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be blistered. This happens if we are not looking at the hand when we put it down. If we know that we are going to put the hand on something hot we can make the action so quick that no harm ensues, as can be seen when a woman touches an iron to see whether it is hot enough to be used for ironing the clothes.

lay side by side, and each carried messages in only one direction. In the brain and spinal cord the two kinds of nerve matter can be seen quite distinctly, and so they can in what are called the beginnings or roots of the ordinary nerves that convey messages of both kinds. As we trace these nerves away from their roots, however, the grey and the white matters get so much mixed up that we cannot distinguish them. It is none the less likely, however, that even in these ordinary nerves the different sorts of messages keep to their own different means of conveyance. Is there not here a marvellous order to be observed? The messages can run side by side without interfering with each other. In this telegraph there needs be no "clearing of the lines" from one kind of message that the other kind may go forward. A singular result of this

"But," it will be said, "how is it that, if it is the brain which feels, our head is not continually aching? We hurt our hand, and our hand feels." This is one of those things which seem to be, and which in reality are not. A little thinking on what has just been said will show that our hand, if ever so much injured, only feels when the nerve communication is uninterrupted between it and the brain. But the fact that we seem to feel it in the hand or whatever part has been injured is quite true, and is expressed in the follow-doubleness of the nerves, as we may call it, ing phrase, that the brain refers all sensations to the ends of the nerves. This is so much the case that when a man has lost his arm or leg through accident, if anything makes the cut nerve ache, he will tell you that his arm or his leg aches still, although it is cut off. The fact that the pains seem to be felt by the injured part serves to protect us, and the brain is not wearied directly by the pains of the body.

Some of our nerves are told off for special service. They have one thing only to do, and that thing we are bound to see that they are trained to do well. Such are the nerves of sight, of hearing, of taste, and of smell. These all have special work to do, and they do that and no other, so that we have clear messages brought by them. What sources of pleasure and of instruction are thus opened to us!

By far the greater number of the nerves of our body have, however, two kinds of work to do. By the same nerve messages are sent both to and from the brain and the spinal cord. But the messages are of different kinds; and, marvellous to relate, they pass into the spinal cord and the brain by different parts of the same nerve. When the brain and the spinal cord are examined it is found that nerve matter is of two kinds, different in structure, and different also in colour. These are called the grey matter, and the white matter. It has been found that, beyond doubt, the messages of feeling (sensory messages as they are called) go to the brain by the grey matter; and the messages ordering motion to take place (motor messages) are carried out from the brain by the white matter. It is just as if two telegraph wires

is, that one part of a nerve may be rendered powerless by injury or disease, while the other part still remains in working order. Thus if the white root of a nerve be injured, the power of feeling remains, while that of motion is gone in all the parts to which the branches of that nerve are sent. If the grey root be injured, the power of motion remains, but feeling is gone.

When a message is sent along one set of nerves to the brain it may give rise to action in a totally different set of nerves from that by which the message has been conveyed. For instance, a sudden, sharp noise is heard, and as a result the hearers start; some, perhaps, scream. Here a message of sound has gone by the nerve of hearing to the brain. It has gone so sharply and suddenly that it has set in motion the nerves which have jerked the muscles all over the body, and caused us to start. Now here the brain has acted by itself so to speak. The impulse set going in one pair of nerves, those of hearing, has been carried on into a great number of other nerves, and the will has had nothing to do with it. It is as if one end of a long row of marbles or a long string of beads had been pushed, and the impulse had been carried all through them. But the peculiar character of this action is, that the brain has changed a message of sensation into a message of motion by its own act. We can control the jerk of our muscles a little perhaps, and certainly, unless our nerves are very unhealthily sensitive, we can control the scream; but we cannot prevent the jerkthat is a thing which the brain has set going on its own account. This brain power of turning one kind of message into another

without the intervention of the will is one of our highest gifts. Because we possess this we can be trained to do certain actions as a result of receiving certain impressions; and though at first the process of causing the action to follow the sensation is a slow one, yet the two may be done one immediately after the other again and again, till at last the one will follow the other without our thinking about it at all. The soldier who falls into certain positions as soon as he hears certain sounds, acts almost like a machine when he has learned his drill, though he went through much hard work when he was taught. We see the black marks on this page, and (if we read aloud) we utter certain sounds which we have been taught to produce when we see these signs. The nerve of sight conveys a message to the brain, and all the nerves which set the tongue and organs of speech in motion are thereupon made to act. Look at a child learning to read; see how slowly he perceives the differences of form in the signs, and by what distinct efforts of will he has to set his voiceorgans into the proper positions to produce the sounds which he is told to associate with these signs. This power of the brain to be trained to produce mechanically-i.e. without our having to at all consider certain movements as the result of certain messages sent to it, and to learn to do this quite certainly, lies at the foundation of all education. The brain-the great centre of the nervous system-has a very important and valuable assistant in the spinal cord, the great nerve which runs out from the brain down the canal in the centre of our spine. All the nerves from the legs, the arms, and most of those from the trunk, are united to the spinal cord, If any injury has happened to the spine, through accident or disease, so that the spinal cord ceases to act, all the parts below the injury would be, as has been already said, paralyzed; and no messages could go either from the legs to the brain or from the brain to the legs. It would seem, therefore, that all power of feeling and of motion would be quite gone; and so far as connection with the brain and real feeling are concerned, that is true. Any injury inflicted on the feet would send no message to the brain, and would not be felt. But, if the feet be pinched or tickled, a message does go up the nerves

of the leg as far as the spinal cord, and when it reaches that, the impulse passes out of that part of the nerve which generally conveys sensation into that part which generally gives orders of motion, and the tickling or pinching is followed by jerking of the legs. The movement of our legs in walking and various other actions of our body are controlled by the spinal cord without giving trouble to the brain. If it were not so, every walk that we take would need so much thinking that it would be a labour instead of a pleasure. As it is, we can use our brain for thinking while we walk, and, in fact, our legs carry us, as though they had power to think for us, wherever we want to go.

All

The brain itself, the ruler of all, is a marvellous structure; the nature and uses of its various parts being, as yet, far from fully understood. One part of the brain, however, gives rise to all the nerves which bring to the brain messages as to hearing and taste, which move the tongue and throat, and which help to control the heart, the stomach, and other internal organs. Another part has for its great office the control of the balance of the body, and the action of this part is disturbed when a man has "put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains." But lying actually above all these, and in man covering and extending over them all, is that great part of the brain which is the means by which we exercise our powers of thinking, feeling, and willing. How it does that, we know not. we know is that when this highest part of the brain is injured, our mental powers are lessened-they are destroyed, lost. Fibres from the lower part of our brain pass into this higher part, and it is certain that the action of this higher part of the brain can interfere to control the actions of the inferior portions. What a lesson are we hereby taught! Man's higher brain power gives him control over the impulses which he has in common with the lower animals. He can rule over these, and he is bound to do so if he wishes to attain that higher life to which his calling as a Christian requires him to aspire. The whole structure of our nerves and the control under which they are placed point out that we are bound to "strive for the mastery" over our lower impulses, and to attain kingship in that kingdom of God that is within us.

THE TWO PATHS:

Dia Dolorosa and Dia Giojosa.

BY FRANCES RIDLEY HAVER GAL.

MY Master, they have wronged Thee and Thy love: They only told me I should find the path

A Via Dolorosa all the way.

Even Thy sweetest singers only sang

Of pressing onward through the same sharp thorns
With bleeding footsteps; through the chill, dank mist,
Following and struggling till they reach the light,
The rest, the sunshine of the Far Beyond.
The anthems of the pilgrimage were set
In most pathetic minors, exquisite,
Yet breathing sadness more than any praise.
Thy minstrels let the fitful breezes make
Æolian moans on their entrusted harps,
Until the listeners thought that this was all
The music Thou hadst given. And so the steps
That halted where the two ways met and crossed,
The broad and narrow, turned aside in fear,
Thinking the radiance of their youth must pass
In sombre shadows if they followed Thee;
Hearing afar such echoes of one strain-
The cross, the tribulation, and the toil,
The conflict, and the clinging in the dark!
What wonder that the dancing feet were stayed
From entering the only path of peace!

Master, forgive them! Tune their harps anew
And put a new song in their mouths for Thee!

Lord Jesus, Thou hast trodden once for all
The Via Dolorosa, and for us!

No artist-power or minstrel-gift may tell
The cost to Thee of each unfaltering step,
When love that passeth knowledge led Thee on,
Faithful and true to God, and true to us.

And now, belovèd Lord, Thou callest us
To follow Thee, and we will take Thy word
About the path which Thou hast marked for us.
Narrow indeed it is: who does not choose
The narrow track upon the mountain-side,
With ever-widening view, and freshening air,
And honeyed heather, rather than the road,

With smoothest breadth of dust, and loss of view,
Soiled blossoms not worth gathering, and the noise
Of wheels instead of silence of the hills,
Or music of the waterfalls? Oh, why
Should they misrepresent Thy words, and make
"Narrow" synonymous with "very hard ”?
For Thou, Divinest Wisdom, Thou hast said
Thy ways are ways of pleasantness, and all
Thy paths are peace; and that the path of him
Who wears Thy perfect robe of righteousness
Is as the light that shineth more and more
Unto the perfect day! And Thou hast given
An olden promise, rarely quoted now,
Because it is too bright for our weak faith:
"If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend
Days in prosperity, and they shall pass
Their years in pleasures." All because Thy days
Were full of sorrow, and Thy lonely years
Were passed in grief's acquaintance-all for us!

Master, I set my seal that Thou art true!
Of Thy good promise not one word hath failed,
And I would send a ringing challenge forth
To all who know Thy name, to come and tell
Thy faithfulness to every written word,
Thy loving-kindness crowning all the days;
To say and sing with me, "The Lord is good;
His mercy is for ever, and His truth
Is written on each page of all my life!"

Yes! there is tribulation, but Thy power
Can blend it with rejoicing. There are thorns,
But they have kept us in the blessed way,
The king's highway of holiness and peace.
And there is chastening, but the Father's love
Flows through it; and would any trusting heart
Forego the chastening, and forego the love?
And every step leads on to "more and more:
From strength to strength thy pilgrims pass, and sing
The praise of Him who leads them on and on,
From glory unto glory even now.

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