Reform since then has been seen through and discarded; and the feeling of the country is now so universally Conservative, that, if in office, the Conservative party would command a great majority. As it is, they are already so strong, that, when united, they can determine the judgment of the House. Happily the constitution of the State is no longer in danger. Lord Russell’s Reform Bills have had their day, and have been consigned to the limbo of vanities. The constitution of the Church, however, is still an object of virulent and persevering attack; and we trust that the Conservative party will not relax its vigilance and energy from an over-confidence in its successes of last session. Let them remember East Kent, where they threw away an important seat by sheer remissness and mismanagement, and not allow reverses to befall them in Parliament from a like cause. Church questions are now the great battle-field between Conservative and Liberal. Let the Opposition strain every nerve to convert the drawn battle in Church-rates last year into a crowning and decisive victory; so that the work of Radical innovation be finally brought to an end, and that the Conservative party may find its last difficulties vanquished even before it quits its present position on the Opposition benches, and enters upon the pleasurable responsibilities of office, which so soon await it, and of which it promises to have a long term. _Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._ ----- Footnote 1: ‘Five Months on the Yang-tsze.’ By Thomas Blakiston, Captain, R.A. Footnote 2: _Vide_ the confession of one of the Taeping leaders, named Tien-teh, published in the ‘Pekin Gazette’ of May 1852. Footnote 3: ‘Le Pere Lacordaire,’ par le Comte de Montalembert. Paris, 1862. Footnote 4: ‘Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries, and Correspondence.’ London: W. H. Allen & Co. Footnote 5: The accession to the Swedish throne is restricted by law to the male line, and a recent proposal to abrogate this law in favour of the King’s only child, a daughter, has not met with success. Nevertheless, her husband, especially if King of Denmark, would almost to a certainty be made King also of Norway and Sweden. Footnote 6: ‘Speculations on the Future,’ June 1856, pp. 736–7. Footnote 7: See M. Hall’s reply to the Prussian Government, dated Nov. 6, 1862. Footnote 8: