myself." There is a bill on the wall-“National debt, 950 millions."

The people were torn from their families by pressgangs to serve in the army or navy, in causes for which they cared little, and of which they knew less. I show several pictures of pressgangs at work. Here is one. They have seized a poor tailor, whose womankind are making frantic efforts to release him. We can scarcely imagine in our day such a violation of individual liberty being endured. But the voice of the people was unheard during the reigns of the four Georges. Such great towns as Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham were quite unrepresented, whilst a couple of farmhouses at Old Sarum sent two members to Parliament; its members, in fact, were mere nominees of the great landowners. Thus Earl Lonsdale sent seven members himself to this packed House of Commons. In 1801, it is said, the Government, wanting these votes, bought them by appointing his son, a young man, only just in orders, to a bishopric with £9,000 a year. Every attempt at reforming the representation was suppressed during the reigns of George III and George IV. Thus, in 1819, occurred what was called the Manchester Massacre, of which scene I show you a contemporary picture, when the military were let loose on a peaceful multitude who had assembled to petition for a reform in Parliament, and many were killed and wounded. It was not until 1832 that the first Reform Bill was passed, after a desperate struggle, and from that time the progress of our nation has indeed been rapid. In 1846, those iniquitous laws, which made bread dear and excluded foreign corn from our markets--the Corn Lawswere repealed. Here is a picture dated 1818. There had been a bad harvest in England, and corn had risen to 90s. a quarter. It is now 30s. Multitudes were starving.

B

The French are represented as offering abundance of corn at 50s., but they are driven away in the sight of the starving people.

To turn to other matters, here is a picture which will recall to some of us the old coaching days. It is dated 1830, and represents the Liverpool mail coach in a snow drift. Two ladies are also seen left in their carriage, whilst their horses are being used to drag out the coach. Such were some of the miseries of travelling in those days. But in that very year the first railway for passenger traffic-the Liverpool and Manchester Railway-was opened; which invention has revolutionized travelling all the world over. For years there were only two classes of carriages; the first-class were exact copies of the old mail coaches, the others were just cattle-pens, without either seats or covering, as you will see in this picture, dated 1831. Such were the beginnings of the great railway system.

And now we emerge from the time of the four Georges into a brighter and happier day. We have reached our own times-when the whole earth has been girdled by the steamboat, the railway, and the electric wire; when education is within the reach of all, and the swinish multitude (as Burke styled the great mass of English men and women in 1793) has disappeared; to be replaced by a well-educated, thrifty, sober race, worthy of their place in the commonwealth, and when we can toast the sovereign people without being shut up in prison for doing so. Under the benign sway of a virtuous queen, temperance and religion flourish everywhere in our land.

Life is better worth living now than it was in the days of the four Georges. A thousand new channels of rational enjoyment, unknown to our forefathers, are ours. Happiness, reasonable outlets for ambition are open to all,

and are no longer confined to the wealthy few. To the old among us, it is surely no small compensation for advancing years to have been privileged to witness so many advances, so great, so beneficent a social revolution, as rich in promise as in fulfilment, for our country and our race.

THE ANABAPTISTS;

A STUDY OF RELIGIOUS SOCIALISM.

BY JOHN LEE, B.A.

THE story of the peasants' insurrection in Germany, which heralded the Protestant Reformation, is one of the most fascinating of all the fights for freedom known to the world. Towards the latter end of the fifteenth century the poor peasantry arose; their banner was the curious Bundschuh-the tied or laced-up boot which was worn by German peasantry. This they placed at the end of their pikes, or painted it on their standards. It was their insignia of freedom.

At first the movement broke out in Bavaria, afterwards. in Strassburg, afterwards in Würtemberg, and with much more strength and importance. But throughout its aims were the same, and invariably it was put down by those tyrannical sanguinary measures which are known to most tyrants and most tyrannical governments.

In 1517, the Bundschuh was raised throughout the Black Forest, from Baden to the Vosges. The whole country was aflame with the insurrectionary spirit, and the revolt spread to the Swiss frontier, and even as far as Lake Constance and the Elsass district.

Up to this time, however, it was simply a social movement. It was a struggle against terrible and ever-growing burdens of taxation; against the feudal service which the people were forced to render; against the constant usurpation on the part of the nobles, and the hideous manipulations of the law and government. It was, in short, a