Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

39 , painting portraits of great merit , having returned from his three years study iu Italy ten years before ; and Richard Wilson , called by some our English Claude , M 48 , was wisely , on the advice of Zuccarelli , abandoning portraits for landscapesand had just exhibited his fine

, picture of Niobe , which was purchased by our illustrious Brother , William Duke of Cumberland . Whether Gainsborough himself was a member of the Craft , I know not ; if he was not , he ought to have been ; forin addition to his

, great artistic abilities , he was really prepared for it in his heart , possessing " those virtues , which , " as the Rev . " Matthew Pil-Jcington truly remarks , " were an honour to human nature , that generous heart , whose strongest propensities were to

relieve the genuine claims of poverty . " Therefore every Mason who can afford his mite , should subscribe to the monument of such a man .

There are those who have long laboured to persuade the world , aud who have in some measure succeeded in doing so , that but for the Church of Rome we should have been totally destitute of the Volume of the Sacred Law . The Rev . J . A . W ylie ,

LL . D ., is of a widely different opinion . He says—and many of my readers will endorse his remarks : — " It is idle in Rome to say , ' I gave you the Bible , and therefore you must believe in me before you can believe in it . ' The facts we have

already narrated conclusivel y dispose of this claim . Rome did not give us the Bible—she did all in her power to keep it from us ; she retained it under the seal of a dead language ; and when others broke that sealaud threw open its pages to

, all , she stood over the book , and , unsheathing her fiery sword , would permit none to read the message of life , save at the peril of eternal anathema . We owe the Bible —that is , the transmission of it—to those persecuted communities which we have

so rapidly passed in review . They received it from the primitive Church , and carried it down to us . They translated it into the mother tongues of the nations . They colported it over Christendom , singing it in their lays as troubadours

, preaching it in their sermons as missionaries , aud living it out as Christians . They fought the battle of the Word of God against tradition , which sought to bury it .

They sealed their testimony for it at the stake . But for them , so far as human agency is concerned , the Bible would , ere this day , have disappeared from the world , Their care to keep this torch burning i 5 one of the marks which indubitably certif y

them as forming part of that one true Catholic Church , which God called into existence at first by his Word , aud which , by the same instrumentality , he has , iu the conversion of souls , perpetuated from age to age . "

Professor Merrier Williams , who has recently made a winter tour in Southern India , declares its climate on the whole to be less trying to Europeans than that of England is during nearly half the year . Truethere are jungle swamps where

, malaria is generated by the great heat from the immense quantity of leaves that fall from the deciduous trees ; but the tropical table land is free from the intense heat

experienced m the lowlands of Northern India . The South , however , lacks the refreshing cooluess by night , and in winter , which is so refreshing in the North . Though the mountain scenery of the South is magnificent , it is not so sublime as the Himalaya range—a very ancient Sanscrit

term , I believe , to describe their being the " abode of snow ; " but there is a softer beauty arising from the verdant raiment with which Nature loves to robe those hills that are not covered with an eternal white winding-sheet .

The Rev . T . P . Gamier , M . A ., Rector of Gran worth with Southburgh , Norfolk , aud late Fellow of All Souls' College , Oxford , has published a well-written little work , entitled The Parish Church : a simple explanation of Church Symbolismwhich

, may be procured from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge for Eighteenpenee . With its theology I have here nothing to do ; though I may be allowed to state , without trespassing on Masonic non-sectarianismthat to the

, orthodox churchman it will be a boon m ~ deed . But to us disciples of that beautiful system of morality , which is veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols , whatever our particular creeds may be , a work on the symbolism of any Church must be

of interest , but more especially of one where so many learned and prions ministers , as well as laymen , are proud to don our badge of innocence upon all fitting ocea-