household has one respectable but rough little girl to train under its own upper class servants, to give her a good start in life, that our houses, with all their culture and refinement, may no longer be strongholds of _l’egoisme à plusieurs_, but centers for teaching good work, high character, and fine manners—organs for the public good. And those social atomists who raise their vehement cry about personal rights and the liberty of the subject over all compulsory measures for saving children, I would remind that the question is not of compulsion or non-compulsion; but whether the natural guardians of a child shall be compelled to pay toward its Christian and industrial training, or whether they and I, as ratepayers, shall be compelled to pay for its degradation in prisons, in infirmary beds, and workhouses. Compulsion there is anyhow: but surely no reasonable mind can doubt which compulsion is most in accordance with the true right and true liberty. And how can I better close than with the impassioned words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, apostrophizing our material splendor, as shown in the great Exhibition of 1851, by the side of our moral squalor: “O Magi of the East and of the West, Your incense, gold and myrrh are excellent! What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest? Your hands have worked well: is your courage spent In handiwork only? Have you nothing best Which generous souls may perfect and present And He shall thank the givers for? No light Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor Who sit in darkness when it is not night? No cure for wicked children? Christ—no cure! No help for women sobbing out of sight Because men made the laws? No brothel lure Burnt out by popular lightnings? Hast thou found No remedy, my England, for such woes? * * * * * Alas! great nations have great shames, I say. * * * * * O gracious nations, give some ear to me! You all go to your fair, and I am one Who at the roadside of humanity Beseech your alms,—God’s justice to be done!” —_The Contemporary Review._ AT REST. By SARAH DOUDNEY. Ah, silent wheel, the noisy brook is dry, And quiet hours glide by In this deep vale, where once the merry stream Sang on through gloom and gleam; Only the dove in some leaf-shaded nest Murmurs of rest. Ah, weary voyager, the closing day Shines on that tranquil bay, Where thy storm-beaten soul has longed to be; Wild blast and angry sea Touch not this favored shore, by summer blest, A home of rest.