RELIEF FOR CHILDREN.--A very beneficent action is now required by law in Germany and Switzerland, by which holidays are obligatory in all public and private schools when the temperature reaches a certain height. These heat-holidays are called _hitzlenien_, and are worthy of adoption in other schools. In Basle new regulations have just been issued concerning heat-holidays. When the temperature rises to seventy-seven degrees in the shade at ten o'clock in the morning, holiday is to be proclaimed to the scholars until the afternoon. Two such holidays were proclaimed during a recent hot week, to the no small delight of the boys and girls. It would be equally beneficent to dismiss the schools whenever, for any reason, the temperature of the schoolroom could not be kept up to sixty-five degrees. "THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE."--The atrocities of landlordism in Ireland, evicting the poor in midwinter, tearing down their cabins, and burning their roofs to drive them out, have excited horror in England, and sympathy for the Irish. CHRISTIANITY IN JAPAN.--The Rev. Mr. Harris has expressed the opinion that in ten or twenty years Christianity might become the national religion of Japan, as the heathen temples are going into decay. If it does, Christianity will be as much benefited by it as the Japanese. The cast iron theology of the Anglo-Saxon race will not suit the Japanese. The works of agnostic scientists and liberals have already a strong hold on the Japanese. The Christianity of the past will have to be reformed and ameliorated to suit Japan. They will never appreciate the theology of the Andover creed, which has been versified as follows by _Puck_: "There is a place of endless terror Prepared for those who fall in error, Where fire and death and torture never Cease their work, but rule forever; To this dark cave, for Adam's sin, Must all his children enter in. But the all-merciful Creator Took pity on the fallen traitor, Prepared a narrow path of pardon That led to heaven's happy garden; And, lest mankind prefer to sin, _Predestined some_ to walk therein. But millions still in error languish, Doomed to death and future anguish, Who ne'er had heard of Adam's sin, Nor of the peril they are in; Who know not of the way of pardon, Nor of the fall in Eden's garden.