friend who bought thee with His blood? Hear what He says to you. "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The portals are open to admit you. Enter in through the gates into the city, and stand upon the shining battlements with yonder army until the king returns. He hastens back to feast his loving eyes upon the "travail of His soul." "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. Who is the king of glory?-the Lord of HostsHe is the king of glory."

But when the Monarch comes to assemble this last great Parliament, and set in order this august assize, the Speech from the Throne will be intelligible by all. It will not be left to speculation or inference to divine its meaning; its every word will strike with power upon the ears and hearts of all who hear it. And who will not hear it? There is not a man, a woman, or a child who ever drew the breath of life-there is not an angel or archangel who ever soared and sung around the throne of God-there is not a demon or a fiend who ever gnashed his teeth amidst the outer darkness-who will not hear and understand each syllable and word of that Speech from the Throne. Yes, ye whose lives have all been spent in vice and cruelty, and lust, you shall hear the indictment read against you, and the sentence pronounced. O drunkards, and wife-beaters-ye light, fantastic Terpsichoreans who trip it daintily at St. George's Hall-ye lights of the Casino-ye nymphs who "lie in wait at every corner"-ye self-complacent gentlemen who, with a seductive. mask of flattering words conceal the passions of a sensual heart-ye fat preceptresses of oyster shops, and bowers of late resort, who import foreign innocence to surfeit native guiltthis will be a day of terrible account for you. When your dark list of crimes is all rehearsed before you, and your plea is waited for in silence, the accusing voices of the victims of your cruelty and lust will bid you hold your peace. No subterfuge or falsehood will avail you then, for, as the lie is trembling on your lips, the spirit of a mangled wife, or a dishonoured daughter, or a ruined sister, will rise up before you and thrust it back unut

tered to your throat. And even if you can face out this legion of accusers, you cannot speak after the withering charge of the Great Judge Himself, who will make common cause against you with your victims. "I was hungry, and ye gave me no meatI was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink-I was a stranger, and ye took me not in- I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me not-depart from me into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." O think of this. Each act of oppression — of unnatural brutality-of lust-of treachery-Christ regards as being levelled against Himself. Each blow the drunkard gives his wife, opens a fresh wound in the Redeemer's side. If the spendthrift father refuses to maintain his family, Christ will adopt their cause as His own, and press it home against him in the words, "I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat." And if, in the hardihood of your prevarication you dare to ask the question, "Lord when saw me thee an hungred and did not minister unto thee?" He shall point to these, your neglected and outraged offspring and declare, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these my little ones ye did it not to me." O be persuaded, by the virtuous discharge of every duty, and then by the total surrender of the services of your life, to prepare to listen to that Speech from the Throne, which shall either consign you to blackness of darkness for ever, or welcome you into the everlasting kingdom and joy of your Lord. God grant that we all may find mercy of Him at that day!

Radical Reform.

A SHREWD tradesman will generally try the genuineness of the coins that are tendered to him, by ringing them on the counter, before putting them into the till. If any unscrupulous customer should tender him a Britannia-metal half-crown, a pewter shilling, or a "Brummagem" five-shilling-piece, he will reject it, and insist on being paid in the sterling coin of the realm. If he forbears to hand the imposter who tries to cheat him over to the care of the first policeman who passes the shop-door, it is not because the swindler does not deserve it, but because, having being discovered in time, his arts have failed to deceive. No one, however, would say that if the shopman had collared the rascal and given him a good, sound horsewhipping on the spot, he had given him more than he richly deserved. The knave would not receive the sympathy of straightforward, honest men. He entered the shop in a very patronising way, and gave his order as if he were kindly and condescendingly encouraging a struggling tradesman in the battle of life. He received the thing he asked for, and in return he tendered as a compensation that which is utterly and intrinsically worthless. The practical man whom he designed to make his dupe detects the fraud in time, and if he does not kick the thief out of the shop, it is only because he foregoes the claims of justice in obedience to the impulse of forbearance.

And in like manner will a truly intelligent working-man try the mettle of his professed friends before he implicitly trusts

them with his interests. He will not at once believe in a man simply because he smiles in his face. The spurious shilling was brightly lacquered over, but it was nothing but tin below; and though the countenance of the sycophant is beaming with a fair exterior, it is nothing after all but brass. Supposing the intended victim of the would-be-patriot's arts should discover the cheat before he is duped by it, would any honest man say that he did wrong in scouting him as a scoundrel, or chastising him as a scamp. Would any one with a grain of righteousness in his soulI don't mean those grumblers who write to the "Guardian" and "Examiner" about some imagined abuse, and sign themselves "Lovers of justice" and all that—but would any one with a right notion of true equity in his mind say that the New Bailey was too mean a lodging, or the treadmill too degrading an employment, for the man who tried to stir up disaffection amongst a contented people, to foment disloyalty amongst devoted citizens, and to sow seditious seed into peaceful minds, by exaggerating existing evils, and inventing grievances that do not exist, simply to promote his own selfish and vainglorious ends. That there are such men abroad, that there are many such villains this side the doors of Newgate,—that there are many such felons who are neither in the hulks nor at Botany Bay, thousands of husbands in this city and in others can testify with a groan,tens of thousands of wives can bear witness with a sigh,— hundreds of thousands of hungry children can testify with a cry for bread, and myriads of graves can witness, either by an epitaph and a stone, or with a plain green mound where the daisies have been bedewed with tears, and the grass has been often trod by shoeless feet. This is not mere rant: it is only & simple fact, which one day will bring to light, even to the eyes of those who now gainsay it. And though I am no politician, and do not wish to give a political lecture here, I should feel that I was shrinking from a duty that I owe to those I want to serve, were I not to avail myself of this passing political crisis, to bring before the toiling population of this city a social and spiritual Reform Bill, which they are bound, as men, to adopt, before they have any true title to the political privileges for

which they agitate. I am impelled to this course, moreover, because my motives and spirit are beginning to be misconstrued by working-men themselves; and I would not willingly forfeit their confidence and regard, without some effort to retain it: and I know that the only true way to retain this confidence, is to be honest and outspoken,-to assume no disguise, but to state plainly and boldly the convictions of the conscience. If those convictions are not exactly parallel with yours, I am certain no candid person will think the worse of me for speaking them out; and if, after fairly testing the principles of my Reform Bill, you find them to be unsound or bad, then reject them by all means, and adopt a better code of laws. I have made an assertion, which I hope incidentally to corroborate as I go along, namely, that hearts have been broken, homes desolated, and graves filled up, by the more or less direct influence of misguided political agitation. I have said that there are sham-patriots and mob-leaders among the working-classes, upon whose heads rests the blood of myriads of wives and children. Now these are assertions which no man has a right to make, unless he believes it to be in his power to substantiate them; and though I do not propose to apply myself directly to that task, I believe that the provisions of the Reform Bill which I have to bring before you, and the few words with which I shall try to enforce them, will contain an incidental proof of the statement I have made.

Let me speak plainly then. I am no Radical Reformer, in the usual political acception of the word. I have no vote myself, and do not care if I never have one at all. I don't fancy myself a martyr because I may not go to the polling-booth, and I don't consider those who keep me without a vote are oppressing me or trampling on my rights; and I don't mean to allow any bawling demagogue to persuade me into the idea that I am a slave, and that everyone who happens to be better off than myself is a tyrant and a despot. And I believe this to be the state of mind of the great majority of working men. It is a strange thing, but still it is a fact, that we seldom find political agitation very rife among the operative classes when trade is good and labour is abundant.