The present century has unquestionably presented some of the most mournful and singular anomalies which it is possible to conceive. We have seen the rich Indian Proprietor expending large sums of money in this country for general charitable purposes, and devoting his most powerful energies to obtain justice for every British subject, while, at the same time, the winds that howled around him, as he softly reposed on his luxurious couch, echoed an appeal from his more distant fellow-man to be emancipated from the chains of slavery! Nor has the conduct of _some_ employers towards their workmen been less paradoxical, although the nature of their oppression has been of a widely different character. They seem not to understand that there are relative essentials, secondary only to the payment of wages, which it is their duty to encourage and not to oppose. As we shall, however, have occasion to refer to such instances, as we proceed, it is unnecessary now to dilate on them. It will be seen that the inconsistencies to which we allude are subversive to the best interests of masters, and are still more injurious to those they employ—they excite more debasing desires, which unfit them for labour, and they snap asunder the link of confidence and kindly feeling which ought ever to unite them. Alas! how many seem to consider the poor labouring man almost as a mere machine, without a frame susceptible of fatigue, destitute of the least intelligence, and without a soul to be saved! It appears quite unnecessary further to prove that the seventh-day is absolutely requisite for bodily rest, even were the hours for labour limited universally to a just and natural period. Ask the poor factory children, the domestic servant, the apprentice boy, the mechanic, the men who work in pits and mines, the ill-paid but industrious needlewomen, the tradesman and the shopman, the merchant, the man of literature and science, the senator—nay, ask our august and beloved QUEEN and her ROYAL CONSORT—each will readily acknowledge the vast utility of the Sabbath as an indispensable means to maintain their bodily strength. “Rest! without thee what strength can long survive, What spirit keep the flame of Hope alive?”—BLOOMFIELD. All nature is loud in its cries for rest. The powerful horse becomes weary, and treads instinctively into his stable, and the little birds are glad to rest on the slender branches of a tree. It is the universal requirement of all animated creatures.