that all the children of Adam and Eve could

unite in a common song. Of all the organs

of the body, therefore, the ear is the one which, though for its present gratification it is beholden solely to the passing moment, can with the greatest confidence anticipate a wider domain hereafter.

3d. In consonance with that home in eternity for which the Ear expectantly waits, to it is promised the earliest participation in the life to come. This divinely authenticated fact appears to have made a profound impression on men of genius of all temperaments since the days of our Saviour's presence upon earth. Many of you must be familiar with that beautiful hymn of the Latin Church, the "Dies Ira," in which the solemnities of the last judgment, and the sound of the trump of doom, are echoed in mournful music from the

wailing lines. Sir Walter Scott translated this Goethe has introduced a striking

sacred song. portion of it into the cathedral scene in Faust,

where the Tempter assails Margaret. Martin

Luther's hymn reads like an echo of it. After all, it is itself but the echo and paraphrase of passages in the New Testament; and Handel, when he composed the "Messiah," went to the original for those words which he has set to undying music. From these words we learn that the summons to the life to come will be addressed first to the Ear, and it first shall awake to the consciousness of a new existence; "for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

III. THE NOSE.

The Organ of Smell we are apt to regard more as an ornamental than a useful appendage to our faces. So useless, indeed, do a large portion of mankind esteem it to be, that they have converted it into a snuff-box; it was given us, however, for a different purpose. It is a much simpler construction in all respects than the eye or the ear; and as it stands closely related to the necessities of

animal life, it is more largely developed in the lower creatures, such as the dog, who hunt their prey by the scent, than it is in ourselves. But we are largely endowed with an organ of smell also; and besides its practical importance as a minister of the body, it has a close relation to our emotional nature, and therefore an æsthetical aspect which will be noticed in the sequel. Its construction may be explained in a word. A glance at the cleft head of a dog or a sheep will show that the nostril opens into a large arched cavity, with many curled partitions partially dividing it into additional spaces. The walls and arch of this cavity are constructed of bone, and lined with a soft, moist, velvety membrane, resembling that inside the mouth. Over this membrane spread a multitude of small threads or nerves resembling the twigs of a branch; there are many such branches within the nostril, and they join together so as to form larger branches, which may be compared to the boughs of a tree. These finally terminate in a number of stems, or trunks, several for each nostril, which pass

upwards through apertures provided for them in the roof of the arched cavity, and terminate in the brain.

We have thus, as it were, a leafless nerve-tree whose roots are in the brain, and whose boughs, branches, and twigs spread over the lining membrane of the nostril. This nerve is termed the Olfactory; when we wish to smell anything-for example, a flower-we close our lips and draw in our breath, and the air which is thus made to enter the nose carries with it the odorous matter, and brings it in contact with the ramifications of the nerve of smell. Every inspiration of air, whether the mouth is closed or not, causes any odorous substance present in that air to touch the expanded filaments of the nerve. In virtue of this contact or touching of the nerve and the volatile scent, the mind becomes conscious of odour, though how it does so we know as little as how the mind sees or hears; we are quite certain, however, that if the olfactory nerve be destroyed, the sense of smell is lost, and that the nerve is largest in those quad

rupeds and birds whose sense of smell is most

acute.

Besides its endowment by the olfactory nerve, or nerve proper of smell, the nostril, especially at its lower part, is covered by branches of another nerve (known to anatomists as the fifth), of the same nature as those which are found endowing every part of the body with the susceptibility of heat, cold, smoothness, roughness, pleasure, and pain. It is on this nerve that pungent vapours, such as those of smelling-salts, strong vinegar, mustard, and the like, make the sharp impression which all are familiar with. In ordinary language, this impression is not distinguished from that of the odour of the body occasioning it. The volatile compounds of ammonia or hartshorn, for example, which are styled par excellence" Smelling-salts," are serviceable in dispelling drowsiness or faintness, not by the impression of their vapour on the proper nerve of smell, but on the other, or fifth nerve, which is spread over the lower internal part of the nostril. Hartshorn and similar bodies,