hurried away through the tracks of a dreary and unknown wilderness; and sold into captivity; and loaded with the fetters of irrecoverable bondage; and who, stripped of every other liberty but the liberty of thought, feel even this to be another ingredient of wretchedness,—for what can they think of but home, and as all its kind and tender imagery comes upon their remembrance, how can they think of it but in the bitterness of despair? Oh, tell me, when the fame of all this disaster reaches his family, who is the member of it to whom is directed the full tide of its griefs and of its sympathies? Who is it that, for weeks and for months, usurps their every feeling, and calls out their largest sacrifices, and sets them to the busiest expedients for getting him back again? Who is it that makes them forgetful of themselves and of all around them? And tell me if you can assign a limit to the pains, and the exertions, and the surrenders which afflicted parents and weeping sisters would make to seek and to save him?

Now conceive, as we are warranted to do by the parables of this chapter, the principle of all these earthly exhibitions to be in full operation around the throne of God. Conceive the universe to be one secure and rejoicing family, and that this alienated world is the only strayed, or only captive member belonging to it; and we shall cease to wonder, that from the first period of the captivity of our species, down to the consummation of their history in time, there should be such a movement in heaven; or that angels should so often have sped their commissioned way on the errand of our recovery; or that the Son of God should have bowed Himself down to the burden of our mysterious atonement; or that the Spirit of God should now, by the busy variety of His all-powerful influences, be carrying forward that dispensation of grace which is to make us meet for re-admittance into the mansions of the celestial. Only think of love as the reigning principle there; of love as sending forth its energies and aspirations to the quarter where its object is most in danger of being for ever lost to it; of love as called forth by this single circumstance to its

uttermost exertion, and the most exquisite feeling of its tenderness; and then shall we come to a distinct and familiar explanation of this whole mystery.

THE FLIGHT OF TIME.

Where are the men of the generation that is past? They, like ourselves, were eager in the pursuit of this world's phantoms, active in business, intent on the speculations of policy and state, led astray by the glitter of ambition, and devoted to the joys of sense or of sentiment. Where are the men who, a few years ago, gave motion and activity to this busy theatre? Where those husbandmen who lived on the ground that you now occupy? Where those labouring poor who dwelt in your houses and villages? Where those ministers who preached the lessons of piety, and talked of the vanity of the world? Where those people who, on the Sabbaths of other times, assembled at the sound of the church bell, and filled the house, by the walls of which you are now congregated? Their habitation is the cold grave-the land of forgetfulness and silence. Their name is forgotten in the earth, their very children have lost the remembrance of them. The labours of their hands are covered with moss, or destroyed by the injuries of time. And we are the children of these fathers, and heirs to the same awful and stupendous destiny. The time in which I live is but a small moment of this world's history. It is the flight of a shadow; it is a dream of vanity; it is the rapid glance of a meteor; it is a flower which every breath of heaven can wither into decay; it is a tale which as a remembrance vanishes; it is a day which the silence of a long night will darken and overshadow. In a few years our heads will be laid in the cold grave, and the green turf will cover us; the children who come after us will tread upon our graves; they will weep for us a few days; they will talk of us for a few months; they will remember us for a few years;

then our memory shall disappear from the face of the earth, and not a tongue shall be found to recall it.

It strikes me as the most impressive of all sentiments that 'it will be all the same a hundred years after this.' It is often uttered in the form of a proverb, and with the levity of a mind that is not aware of its importance. A hundred years after this! Good heavens! with what speed and with what certainty will those hundred years come to their termination. This day will draw to a close, and a number of days make up a revolution of the seasons. Year follows year, and a number of years make up a century. These little intervals of time accumulate and fill up that mighty space which appears to the fancy so big and immeasurable. The hundred years will come, and they will see out the wreck of whole generations. Every living thing that now moves on the face of the earth will disappear from it. The infant that now hangs on its mother's bosom will only live in the remembrance of its grandchildren. The scene of life and of intelligence that is now before me will be changed into the dark and loathsome forms of corruption. The people who now hear me, they will cease to be spoken of; their memory will perish from the face of the country; their flesh will be devoured by worms; the dark and creeping things that live in the holes of the earth will feed upon their bodies; their coffins will have mouldered away, and their bones be thrown up in the new-made grave. And is this the consummation of all things? Is this the final end and issue of man? Is this the upshot of his busy history? Is there nothing beyond time and the grave to alleviate the gloomy picture, to chase away these dismal images? Must we sleep for ever in the dust, and bid an eternal adieu to the light of heaven?

H

LORD PALMERSTON

ENRY JOHN TEMPLE, LORD PALMERSTON, third Viscount Palmerston, was born at Westminster, October 20, 1784. He was educated at Harrow School, at Edinburgh, and at St John's College, Cambridge. Choosing a political career, he graduated M.A. in 1806, and offered himself as a candidate for the University of Cambridge in 1806, afterwards in 1807, but was defeated both times, but finally succeeded in 1811, when he represented the university in Parliament for the next twenty years. His first official post was that of Lord of the Admiralty, and in 1809, under the ministry of the Right Hon. Spencer Percival, he was appointed Secretary of War, an office which he held for about twenty years through all the changes of government. In November 1830, on the formation of a Whig ministry, he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a post which he filled, with one short exception, till September 1841. In 1855 he became Prime Minister, and successfully carried out the policy of alliance with France, and the war with Russia, which ended with the fall of Sebastopol, September 1855. Lord Derby was minister for a short time, but Palmerston was restored in 1859, and held it till his death in 1865.

BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY, 1850.1

I believe I have now gone through all the heads of the charges which have been brought against me in this debate.

1 From a speech in the House of Commons on the affairs of Greece.

I think I have shown that the foreign policy of the Government, in all the transactions with respect to which its conduct has been impugned, has throughout been guided by those principles, which, according to the resolution of the honourable and learned gentleman, the member for Sheffield (Mr. Roebuck), ought to regulate the conduct of the Government of England in the management of our foreign affairs. I believe that the principles on which we have acted are those which are held by the great mass of the people of this country. I am convinced these principles are calculated, so far as the influence of England may properly be exercised with respect to the destinies of other countries, to conduce to the maintenance of peace, to the advancement of civilisation, and to the welfare and happiness of mankind.

I do not complain of the conduct of those who have made these matters the means of attack upon her Majesty's ministers. The Government of a great country like this, is undoubtedly an object of fair and legitimate ambition to men of all shades of opinion. It is a noble thing to be allowed to guide the policy, and to influence the destinies of such a country, and if ever it was an object of honourable ambition, more than ever must it be so at the moment at which I am speaking. For while we have seen, as stated by the right honourable baronet, the member for Ripon (Sir James Graham), the political earthquake rocking Europe from side to side-while we have seen thrones shaken, shattered, levelled; institutions overthrown and destroyed-while in almost every country of Europe the conflict of civil war has deluged the land with blood, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean,-this country has presented a spectacle honourable to the people of England, and worthy of the admiration of mankind.

We have shown that liberty is compatible with order; that individual liberty is reconcilable with obedience to the law. We have shown the example of a nation, in which every class of society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence

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