Secular Education. — A High Church clergyman on secular education 1 “ The Rev.: Archer Gurney, in a letter to the John Bull, advocates the secular system as the only prac-; tieable one. Regarding the matter from a High Churchman’s point of view, Mr Gurney says—“ It is far better to separate secular and doctrinal teaching, and call on the clergy to supply the latter systematically, than to set about devLing a system of ( unsectarian’ reli gious instruction without any definite teach ing whatsoever.” Mr Gurnqy proceeds—“ I have no animosity to Dissenters, God knows. I cannot but hope the time wjllconje when we shall,, absorb them all, or nearly aft, and; when the Wesleyan organisation and others may still be retained under the form of con-: fraternities within the church.' I also most frankly admit that religious teaching may be overdone for the young, but I also cannot but think that it is the clergyman’s business to give it rather than the schoolmaster’s at the least to superintend. But now, the object is <tQ‘getot clerical influence altogether. The laity have their place in Siindav schools, but the instructor of the young in their reli gion should be the parish priest. I must object for one to a wholly colourless and per missible religious teaching, given officially and drily by a lay schoolmaster, as a matter of hard work. How churchmen can favour such a scheme I am at a loss to conjecture. To exclude dogma in the study of the Gos pels seems literally impossible. The doc trines, or rather dogmas, of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Atonement, are the only keys that open the Sacred Scriptures, Fami liarity with sacred things without love and reverence is most injurious, as, one would think, all good men must admit.”

Home Customs in Japan.— M. Humbert, the Swiss Minister at Jeddo, has just pub lished some, amusing details of the domestic life of the Japanese. In Japan marriage is the universal habit. Almost the only excep tions are to be found in the cate of certain monastic orders and among the ladies in at tendance upon the Men marry at about 20 and women at fifteen' years of age, but except in the Buddhist sects the act is marked by no religious ceremony. Among the presents displayed is always to be seen a double-lipped vase. 