support her mother. Now the widow lived on with but one hope to see her long-lost child. At the termination of the street we parted, and as I placed the basket on her arm and received her blessing, she said, with all the childishness of age, "If you ever see Edgar, you will tell him to come home; won't you?"

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England has much to answer for her people, beggared to support a royal line and a retinue of nobles, are calling for reform. They read the wrong in the signs of wretchedness and want of thousands who conceal themselves in the lanes and dark avenues of that great city, but who come out to beg, steal, or buy, and then shrink back again, as if afraid of light.

One night, as I wandered through Holborn, I was delighted with the appearance of a store, which set forth in a prominent position, very finely illuminated. On one side, in flaming gas letters, appeared, "God save the Queen," and on the other, "God bless the People; while in the middle blazed forth a crown and other bawbles of royalty. It was a gay sight, and I stood, and, with a crowd of others, gazed on a while; and as I looked, a pale and haggard-looking woman, tall and gaunt, mingled with the throng. A while she gazed with the rest, but at length, rising to her full height, and looking around upon the people, exclaimed, or rather shrieked out, "Admire it, admire it; but know that it was wrung out of poor, old, worn-out frames, like mine!" And then she commenced a rude speech upon the wrongs of the working class, which appealed to all hearts. She was soon hustled away by a police officer, crying, as she went, "Burn on, burn on; the wasted lamp is almost out."

A residence of a few weeks in Europe makes one painfully familiar with scenes of wretchedness and sor

row. Starving families are represented in the street by squalid-looking children, haggard men, and pale, cadaverous women. If you leave the Strand, Holborn, or Oxford Street, and step into the by-ways and sidelanes, you change at once from the rolling carriages of the nobles, and the rich stores, filled with splendid trappings, to the filth and wretchedness of squalid poverty. If you enter the dwellings of the residents in those streets, you will find children who know but little about a respectable meal, or a comfortable bed, and such degradation as will make you weep for poor fallen human nature.

Often, when tired of display, and satisfied with the richness of the more public streets, have I stopped at the door of some rude tenement, and entered into conversation with the father or mother, about the children who were playing around, or who shrunk away at my presence. They would confess, without a blush, that they were uneducated, and brought up in crime and sin. To the question, "Do you go to church?" the answer would be, "Where should a poor man as me get clothes to wear to church?" or, "How can a poor woman like I go into the company of the gentry?" And thus parents and children alike grow up without the light of education or religion. Christianity, in the old world, stalks abroad in spacious cathedrals, or nestles down at the foot of kingly thrones, and goes not to the widow and the fatherless to bless and encourage them. Her dignity would be injured by a contact with the poor, despised, and ignoble, and she turns from them with coldness to take the hand of princes. This may be the religion of the church of England and of Rome, but it is not the religion of THE CHURCH OF GOD.

VI.

THE INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.

THE Crystal Palace, with its crowded apartments, halls, saloons, and thousands of visitors, was the fortunate idea of Prince Albert. Ever seeking out some plan to benefit the nation, to share the throne of which he had been called by divine Providence, he conceived the purpose, the grandeur of which has been equaled only by the unparalleled success which has crowned it. His ready mind at once foresaw the immense advantage which such an exhibition would be to England, and he set himself to the work. His plans were communicated to the nobles of England and France; consultations were held with artists and mechanics, and an early attempt was determined upon.

"Where shall it be held?" was the first question; and to this but one answer was given. The city of London alone could furnish facilities for such a gathering, and it was determined to erect a building in Hyde Park, between Kensington Road and Rotten Row. The residents in the immediate vicinity were naturally opposed to this selection; and as they could not prevent the progress of the enterprise, or prevail upon the commissioners to select a new location, they procured an act of Parliament that the building should be removed as soon as the exhibition closed.

"What shall the building be?" was next asked. This question was not so easily answered. For weeks a

H

building committee of engineers perplexed themselves with this question. More than two hundred designs were laid before them. One suggested that it should be of wood, another of brick, and a third of stone; but to each plan seemed to rise some insurmountable objection. The public presses were fiercely engaged in the strife, some contending for one plan, and some for another; and others still asserting that the whole enterprise would be a failure. At this point, a plan was submitted to the committee by Mr. Joseph Paxton, an eminent horticulturist of Chatsworth. A year or two before, Robert Schomburgk found, growing on the banks of the River Berbice, a lily, which, like Byron's pillar “with a buried base," had no name in the science of botany. He preserved seeds of this plant, and sent them to Mr. Paxton, who planted them, and gave to the shoot the name of "Victoria Regia." The lily soon grew to a gigantic size, and the wits of the horticulturist were set at work to provide some habitation for it; and he erected at once a glass house of such form and size as would answer the purpose.

While thus engaged, it occurred to him that this same plan, enlarged and improved, might answer for a building suited to the proposed exhibition. He soon marked out his design, and submitted it at once to the committee, who were already nearly discouraged at the array of difficulties which presented themselves. They soon saw its advantages, and adopted it, and issued proposals for its immediate erection. Soon, in Hyde Park, the busy scene began. The beautiful resort of wealthy men and gay ladies became a great workshop, and, in an astonishingly limited period of time, the building was erected.

The ground plan of the edifice is a parallelogram,

The

one thousand eight hundred and fifty-one feet long, and four hundred and fifty-six feet wide. A transept intersects it at right angles in the middle, which is four hundred and eight feet long, and seventy-two feet wide. The building rises in three series of elevations, of the respective hights of sixty-four, forty-four, and twenty-' four feet. These elevations are supported by iron pillars, fixed in a socket formed in a base which rests upon a concrete foundation. Iron braces, girders, and cross-bars render the whole safe and convenient. columns are trellised together, and braced so as to cause no apprehension of danger from the winds. Of these pillars, there are three thousand three hundred, from fourteen and one half to twenty feet in hight. There are two thousand two hundred and twenty-four castiron girders, and one thousand one hundred and twentyeight cast-iron beams for the galleries. The roof of the transept is semicircular, and rises to a hight of one hundred and eight feet, and presents to one at a distance a most beautiful view. The glass is set much in the manner of our best-constructed greenhouses. The plates are forty-nine inches long. Over the whole, canvas is drawn, to modify the rays of the sun, and prevent injury from hail or storms. The iron-work is gayly painted, so as to give the best impression; and the whole structure has a light, airy, and yet substantial appearance, truly pleasing. It was constructed in one hundred and forty-five working days after the plan was submitted to the building committee, and cost less than would a cheap, ordinary building of wood. And yet this grand plan, and this successful design, were but as the work of a moment. Probably fewer hours were spent by the designer than are usually spent in planning a tolerable barn. We will allow the architect to tell his own story.