GOD and convert it into a place of entertainment to get gain.* Some years ago, the Bishop of Winchester very properly interfered to prevent a similar performance at S. Saviour's, Southwark. But it was not to be expected that Bishop Tait, with his loose ideas on the sanctity of holy places, would go with a whip of small cords and clear the House of Prayer. There is not an apology that Mr. Povah makes but the Priests and Levites might have made the same excuse with regard to buying and selling in the Temple; and yet both buyers and sellers were driven out. This was the only sin which our Blessed LORD when on earth punished, and on two occasions He became accuser, judge, and executioner, to punish those who profaned His holy temple.

Music Halls and Theatres are turned into preaching houses, and GoD's Temple into a Music Hall; and such is the confusion of ideas on religious topics that even educated men, who ought to know better, do not see any incongruity or absurdity in all this. The world shows its inconsistency by making a great

*The daily papers inform us that "the season precluded the accessories of light, gauzy drapery for the ladies, which augments so greatly the effect of a similar scene in the summer." This defect was, doubtless, regretted by the authorities, who, as far as time and circumstances permitted, made all the arrangements on the theatrical model. Even the three prices of admission denoted the orthodox divisions of boxes, pit, and gallery. The holders of the lowest tickets were put into any corners where "it was at all probable that the loudest notes of the choruses could penetrate; while the nave, into which the soft notes of the solos floated away, was reserved for a superior class."

ONLY A PENNY.

['Union,' February 15, 1861.]

ERHAPS in no age of the world has the deire for cheap commodities been carried to such an extent as in the present. The

natural consequence is that we are inundated with inferior goods, adulterated by every possible method and to every degree; while deficient weights and short measures complete the deception. This passion for goods at less than cost price has infected every rank and grade of life; nor is it confined to worldly matters only: we are now promised a cheap religion. Cheap churches have long been in fashion; but, as far as they went, though inferior articles, they were genuine. It was left to Lord Shaftesbury and Co. to produce a spurious and decidedly cheap article, and the firm of which the noble lord is president has succeeded admirably. It can be done, positively, for a penny ahead. Undertakers tell us that we may mourn at any price we can now, it seems, pray at any price from one penny and upwards-from the pit of the Victoria,

outcry against choral services, and yet will pay to sit through a long musical performance simply because it is not a service, not worshipping of GOD in any sense; it is not necessary to stand, or kneel, or repeat any responses; there is nothing to do but to sit still and listen, or to stare and be stared at-all very harmless in a concert-room, but not quite the thing in church, even Mr. Povah must allow. He says that every arrangement had been made by the "surveyor" to ensure reverential behaviour; but this is a species of irreverence that no surveyor could prevent, not even the Bishop-and we know no other Church officer who is an overseer or surveyor set over human beings...

ONLY A PENNY.

['Union,' February 15, 1861.]

ERHAPS in no age of the world has the deire for cheap commodities been carried to such an extent as in the present. The

natural consequence is that we are inundated with inferior goods, adulterated by every possible method and to every degree; while deficient weights and short measures complete the deception. This passion for goods at less than cost price has infected every rank and grade of life; nor is it confined to worldly matters only: we are now promised a cheap religion. Cheap churches have long been in fashion; but, as far as they went, though inferior articles, they were genuine. It was left to Lord Shaftesbury and Co. to produce a spurious and decidedly cheap article, and the firm of which the noble lord is president has succeeded admirably. It can be done, positively, for a penny ahead. Undertakers tell us that we may mourn at any price we can now, it seems, pray at any price from one penny and upwards-from the pit of the Victoria,