The celebration of the third jubilee of the Society for
the Pro- pagation of the Gospel is a landmark of importance in our post- revolutionary history. Prince 'Albert showed delicacy, of tact as well as breadth of view when he associated so emphatically the institution of the Society with William the Third, the Sovereign 'who "by his sagacity and energy closed that bloody struggle for civil and religious liberty which so long convulsed this country." If the magnificent display of the Industrial Exhibition tells that the country has made immense strides in mechanical skill and com- mercial enterprise, and in the material wealth and luxury which are the fruits of their combination, since the revolutionary rent, an impartial compsuison-of the external decorum of social intercourse, and the practical zeal for the dissemination of sound principles, at the two periods, are equally favourable to the later. The moral tone of the upper classes of society has immensely improved during the last hundred and fifty years; the citizen class, without losing its sober spirit of self-control, has been liberalized in its ideas and sentiments; and a not inconsiderable portion of the classes less favoured by fortune has been elevated from ,the mere mob of former days to the dignity of reflecting and calculating men. Many foul blots yet remain to be effinied from the aspect of British society, but at no period of our his- tory has an earnest aspiration after truth, spiritual and secular, been cherished by so large a proportion of the community as at present. At the close of the reign of William e an the com- mencement of that of Anne, e taint inherited from the times of the Second Charles was still strong and widely diffused: the infant society was countenanced by few of the wealthy and noble,—whose presence at its meetings, indeed, their habitual conduct being kept in mind, would have been a shameless mockery. The noble and -wealthy who thronged to St. Martin's Hall on Tuesday last acted in strict consistency with their everyday habits. The address of the Prince Consort was thoroughly nnbadd -with a sense of this change, and with a perception of the social and political causes to which we owe it.
