being half starved by the idleness and drunkenness of his father, craved for some food with great earnestness. The father (who had before occasioned the death of his wife by ill treatment), enraged, pushed the boy from him with such violence, as to throw him over the Point into the ocean that rolled beneath. The father, being then in a state of intoxication, was unable to assist his boy, if he had cared enough for him to desire his preservation. The boy seemed lost. But that God, without whose permission not a sparrow falls to the ground, and by whom the very hairs of our heads are numbered, provided for his deliverance from the very imminent danger. In rising, he struck against the side of a boat, to which he clung till he could jump in; and the effort made to get in so shook the little boat, as to loosen the rope by which it was fastened to the land, and it immediately drifted till it struck against the side of a ship of war that was lying near. The seamen, hearing a boat strike, let down a rope, by which the poor boy was drawn up. Upon being asked his name, he said he was called "poor Jack." Jack immediately became servant to all the ship's company; but although he worked hard, he was well fed, and therefore was content. His office in time of an engagement was to carry powder, &c., to the guns. One of the officers asked him if he could read, and learning that he could not, offered to teach him. But poor Jack's reading was not to the edification of his soul, as it consisted of light books and songs, which he took every opportunity of studying when he had no other duty to perform. After one very severe engagement, Jack was sent down into the cockpit, to wait upon and assist the surgeon in dressing the wounds of the poor seamen. He was ordered to carry some medicine to a man in a hammock which was pointed out to him. When he took it, he found the poor wounded seaman lying feverish and distressed, having been pressed out of a merchant vessel two days before. He shook his arm to make him take the medicine, upon which the poor fellow raised his head and said, "Who are you?" "Poor Jack," replied the lad. "How old are you?" 'Eighteen." For it was now many years since Jack had been thrown over the Point at Portsmouth. Ah," said the poor invalid, "I might have had just such a boy as you, if I had not thrown him over the Point at Portsmouth, and he would have been just your age too." Poor Jack was not

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long in recognising in the wounded and dying man, his once profligate but now repentant father; and as soon as the poor man had returned thanks to God for having had his heavy load of guilt and distress lightened, by having one sin removed from the black catalogue, of which he thought himself guilty in the murder of his child, he gave his Bible to the boy, telling him that the loss of him had driven him to seek comfort in the Scriptures, on reading which God had revealed to him his lost estate, and sent him to a Saviour for pardon. In another embrace the soul of this man was separated from his body, and Jack was left with his lifeless father's Bible in his hand. I pass over some years of his life, and events by which they were marked. Suffice it to say, that Jack was inclined to read his Bible, and that in its perusal his mind was enlightened to know himself a sinner, and his Saviour's blood his only remedy.

DEVAUDEN CHAPEL.

THE consecration of this chapel will excite more than ordinary interest, when it is considered that the erection of this temple to the worship of the Almighty, for the especial benefit of the poor, originated mainly in the pious, unwearied, and successful labours of one of the poor themselves. James Davies, a man whose example takes him out of the artificial distinctions of society, and places him in the first class of honoured and memorable men, is the meek and humble Christian whose name shall be taught to the children of generations yet to come, as having, by the devoted energies of a life of poverty and labour, caused the erection of the holy fabric without which they and their fathers might even not have heard the Word of God. Now in his seventy-fourth year, James Davies has through life been an humble and assiduous schoolmaster at Devauden, where his example aptly enforced his emphatic instructions of the children in the doctrines of religion. It had long been his great sorrow that the neighbourhood surrounding this chapel was without a church: he determined to attempt the heroic labour of endeavouring to supply one. By years of privation, out of a very scanty income; by the sale of a most interesting memoir of his life, written by an excellent clergyman; and by the

unceasing labour of years in collecting subscriptions, this humble and pious man has lived to see, like a second "Man of Ross," his pious wish fulfilled, and a chapel raised where "the Gospel will be preached to the poor" to the end of time.

REMINISCENCE OF THE LATE ROBERT RAIKES, FOUNDER OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS.

Hawkschurch Rectory, 24th Sept., 1838. "I HAD the happiness, at a very early period of my life, to be acquainted with the late Mr. Raikes, from whom I have received various marks of civility and friendship. I formerly resided in the same parish, and attended at the same church, St. Mary de Crypt; and I have still a distinct recollection that he was as regular as clock-work at the morning and afternoon services on a Sabbath-day; and what his nephew, the Rev. Mr. Raikes, has stated, as to his frequenting the early prayers at the cathedral (Gloucester) on week-days, I am enabled to corroborate; and perhaps there are yet existing many persons by whom a similar testimony could be borne and by one, in particular, if indeed he be still living, an excellent and learned friend of mine, Mr. Counsel, of Gloucester. The present Bishop of Exeter, also, who received his classical education at Gloucester, I doubt not, must well remember Mr. Raikes, and could add the weight of his testimony to the fact I have mentioned. The late Mrs. Hannah More, I well know, from what she has stated to me, highly appreciated Mr. Raikes' worth and principles; but thought him, if anything, what would be termed in our days rather ultra in his views respecting the Established Church; and if I could lay my hand on a letter he wrote to me on my ordination, in 1808, the point as to his orthodoxy would at once be set at rest, for no sentiments in that kind letter could be more expressive of the warmth of his attachment to the Church, as well as of the liberality of his feelings towards those who had separated from her communion, and disapproved of her discipline; and I think I am accurate in representing the following as the substance of his opinion, that the Church of England presented the fairest copy of the primitive discipline and government, and that her litanies and collects claimed our admiration and reverence,-not as having been

borrowed from those of the Roman communion, but handed down to us from the age, or the one immediately succeeding the age, of the apostles.' And in this view every true churchman will acquiesce. The impression upon my mind, therefore, is, that the Church of England never possessed a stauncher friend and a more consistent member than the late Mr. Raikes. I, for one, hold his memory in the utmost veneration and gratitude, not only for the particular good of which he was the original author and projector, aided indeed by another inestimable inhabitant and kindred spirit in Gloucester, the late Rev. Mr. Stock, but also for his unvaried condescension and kindness towards myself, when a very young man, particularly on one occasion, upon which I was a successful candidate for a scholarship at the University of Oxford. On my election, and before I proceeded to college, he made me a valuable present of books, as a token of his regard. Mr. Raikes had been the printer and editor of a provincial paper, called the Gloucester Journal, still I believe in existence, from the publication of which he realized a handsome fortune, with which he retired into private life, and distinguished the evening of his days by acts of the most enlarged and discriminating beneficence to the poor and destitute of the place and neighbourhood. Mr. Raikes died in the year 1811, leaving, I believe, two sons, of whom one was in the Church and the other in the army; and daughters, one of whom was married to the late Sir F. B. Thompson, who so gallantly distinguished himself in the Leander, at the battle of the Nile. Mr. R. was very respectably connected, and the eminent banker of London, I. Raikes, Esq., was his brother. He lived in the Southgate-street, a venerable looking mansion, opposite to the school in which I received my classical education, formerly occupied by Mr. Justice Powell; and my uncle, Archdeacon Rudge, in his History and Antiquities of Gloucester, in noting this fact, bears the following testimony to Mr. Raikes: he was a character justly esteemed for the philanthropy and zeal with which he brought forward and fostered the plan of Sunday-schools for the education of poor children.' This testimony of the archdeacon is decisive as to the fact of Mr. Raikes being the original projector of Sunday-schools; for he lived in the same town, and was on terms of intimacy with Mr. Raikes at the time; and he was a clergyman of too much integrity and principle to have given

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such a testimony, and have published such a fact, without authority.

"The above reminiscence respecting one to whom the Church of England in particular, and the poor of the kingdom in general, are under such obligations, has appeared to me to be called forth at the present moment, and will not be regarded as unacceptable. A monument has been erected to his memory in marble,—but his more enduring monument is that with which his name is identified. No damp will encrust, and no time will deface the imperishable materials, nor the golden letters sculptured thereon,-"ROBERT Raikes -SUNDAY SCHOOLS.".

[Rev. Jemes Rudge, D.D.]

ON THE NATIONAL NEGLECT OF GOD. IN the CITY OF NORWICH there is a large average proportion of churches and chapels, for the size of the place, with an estimated population of 64,000; there are, with the Sabbathschools, 22,239 attendants on public worship, including all the churches and dissenting chapels. If 24,000 be deducted for infants, sick, and the infirm, unable to attend, it will leave in that one city, nearly 18,000 fully capable of being present, and yet constantly refusing to attend any worship; 1,082 shops and other places are open in this city for business on the Sabbath-day. Steam-packets and boats of pleasure crowd the river on that day, and several thousands attend teagardens and public places of amusement. And of those who attend public worship, very small is the proportion who frequent the table of the Lord.

But let us come to a larger scene, and look at THE TRUE SITUATION OF OUR METROPOLIS. Within eight miles of St. Paul's, there is a population congregated together of 2,000,000 of immortal beings. How intensely interesting should the state of this population be to the Christian mind, which surveys it not only as the capital of our land, but the chief city of Protestantism, the metropolis of the Christian world; and affecting in its character the condition of the whole earth. In its privileges it has been the most favoured spot of the earth; in its abuse and neglect of those privileges, is it not, alas! now the most guilty?