The last visit I made to her produced a very affecting scene, both to her and me. I talked to her as one actually dying, and prayed for her as one who must soon appear before the Judge of all the earth. While I was engaged in prayer, she repeated the words after me in the most affecting manner, and after I had finished supplicating the Father of mercies, she added, "Oh, Lord, hear! Oh, Lord, forgive such a wretch as I am!" A few hours after this, she breathed her last, without either sigh or groan. THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851. Of late years we have had in Britain almost a surfeit of exhibitions, of one sort or another, chief among which have been the splendid series which so many witnessed at South Kensington, and which have given to many of the inhabitants of these isles a far better ideal of the empire's resources than otherwise they would have had, besides having contributed not a little to the stimulation of commerce, while furnishing agreeable entertainment to the sightseer. That the day of the exhibition, as we understand the word, as an educational and profit-raising medium, is not yet gone, is proved by the holding of the Irish, Italian, and Anglo-Danish Exhibitions in London this year, and the popularity of the more general display at Glasgow, not to speak of minor shows which have found favour elsewhere. The forerunner of all these magnificent spectacles was the Great Exhibition of 1851, held in Hyde Park, on the initiative of the late Prince Consort, who borrowed the idea from the State-supported Expositions at Paris. The Prince proposed that an exhibition of colossal proportions should be held in London, in a building specially designed for the purpose, and that it should be open to competitors from all nations, so as to form a veritable "world's fair." The scheme was entered into with alacrity by the public. All sorts of representative men cordially supported the Prince. A big banquet was given by the Lord Mayor of London in the Mansion House, on March 21st, 1850, to the municipal magnates of the kingdom, at which the success of the undertaking was practically assured; and later on a similar feast was given in the ancient city of York, at which the Prince again eloquently and effectively pleaded for the accomplishment of the task to which he had set his hand. A Royal Commission was appointed to manage the undertaking. Hyde Park was fixed upon as the most appropriate site for the building, and Sir Joseph Paxton, though not an architect, was honoured with instructions to design the fabric--that magnificent Crystal Palace, which was subsequently removed to a permanent and commanding position at Sydenham, and which is familiar to every London resident and visitor. It was formed chiefly of iron and glass, being 1,848 feet long, 408 feet broad, and 66 feet high; crossed by a transept 108 feet high, and also 408 feet in length, for the purpose of enclosing and encasing a group of noble elms. Within, the nave presented a clear,