I shall only allude to one thing more. The
examiners tried us on grammar, and asked,
"What is meant by government in grammar?"
"Centralisation," I wrote. And I
had them there. " A Downing Street
Commission of Examiners." For that they
plucked me. It is well for them to say that
they examine only in those things which are
the school attainments absolutely necessary
to ensure a power of doing what has to be
done in each department,—sometimes only
writing, sometimes more, with an odd language,
for the Foreign Office, and a liberty to
show any degree of proficiency, but a requirement
only of a little of the simplest. So they
may say; but I have shown, by my own
case, how the truth stands. No wrangler
could have answered as I answered, and yet
I was plucked out of spite, because I showed,
though by one answer only, that I was no
base truckler, that I had not the spirit of an
underling. They want to find out who is
readiest to be a base tool, and that is the
whole meaning of this inquisitorial intrusion
upon British liberties. Proud am I to say
that they did not find subservient material in
me. So they rejected me, and in so doing
insulted our borough member, who has been
promising my father to do something for me
during the last six years. I ask you, sir, is
this the way to treat an independent voter?
I beleive, then [ We put away our Johnson],
I beleive that I have shone the dergree and
qualaty of this conspicious folly which
beleaves that yong men can be cramd like
Turkies, and which threatems British independanse.
But the comprodiction of the
contry has goan foth agen the skeam; even
the euthuisium of its first primoters will become
less vehiment. It is Unenglish, and
i agen repete it is Centrilisation, and can
never become permently one of the instutions
of our nativ land. i shall git my
clarkship if I only bid my tim.

DAWN.

IN idle grief I sat and sighed,
   With folded hands, for love and light;
But darkness brooded far and wide,
   And silence sealed the lips of night.
And still, as blackness changed to grey,
    And star by star died out above,
I wept my foolish heart away,
    And feebly sighed for light and love.

But, when the Alchymist on high
    Flashed into gold each ruddy streak,
A new-born breeze, careering by,
   Leaped up and kissed me on the cheek;
Then came a murmur from the plain,
    And music from the waving grove;
And Earth to happy toil again
    Awoke with praise for light and love.

"I take it for a sign," I said,
    And rose like Lazarus from his giave;
" Leave folded hands unto the dead,
    Leave sighing to the galley-slave:
For all the sighs from all the lands,
   And all the tears that men can weep,
Could waft no love to folded hands,
   Could rain no light on wilful sleep.

"For, never-slumbering, to the morn
    Earth's earnest eyes for ever move;
And from her million sons are borne
    No idle sighs for light and love.
But labour, labour slays the night,
   And speeds the Day-god's chariot-wheels;
Labour, love-given, fathers light;
    And light to labour love reveals."

Then, gathering up my newest sighs,
    I shaped therefrom a bark of air;
With the last offerings from my eyes
    I freighted it, and called it "Prayer."
Its sails were set, its masts were strong,
    Well-found in airy bolt and bar;
I watched it as it surged along,
    And hid behind the morning star.

And, as I turned with braver tread
    Across the barren mountain side,
Me thought some whisperer softly said—
   " Go, labour thou, whate'er betide;
Go, labour thou, and be content!
    Thy little bark, like Noah's dove,
Shall seek thee when the day is spent,
    Deep-laden, then, with light and love."

EPIDEMICS.

IN some European towns, when pestilence
has entered and will not be driven forth by
prayers or genuflexions, the people take their
saints from their shrines in the churches and
flog them about the streets. Weary of fair
words, which have occupied a great deal of
time to no good result, they try what coercion
will do; proving the medical inefficiency
of incense they put their trust in stripes.
If the wind should shift its quarter— if
the sun should come down and cool the
fiery air, or if the deluge should cease and
the noxious vapours be all drawn up—
whatsoever the atmospheric change that may alter
the sanitary condition of the population, the
glory is ascribed to the timely flagellation of
the wooden saints in lace and satin; and
the cause was whip-cord, not nature.

We laugh at this. We call it very childish
and very shocking. We wonder at the
pertinacityof superstition, and think that in this
liberal nineteenth century it ought to be
driven out of its fastnesses, ignorance and
barbarism. We thank God that we are
enlightened, and not as these men are; and
then an omnipotent Government and an
addled Parliament vote a Fast Day, because
cholera is raging in the land.

We find no fault with Fast Days as
spiritual exercises: we merely object to their
being placed in the room of deeds; and
protest against the impious idea that because a
man abstains from meats, and goes to church
twice on a certain week-day, he should therefore
be saved all further trouble about his
open drains and uncleansed ditches; that, in