The last days of the half-century are fleeting fast as we write, and we are yet at peace with Europe, as when Victoria's reign began. How long that peace shall last, who shall say? who can say how long it may be ere the elements of internal discord that have threatened to wreck the prosperity of the empire, shall be composed to a lasting peace, and leave the nation free to follow its better destiny? But foes within and foes without have many times assailed us in vain in past years; many times has the political horizon been shadowed with clouds portending war and strife no less gloomily than those which now darken it, and as yet the Crimean war is the only war on which we have entered that can be called European; many times have grave discontents broken our domestic peace, but wise statesmanship has found a timely remedy. We need not, if we learn the lessons of the past aright, fear greatly to confront the future. Not to us the glory or the praise, but to a merciful overruling Providence, ever raising up amongst us noble hearts in time, that we are found to-day "A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled," not quite bankrupt in heart or hope or faith, but possessing "Some sense of duty, something of a faith, Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made, Some patient force to change them when we will;" and we may justly acknowledge, in thankfulness not vainglorious, the happier fate that has been ours above many another land, that may still be ours, "if England to itself do rest but true." We have seen during these sixty years the map of Europe remodelled to an undreamed of extent. Fair Italy, though still possessing her fatal gift of beauty, though still suffering many things, is no longer the prey of foreign unloved rulers, but has become a nation, a mere "geographical expression" no longer; Germany, whose many little princedoms were once a favourite theme of British mockery, is now one great and formidable empire; the power of Russia has, despite the Crimean check, continued to expand, while desperate internal struggles have shaken that half-developed people, proving fatal to the gentle successor of Nicholas, the emancipator of the Russian serfs, and often threatening the life of _his_ successors; and the once formidable American slave-system has been swept away, with appalling loss of human life; a second President of the United States has fallen by the hand of an assassin; and new difficulties, scarce inferior to those connected with slavery, have followed on its abolition. Our record shows no calamity comparable to the greatest of these, if we set aside the Indian horrors so terribly avenged at the moment, but by their teaching resulting ultimately in good rather than evil.