island the miserable lazar-house that it is; and, lo!
Providence strikes down the ghostly potentate, and virtually, for
the present, divests him of that 'property qualification' in
virtue of which the relation can alone be maintained. But not less
infatuated than our statesmen, and even less excusably so, are
those men--professedly religious and Protestant, but of narrow
views and weak understandings--who can identify the cause of Christ
with the old tottering despotisms and the soul-destroying policy of
princes such as the late Emperor of Austria, and of ministers such as
Metternich. It would not greatly surprise us to see Protestants of
this high Tory stamp, who have been zealous against Popery all
their lives long, taking part in the 'lament of the merchants and
mariners' over the perished Babylon, when they find that the
representatives of the Roman Emperors must fall with the Roman See.
There are two wild beasts, like those which Daniel saw in vision,
contending together in fierce warfare,--the old Babylonish beast,
horrid with the blood of saints, and its cruel executioner--the
monster of Atheistic Liberalism; but Christ has identified His cause
with neither. No reprieve from the prince awaits the condemned
culprit; and with the disreputable and savage executioner he will
hold no intercourse. Destruction, from which there is no escape,
awaits equally on both.

We began with a reference to Dryden's _Year of Wonders:_ we conclude
with an anecdote regarding that year, connected with the history of
one of the most eminent judges and best men England ever produced. It
needs no application, showing as it does, with equal simplicity and
force, how and on what principle the terrors of years such as the
'_Annus Mirabilis_' of the seventeenth century, or the '_Annus
Mirabilis_' of our own, may be encountered with the greatest safety
and the truest dignity. We quote from Bishop Burnet's _Life of Sir
Matthew Hale_:--

'He' (Sir Matthew), says the Bishop, 'had a generous and noble idea of
God in his mind; and this he found, above all other considerations,
preserve his quiet. And, indeed, that was so well established in him,
that no accidents, how sudden soever, were observed to discompose him,
of which an eminent man of that profession gave me this instance:--In
the year 1666 an opinion did run through the nation that the end of
the world would come that year. This, whether set on by astrologers,
or advanced by those who th