We must not be surprised to find that even the highest works of God come to an end. Everything with an end, beginning, and origin, has the mark of its circumscribed nature in itself. The duration of a universe has, by the excellence of its construction, a permanence in itself, which, according to our ideas, comes near to an endless duration. Perhaps thousands, perhaps millions of centuries will not bring it to an end; but while the perishableness which adheres to the evanescent natures is always working for their destruction, so eternity contains within itself all possible periods, so as to bring at last by a gradual decay the moment of its departure.—Kant.
[PICTURES FROM ENGLISH HISTORY.]
By C. E. BISHOP.
IX.—THE SORROWFUL QUEEN.
There was some perturbation in the C. L. S. Circle about “reading novels,” what time “Hypatia” was on the list. If the objectionable element in such reading is its improbability and contrariety to reason, those who are still opposed to it are warned not to read the life and adventures of Margaret of Anjou, some time queen of King Henry VI. It is not alone that her adventures were strange and her character remarkable, when truthfully described; she was the subject of romance writers of willful and, it is to be feared, malicious natures, only they called themselves “historians,” “chroniclers.” Their writings therefore are more objectionable than straight fiction, because they deliberately pervert truth and ask us to believe it. The best we can do with all the accounts of the Wars of the Roses is to weigh one story against another, and select that which pleases our reason or fancy better—just as a purchaser of novels does.