But if we set our thoughts free, confined as they are by warm devotion to our hereditary soil, and now and then venture to look out over the wide world, we shall see points of contact in the progressive effort of humanity; and it is our highest honour to be able to take an active part in this. Barriers are crumbling away one after the other. They do not go down with violence; they vanish as new ideas smooth the way for a higher conception of human dignity. Inquiry dissipates prejudice, and continually shows us new phases of the inner cohesion of the life of nations. The inhabitants of Europe, says DRAPER, show a constantly increasing disposition towards the complete levelling of their mutual dissimilarities. Climatic and meteorological differences are more and more dissolved by artificial means and new inventions; and thence arises a similarity, not only in habits of life, but in physical conformation. Such inventions soften the influences to which men are subjected, and bring them nearer to an average type. With this greater affinity one to the other in bodily form, follows also a greater similarity in feeling, habit and thought. Day by day, too, the economic fellowship of Europe increases. Communications by ship, railroad, post and telegraph are developed; by means of State loans, share and exchange connections, interests are knit together. Therefore we see the Bourse, the barometer of economic life, fluctuate when serious rumours of war are afloat; an evidence that common economic interests and war are at variance one with the other. I shall not venture further, but simply indicate in closing that even the differences in language will certainly go on being gradually adjusted. It is a remarkable fact, says the above-named investigator, that in nearly all Indo-Germanic races, family appellatives, father, mother, sister, brother, daughter, are the same. A similar agreement may be observed in the names of a great number of everyday things, such as house, door, way; but one finds that whilst these observations hold good in respect to the designation of objects of a peaceful character, many of the words which have a military signification are different in the different languages. Here lies, perhaps, the germ of a future progressive growth which will rise higher heavenward than the tower of Babel. I believe, for my part, that the English language, both on the ground of its cosmopolitan character and of its great expansion, is already on the path of transition into a universal common language. According to Mulhall, it has spread since 1801, 310 per cent., whilst German has increased 70, and French 36 per cent. A hundred years ago, Gladstone says, the English tongue was spoken by fifteen millions; it is now spoken by 150 millions; and according to the computation of Barham Zincke, in another hundred it will be spoken by at least 1,000 millions.