show how energy and holiness can be united in her ministers, and how devotedness and brotherly love are possible among her laity. This seems to be at present the only probable way of mending those unhappy divisions which have so long reigned among us. In this, as in all other great works which the Church is carrying on, we must not look to Convocation, but to ourselves and to God.

THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

THE exhibition this year is a very remarkable one: it is an epoch in the history of modern English art, not so much because it contains great results, as because it is full of new hopes and promises. As Mr. Ruskin remarks in his pamphlet, every one must be struck with the very marked change in the character of the paintings The once despised PreRaphaelites now contrive to contribute a decided majority of the pictures, including almost without exception the chefs d'ouvre of the exhibition. Their principles have taken decided root, and we must sincerely congratulate those who have so nobly weathered the storm of criticism, that they are at last appreciated by the great body of young artists, and that their opponents are fairly shut out. We feel sure that their extravagances will wear away in time, and that the good which is in them will take such firm hold upon English art as to form an entirely new school, never to be superseded by a better. It will be a great thing if the tide can be turned in favour of art at all, and much more if in favour of art as a faithful expositor of nature. Indications are not wanting which point to a more general appreciation of art in England than has hitherto prevailed. It may not be altogether improbable to suppose that pictures may in some degree take the place of books. Men are becoming tired of book-study, they are looking elsewhere for profit and delight, and we think that at no distant time art may be to the English people what literature is now. We should be to some extent glad if this were so; we should certainly rejoice to see God's works better known, and the lessons of their beauty better read; and if this change should come, we shall have to thank those most chiefly who first turned the tide, and we shall have to consider that this was fairly done in the exhibition of 1856.

CONTINENTAL AFFAIRS.

THE past quarter has been productive of many deeply interesting events on the Continent of Europe. The inunda

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tions of France have been fearfully destructive to property though not to life, and they appear to have furnished Napoleon with one of those opportunities for display and sympathy which he knows how to use. But still there have been murmurs respecting the large sum to be devoted to the baptismal fêtes, for even many Frenchmen are utilitarian enough to suppose that all this money would be far more usefully employed in repairing the devastations of nature, than in mimicking her thunders and lightnings by fireworks and illuminations. The Emperor himself feels that the fêtes are out of character at a time of national calamity, and has announced that if the preparations had not been in such an advanced state, the money might have been employed in aid of the sufferers. But holidays and spectacles are dear to the heart of la belle France, and the gay Parisians must not be put out of humour by disappointments on such a grand scale. France has much to learn and as much to unlearn before she can make any very great advance in political and social freedom.

The public sympathy with our ally Sardinia and its government has been rudely shocked of late. Much as the world admired Count Cavour's protest against Austrian despotism at the Paris conferences, and earnestly as people were prepared to join enthusiastically in every aspiration for Italian freedom-whether in jeopardy from Austria, the Pope, or France-Englishmen do not like the revelations which have been lately made respecting persecution in Sardinia; and they have been shocked to learn that a poor simple peasant, who, on a village green, in conversation with his neighbours, dared to assert that the mother of Jesus, the virgin Mary, had other children besides her first-born, has been thrown into prison, and, after trial, condemned to incarceration by this pattern government. The possibility of imputing any degree of criminality, much less of blasphemy, to a man in such circumstances, is an absurdity which we can scarcely realise in this country; but in Roman Catholic countries it is very different, and one of the greatest blasphemies that a man can be guilty of there, consists in that audacity which would set up a simple historical fact against a dogma of priestcraft, and, worse still, prove it by a reference to the New Testament! But this is not the only instance of a strange kind of political liberty under the enlightened rule of Victor Emanuel. On the day when peace was celebrated at Turin there was much rain and storm, for the elements are at the present day as little accommodating to

royat edicts as they were in the time of King Canute. An editor remarked that the proceedings were "all mud," and the result was that the paper was prevented from coming out for that day. There is in this country a strong feeling in favour of Sardinia, but that feeling will soon decay if we hear of many such outrages on the liberty of the subject as these are. Sardinia is now looked upon as a bulwark of constitutional government: let her maintain her position.

SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY.

WE are glad to see that this plan is being more extensively adopted; every week adds to the number of great firms which thus give an instalment, at least, of mingled justice and mercy, to those thousands whom they employ.

The following extracts, read at a Public Meeting at Guildhall, nearly a year ago, under the auspices of the Early Closing Association, will afford some information as to the extent to which success had been achieved even then.

Adverting to an application made in the early part of last year to the wholesale drapers, it is stated:

"The result, though not all that could be desired, yet was highy encouraging, some of the largest City firms having consented to close at two, others at one, and scarcely any houses in the trade being now kept open on Saturdays later than three o'clock."

Referring to an application made to the Association by the clerks and warehousemen in the wholesale book and publishing business, it is also stated in the same Report,

"That the Board was induced to address the firms in that trade upon the subject. This communication led several employers to come to an agreement to close on Saturdays at five, instead of seven o'clock, others at three, and many at the earlier hour of two, for a certain portion of the year. Subsequently to this decision, those firms who fixed upon five o'clock have been pleased to make the concession of another hour, and are now closing at four for a considerable part of the year."

Further :

"The Board gladly point to the woollen factors, tobacco merchants, hop factors, most of the Insurance Companies, the General Steam Navigation Company, Lloyd's, the Stock Exchange, the Baltic Coffee House, all of which now suspend business at two o'clock on Saturdays. Numerous other cases are almost daily occurring of firms in various professions and trades adopting a similar arrangement."

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How gratifying to observe such proofs of the onward progress of good feeling on the part of employers towards those under them. And how important that it should be so, for"Man upon man depends, and, break the chain, He soon returns to savage life again; On either hand a social tribe he sees, By those assisted, and assisting these; While to the general welfare all belong

The high in power, the low in numbers strong."

With regard to shops, Mr. Lilwall very well says in his pamphlet on this subject—

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A stigma was cast upon the women of England, when it was first proposed by the Early Closing Association to appeal to them to abandon the custom of evening shopping, then so prevalent,'Ladies will still shop when it suits them, despite all your entreaties to the contrary,' was the comforting cry which on all sides resounded in our ears. Nevertheless, the appeal was sent forth; and the result was a subsequent falling-off in evening shopping amounting to little short of the marvellous. Now, are we to say that the employers of London, who have themselves in their own persons tasted of the bitter waters of protracted and harassing labour, would prove, in such a case as the one proposed, less considerate than the ladies; or shall we not rather conclude that, like them, they also will be ready, if need be, to put themselves to a little trouble and inconvenience, when by so doing they will assist in lightening the burden which is found to press heavily upon the shoulders of an important section of their countrymen? I am, of course, assuming here that their are no real impediments further than those of mere usage, to the proposal to change the collecting day of the City houses. If, however, there should prove to be insuperable difficulties in the way of effecting it, there is no choice but to bow to such necessity, falling back upon the other two suggestions proposed."

There has been long a notion prevalent in many minds that all Nonconformists, ministers and people, are indifferent on this subject. That, satisfied with the general fact, that those who are attached to their own congregations do keep the Sabbath, they care very little about others. We are glad to take a few proofs to the contrary.

The Rev. Dr. Cumming, speaking of public Holidays, and with a view to turn them to good account, observes that they

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Ought to be spent in the open air, in the country, or at the seaside. You thus (says he) combine the greatest amusement with the best restoratives; the bracing air to be the only smoke that

comes near your lips, and the public-house-excepting the place were you have your mutton-chop and a glass of bitter ale, if my teetotal friends will allow me to go even thus far-to be as sacredly abjured on those days as the warehouse or the shop. A visit to the Crystal Palace, either on the summer Holiday or on the Saturday Half-Holiday, will combine the pleasure of a country promenade and the advantage of a museum, both lightened by the best military music in England. I look upon the Crystal Palace as a noble monument of genius, a magnificent school for study, a rich enjoyment to men that have taste, and a means of æsthetic education to those who have none; and most earnestly do I wish it great prosperity. I look at that most magnificent provision in the neighbourhood of London, as one of the most eloquent calls to the long-hour system to repent of its past iniquity, and to relax into a new, and nobler, and more philanthropic career. It is calculated, I said, to create a purer taste, to improve the social habits, and, in its place, to contribute to the outward enjoyment and refinement of young and old. **There are also the Zoological Gardens-a very interesting and instructive resort. A little acquaintance with botany or mineralogy will give an interest in collecting plants. A fern, or as it is called in the north, a bracken, the heath-bell, the weed on a common, the shell by the sea-shore, or the pebble on the beach, are full of interest. I have exhausted many a Holiday with intense delight in tending and watching the habits of bees and the architecture of bee-hives, and many an agreeable hour have I spent in apiarian company and fellowship. The minutest creature that God has made overflows with wisdom and instruction."

*

The Rev. J. Sortain, of Brighton, has also well expressed himself upon the same point:

"He wanted to see that the men who had been toiling, had gone to recreate themselves in those healthful, stalwart, elevating-physically elevating-games which were [or rather used to be] so intimate to Englishmen. He spoke deliberately. If he were a parish clergyman in the country, he knew of no position that he should like better than that which Dr. Parr occupied, when, seated on the lawn before his vicarage, his benevolent eye looked on the groups of his parishioners carrying on their enjoyments and their games, keeping up the high principle of the old English feeling of mutual love and healthful exhiliration. This was not the degrading scene of the pot-house; but the broad expansion of a practice which he trusted would be infused into our towns as well as revived in our villages. He was anxious that, as those who had left the universities, after toiling anxiously through the winter, had gone into different disstricts to recreate themselves during the summer months, the people should have the same kind of recreation."

The following is from Professor Miller, of Edinburgh :—

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Early closing is the key to the family altar, and the Saturday