disaical in their beauty. Landscapes are the most varied and charming, the water of the vast flowing river the clearest and most placid, and the sky, the very azure vault of perfection, whose horizon encompasses one of the most delightful localities of earth. Let us learn something of its history and romance, and sport awhile in this wondrous labyrinth of land and water. The region has a history which is full of romantic interest. When it was first discovered by Europeans, they found it a favorite resort of the red men, who called it Manatoana, or garden of the Great Spirit, because of the abundant fish and game. Their tents were seen dotting the islands and shores, and their canoes darting to and fro along the river. The river was discovered August 10, 1535, by Jacques Cartier, who named it St. Lawrence in honor of the saint whose feast is celebrated on that day. The first European who visited Lake Ontario was Samuel Champlain, in 1615; and in his meagre descriptions he mentions some beautiful and very large islands at the beginning of the St. Lawrence. It is supposed that some French explorers, who went up the river about 1650, gave the region its present name, “Milles Isles," or Thousand Islands. In the papers relating to De Comceile's and De Tracy's expeditions against the Mohawk Indians in 1666, the islands are complained of as obstructing navigation and mystifying the most experienced Iroquois pilots. In the year 1620 a Captain Ponchot described the region somewhat minutely in his journal, which was afterwards published in Switzerland, and there have been frequent allusions to, and descriptions of it, written and published from that time to the present. The picturesque scenery of this spot also seems to have made a lasting impression upon French artists, as one of the finest paintings that greet the eye of an American, on entering the Picture Gallery at Versailles, presents a view of these attractive wilds. We find them occasionally in the poetry and fiction of this latter period. The "Canadian Boat Song," by the great Isish poet, Thomas Moore, commencing: "Faintly as tolls the evening chime Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time," was written in 1804, it is said, on Hart's Island, in Alexandria Bay. During their passage down the river James Fennimore Cooper and Washington Irving visited the Thousand Islands, and were facinated by them. Cooper makes them the scene of some of the most interesting incidents of "The Pathfinder." During the past few years wherein the Thousand Islands have suddenly become one of the leading resorts for summer recreation, they have been prominent in the current literature and pictorial illustrations of the country. Newspapers and magazines have made them the subject of many long and interesting articles; reporters, essayists, romancers, poets and humorists have seemed to vie with each other in calling the attention of the public to this place of enchantment; and the consequence is that a vast and annually swelling tide of humanity flows that way, and many linger there from early June until late October. The first military post on Lake Ontario and the upper St. Lawrence was Fort Frontenac, which was established by the French, under the direction of Count de Frontenac, in 1673, on the spot where Kingston now stands. During the French war in 1758 this post was captured by an English army, commanded by Colonel John Bradstreet, who crossed over from Oswego. It then remained in British possession until surrendered again to the French, in whose possession it remained until a short time before the Revolution. Fort Carleton, the ruins of which are seen upon the upper end of Carleton Island, just below Cape Vincent, was built under the direction of General Carleton, as a British post, in 1777. During the Revolutionary war,and for some time afterwards, it was the principal military station on the lake. It was finally abandoned as a place of military defense in 1808. It remained in nominal possession of the British until the beginning of the war of 1812. The boundary line between Canada and the United States was definitely settled in 1822. The first steamboat appeared on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence in 1817, causing great excitement and demonstration among the people along the shores. Its name was the Oneida. In 1823 all the islands in the state between Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence, and Grindstone Island, in Lake Ontario, were granted to Elisha Camp of Sacketts Harbor, and all titles within these limits are traced to this proprietor. The Patriot War, which led to exciting military scenes and adventures on the St. Lawrence, occurred in 1837-39. The British steamer "Sir Robert Peel" was fired and burnt on the south side of Wells Island, on the night of May 29-30, 1838, and the "Battle of the Windmill" occurred at Prescott in November of the same year. There are nearly two thousand of these St. Lawrence islands, and perhaps one thousand within six miles of Alexandria Bay, this being the central part of by far the most beautiful and wonderful section of the river. They are nearly all small, usually varying in size from a few square yards of surface to several acres. Many of them are separated only by narrow channels, which are generally deep, but sometimes shallow. Quiet and inviting little bays are found here and there. All the islands are thickly studded with trees of rich foliage, but generally of moderate or stunted growth, many of which stand close to the water's edge, and afford cooling shade to passing boatmen. In the bays and by the sides of the islands are excellent fishing, bass and pickerel being the principal fish. But the famous muskallonge is sufficiently numerous to warrant the fishermen in expecting an electric bite from him at any moment, which will put his strength and skill to their utmost test. Wells Islands is the largest of the group. It is eight miles long, and from a few feet to four miles wide. Portions of it have been cultivated as farms for the last half century. Other parts are charmingly wooded, and some of its rock features are exceedingly picturesque. The lower portion is separated into two parts by the "Lake of the Island," which is connected with the river on the American and Canadian sides by two narrow channels. This quiet lake, three or four miles long, is fringed with rich foliage and occasional bold rocks, and is a favorite fishing and hunting resort. Upon this island are the Methodist camping grounds, and the large hotel, erected to accommodate the thousands who attend the annual camp meetings held there. Round Island near by affords similar accommodations for the Baptists who meet every year. Island Many islands of lesser note are occupied by their owners, who have in some instances spent fortunes in their improvement. Cottages, of modern fantastic architecture, are the rule, and upon the grounds and outbuildings an endless variety of taste is displayed in making them picturesque and beautiful. Royal, Warner Island, Pullman's Island, owned by the palace car builder, and occupied by luxurious buildings in which General Grant and family were entertained, Nobby, Rye, St. Elmo, Plantagenet, Sport, Devil's Oven and scores of others are scenes of resplendent summer life, where the rich while away the hot days of July and August in the most luxurious style of life to be imagined. Summer evenings the islands are illuminated with thousands of Chinese lanterns, festoons of colored lights stretching across the channels, from island to island, and when the soft silver glimmering of the moonbeams illuminate the waters or cast deep shades of banks and trees upon their surface, the ideal land of enchantment is discovered. Excursions upon small steamboats, threading the narrow channels, darting into picturesque bays, rounding jutting capes and silently floating upon the open breast of the wider channels are most facinating, and are made the delight of fairyland, by the sweet strains of the stringed bands secluded between decks. Dancing, feasting, boating and fishing are the occupation of tourists, and as they indulge in these the bracing air and the rest from care and labor restore ex hausted nerves, build up broken constitu- | tions and lure back to health and energy the tired laborers in all the vocations of life, who seek this famous resort which nature has so lavishly prepared for their enjoyment and repose. "The Thousand Isles, The Thousand Isles, HOW TO READ.-John Morley says: "Nobody can be sure that he has got clear ideas on a subject unless he has tried to put them down on a piece of paper, in independent words of his own. It is an excellent plan, too, when you have read a good book, to sit down and write a short abstract of what you can remember of it. It is a still better plan, if you can make up your minds to a slight extra labor, to do what Lord Stafford and Gibbon and Daniel Webster did. After glancing over the title, subject, or design of a book, these eminent men would take a pen and write roughly what questions they expected to find answered in it, what difficulties solved, what kind of information imparted. Such practices keep us from reading with the eye only, gliding vaguely over the page, and they help us to place our new acquisitions in relation with what we knew before. It is almost always worth while to read a thing twice over, to make sure that nothing has been missed or dropped on the way, or wrongly conceived or interpreted. And if the subject be serious, it is often well to let an interval elapse. Ideas, relations, statements of fact are not to be taken by storm. We have to steep them in the mind, in the hope of thus extracting their inmost essence and significance. If one lets an interval pass, and then returns, it is surprising how clear and ripe that has become, which, when we left it, seemed crude, obscure, full of perplexity. All this takes trouble, no doubt; but then it will not do to deal with ideas that we find in books and elsewhere as a certain bird does with its eggs-leave them in the sand for the sun to hatch and chance to rear. People who follow this plan possess nothing better than ideas halfhatched and convictions reared by accident. They are like a man who should pace up and down the world in the delusion that he is clad in sumptuous robes of purple and velvet, when in truth he is only half-covered by the rags and tatters of other people's cast-off clothes." Nature will nurse what we plant with care, And we to know it some future day; EXISTENCE As no branch of knowledge can vie with theology, either in dignity or importance, it justly claims to be the favorite study of every person endowed with true taste and solid judgment. From the time that writing was invented, the subject of religion has employed pens without number. And yet how many have failed in laying down true and wholesome doctrines, which would be a safe guide to the student in even the first of these OF A DEITY. principles, viz: Faith in the existence of a Deity. That task is far above my abilities. I propose only a slight and imperfect sketch, which I shall glory in, however imperfect, if it excite any one of superior talents to handle the subject more clearly. That there are beings, one or many, powerful above man, has been generally believed among the various tribes of men; notwithstanding what is reported of some gross savages, and the increasing growth of infidelity in our day. The belief in superior powers, in every country where there are words in the language to express it, is well vouched. Even the grossest idolators afford evidence of such belief. No nation can be so brutish as to worship a stone, merely as such. The visible object is always supposed to be connected with some invisible power. The ancient Egyptians were not idiots,to worship a bull or a cat merely as such; the divine honors were paid to a deity supposed to reside in these animals. In the same manner the sun-worship of some savage tribes is not properly the sun that is worshiped, but some deity supposed to dwell in that luminary. Taking it, then, for granted that belief in superior powers has been long universal, the question arises, "From what cause does this belief come?" A belief so universal and so permanent in different ages cannot proceed from chance, but must have causes operating constantly and invariably upon all men in all ages. Philosophers centuries ago, who believed the world to be self-existent, and imagined it and its natural laws to be the Deity, though without intelligence, endeavored to account for the belief in superior powers, from the terrors that thunder and other elementary convulsions raise in savages; and thence conclude that such a belief is no evidence of a Deity. Thus Lucretius writes: "When dread convulsions rocked the lab'ring earth, And livid clouds first gave the thunder birth, Instinctive fear within the human breast The first ideas of God impressed." If the author quoted means that such perceptions proceed from fear solely, I wish to be informed from what source is derived the belief we have of a superior Benevolent Being. Fear cannot be the source. The student of history knows that though malevolent deities might first have been recognized among savages, yet in the progress of society, the existence of benevolent deities was universally believed. If the belief were founded solely on fear, it would die away gradually as men improved in the know In propor ledge of causes and effects. tion, as the human understanding ripens, the belief of a deity turns more and more firm and authoritative. Those whose views have been enlarged and made more penetrating by proper influence and observation would say that the operations of nature and the perfect government of this world, which loudly proclaims a Deity, is sufficient to open the eyes of the grossest savage, and convince him that there is a Deity. To prove the argument, I might relate a conversation between a Greenlander and a Danish Missionary, recorded in an old history of Greenland of more than a hundred years ago: "It is true," said the Greenlander, "we were ignorant heathens, and knew little of a God till you came. But you must not imagine that no Greenlander thinks about these things. A kajak (a Greenlander's boat) with all its tackle and implements cannot exist but by the labor of man, and one who does not understand it would spoil it; but the meanest bird requires more skill than a kajak,and no man can make a bird. There is a little more skill required to make a man; by whom, then, was he made? He proceeded from his parents, and they from their parents. But some must have been the first parents-whence did they proceed? Reports say that they grew out of the earth. If so, why do not men still grow out of the earth? And from where came the earth itself, the sun, the moon, the stars? Certainly there must be some Being who made all these things, a Being more wise than the wisest man." The reasoning here from cause to effect is stated with simplicity and precision; and, were all men equally penetrating, such reasoning might be sufficient. There are moments in the lives of even those who are prone to be skeptical and infidel, that prove to us their fears of the vengeance of a Supreme Being. Alphonso, King of Naples, was a cruel and tyrannical prince. He drove his people to despair with oppres sive taxes, treacherously assassinated several of his nobles, and loaded others with chains. During prosperity his con science gave him little disquiet; but in adversity his crimes stared him in the face, and made him believe that his distresses came from the hand of God as a just punishment. He was terrified to distraction when Charles VIII of France approached with a numerous army; he deserted his kingdom, and fled to hide himself from the face of God and man. The theory of infidels is that the world, composed of animals, vegetation and brute matter, is self-existent, and that all events happen by a necessary chain of causes and effects. Though infinite wisdom and benevolence are conspicuous in every part of the creation, yet the great work of planning and executing the whole is understood by these socalled "Free Thinkers" to have been done blindly, without intelligence or contrivance. How highly improbable and absurd is the theory, assumed at pleasure, and left naked to the world without the least cover or support. Man alone has said, "There is no God;" all nature proclaims, "There is a God.” Go out beneath the azure canopy of night, and say if you can, "There is no God." Allow that fearful blasphemy to escape from you, and the glittering of each bright orb above will cause your conscience to reproach you. Every flutter of the wind will lament over you. Only man, the proud lord of creation, has dared to ignore the source from which he came, and by whom he lives and moves. Yet, look how "fearfully and how wonderfully is he made." Every muscle, tendon and part performing their proper functions-surpassing the most perfect mechanism. The eternal truth is plainly written on every page of the whole creation, in unmistakable language. There is a Being, whose wisdom is without limit, who reigns over all, and from whom all life, light and blessings flow. C. F. Olson. Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.-Hare. A great man is he indeed whose heart is large, but with no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong. A BEAR I HAD been employed by an eastern millionaire to gather a cabinet of mineral specimens, and on the twenty-first day of October, was ready to break camp at Long's Peak, Colorado. A hunter and mountaineer named Abraham Skinner and I had been hidden away in that wild and dismal locality for two months. We had been splendidly outfitted, having each a horse and pack mule, the best of firearms, and plenty of provisions, and our mission had been a success. had discovered many rich and rare specimens, and before turning in on the night of the twenty-first, the packs were made up ready for the animals on the morrow. We had been pasturing our horses in a long and narrow valley, which furnished an abundance of grass, and was watered by several springs, and nothing whatever had disturbed them or us. We had little fear of the Indians, who were then at We STORY. peace, and the wild beasts seemed to avoid us entirely. There had been a light snow fall on the sixteenth of the month, and on the eighteenth, ice formed in our water pail. The nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first were beautiful warm days, however, something like the Indian summers of the east, and we had no fear of not being able to reach Denver, which was only sixty miles away. Owing to the roughness of the country, this distance would consume at least three days. We had continued our camp in one place, having built a pretty substantial log house, and provided it with a fireplace. As the pasturage around the place was gradually eaten up, we moved the horses and mules farther and farther away, and on this, which we felt was our last night, they were at least half a mile up the valley. But for the immunity |