Statesmen are not even yet disabused of the idea that Russian and European destinies, like the lines of the parabola, can approach for ever without ever coming into contact. Men seem to think that some squinting treaty looking every way and no way, or blinking the only interest it would appear to stare upon, is the necessity of the time-Diplomatists, if it be left to them, will continue to substitute darkness for safety, ambiguity of clauses for opposition of forces, paper for iron, and back-doors for ramparts in front-Poland is the only rampart that will stand; and unless we raise it up, ministers may outwit each other upon details and win their little victories with their customary little arts; but the solid victory will remain with Russia-nay we can suppose her to play the part of the penitent and vanquished, and consent like Sampson to be bound with bonds of her own choosing, that she can snap without an effort; but we, who know the secret of her strength, how long are we to trifle with our opportunity?—Let us lay it to heart that Russia is beyond her own control, and that nothing short of a physical obstacle can arrest her progress. A great and fanatical people set in motion by the superstition of a destiny, is no more master of its own will than an avalanche detached from the mountain; and you might as well attempt to arrest the one by artificial obstructions as the other. It is only the opposite mountain, the natural barrier in a word, that can offer an effectual resistance-Poland, we say once again, is that barrier, and can expect to have no other-Poland belongs to the West by religion, civilization, tradition, manners, feelings, instincts, antipathies; and while Russia holds a single fort in the West, Europe is threatened and defied-Goldsmith, a mere poet, an unfortunate scholar, a philanthropic vagabond, who never learned diplomacy, and had as little acquaintance with red tape as with the red ribbon; a few years before the first partition of Poland, felt and described the danger of Russian preponderance in the West more forcibly than any one of us all appears to understand it now. "A fort in the power of this people," he says, "would be like the possession of a flood-gate; and when ambition, interest, or necessity prompted, they might then be able to deluge the world with a barbarous inundation." When Goldsmith wrote, the possession of a single fort by Russia in Western Europe was almost an improbable event. We now find her conterminous with Austria, Prussia, and Turkey; overawing the first, fascinating the second, and on the point of swallowing the third.

We have no occasion to enumerate the successive encroachments of Russia, or mark them by degrees of latitude-The newspapers have done that sufliciently for any good purpose-if there be any possibility of getting into the right track, we have every fact and every argument as broadly before us as human wit or divine Providence can shape them.-If we require time for deliberation at this stage of the question, enlightenment may come of it, one day or another, but meanwhile the world will go round and events will revolve without waiting for us.-We know all that we can hope to know, and unless we have to act upon the evidence before us we cannot expect to act at all-Are we to shut our eyes upon the sun and refuse his service, under promise of a ray that started from some yet undiscovered star in the morning of the creation, and will reach us in its own good time, as it does not loiter on the way.-Public opinion as yet has never taken the direction of Poland-We yawn horridly over an occasional provincial meeting of more than average stupidity professedly in favor of Poland, but where that unhappy country, as unfortunate in her sympathizers as in her tyrants, is swamped in the perilous stuff thrown off about Italy andIHungary. The favours of England to distressed nationalities, have been as indiscriminate, as fallacious and as ruinous as a prostitute's. "A teeming mistress but a barren wife," she plighted her troth to liberty, and intrigued with revolution: she sinned with conspiracy and brought forth disaster.-A different course is open to her now-an opportunity of retrieval and reparation such as occurs but once in a history, has arisen, and is passing. The greatness of England, the greatness of France; liberty, civilization, progress, peace and safety for Europe, are concerned in her decision; but she deceives herself, she deceives the expectation of the world, she is false to her glory, false to her repose and false to her conscience, if she abandon PolandThe Restoration of Poland is still possible-how long will it continue so? In human affairs there can be eventually but one moment's interval between, time enough, and too late-Even now that moment would seem to be present; it solicits, but it cannot tarry. "O Jerusalem, would that thou hadst known and that in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace.”

SYSTEMS.

1. The Twenty-first Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, (for the year 1854). Dublin: Thom. 1855.

2. Fifteenth Report of the Church Education Society for Ireland. Being for the year 1854. Dublin: 1855.

Dull and thoughtless indeed must they be who can pass by the noble edifices raised for the education of the poor in our Metropolis without being moved with feelings of pride and gratification. Those buildings stand as so many testimonies of the good and noble-minded men who have struggled in the grand and glorious cause of Popular Education, and to whom the Irish poor are, and ever will be indebted.

Those acquainted with the state of education in Ireland some twenty years ago, can only appreciate the effects that the National System of Education has wrought upon the Country which then was steeped in ignorance, an ignorance which a grand system of education, like the National, alone could remove. In this great national system and as part of it, plans were devised and first adopted for securing in a peculiar way native talent, for the work of instruction and for training it where found in such a fashion as to make its re-production in teachers a second time most effectual-in this as in the great question of Religion, the Commissioners have set examples of ability and forethought to all who are, and may be engaged in a kindred cause.-Strenuously have they carried out the wise and judicious principles upon which the system has been founded, namely, absence of all compulsion, and avoidance of all restriction, as far as the religious feelings of the community are concerned. The failure of the Kildare Place Society, was to them a great lesson, and the present generation feels the practical effects of that lesson. The unwise policy of the supporters of the Kildare Place system, who foolishly thought that the Irish people would suffer their children to be instructed by a system of Education which aimed at the subversion of their peculiar religious convictions, was its ruin. The Roman Catholic part of the community saw that it was a "mockery, a delusion, and a snare," that when their children "asked for bread, they were offered a stone," and the slow conviction was at last forced on the Kildare Place Society itself, that their efforts were a vain and useless labor, and yet, though short the time was, that it was in operation, it produced some effects fraught with evil to the people of Ireland, and to the

State at large, for it was the cause of spreading over the land mischievous disunion and religious animosity.

They tried to force on the poor what they dare not attempt on the rich, and failing in this, they formed themselves into a body "of a vindictive few," and continued to declaim against a system based upon principles of liberality and religious freedom.

If the tree is to be judged by its fruit, what greater testimony of the fairness and superiority of the National System can be desired than the following:

"It was stated, on the sworn testimony of several witnesses examined before the committee, that in five thousand schools, attended by upwards of half a million of children, in charge of about six thousand teachers of various religious denominations, not a single case of proselytism had ever been established on satisfactory evidence. The proselytising spirit by which so many religious persons of different creeds are actuated in their efforts to disseminate the blessings of instruction among the children of the Irish poor, renders this crowning triumph of the national system the more extraordinary. It may be fairly asked, has not its success been unexampled? has not it attained the first and most important object of the eminent statesman by whom it was founded? has it not realized the anticipations of the most honored and distinguished men of the present age, of all parties, who have given it their support? has it not gained the confidence of the great majority of the people?"*

That it has succeeded in effecting all here stated, its most strenuous opponents must admit, and that it has been. productive of feelings of affection among the rising generation of the lower classes of the country, there are none who can in honor or justice deny. The Rules issued by the Commissioners. for the guidance of teachers of National Schools, are such as cannot fail if properly carried out to have a most salutary and lasting effect upon the minds of those children committed to their care. By the observance of those rules, besides attending to the mere literary instruction of his pupils, the teacher inculcates the principles of Morality, Honesty, and Truth, and teaches them to obey and respect their parents, and all those placed in authority over them. Their duties as Christians to each other, are read out to them by the teacher from the General Lesson, without interfering for a moment with the tenets of any religious persuasion.

It must be obvious to those who have at heart the amelio

We have taken the above extract from a review and compendium of the minutes of evidence taken before a select committee of the House of Lords, 1854.

ration of the condition of the poor of Ireland, that the most effectual step to its attainment has been the introduction of the National System. The success of the system is unparalleled, the good it has effected illimitable, it is admired and lauded by England's greatest statesmen, and appreciated by every true patriot of our own country. Protestants, Catholics, and Presbyterians, forget all religious differences in supporting the system, and justly prize it for its effects on their common country, and the most illustrious and noble peers of the realm. have raised their voices in its behalf, seeing that it has done more to cicatrise the wounds inflicted by party and sectarian animosity, than any measure ever adopted by the British legislature, and whatever may be the objects contemplated by its opponents, we can only say that it is illiberal and calculated to revive the religious hatred that existed between creed and creed, before the blessings of united education were diffused amongst the Irish poor. Every body who has paid a serious attention to the working of the system, must be aware of its steady progress, in promoting harmony and goodwill amongst the rising generation. In the National Schools, but especially in those immediately under the Commissioners themselves, religious discord is never heard, and if united education has met some little opposition from a few, and so been retarded in some parts of the country, who can deny that it has suc ceeded, aye triumphed in the ModelSchools throughout Ireland? Who has ever visited the Commissioners' School in Marlborough Strect, and taken the trouble to investigate the system in its real working, that has not come out satisfied that it is the one most suited to the country, and therefore entitled to the support of all good and impartial men. That the sytem is appreciated in the sister-country, the following extract from an address delivered by the Earl of Derby, (then Lord Stanley) to the members of a Mechanics' Institution in England, will clearly show :

"A rule should be adopted in all schools, somewhat analogous to that already adopted in Ireland, namely, that religious instructions, though given, should be optional, not compulsory, and that every school receiving aid from the public funds, whether National or local, should be bound to admit to its secular teaching, every child of whatever denomination,—that child not being compelled to attend the religious teacher."

It was our good fortune to be present at the examinations