And now, once more, is there not an upheaving of humanity from beneath? and over society as it is, does not once more loom the shadow of a coming change? Does not middle-class civilization in its mode of utterance and thought, betoken symptoms of decay? Look at it as it does the genteel thing, and sleeps an easy hour in Episcopalian church or Dissenting chapel—as it faintly applauds a world-renovating principle, and gracefully bows assent to a divine idea. Ask it its problem of life, its mission, and it knows no other than to have a good account at the bank, and to keep a gig; possibly, if it be very ambitious, it may, in its heart of hearts, yearn for a couple of flunkeys and a fashionable square. It is very moral and very religious. Much is it attached to morality and religion in the abstract; but to take one step in their behalf—to cut the shop, for their sake, for an hour—is a thing it rarely does. Often is it too much trouble for it to vote at a municipal election—to employ the franchise to which it has a right—to support the man or the paper that advocates its principles. That is, it refuses to grapple with the great principle of ill with which man comes into this world to make war; and, rather than lose a pound, or sacrifice its respectability, or depart from the routine of formalism into which it has grown, it will let the devil take possession of the world. Looked at from a right point of view, the world’s history is a series of dissolving views. We have had the gorgeous age of nobility, the money-making one of the middle-classes—lower still we must go. Truth lies at the bottom of the well; the pearls, whose lustre outshine even beauty’s eye are hidden in the deep. The men who now stamp their impress on the age—whose thought is genuine and free—who shew the hollowness of shams—who demand for the common brotherhood of man their common rights—who herald a coming age—who are its teachers and apostles—originally laboured in coal-mines, like Stephenson; or mended shoes, like Cooper; or plied the shuttle, like Fox; or stood, as did Burns and Nicoll, at the plough, with GOD’S heaven above them, and GOD’S inspiration in their hearts.