We are approaching the close of the year--a year marked by greater vicissitudes in the affairs of nations than any in which we have lived--any indeed of which we have read. History gives us accounts of the rapid march and equally rapid conquests by ambitious kings, who seemed only happy in the unhappiness of others, and only proud of destroying that which constituted the pride of others. From time to time ambitious men have exhibited themselves in the great theatre of the world, and their greatness has been measured by the extent of misery they have produced; and their claims to permanent fame have rested upon the rapidity that marked their destruction of cities, kingdoms and empires. While between the epochs which are distinguished by these promoters of extensive mischief, there have at all times been humble imitators of their crimes, whose limited power of doing confined their actions to provinces, and compelled them to be ministers of local vengeance, and the enjoyers of that petty infamy which results from numerable murders and calculable crime. It is but too evident that order has had its antagonists, at all times and in all degrees, and if history has been employed with the works of those whose extensive scale of action gives larger consequence to their movements, it cannot be doubted that society has been convulsed at its centre by the restless and the bad, who have been as efficient in their sphere of wrong doing as have been those who occupied a larger space. The latter struck the elevated, and disturbed public relations; the former sent home its weapon to the humble, and brought disturbance and misery into the more limited circle, reaching social life and stabbing even to the heart of domestic peace.