38 
EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 
men liad ceased to breathe the air of freedom, and were 
entombed as in a charnel-house. By controversy error is often 
eventually corrected, and truth elicited and established ; 
nor is there any necessary connection between free discus¬ 
sion and personal animosity.” 
There is no uniformity in Nature. She seems indeed to 
luxuriate in variety, and in beauty of form and of colour, 
adding to all these a love of alternation. “ It is the tower¬ 
ing sublimity of the cloud-capped mountain that makes the 
sloping verdure of the valley so delicious to the eye. The 
placid serenity of the summer sky is intensified in its 
loveliness by the awful grandeur of the intervening thunder 
storm; and then when the clouds have rolled away, what 
can be more beautiful than to watch the sun as he comes 
gleaming out in all the joyousness of recovered strength; 
his beams kissing away the moisture from the bosom of the 
tear-besprinkled earth, and making the leaves on the trees 
sparkle as if covered with gems, while the feathered 
choristers of the woods pipe out their delight in songs of 
thankfulness and praise to the Great Author of light and life.” 
Indifference, it has been observed,lias to be dreaded asmueh 
as controversy ; since by it no professional progress can be 
made. An apathetic mind may be compared to a dark and 
stagnant morass, inhabited only by ungainly and noxious 
animals and constantly giving off mephitic vapours all around, 
in which only reeds and rushes will grow, while a thick green 
slime covers its surface. An active, well-disciplined mind, on 
the contrary, is like a flowing stream, that, while it irrigates 
the soil, adds beauty to the landscape by its waters giving 
life to plants that grow on its margins gemmed with ever 
fragrant flowers. 
We are both pleased and satisfied with a survey of the 
past volume, believing that it contains matter of high 
interest to the profession, and affords proof of onward 
progress. It is quite possible that to some persons these 
commendations will prove obnoxious to suspicion from our 
being interested parties. They are welcome to entertain 
their censorious opinions, but be it remembered that we 
claim as editors very little of the honour connected with the 
