with only that one amusement, the watching the rolling waves, and hearkening to their melancholy music.

There approached his chamber door without two persons.

the doctor of the asylum.

One was

"We can but try it," he said to his companion. "Give me the letter."

"You are sure it will not injure him ?" said the other.

"Anything is better than his present lethargic condition," replied the doctor. "He is very nearly if not quite sane now, but his bodily health must give way unless we can rouse him. Perhaps he had better not see You can hear what passes. I will leave the door open."

you.

So saying, the doctor entered the room.

"I have a letter for you, Mr. Marsden."

He did not speak, nor manifest any surprise, though many dreary months had gone by since he had attempted to read anything. He mechanically took the letter, and the doctor retired.

"We will go in again presently," said the doctor to his companion, "but I hardly think he will read it.' He was mistaken, however. At first, Marsden turned the letter about slowly without sign of any emotion. Then suddenly a sharp thought seemed to run through his brain, and he sprang from his seat. open the letter, looked at it for a moment, fell into his seat again, and remained for some minutes perfectly passive. He then slowly raised the letter from the ground, on to which it had fallen, and read as follows:

He tore

"DEAREST HENRY,-It could not be that I should not say one word at parting. Do not grieve for me. If I thought that these few words could pain, instead of comfort you, though the writing them throws sunshine on the path which is now so nearly at an end, they should never be penned. My object is-in the hope that health and strength may return to you, and life long be spared-to say something in these few farewell words which, being remembered, may serve to render the future which may lie before you indeed happy.

"Henry, there may come a brighter day. The dark clouds now above you may pass, and you may almost be tempted to forget the present period of trial. But oh, do not forget it! However great the change may be which you may accomplish, recollect this time of sorrow. And if it will help you to bear in mind the lesson we have both learnt from it, think of me and of this farewell, not else—not else.

"God bless you! It is night as I write this, and as I lie down to sleep I feel that there is no waking for me in this world. But to you may be granted many many years. Oh, let them, dear Henry! be years through which shall brightly shine the light of truth and honour; and then, if occasionally there shall steal into your heart thought of her whose last act is to think of you, she will seem to bend over you with a smile and with a blessing.

"MARY."

There was no visible effect produced on Marsden by the reading this letter, for he was presently again watching the waves, now glistening under a full moon, and hearkening to their hollow murmur.

THE PAST RECESS-ENGLAND'S MISSION.

BY CYRUS REDDING.

ANOTHER year has flitted past us, and a new parliamentary campaign is on the point of opening. The legislative recess has been of less than ordinary political interest at home. The retailers of things they know and do not know, with minds like Covent-garden, places for all sorts of wares, would have had to live on lenten fare but for the criminal returns. Our domestic incidents have exhibited little favourable to the improvement of our moral character. The overwhelming desire to be rich covers a multitude of sins in a community constituted like our own. The utility of honesty as the most useful policy towards gain, had not, until recently, been so notoriously set at nought by those who had no shadow of excuse to plead. The desire to cut what is called a "respectable" figure in life, has painfully exhibited how much those are mistaken who appropriate to the desire for wealth, in our advanced social state, an improvement in common honesty. The vanity of a wealthy reputation rules. We must needs appear what we are not, if we turn thieves for it; we must thieve to be "respectable," that is the cant term. "Poverty," as Petronius says, 66 may be the sister of a good understanding ;" but our shrinking modesty and sympathy with the "respectable" will pardon that lack, and walk the streets with a loose character in borrowed satin, rather than tolerate the best understanding in plain stuff of its own. Appearances must be supported if we hand over our virtue in exchange. The spirit of avarice, which increases with wealth, by placing subordinates in tempting and responsible situations, upon salaries that just keep them above want, expecting them at the same time to confer credit on their paymasters by a superfine coat and superior manners, aids in the corruption of the low-minded and illeducated. Genuine high-mindedness is getting shy of modern society. Criminals by profession have recently stamped upon offences the cowardice and cruelty, rather than the heroism of crime. Their doings were, after all, innocent of the hypocrisy which characterised the recent offenders in search of "respectability," by its purchase with the money of other people. They did not rob to become governors of hospitals, and profit by a reputation for charity. They were plain, downright, straightforward, consistent rogues, not covetous enough to expect money and respectability" too. Why did not some of the friends of the respectable" knaves get up testimonials for them-a favourite mode just now of overreaching popularity. Everything goes by the mode. In one rogue's case the plea of charity would have served admirably. We wonder the hero of that tale never thought of having something of a testimonial, through a hint to his friends: perhaps he feared it was become too vulgar.

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A dread of the Pope during the recess, considering the 5th of November had to be passed, was natural among old ladies, and an assemblage of the other sex, easily mistaken for such, met to make a martyr of the Maynooth grant, trembling at the thought of the Roman conclave. A Chartist shout for Frost, the returned convict, awoke no echo. Transportation and ticket-of-leave grants have been again subjects of

discussion, the ticket-of-leave system having failed. Applied for a second offence it seems a most unobjectionable punishment. New Holland, nearly equal to Europe in extent, offers many eligible sites for convicts, without interfering with any of the present colonists. Statesmen of enlarged minds cannot pass over the origin of our present magnificent colonies in the East. In a few years the first erring generation disappears, one portion of it having become good citizens, the other, incorrigible, having passed to the grave, with its crimes. Then succeeds a better state of society, and an enlarging traffic. We have burdened posterity with debt; we are equally bound to afford it some counter advantages.

The contumacy of Archdeacon Denison in regard to the Thirty-nine Articles was a sort of interlude during the recess. We do not understand splitting hairs between the south and south-west side. The archdeacon knew the sense in which his superiors read the articles of his faith, and -he should not have signed them at first rather than have attempted to misinterpret them. Why did he not fling off his gown and relieve himself, if the matter were really one of conscience? This discussing petty points of doctrine, in place of attending to the practice of Christian duties, tends to neutralise all connected with the faith itself, and to make the world believe religion consists in dogmatic points. There is still a tendency to drag back into the jaws of past superstition everything connected with religion, and to extol obsolete and pagan ceremonies. Men immersed in business are little acted upon by the designing in this way, compared to the fair sex, who have leisure to listen to absurdities as well as verities, and, in their misled sincerity, to draw the male part of their families into the path of retrogradation. Even in our later ecclesiastical edifices we see the most gloomy and least cheerful examples of departed times selected as the architectural share in preparing the way for the restoration again of ecclesiastical superstition and narrowness. This its advocates denominate a "restoration to the true faith," meaning the ridiculous absurdities of the middle ages. Our streets are deformed with architectural examples of this kind. Why should not religion, regulated by "the Book," as a good bishop phrased it, keep pace with the advancement of everything besides? The first reformers are not to be deemed infallible; yet their labour, under a thousand disadvantages, is not to be improved, but corrupted.

Public meetings have been held for the introduction of Maine law, regardless of its anti-constitutional character. A law to prescribe what we shall drink and eat is a return to sumptuary enactments no more to be tolerated where freedom of individual action exists. The Gin Act of the last century, and its fate, ought not to be forgotten. The vagabond will not pass a public-house without putting on the character of a beast-he is but one in a thousand. That does not matter; the thousand must be deprived of what they do not abuse, and have the right of freemen to enjoy, in order to accommodate wretches who say they cannot resist temptation. Let such be punished when found in a state of inebriety, even double the punishment upon repetition, but do not narrow individual right to accommodate vice. Let us have no more coin, because coin tempts thieves to take purses. Publicans, whose capital is invested in their calling, are to be sacrificed, with their property, to an immense

extent, having as good a right to carry on their business as any other class paying the public dues. "But the fine gin palaces?" True, some of these "paint damnation gay" to the sot, but they are comparatively few, and we believe often more the property of rich distillers than those whose property they really appear to be. Every man is the son of his own actions, and public offences are answerable before the magistrate, while for private offences man is answerable to God. It is an abhorrent principle to punish those who use the gifts of Heaven wisely because a few bad men abuse them. Ebriety has greatly decreased of late years. In 1742, eight millions of population consumed nineteen millions of home-made spirit; in 1850, twenty-seven millions consumed about twenty-three millions. They should have consumed three times the quantity, had they maintained the old standard. Scotland, of the three kingdoms, is that to which the character of inebriety attaches most extensively; at present in the proportion nearly of three to one. There is an idle love for legislation abroad. We may soon expect to find a public officer appointed to gauge the mouths of her Majesty's subjects, if legislation is to proceed to such lengths. A mania has existed, too, for preventing the sale of poisons, because the use of poisons has been so wickedly applied in some recent instances. This has been a popular cry. At least a hundred substances of a most useful character must not, in such a case, be sold. But everybody knows that foxglove, nightshade, and a dozen other plants found in every field, are at hand for an infusion with hot water, mortal enough for the strongest humanity. These must be destroyed throughout the kingdom, to make all complete. Perhaps a set of commissioners to watch over dykes and ditches for the destruction of noxious plants might be a sequel to such new preventive services; unluckily, knives, fire-arms, and rope must still remain. Such outcries exhibit great ignorance of principles. Laws are for our protection; their attempted amendment of domestic manners, as in the restraint of the glutton, or the regulation of costume, would render existence intolerable. Every man must be the "son of his own actions," and the moment such actions injure society publicly, let the law step in.

Education has continued to extend itself, though, for "education," we should say "instruction" in reading and writing, which are but the key. This is cheering as far as it goes, but then comes the important question of the application of the key to the elements and the subsequent formation of the mind by reading and reflection. This is an important point not yet duly considered. More is expected from the acquirements of reading and writing than will ever be realised. How to proceed further is the difficulty. The majority of criminals not being able to read and write, because the majority of the class from which they come cannot do so, seems to be considered of too much weight; but we must not dilate further on this copious topic.

The languor prevalent in the last sitting of parliament, which seemed to infect the recess, was perhaps to be placed to the exhaustion of the war excitement. Unlike former wars, no portion of our vast commerce was placed in jeopardy. We had not to recover from commercial losses and injurious interruptions in trade before we began fresh speculations. We started from the level which existed before the war, during which the prosperity of our trade continued. When the conflict was over, we had

only to continue our uninterrupted progress. The subject of politics was naturally absorbed in the speculations of the mercantile world consequent upon the transition from war to peace. The trade returns of 1856, for the first nine months of the year, exceeded those of 1855 by above fifteen millions and a half sterling, the total being little short of eighty-five millions. The total for the year, to December 31, reached the enormous sum of 72,218,9887.; the exports for the year to 120,000,000l. To the absorption of individuals in their business, to confidence in the government, to silence among the advocates of abstract theories, and to the satisfactory rate of wages, must the tranquil state of the country be ascribed. This increase in the revenue, too, arises from a consumption beneficial to the people.

The admirers of American freedom have been startled at the savage proceedings stimulated by President Pierce in Kansas, and at the display of personal outrages in the Senate, which it would be difficult to parallel in any other country. The reign of law has been openly set at defiance, and it has been proposed among the southerners to make slaves of white as well as of black men. President Pierce's crafty message, we are glad to see, lets foreign affairs remain as they were. These are all that concern The recess has been unlucky for those who float best in troublous times, and seek in the turbid waters of popular distress for the spread of their doctrines, exhibiting the little hold anarchy has upon the general mind when there is fair remuneration for labour, and the poor are not ground into dust by taxation without employment, under the struggle of overwhelming necessities.

us.

Thus, commerce flourishing, manufactures extending themselves, and political excitement not to be aroused from its slumber to gratify discontent, it is not wonderful that both the public and the exchequer benefit through the increase of exports and imports, although provisions were dear from uncontrollable causes. There can be no better proof of the wisdom of ministers in terminating the Russian war at the first moment it was possible to do so with honour. War is a criminal necessity, and no desire to humiliate a foe justifies its prolongation an hour beyond the duration of that necessity.

We every day see plainer the wisdom of the peace, if it cost a conference extra. It is remarkable how we prattle about our Christianity when it will serve our turn, and fling it aside to suit our passions or interests. Time, the great revealer, shows that our past opinions on the peace were not erroneous. We are fully occupied, we are growing rich, in Europe at least all are peaceably inclined, and in politics the principles which produce those effects are not to be challenged. For us we hope the time is not so remote when

Useless lances into scythes shall bend,

And the broad falchion in a ploughshare end.

Our population has continued to increase a certain sign of the general weal. There exists a continuous activity in new pursuits arising out of our surplus capital. This confers a benefit upon other countries, and makes us respected in the remotest regions, because we are always met there in connexion with a greater display of moral or physical power than any other people.

The public mind was not affected by the want of finish in the Russian