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Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1391, 25 April 1865, Page 8

Parsonitis,—That the criminal lawyer who has badgered his witnesses in a three hours cross-exami-nation, and then addressed a five speech to the jury, should go home hoarse as a bull-frog, if not actually voiceless, I can well understand. This man has been performing every instrument of the orchestra with his one poor throat. From oboe to ophocleide he has explored them all-in entreaty, conviction, scorn, pathos, defamation, ridicule, and lastly, to wind up, religion. No wonder if he should only be able to make signs to his wife at dinner, and pantomime his wishes for food and drink. But the Parson—the parson of honeyed words and dulcet accents—the bland, smooth-cheeked, oleaginous angel, the very creak of whose shoes whispers patience—he has none of these moods of violence, for, he it

remembered, we talk of sin with far less of reprobation than of the individual sinner • and no one that ever I heard laid the ' tame stress on the Decalogue as the most cimmon-piace quarter-session Chairman will do in sentencing a delinquent to the game laws. The abstract never has that tangible reality about it, that the smallest instance possesses, and for this reason I say the parson's task exacts less strain, lews violent effort, than that of other public speakers. And why for the third time, I ask, are these men the victims of an especial disease that now goes by their name and promises, like the Painter's Colic, to show the perils that attach to a peculiar calling ? The fact is there; there is no denying it: the speechless curates of the Jardin Anglais at Nice, the voiceless vicars of the Pincian, prove it. Physicians, lam told, confess themselves little «b!e to d<nl with iliis malady; they treat, and treat, and treat if, and end, as they ever do when baffled, by sending the patient abroad. Law and medicine have this much in common, that, whenever they are fairly beaten," they change the venue." Hence is it that every sheltered angle on tho Mediterranean, every warm nook on the " Corniche," has three, four, or fire mild-faced, pale men, sauntering amongst the orange groves, and whispering through a respirator. There is something so interesting in these people, deserted in a measure by physic, and left to the slow influences of climatesoft airs and softer attentions being their only medicaments—that 1 found myself eagerly engaged in thinking, first, what it might be that predisposed to the affection ; and, secondly, how it might be met by precaution. Cure, I need not say, I was not pre(umptuousenotigh toconsider, I cannot nowrecord how the subject baffled me—what combinations of difficulty met me here, what new and unexpected phenomena started up there; but I went steadily, carefully on. I amassed my facts, 1 registered my observations; and at last—-I hope it ii not in vain boastfulnessl declareit—l solved my problem. Few words will tell my explanation. The Parson throat is not the malady of necessarily loud talkers or energetic speakers; it is not induced by exaggerated efforts in the pulpit; it is not brought on by terrific denunciations, delivered in the trumpet-call, or mild entreaties, insinuated in the flute-stop of the human organ. It is simply and purely brought on by men persisting in preaching in an assumed, unnatural voice—a conventional voice, imagined, I suppose, to be the most appropriate tone to call sinners from their wickedness, and teach them to live better. You are startled by my explanation, but grant me a brief hearing. Who are the victims of this throat affection? Not the high-and-dry old rubicund parsons, whose bright, frank eyes and well-rounded chins, neat of dress, knowing in horse-flesh, strong in These hale and healthy fellows have one voice, just as they have one nature; the same note that summons the gardener to look after the dahlias cries to the congregation to take care of their souls. They are not, perhaps, out-and-out divines; there is a bucolic element through them that makes them what Sydney Smith used to call " Squarsons." They are, at all events, a very noble set of fellows and thorough gentlemen. These men are totally free from parsonitis; a case has never been known amongst them. Next come more muscular Christians, whose throats, attuned to the hunting-field, could perform, if called on, the office of a railroad whistle. These have no touch of the complaint.—Blackwood's Magazine.

The Source op Heat in the Son —It becomes necessary now that the present state of oar knowledge of the physical constitution of the sun should be examined. It is regretted that it is not possible to give the steps by which discoveries hare been made, or to discuss the claims of all the numerous laborious observers to whom we are indebted for them. A general review of the subject is all that our space allow?, and the high claims of those astronomers whose names appear not in this article are by no means disallowed. When the sun is viewed through powerful telescopes, its surface —that is, the luminous envelope of the mass—is seen to have a peculiar mottled or curdy appearance. Arago proposed that this envelope should be called the Photosphere, a name now generally adopted. By the elder Herschel, the surface of this photosphere was compared to mother-of-pearl. Other astronomers have said that it resembles the ocean on a tranquil summer day, when.its surface is slightly crisped by a gentle breeze, and an undulating play of light is reflected from these little billows. Irregular lines of light are sent back from the crests of the small waves, and lines of shadow indicate the hollows. Within the last few years Mr. Nasmyth has discovered a more remarkable condition than any that had previously been suspected. Examining the solar surface with a fine telescope of great penetrating power, this astronomer has discovered objects which are peculiarly lens-shaped. He himself describes them as more like " willowleaves " than anything else; but some other observers, since their discovery, have likened them to rice grains; and others, again, to some forms of Diatomaceae. These leaved forms are different in size ; tfcey are not arranged in any order; they lie crossing each other in all directions ; and they bare an irregular motion amongst themselves. They are, says Mr. Nasmyth, " arranged without any approach to symmetrical order in the details, but rather (if the

;erm may be used) in a sort ef regular random scatter-

ing." They are seen approaching to and receding from each other, and sometimes assuming new angular positions, so that the appearance, resulting from the combination of simultaneous motions amongst those forms, has been compared to a dense shoal of fish, which, indeed, they resemble in shape. Plate VII., which we have given, conveys a good notion of this. The size of those objects gives a grand idea of the gigantic scale upon which physical opera* tions are carried out in the sun. They cannot be less than a thousand miles in length, and from two to three hundred miles in breadth. The roost probable conjecture which has been offered respecting those leaf or lens-like objects is that the photo*phere is an immense ocean of gaseous matter in a state of intense incandescence, and that they are perspective projections of the sheets of flame. Whatever they may be, it is evident they are the immediate sources of solar light and heat. Here we have a surrounding envelope of photogenic matter, which pendulates with mighty energies, and by communicating its motion to the ethereal medium, in stellar space, produces heat and light in far distant worlds. We have said that those forms have been compared

to certain organisms; and Herschel says, " Though

it would be too daring to speak of such organizations as partaking of the nature of life, yet we do know that vital action is competent to develop heat, light, and electricity." Can it be that there is truth in this tine thought ? May the pulsings of vital matter in the central sun of our system be the source of all that life which crowds the earth, and without doubt

overspreads the other planets, to which the sun is the mighty minister.—Popular Science Review. A Day in the Moon.—A lunar day comprises a period of twenty-eight days like ours. We are familiar with the sublime spectacle of the sunrise upon the earth; that wondrous transformation with which the glories of the night dissolve into the glories of the day, when the watch stars close their holy eyes as the timid blush of morning kindles the eastern

horizon ; when the tide of light flows in to fill the celestial canopy; and when, as a climax to the changing scene, the glorious sun bursts open the gates of the morning and proclaims himself the lord of the day. How fearfully different is the vision of a sunrise upon the moon. No gentle transition from darkness to light, no imperceptible melting of night into day. From an horizon dark as a moonless midnight the sun slowly ascends, a lurid ball of brightness infinitely more dazzling than it can appear to an earthly eye, gilding the summits of the lofty mountains, and causing these to start forth like

islands of light in a sea of darkness, while their bases and surounding valleys are yet shrouded in impenetrable gloom. Slowly the silvery flood ot light pours down the mountain flanks, and the shadow, still of pitchy blackness, slowly shorten as the sun, after a lapse of 170 hours, attains

ts meridian height. Awful in its desolation, terrible in the grandeur of its sublimity is the lunar

scenery. The remote objects of the landscape stand forth with fierce distinctness,every fissure,every chasm

detail plainly visible, though many miles removed;

for no aerial perspective affords a measure of their distance. A silence still as death prevails, without

the whisper of a breeze or hum of animated life; even though the lips should quiver, and the tongue essay to speak, no sound could come from them. If we look aloft to the lunar heavens we behold the

stars, although at noonday, shining out in the dark black sky with a steady lustre, unsullied even with the effect of twinkling or scintillation, for these phenomena are due to the varying currents of an atmosphere. For fourteen days the sun pours down his fiery rays upon an arid soil never sheltered by a welcome cloud, never refreshed by a genial shower, till that soil becomes heated to a temperature equal to that of boiling water. Gradually the shadows

lengthen and the sun declines, but no crimson curtain of evening closes around the lunar landscape; and when the last rays ot the setting sun are lost beneath the horizon, no twilight intervenes, but a pall of fearful darkness falls upon the scene. And then succeeds a long and dreary night of 328 hours' duration, and a severity of cold that reduces the lately parched surface to a temperature probably 300 degrees below the freezing point of water.—Once a Week.