old, convincing argument-"Whether this man be of Christ, I know not. This I know, whereas once I was blind, now I see." I have found in him light and life, salvation and joy. I have communed with his heart; I have felt the touch of his tenderness, the clasp of his love. To me he is an infinite preciousness-all that he was to Mary when she sat at his feet-all that he was to John when he reclined upon his bosom-Saviour, lover, friend. It is thus that we realise the preciousness of Christ; not through catechisms, and creeds, and histories, and philosophies about him, but through experiences of him—of his gracious forgiveness and magnanimity, as we fall at his feet in penitence of his unfailing help, as we cry to him in our need-of his Divine converse, as we walk by the way, or sit with him at table-of his infinite tenderness, delicacy, and succour, as we weep over our dead. We know him, not because of the word of others, but because we have seen him and heard him ourselves-because we have tasted and handled of the Word of Life. "To whom, then, shall we go?" He only has the words of eternal life. Our souls have felt their touch, and been inspired by their power.

Is there any one who does not thus feel his need of Christ? What is the vague unrest—the tedium of life-the conscious lack of something that would make us holy and happy-but a dumb yearning for the living Christ? We feel the thirst; he alone can give the living water that slakes it. We feel the yearning; he alone has the eternal life

luminary must appear twice as large to her inhabitants-if she have any-as to us; and the solar rays must descend upon her with a fervour twice as strong as that with which they reach our planet. Even seen from the earth, so luminous is the aspect of Venus at certain periods, that the body of the planet may be discerned with wonderful distinctness through its transparent atmosphere.

The great use of the observation of the transit of Venus over the sun's disc is to determine the sun's horizontal parallax-an element of very great importance, since by it we are enabled to calculate the distance of the earth from the sun, and, indirectly the distances of the other planets, as well as fixed stars.

The transits of Venus over the sun's centre occur alternately, at intervals of 8, 105, and 121 years. The last two occurred in the years 1761 and 1769; so that any one now living who beheld this latter must be at least one hundred years old, to have seen it even in infancy.

The following table exhibits, in a convenient form, the transits that have taken place, and that will take place, for a period of more than three hundred years; and also illustrates the order of the intervals at which these phenomena occur :

The position of the planet is apparently very different, as seen by different observers during a transit; that is, to a person on one side of the earth, at the same instant of time, it will seem on a different part of the sun's disc, from its apparent position, viewed from the other side; and it is by a comparison between these apparent different positions—as viewed at different places during the transit-that we obtain a basis for calculating, and working out, some of the most wonderful problems of astronomical science ever mastered by the mind of man. Among these great solutions, the most important is the sun's horizontal parallax; which, as determined by the observations on the transit of 1769, is eight seconds and six tenths; or, according to Professor Encke, as the result of his observations, 8" 5776.

The transit of Venus, when viewed in the light of that knowledge it enables the human intellect to grasp, is one of the most sublime of celestial phenomena. It has been twice observed under circumstances that make the history of the event sublime of itself. Among these interesting circumstances may be related the following:

About the year 1635, there appeared in an obscure village, some fifteen miles distant from Liverpool, a young student remarkable for elevated tastes and devotion to scientific studies. He was

much esteemed, even among the unlearned, for his amiable disposition, for the rectitude of his intentions, and for a religious life, that gave to those around him an example of more than common excellence. Ere he had reached the age of eighteen, he had mastered the most profound reasonings and calculations of astronomical knowledge. When others were idling, or sleeping, it was his delight -a delight amounting at times to rapture-to gaze upon the celestial scenery, and wander in fancy among the silver and golden worlds shining up on high.

A poet truly said that "the undevout astronomer is mad;" and we are told that Pascal was so overwhelmed at one period of his life by his conceptions of creative wisdom and power, that, in view of his own imperfections and deviations from the exact path of rectitude, he deemed it a sin to so much as look upon a beautiful landscape!

The young English enthusiast, of whom we are writing, was also subject to those grand elevations and depressions of spirit, to which common minds are unused; and, as he penetrated deeper and deeper into the great abyss of knowledge, his luminous soul seemed sublimated above all that was mean and grovelling on earth, and to dwell in an atmosphere of purity seldom attained by man. He felt that "all on earth is shadow, and all beyond is substance;" or, in the words of another poet-who, in a moment of true inspiration, has expressed in golden words the same gem of thought-he regarded "the stars but as the shining dust of his Divine abode, and the pavement of those heavenly courts where he should one day dwell with God."

The name of the young astronomer was Jeremiah Horrox.

Always happier when under the warm influences of loving companionship, he had found a friend of congenial tastes in James Crabtree, a young Manchester gentleman-also an astronomer and enthusiast in science.

The tables of Kepler, although somewhat inaccurate, indicated to these youthful savans the near approach of the transit of Venus. The indication greatly interested them. Should the event take place at the time foretold by the revised and corrected calculations of Kepler, it would verify the deductions of astronomical science, and furnish a means for calculating and solving some of the most stupendous problems ever presented to the human mind.

In the weary hours that other men devote to relaxation from toil, Horrox studied and ciphered; until he had himself wrought out and corrected the great tables of Kepler; and of himself, not only demonstrated the occurrence of the phenomenon, but fixed its very date.

Having become satisfied with the exactitude of

his calculations, he communicated the result confidentially to his friend.

The transit of Venus had never been seen by mortal eyes. Could it be possible that this vision, withheld, as it were, from the very dawn of time, would be first disclosed to this boy astronomer? Days, months, and years passed, and still the earth rolled on. The memorable year at length came, and the memorable autumn, with its fading pomps and falling leaves. The memorable day itself arrived, and found the young astronomer watching he alone watching among all the aspirants to knowledge that then peopled the earth! It was the Sabbath; a shining day in November (old style). In a dark room sat the trembling Horrox-now just past the age of twenty-his glass poised, and a white sheet of paper, on which to receive the sun's image, spread out before him. Would the shadow of the planet ever darken that immaculate sheet, unfolded to receive, as it were, a revelation from the very finger of the Infinite? The sun moves toward the zenith; the paper is still spotless; no pen comes writing from the far abyss of space! Suddenly a peal of music falls on the clear cool November air. Horrox hears. It is the ringing of church-bells, calling the devout to worship.

Shall he leave his post, and perhaps lose for ever the great disclosure? Shall he allow the celestial messenger to write that grand message unread?

He deliberates, and soon decides. The worship of his great Creator may not be neglected even to view the works that he has made, or the phenomena he has instituted.

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"I observed it," says he, "from sunrise till nine o'clock; again a little before ten; and lastly at noon, and from one to two o'clock; the rest of the day being devoted to higher duties which one might not neglect for such pastimes."

Horrox fell a martyr to science at the early age of twenty-two. But he did not fall, until he had linked his name to the very stars of heaven; and, we may add, that no monarch has a more enduring memorial.

Life is not always to be estimated by years. "Here he lies who was so many years, but lived only seven," was the inscription on the tomb of Similis of Xiphilim. The writer of the epitaph correctly estimated the life of Similis, for the great man lived usefully but seven years.

James Gregory died at the age of thirty-six; and Pascal and Torricelli at thirty-nine. Yet each of these men lived longer, in his generation, than most of those who go down to the grave with silvered locks and tottering limbs.

Kepler was poor; but he declared that he would rather be the author of the works he had written, than possess the whole duchy of Saxony. Horrox died young; but he must have felt that the usefulness of his brief busy life was of more value than long years of idleness.

About a century after his great discovery, there dwelt at Germantown, Pennsylvania, U.S., another youth, who aspired to be an astronomer. His parents were poor, and he himself was inured to poverty and hardship, in the days of his childhood. The age of fourteen found him a ploughboy on his father's farm. His brother relates, that when he was accustomed to go out to the

Here, then, amid the many deceptions of mankind, do we find one soul whose principles were fundamental. We may doubt the correctness of his reasoning at that momentous hour, but we cannot withhold our admiration from the man.

When the church service had ended, he returned to his observatory, and once more stooped over the sheet of paper. Providence seemed to have stayed the event to spare the pious youth a disappointment. As his eye fell upon the smooth white surface, he saw that the hand of the Invisible was writing! On the open sheet was a shadow; and in that shadow a new revelation of science to excite the wonder of the world.

We love to dwell on those moments of sublimity, that to the true worshippers of science repay the toils and sacrifices of a life. But in all our researches after gems from this precious mine, we have never found anything more sublime than the young astronomer's own account of the event especially the reason he gives for suspending his observations as he did.

he often found the fences at the heads of the furrows covered with numerical calculations! Here indeed was a ploughboy. But it is in such schools of training that men of true genius are developed.

His name was David Rittennouse. His parents were respectable people, and worthy members of the Society of Friends; but, owing to their limited resources, they discouraged his philosophical studies. If ever a young man struggled to strike off the fetters that restrained the outgrowth of a great intellect, it was he. His character was of a solid cast, and his genius no wandering light, but a luminary burning with a tranquil and steady flame. He, too, devoted to study the hours that others pass in recreation or repose.

Again the time for the transit of Venus drew near; and the coming event, now expected and better understood, excited the attention of the lovers of science in every enlightened land. Expeditions were fitted out on a scale of unusual magnificence by the British, French, and Russian Governments; in order that the phenomenon might