Enlightenment is the great necessity and the great glory of our age; ignorance is the most expensive, and most dangerous, and most pressing of all our evils. Among ourselves we find a variety of motives converging upon this conclusion. The statesman has become aware that an enlightened population is more orderly, more submissive, in times of public distress, to the necessity of their circumstances; not so easily led away by agitators; in short, more easily and more cheaply governed. The political economist is well aware of the close connection between general intelligence and successful enterprise and industry. The greater the number of enlightened and intelligent persons, the greater is the number of those whose thoughts are at work in subduing nature, improving arts, and increasing national wealth. The benevolent man is anxious that all should share those enjoyments and advantages which he himself finds to be the greatest. Both Churchman and Dissenter know well enough that they are under the necessity of educating. And the manufacturer, too, who is employing, perhaps, many more hands than the colonel of a regiment commands, is now becoming well aware how much to his advantage it is that his men should prefer a book or a reading-room to the parlor of a public house; should understand what they are about, instead of being merely able to go through their allotted task as so many beasts of burden; and that they should have the strong motive of making their homes decent and respectable, and of bettering their condition. All these motives are now working--strongly, too--in the public mind, and have begun to bear fruit.--_Frazer's Magazine._ [From Bartlett's "Nile Boat."] SCENES IN EGYPT.