

EDITOR'S TABLE. 



7S7 



done by Government. Court-houses 

 are built by the State, anil usually with 

 a large regardlessness of expense. But 

 they are the work of architects, and are 

 constructed more for external ornament 

 than internal use. They please the eye 

 of the passer with their stateliness, and 

 asphyxiate the judges within. Money 

 is profusely spent, and the building un- 

 fit to be used. And so with all places 

 where politicians congregate, and Gov- 

 ernment provides the edifice. There 

 came a wail from Washington during 

 the last session that our Congress- 

 men were being stifled by the bad ven- 

 tilation of the House of Representa- 

 tives. Millions upon millions have been 

 put into the structure, and the whole 

 world is called upon to come and ad- 

 mire its grand proportions and impos- 

 ing effect, while the legislators within 

 are being suffocated. The best Govern- 

 ment in the world strangles its law- 

 givers with mephitic gases instead of 

 allowing them to breathe pure air. 

 But, before sickness and death can 

 come by poisonous inhalations, there 

 are stages of atmospheric deterioration 

 in which the mind only is affected. 

 The brain, the immediate instrument 

 of thought and feeling, receives and 

 requires the largest proportion of pure 

 arterialized blood of any portion of the 

 body. This is necessary to its functions, 

 so that we cannot think, remember, 

 compare, reason, and judge well, ex- 

 cept in pure air, which maintains the 

 mind's organ in its highest vigor and 

 keenest action. Long before judges die 

 and Congressmen take sick they must 

 pass through this stage of cerebral de- 

 pression, blunting of the sensibilities, 

 and perversion and deadening of the 

 mental operations. How much of the 

 stupidity of legislation and the miscar- 

 riage of its judicial application may be 

 due to the muddled brains of law- 

 makers and judges from breathing the 

 pestilential air of legislative halls and 

 courts of justice, it may be impossible 

 to tell, but the inquiry is suggestive. It 



is also pertinent to ask, What sort of 

 education can these parties have had, 

 to submit to these conditions, even to 

 the destruction of health and life* 



THE "CONFLICT" AND THE "WAR- 

 FARE." 



The anxiety with which historic 

 works on the relations of science and 

 religion are now sought is a fact of 

 special interest, and we think it a salu- 

 tary symptom of the state of the public 

 mind. Science has opened the ques- 

 tion, and the world is taking hold of it 

 in earnest. " The History of the Con- 

 flict between Religion and Science,'' by 

 Dr. Draper, while being most vigorous- 

 ly pooh-poohed by those who did not 

 like it, has steadily made its way, 

 through translation, into nearly all the 

 i Continental countries, and is at last so 

 loudly called for even in benighted 

 Spain that two editions of it by rival 

 publishers are reported as having ap- 

 peared in Madrid. What possible or 

 conceivable hope is there that religion 

 and science in that country can ever be 

 brought into genuine amity until there 

 is first an intelligent recognition ol 

 what have been their past relations ? 

 President White's brief but telling 

 sketch of " The Warfare of Science," 

 though first widely circulated in the 

 pages of this magazine, had to be re- 

 printed, and in a few weeks has reached 

 a third edition in this country, while it 

 has been republished in England, and 

 will undoubtedly be translated, as it 

 deserves to be, into the chief European 

 tongues. The merit of these works, and 

 the secret of their success, are not more 

 due to the ability with which they have 

 been prepared, or the manly and fear- 

 less tone with which they discuss ques- 

 tions of the gravest importance, than 

 to their opportune appearance and 

 adaptation to the wants of a rapidly- 

 widening audience of thinking people 

 in all countries. War-literature is al- 

 ways popular, but it is beginning to be 



