“Le plus sur est de croire.”

Something compelled me to write them, and a new freedom was with me when I had done so.

“Make haste, make haste, for the prayer-bell is ringing!” cried the President “See, here is a copy of Plato’s ’Phaedrus,’—­a work which our vapory brethren are fond of quoting, generally at second-hand; perhaps you may pick out a sentence that will prophesy with sufficient ambiguity.”

But it was not Plato or his “Phaedrus” that then claimed my thoughts.  There loomed a Rock graven with more august instruction than the sage of the Academy was privileged to communicate,—­a Rock against which the heaving surface of human opinion had chafed and broken in vain.  Tossed to and fro upon the tide of life, who has not sometimes listened to the wrangling voices which shouted, “Mystical Interpretation,” “Absolute Fiction,” “Huge Conglomerate of Myths”?  Whose eye has never been caught by the sparkling tinsel of modern philosophies, with their Seers, Heroes, Missions, Developments, Insights, Principles of Nature, Clairvoyance, and Magnetic Currents?  Happy those who are able to return to that one channel through which magnetic currents have indeed descended from an unseen sphere, and touched the noblest hearts!  For there is a certain mediation between the necessities and aspirations of man,—­an assured deliverance from the gross and sordid surroundings of his earthly life.  There came before me one simple period from a familiar Book.  Most direct and confident is the solemn statement.  I wrote it as the final motto.

     “NOW THE SERPENT WAS MORE SUBTILE THAN ANY BEAST OF THE FIELD WHICH
     THE LORD GOD HAD MADE.”

THE TERTIARY AGE, AND ITS CHARACTERISTIC ANIMALS.

In entering upon the Tertiaries, we reach that geological age which, next to his own, has the deepest interest for man.  The more striking scenes of animal life, hitherto confined chiefly to the ocean, are now on land; the extensive sheets of fresh water are filled with fishes of a comparatively modern character,—­with Whitefish, Pickerel, Perch, Eels, etc.,—­while the larger quadrupeds are introduced upon the continents so gradually prepared to receive them.  The connection of events throughout the Tertiaries, considered as leading up to the coming of man, may be traced not only in the physical condition of the earth, and in the presence of the large terrestrial Mammalia, but also in the appearance of those groups of animals and plants which we naturally associate with the domestic and social existence of man.  Cattle and Horses are first found in the middle Tertiaries; the grains, the Rosaceae, with their variety of fruits, the tropical fruit-trees, Oranges, Bananas, etc., the shade- and cluster-trees, so important to the comfort and shelter of man, are added to the vegetable world during these epochs.  The fossil vegetation of the Tertiaries is, indeed, most interesting from this point of view,