ITS ORIGIN.

It is curious to observe that life insurance, which has so favorable a bearing upon our social and moral, as well as material welfare, had its origin, so far as its plan of practice is concerned, in the study of the laws of chance as observed in the experience of the gambler ; the one, however, is the very antithesis of the other. In life insurance the individual is protected against risks by union for mutual safety 'with his fellow-men. The gambler takes the single risk upon himself, and is generally the loser in the end, and his average, if he obtain it can only accrue from the duration of his play while the policyholder in the Mutual

Life Insurance Company, through the co, operative influence of thousands of his fellow-members and under laws established by experience as unchanging, secures at the start a known result, to wit : that protection and additional security for which he seeks ; and it may be truly said, that the man who has his own looking to him for support and fostering care, and who has the opportunity of insuring his life for their protection, and does not do it, is the gambler ; taking the single risk upon him-self.

Fire and marine insurance preceded life insurance in point of time, the former having existed as early as the tenth century. The pre-dominance of self in human nature sufficiently explains why insurance against pecuniary loss, by fire or at sea have preceded the purely benevolent desire to mitigate the sorrows and sufferings of others by an insurance upon our own lives ; and on the part of organizations to provide the opportunity and way. Life insurance is the application of the doctrine of probabilities of life and death to practical uses ; it is based upon the most accurate mathematical calculations of the tables of mortality that can be devised. IT was practiced centuries ago—earlier than most writers have conceded,—though upon a rude and in-definite plan, and upon no well.founded or ac-curate system of calculation ; while the theory of practice originated as we have stated. Its real source, however, was in that humane and Cod-like desire on the part of good and honest men to make, in case of their death, some suitable provision for the beloved ones dependent on them for support. Since this beneficent system first commenced its noble work, it has been practiced to a greater or less extent in the more enlightened countries of the world ; but in no country and among no people has it been reduced to so great perfection or practiced with such success, and to so large an extent,as in the United States of America. There are now in this country fifty-five life insurance companies, with an aggregate capital, or amount of assets, of $108,997,470.89, insuring 349,339

persons ; the amount at risk reaching the enormous sum of $986,864,895.43 ; and a considerable business done by foreign companies. These figures will at once convey to the mind of the reader the immense importance life insurance has attained in our land, the wide influence it is exerting, and the intense interest it is Awakening among the people generally. This is a sufficient reason for our devoting so much space to a consideration of this subject ; and if we can direct the attention of an inquiring public to a safe and reliable life insurance company, we be live, as public journalists, we cannot better subserve their interests. But before