A comparison of the number of people inhabiting town and country brings out some curious and interesting results:-At the close of the seventeenth century the population of England was about 5,000,000. At that time it contained no town, except London, with a population of more than 30,000, and only four contained as many as 10,000. Now considerably more than onehalf live in towns; more than one in four live in towns of above 30,000 of a population; and, as in Scotland, fully every eighth person lives in the largest town. To say that London contains a population equal to that of the whole of Scotland gives scarcely an adequate idea of its size. It contains a population nearly three times that of Norway, a country greater in extent than the whole British Islands; and about twice that of British America, a region nearly equal in extent to two-thirds of the continent of Europe. It is also said to contain more Scotsmen than are in Edinburgh, more Irishmen than are in Dublin, more Jews than are in the whole land of Palestine, and more Roman Catholics than are in Rome itself. In Scotland, two-fifths of the people are found in the cities and burghs; every second person dwells in a town or large village; one in every four in a city of more than 70,000 inhabitants; and fully one in every eight is a residenter in the city of Glasgow, which contains a population one-half more than Scotland north of the line of the Caledonian Canal.-In France, where so many of the inhabitants are engaged in agriculture, only about onethird reside in towns. The influence which Paris has gained over the rest of the country is so great that it has almost become proverbial that "Paris is France." This influence has been well illustrated by the history of the last eighty years, during which the government has been three times changed, mainly by the exertions of the Parisians. In 1814, when Napoleon saw that Paris was in the power of his enemies, he gave up his cause as hopeless, and agreed to abdicate. The most thickly peopled country in Europe, and the most abundant in towns, is Belgium ; to which the exclamation made by Philip II. of Spain nearly three centuries ago is still applicable-" This is one large town.”

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

TREAD lightly here! this spot is holy ground,
And every footfall wakes the voice of ages:
These are the mighty dead that hem thee round,—
Names that still cast a halo o'er our pages:
Listen! 'tis Fame's loud voice that now complains,—
"Here sleeps more sacred dust than all the world contains."

Thou mayst bend o'er each marble semblance now:
That was a monarch,-see how mute he lies!
There was a day when, on his crumbling brow,
The golden crown flashed awe on vulgar eyes;
That broken hand did then a sceptre sway,

And thousands round him kneeled, his mandates to obey.

Turn to the time when he thus low was laid

Within this narrow house, in proud array: Dirges were sung, and solemn masses said,

And high-plumed helms bent o'er him as he lay; Princes and peers were congregated here,

And all the pomp of Death assembled round his bier.

Then did the midnight torches flaming wave,

And redly flashed athwart the vaulted gloom;

And white-robed boys sang requiems o'er his grave;
And muttering monks kneeled lowly round his tomb;
And lovely women did his loss deplore,

And with their gushing tears bathed the cold marble floor.

See! at his head a rude-carved lion stands,

In the dark niche where never sunbeams beat; And still he folds his supplicating hands:

A watchful dragon crouches at his feet,

How oddly blended!—he all humble lies,

While they defiance cast from their fierce, stony eyes.

Here sleeps another, clothed in scaly mail;
Battle's red field was where he loved to be ;
Oft has his banner rustled in the gale,

In all the pomp of blazing heraldry!

Where are his bowmen now, his shield and spear,
His steed and battle-axe, and all he once held dear?

His banner wasted on the castle wall;

His lofty turrets sunk by slow decay;
His bowmen in the beaten field did fall;

His plated armour rust hath swept away;
His plumes are scattered, and his helmet cleft,
And this slow-crumbling tomb is all he now hath left.

And this is fame! For this he fought and bled!
See his reward !—No matter; let him rest;
Vacant and dark is now his ancient bed,

The dust of ages dims his marble breast;

And in that tomb what thinkest thou remains?
Dust!-'tis the only glory that on earth man gains.

And kings and queens here slumber side by side,

Their quarrels hushed in the embrace of Death;
All feelings calmed of jealousy or pride,

Once fanned to flame by Slander's burning breath ;—
Even the crowns they wore from cares are free,
As those on children's heads who play at royalty.

And awful Silence here does ever linger;

Her dwelling is this many-pillared dome : On her wan lip she plants her stony finger,

And, breath-hushed, gazes on her voiceless home; Listening, she stands with half averted head,

For echoes never heard among the mute-tongued dead.

THOMAS MILLER.

OUR ENGLISH BIBLE.*

ONE Sunday in February 1526, the great Wolsey sat in old St. Paul's under a canopy of cloth of gold. His robe was purple; scarlet gloves blazed on his hands; and golden shoes glittered on his feet. A magnificent array of satin and damask gowned priests encircled his throne; and the gray head of old Bishop Fisher— soon to roll bloody on a scaffold-appeared in the pulpit of the place. Below that pulpit stood rows of baskets, piled high with books, the plunder of London and the university towns. These were Tyndale's Testaments, ferreted out by the emissaries of the cardinal, who had swept every cranny in search of the hated thing. None there fresh from the printer's hand-all well-thumbed volumes, scored with many a loving mark, and parted from with many bitter tears! Outside the gate before the great cross there burned a fire, hungering and leaping for its prey. When the sermon was over, men, who loved to read these books, were forced, with a refinement of cruelty, to throw the precious volumes into the flames, while the cardinal and his prelates stood looking at the pleasant show, until the last sparks died out in the great heaps of tinder; and then the gorgeous crowd went home to supper, rejoicing in their work of destruction. Poor misguided men! to think that the burning of a few shreds of paper and scraps of leather could destroy the words of eternal truth!

Scenes like this occurred more than once at St. Paul's Cross; yet the Bible lived—was revised and translated with more untiring industry than ever.

Fifteen years after the burning thus described, and five years after the body of Tyndale had perished like his books in the flames, a royal order was issued, commanding a copy of the Bible to be placed in every church, where the people might read or hear it freely. Gladly was the boon welcomed; young and old flocked in crowds to drink of the now unsealed fountain of life. Then was often beheld, within the gray crypt of St. Paul's, a scene which

* From "History of English Literature, in a Series of Biographical Sketches." By W. F. Collier, LL.D. (Nelson's School Series.)

a distinguished living artist has made the subject of a noble picture. The Great Bible, chained to one of the solid pillars which upheld the arches of the massive roof, lay open upon a desk. Before it stood a reader, chosen for his clear voice and fluent elocution; and, as leaf after leaf was turned, the breathless hush of the listening crowd grew deeper. Gray-headed old men and beautiful women, mothers with their children beside them and maidens in the young dawn of womanhood, merchants from their stalls and courtiers from the palace, beggary and disease crawling from the fetid alleys, stood still to hear; while, in the dim back-ground, men who, if they had dared, would have torn the sacred book to tatters and trampled it in the dust, looked sourly on.

This dear privilege of hearing the Bible at church, or reading it at home, so much prized by the English people then, was snatched from them again by their cruel and fickle king. But in 1547 the tyrant died, and during the reign of the gentle boy Edward Biblereading was restored. Under Elizabeth the Bible was finally established as the great standard of our national faith. Two editions, appearing before that translation which we use, may be noted;

the Geneva Bible, so dear to the Puritans, finished in 1560 by Miles Coverdale and other exiles who were driven from England by the flames of persecution; and the Bishop's Bible of 1568, a translation superintended by Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was aided by the first scholars of that learned age.

Then came the translation which we still use, and to which most of us cling with unchanging love, in spite of the occasional little flaws which the light of modern learning has discovered. How tame and cold the words of that Book, entwined as they are with the memory of earliest childhood, would fall upon our ear if rendered into the English in which we speak our common words and read our common books!

Within an oak-panelled and tapestried room of that splendid palace which Wolsey built at Hampton by the Thames, King James the First, most pedantic of our English monarchs, sat enthroned among an assembly of divines, who were met in conference upon the religious affairs of the kingdom. It was then little more than