a contingency which on some previous occasions General Gordon has treated as far from improbable; and which, if the notice existed, was likely to operate quite independently of the particular time at which a relieving force might arrive. The presence of the enemy in force would naturally suggest the occasion or perhaps even the apprehension of the approach of the British army. In pointing to these considerations, Mr. Gladstone is far from assuming that they are conclusive upon the whole case; in dealing with which the government has hardly ever at any of its stages been furnished sufficiently with those means of judgment which rational men usually require. It may be that, on a retrospect, many errors will appear to have been committed. There are many reproaches, from the most opposite quarters, to which it might be difficult to supply a conclusive answer. Among them, and perhaps amongst the most difficult, as far as Mr. Gladstone can judge, would be the reproach of those who might argue that our proper business was the protection of Egypt, that it never was in military danger from the Madhi, and that the most prudent course would have been to provide it with adequate frontier defences, and to assume no responsibility for the lands beyond the desert." "Heroes have fought, and warriors bled, For home, and love, and glory; Your life and mine will soon be sped, Then what will be the story?" --J. RUSHTON. The agonizing suspense in which our nation had been kept for weeks, was now at an end, and we learned the worst. The news fell like a thunderbolt upon our country! Within forty-eight hours of the time when Gordon would have heard the triumph ranting of English cheers, and once more clasped the faithful hands of British brother soldiers; treachery had done its worst. Thus ended this unique life's drama of one of the noblest hearts that ever beat in soldier's bosom, and one of the truest to his Queen, to his country, and to his God. The heart that had caused him to share his home with the homeless, and his bread with the hungry, that had led him to kneel in prayer by the dying; the heart that had so often throbbed for the misery of slavery, and the slave trade, as to risk his life as of no value to stop that cursed practice and traffic; that heart was pierced by the treacherous hands (in all probability) of the very man Gordon had made the greatest sacrifice to save. Such terrible news threw our land into universal mourning, and thousands wept for the hero that would never return.