Wherever this impulse of social or political reform darts up its rill through the crusts of selfishness, scoff and dread also arise, and hang like a heavy mist above it. But the voice of the rill penetrates far enough for those who have ears to hear. And sometimes it is the case that "those who came to scoff remain to pray." In two articles of reviews, one foreign and one domestic, which have come under our eye within the last fortnight, the writers who began by jeering at the visionaries, seemed, as they wrote, to be touched by a sense that without a high and pure faith none can have the only true vision of the intention of God as to the destiny of man. We recognized as a happy omen that there is cause for thanksgiving, and that our people may be better than they seem, the recent meeting to organize an association for the benefit of prisoners. We are not, then, wholly Pharisees. We shall not ask the blessing of this day in the mood of, "Lord, I thank thee that I, and my son, and my brother, are not as other men are,--not as those publicans imprisoned there," while the still small voice cannot make us hear its evidence that, but for instruction, example, and the "preventing God," every sin that can be named might riot in our hearts. The prisoner, too, may become a man. Neither his open nor our secret fault must utterly dismay us. We will treat him as if he had a soul. We will not dare to hunt him into a beast of prey, or trample him into a serpent. We will give him some crumbs from the table which grace from above and parental love below have spread for us, and perhaps he will recover from these ghastly ulcers that deform him now. We were much pleased with the spirit of the meeting for the benefit of prisoners, to which we have just alluded. It was simple, business-like, in a serious, affectionate temper. The speakers did not make phrases or compliments--did not slur over the truth. The audience showed a ready vibration to the touch of just and tender feeling. The time was evidently ripe for this movement. We doubt not that many now darkened souls will give thanks for the ray of light that will have been let in by this time next year. It is but a grain of mustard seed, but the promised tree will grow swiftly if tended in a pure spirit; and the influence of good measures in any one place will be immediate in this province, as has been the case with every attempt in behalf of another sorrowing class, the insane.