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? It is first of all to make the reader and the writer thankful. It is to make more vivid to our minds God's goodness in casting our lot on this tranquil time.

And we have written with a view to perpetuate the blessing. We confess a desire for the spread of pacific principles; and we would urge their importance on that class of the community who, if not the greatest gainers in peace, are the first and the sorest sufferers in war.

But what can a working man contribute towards the grand result of "Peace on earth?" He can contribute to society one peaceful citizen. Forming his own opinions, and holding his own convictions, he can

from returns kindly furnished by the secretaries, shows the relative income and missionary staff of the four leading societies:

To which may be added the many societies which had no existence at the earlier period. It is only five years since the Free Church of Scotland became a distinct community, and in that time it has contributed for Christian purposes upwards of a million and a half of money.

a Besides 1298 country-born and native teachers.

b Besides 700 teachers.

c Besides 159 teachers.

lay down and carry out the rule of leaving truth to fight its own battle. He can foster in his children habits of magnanimity and mutual forbearance, and can teach them that "greater is he who ruleth his spirit than he who taketh a city." He can exhibit that brightest heroism which retaliates evil with good; and he may do his endeavour to spread that Gospel which is the grand peace-maker. And looking forward to the day when the weapons of the warrior, like the engines of the inquisitor, shall only survive on the shelves of the Museum, as relics of a fearful barbarism, he may even now by his practical suffrage recognise the majesty of mind and the meanness of physical force.

And he can teach his fellow-workmen the more excellent way for obtaining their just demands. Break the head of a burgess or yeoman, and, however liberal his former leanings, you make him at once an enemy of the popular cause; burn a cotton-mill, and, by raising the rates of insurance and ruining confidence -confidence in the good sense and forbearance of the English people-you make the owner hesitate whether he will build another; burn a second, and the owner does not hesitate, but at once withdraws to safer regions his capital and his family, and leaves to lasting misery some hundreds of your fellows; burn a dozen, and Lancashire will soon be a Saxon Tipperary, with no smoking chimneys to deface the landscape, nor any factory bell to disturb the ragged holiday; but, unlike

the Celtic Tipperary, without a market for its pigs, and, when potatoes rot, without a hard-working neighbour to send it beef and bread. But let the industrious classes advance in education and principle, and there is no political privilege which they need despair of attaining, nor any which a right-hearted citizen would grudge to share with them. The workingclasses will find their most eloquent argument, as well as their most effective armour, in their own worth and intelligence.

And every labourer who, in the manifesto of Messiah the Prince, has read that golden sentence, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God," may pray, "O, Prince of Peace, Thy kingdom come-thy kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and joy." He may pray for the quick arrival of that time, when, beneath the Saviour's benignant sceptre, the Bible shall supplant the Baton, and the Gospel shall silence the Gun; and, joined in cordal brotherhood, the sons of Adam shall again behold this earth a Happy Home!