It has been long held by farmers that the neighborhood of barberry bushes produces rust in wheat, and science has recently established this opinion-has shown that the well-known orange-red spots so common on the leaves of the barberry, caused by a fungus, develop minute secondary seeds, which appear on the wheat in the shape of rust. A barberry hedge was recently planted on one of the railway embankments in the Cote-d'-Or, in France, when immediately the crops of wheat, rye, and barley in the neighborhood became infested with rust- which was unknown before in the district. The railway company's own commissioners, after investigating the case, admitted that the account of the origin of the disease given by the farmers was correct, and considered them entitled to compensation. So, also, a species of blight on the pear-tree is closely connected with a glutinous parasite which grows on the juniper.

Analogous to this natural fact is the spiritual one, that "evil communications corrupt good manners." We have a tendency to become like those with whom we associate; and if our friends are tainted with special evil practices, we lie very much at their mercy, if not to ruin us, yet to make us unhappy and sin-stained-to rob us of self-respect, and cloud us with perplexity. Christians are not altogether exempt from the common failing of falling into worldly and not scriptural estimates of men and things-of being misled by the customs of society, and adopting the peculiar conventional code of morality followed by the multitude among whom they live. Instead of giving examples of a higher standard of morality, they descend to the level of the average rate. The evils of the world cleave to them; their very Christianity is infected with worldliness, and thus becomes stunted, diseased, and uninfluential. ("The True Vine," by Hugh McMillan.)