learned German, Baron Bunsen, whose muddy theory respecting the bed of the Nile proves, too clearly to be gainsaid, that man was a denizen of that enlightened country several thousand years before Adam and Eve 'delved and span' outside the garden of Eden. I have read with increasing interest the works of those great divines Bishop Colenso and the authors of 'Essays and Reviews,' who assuredly surpass in wisdom the Seven Sages of Greece; and I recommend you to treat with merited scorn and contempt the envious feelings of their opponents, who basely assert that they have stuck in the German mud, and that their mental darkness is as great as that which spread over the lar. 1 of Egypt when Pharaoh would not let Moses and his co-rebels' depart in peace. I have been studying, with great attention, the charming opinions propounded in Darwin's 'Origin of Species,' supported as they have been by the investigations of Professor Huxley, and as it has been unfairly charged against him that he is a mere plagiarist of the author of the 'Vestiges of Creation,' in order to correct such an erroneous notion I would remind you that, whereas the latter can only trace man's origin up to a maggot, the former, by his superior power of analysis, and higher order of criticism, has succeeded in tracing him up to the older race of the vegetable world, and in proving his lineal descent from the loud-smelling fungus, a fact of great importance, which no one with adequate reasoning powers will now venture to deny. But, gentlemen, I must be permitted to add in parting, that if you wish to know my own private opinion respecting man being an ape-descended animal, I frankly avow myself incompetent to decide so

difficult a question. Remembering the oft-quoted lines of one of the poets, who justly says—

'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,'

I would ask you to excuse me from giving judgment in so weighty a cause. For myself I will say this much, that although the actions of many of your race in the present day warrant the strongest suspicions of some mysterious relationship to certain animals, such as the goose, the ass, the ape, and the bear, I can only assure you that when I walked your earth it was as a very humble chimpanzee, and although I was the propagator of many little chimpanzees, I have no reason to think that they in their turn acted differently from their aged parent. Gentlemen, farewell,

'Farewell!

A long farewell to all my greatness." "

Notwithstanding the modesty of this illustrious chimpanzee, whose skull has adorned the cave of Neanderthal for so many ages before having been ruthlessly torn from. its quiet resting-place by tomb-despoiling man-nothwithstanding the positive denial of Professor Owen, the inference of the Master of Trinity, and the witty conclusions of Sydney Smith-the weight of authority (if

lead in brains be duly valued) appears most clearly in favour of the genus homo having once been the same as the genus simia; and by advancing a step higher in the realms of sober theory, we may with equal certainty conclude that he is in reality nothing more than an "improved vegetable," of which the Vegetarian Society in the present day affords such healthy specimens. Or, if we desire to trace the real root of man still higher, we may conclude the order of transmutation and the modus operandi to have been somewhat as follows.

We must, however, premise that the true origin of man, on the genuine "starting point,' is not given by any of the illustrious savants who reject the authority of the Mosaic record. Not one of them appears to have mounted higher in theory than the punctum saliens, or primeval point; but this must have had a humus, and the origin of the humus must have been, as an eminent Divine of the time of Charles II. once clearly proved, Nonentity!!!

On dit that the merrie monarch, wishing to test the ability of one of his chaplains, sent him notice, as he was mounting the pulpit, of the text from which he was expected to preach. The folded paper having been duly opened, the preacher only discovered a blank sheet, when with ready wit he seized the opportunity of rebuking the royal pleasantry, and of instructing the congregation at the same time, by exhibiting both sides of the blank sheet, and by addressing them in these words as a prelude to a most noble discourse :

66

My Brethren, here is nothing, and there is

nothing, and out of nothing God made the world." Thus in the course of about thirty transmutations, it may be fairly inferred that we pass from nothing to full-grown man :

1. Nonentity.

2. Humus.

3. Punctum Saliens.

4. Chaotic Nidus.

5. Mother Earth.

7. Vegetable Incunabula.

8. Seed in general.

9. Fungus in particular.

10. Turnip.

11. Bread-tree root.

6. Mineral Substance. 12. Baobab, or Ape's Bread-tree fruit.

We invite particular attention to the 23rd individual in man's genealogical tree as given above. He is supposed to be the lineal ancestor of that famous King of Egypt, whom Manetho mentions as chief of the Twelfth Dynasty under the name of Geese-on-Gooses. The "Book of the Dead" likewise speaks of a certain Pharaoh Sent, whom Egyptologists interpret as King Goose. It must be

It is said that nine of this species are required to make a complete man; and by a singular coincidence nine distinguished individuals have appeared in the course of ages, who deny the veracity of the Christian shasters; and, strange to say, the fatal number culminates in a Christian Bishop. They may be reckoned in the following chronological order: 1, Celsus. 2, Porphyry. 3, Spinoza. 4, Voltaire. 5, Volney. 6, Hume. 7, Gibbon. 8, Tom Paine. 9, Dr. Colenso, Bishop of Natal.