The Warwickshire Herald. — 1887-12-08 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

THE ROMANCE OF THE RAZET..  Virgil states that hazel twigs were used to bind the vines; but that, the roots of the nut tree being considered injurious to the vines from their spreading character, spits of hazel were also used in the sacrifice to Bacchus of the goat that browsed on the plants sacred to him. In niediseval times considerable respect seems to have been paid to the hazel, and many cases have been recorded both in England and ou the Continent, of the occurrence of hazel wands in the coffins of ecclesiastics, possibly in commemoration of a pilgrimage performed by the deceased. But its chief importance was for see derived from its supposed magical powers of divination. The use of the divining rod would seem, from Hosea iv. 12, to be of extreme antiquity, and the " virgula Mercurialis," as it was termed in Roman times, though sometimes, as now, made of willow or other wood, or even of metal, was frequently of hazel. Its virtue was supposed to depend upon its having two forks, which were so grasped in the fi,ts with the fingers uppermost, that the free end might tun downward toward the object sought. In othor cases the rod was peeled and simply laid on the pAlm of the hand. In the fifteenth century this art of divination was named rhabdounancy. "It is," says Evelyn, "very wondeiful, by whatever occult virtue, the forked stick (so cut, skilfully held) becomes impregnated with those invisible streams and exhalations, as by its spontaneous bending from a horizontal posture to discover not only mines and subterranean treasure and springs of water, but criminals guilty of murder, &c. . . . . . Certainly next to a miracle, and requires a strong faith." Even Linnseus confessed himself to be half a convert to this belief, and the practice of "drowsing," as it is there called, is still common in Cornwall and other western countries. According to the local superstition, the rod is guided to the metalliferous lodes by guardian pyxies, the " ko.,bolds " of the German miner. From " Familiar Trees."  THERE is the love of the good for the good's 'Ake, and the love of truth for truth's sake. I have known many, especially women, love the good for the good's sake; but very few, indeed, Ind scarcely one woman, love the truth for the truth's sake. Yet without the latter the former may become, as it has a thousand times been, the source of persecution of the truth—the pretext and motive of inquisitorial cruelty and party zealotry. To see clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately identical, is given only to those who love both sincerely and without any foreign ends.—S. Coleridge. IF thou be too nice in endeavouring to find out who are the impostors among those who profess to be in went, the real object may perish, which otherwise thou mightest have relieved, and whose life might have been thereby eased. The very punctilious and scrupulous people who will sift everything to the bottom in every case, and before they will act must be fully satisfied in all points, seldom do any good, and are themselves good for nothing. While they are observing the clouds and the rain, others have "joined hands with God, and made a poor man live."—Dr. Adam Clarke. WE .‘re so constituted that, the more our animal nature is curbed and restrained, the greater becomes the soul's supremacy over it; but, on the other hand, the more we indulge it and yield to its demands, the more we lose our power of selfcontrol, until at length the will is utterly dethroned, and we are carried headlong down the path to hopeless disaster.