These facts afford cause for gratitude, but they also give intensity to the questions we have proposed. How, then, reader, has it been with you amid this busy energy, this universal stir? Have you realized the proper object of your sojourn here? Have you found your way to the Cross? Have you advanced in the road which leads to eternal blessedness? Have you practically felt the solemn truth contained in our Lord’s words, “Ye must be born again?” Many who at the last Exhibition were living only for this world, are now ripening for that far nobler gathering of which they shall hereafter form a part, “the general assembly and church of the first-born which are written in heaven.” Are you yet a stranger to the blissful anticipation?## Oh, press home the question, Am I born from above? Soon will the crowds which now fill the aisles of this vast edifice be dispersed, to meet again only amid the realities of eternity; in what circumstances and in what condition will you rejoin them? In a short time, the splendours of the International Exhibition will pass away, its bright colours fade, its unparalleled collection be removed, the deserted building remain as an illustration of the transitory character of worldly glory, and the labour of years be only a thing of memory. But when all these accumulated treasures are scattered, the desire for further progress will still be active. Still the plotting brain and the industrious hand will be engaged in devising new combinations of skill; the restless heart will never cry “Enough!” Indeed, this panting after some undefinable perfection is the prominent feature of the age in which we live. Since the last Exhibition, the vast empire of China has been opened to the schemes of commercial enterprise, and the efforts of religious zeal; Turkey has been rescued from the ambitious designs of Russia; India has been subdued, and restored to prosperity and peace after the horrors of mutinous anarchy; Italy has made large advances towards its much-desired unity; but still the unsatisfied soul of the world is aspiring after a perfection which is never to be attained by man. The struggle still continues, and the omens of coming change multiply, while they assume a more portentous aspect than ever. America reels with the internecine conflict which rages between her sons. Rome trembles in the balance of futurity. Popery grasps with senile obstinacy the last remnant of her temporal power. France, indeed, maintains unwonted calmness, but the most sagacious observer is unable to determine whether it is a prelude to a coming storm, or the happy subsidence of its oft-excited elements into prospective peace; and Austria, with her _prestige_ of past splendour, weak yet despotic, stubborn yet irresolute, strives with anxious solicitude to preserve her position among the nations.