Thus ended one of the most iniquitous and unjust trials that the annals of justice ever had to record. “The proceedings in the case of Algernon Sydney,” writes Fox, “were most detestable. The production of papers containing speculative opinions upon government and liberty, written long before, and perhaps never intended to be published, together with the use made of those papers in considering them as a substitute for the second witness to the overt act, exhibited such a compound of wickedness and nonsense as is hardly to be paralleled in the history of judicial tyranny. But the validity of pretences was little attended to at that time in the case of a person whom the court had devoted to destruction; and upon evidence such as has been stated was this great and excellent man condemned to die.” Upon the accession of “the Deliverer” to the throne, an Act was passed annulling and making void the attainder of Algernon Sydney on account of its having been obtained “without sufficient legal evidence of any treason committed by him,” and “by a partial and unjust construction of the statute declaring what was his treason.” The fate of the Rye House conspirators was very various. Some fled never to return, and were outlawed like Ferguson and Goodenough; others confessed, and were pardoned like Romsey; whilst a third offered in vain to purchase life by turning informers, as was the case with Walcot and Armstrong. Two years later those who had been outlawed, and were living in exile, again tried their hand at insurrection by aiding Monmouth in his revolt.—_Gentleman’s Magazine._ MR. ARNOLD’S LAY SERMON. Mr. Arnold’s lay sermon to “the sacrificed classes” at Whitechapel contrasts doubly with the pulpit sermons which we too often hear. It is real where these sermons are unreal, and frankly unreal where these sermons are real. It does honestly warn the people to whom it was addressed, of the special danger to which “the sacrificed classes” are exposed, whenever they in their turn get the upper-hand, the danger of simply turning the tables on the great possessing and aspiring classes. “If the sacrificed classes,” he said, “under the influence of hatred, cupidity, desire of change, destroy, in order to possess and enjoy in their turn, their work, too, will be idolatrous, and the old work will continue to stand for the present, or at any rate their new work will not take its place.” It must be work done in a new spirit, not in the spirit of hatred or cupidity, or eagerness to enjoy and appropriate the privileges of others, which can alone stand the test of time and judgment. So far, Mr. Arnold was much more real than too many of our clerical preachers. He warned his hearers against a temptation which he knew would be stirring constantly in their hearts, and not against abstract temptations which he had no reason to think would have any special significance to any of his audience.