becoming more fully realised every day. Nations have smiled
contemptuously at them as they have gone forth on lonely missions of
freedom and peace; but the inner beatings of the world's great heart
today are in favour of liberty of thought and quietness. The Quakers
have been amongst life's pioneers in the long, hard battle for human
freedom and human peace. Quakerism may be a quaint, hat-loving,
silence-revering concern in its meeting-houses; its Uriahs, and
Abimelechs, and Deborahs, and Abigails, may look curious creatures
in their collarless coats and long drawn bonnets; but they belong to
a race of men and women who have kept the lamp of freedom burning;
who have set a higher price upon conscience than gold; who have
struggled to make everything free--the body, the religion, the bread
and butter, and the trade of the nations; who are now by their
doctrines slowly lifting humanity out of the red track of war, and
teaching it how grand a triumph can be made all the world over by
absolute Peace and Honesty.



ST. PETER'S CHURCH.



Upon a high piece of enclosed land, adjoining Fylde-road, stands St.
Peter's Church. Portions of its precincts are covered with
gravestones; the remainder has been "considerably damaged" of late,
according to the belief of one of the churchwardens, by the vicious
scratching of a number of irreverent hens, whose owners will be
prosecuted if they do not look better after them. The other Sunday,
we saw a notice posted at the front of the church relative to the