is a vermilion picture of a male and female soul respectively up to the waist (the waist of a soul!) in fire, and an angel above each, watering the sufferers from a watering-pot. This is intended to gain alms for masses. The same populace sit for hours on the Mole, listening to rhapsodists' who recite Ariosto. I have seen, I think, five of them all within a hundred yards of each other, and some sets of fiddlers to boot. Yet there are few parts of the world where I have seen less laughter than there. The Miracle of Januarius's Blood is, on the whole, my most curious experience. The furious entreaties, shrieks and sobs of a set of old women, yelling till the miracle was successfully performed, are things never to be forgotten.-JOHN STERLING.

NOTHING can scarcely be more important in secular things than, as to some one element of a child's education, to furnish it with resources for that great struggle with the material elements of existence which is to form the chief occupation of its future life, and in childhood to call into operation some process of thought of which the movement will be carried on through youth and manhood. It is a great thing to have made the labouring man a student, even if it be only in respect to that one form of matter, or process of art, from which he compels his daily subsistence. A thorough mastery of one branch of knowledge constitutes, indeed, in itself an education.

The man who has accomplished it is prepared to master the whole. It is more effectually a drawing out and a discipline of his mind, than instruction extended over a wide field would be, if less honestly sought or less entirely achieved. In this sense the value is determined, not by the quantity, but by the quality of the acquisition, by the amount of patient and earnest thought which has been brought to bear upon it, and the habit of reflecting which has been formed by it, and the power of reasoning and understanding which has been cultivated by it.

The labouring man may have been taught many other things at school; but, practically, that which is associated with the earning of his daily bread is that which will remain in his mind. He has found that task one which, if it did not fill up the full

measure of his time, occupied, at least, all his thougths. To know, then, the secret that is hidden in the matter on which he works, associated as that secret is with his craft; to reflect upon it-to understand it-in secular matters-this is the proper sphere of his knowledge. Let it not be said that it is a narrow sphere. On the contrary, that is a wide domain which is embraced in the knowledge of any one fragment of the universe, for it is united by great general laws with a knowledge of the whole. Some such fragment lies before every working man. To tell him that he is to shut out from it the exercise of thought, or that the proper functions of his intelligence-in respect to secular things-lie rather in some other path than that, is, to a certain extent, to contravene the order of God's providence in respect to him.

Nor need the workman think, however humble be the craft he exercises, or common the form of matter on which he is called upon to labour, that the science of it is a thing of small account. Nothing is of small account which comes from the hand of God, or any truth which is a manifestation of the Divine mind. The man who has acquired the knowledge of a law of nature holds in his hand one link of a chain which leads up to God. It is the development of a truth which was pronounced before the foundations of the world were laid. In the eye of philosophy, the matter which cumbers it falls off; and it is seen intrinsically as beautiful when coming from one concealment as from another-when developed from the rude fragment of a rock or from a sunbeamwhen found in the organization of an insect, or in the mechanism of the heavens.

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It is in the separation from labour of that science or knowledge which is proper to every form of it, that consists the degrading distinction of a class of the community (in the language of the manufacturing districts) as hands." "Hands!" Men who take a part all their lives long in manufacturing processes, involving the practical application of great scientific truths, without ever comprehending them-men, who have before their eyes, continually, mechanical combinations, the contrivance of which they never ta e the pains to inquire into-men, in respect to whom the first step has never been made which all these things would have continued, the first impulse given, which these would have carried on—men, who, with the subjects of thought all around them, and with everything to impel them to the exercise of it, never exercise thought; and so, the obvious means of the education being pussed by, remain always "hands."

I know how many are the objections raised to this view of the function of education. We are told of the opposition of matter

and mind, and of the circumscribing and deadening effects of matter upon thought. As though matter were not full of the clements of thought, and the appointed field for its exercise to those whose avocation it is to subdue it to the uses of man; and as though, whilst the power over outward things is enlarged by the exercise of reason and reflection, the inward life did not also gather strength.

We are told, moreover, of the evils of associating knowledge with gain. As though, in the gainings of a labourer, such as that man becomes who associates with them the cultivation of his mind, there were not implied the comforts of a home and the exercise of the domestic affections; and as if, in these things, there were not given us by God the noblest field for the development of the religious principles, and the best school for the cultivation of the moral sentiments.

If the inquiry were made among labouring men, what class were distinguished from the rest as men of a religious character— men in earnest in the matter of their future and eternal interests, whether in the pale of the Church or amongst the various denominations of Dissenters-it would be found, I believe, that they were, for the most part, skilled workmen-men raised above the rest by the union of intelligence with their labour. I speak more particularly in respect to the men. Among the women, a more sedentary and contemplative life, and maternity, appear to supply that preparation of mind which comes, in respect to the men, only from knowledge and intelligence.

For these reasons, it is my opinion that no expedient of secular instruction would be found so effectual to elevate the character of the labouring man, morally and intellectually, as to educate him with a knowledge of those great principles of scientific truth which admit of an application to his own calling. If put on this path in his youth, he will be likely to follow it out; and becoming thus a reflective and thoughtful man, elements will have been collected, out of which the Christian character may, under the most favourable circumstances, be built up.

Elementary education further recommends itself under this practical form, by the consideration that, whilst as a discipline of the mind it claims a place second to no other, the most timid educationist will scarcely be able to extract from it the elements of danger. That a mechanic should know the principles of mechanics, and that an agricultural labourer should be acquainted with the nature of agriculture-in short, that every man should know his own business-can be fraught with no peril to the interests of Religion or of the State.-MOSELEY.

To a Statesman the condition of the great mass of the people presents a question of the greatest importance and interest. For the security of the life of the humblest wayfarer, the ministers of Queen Elizabeth charged the whole property of the country with a tax for the relief of indigence, which now amounts to five millions per annum, The liberty of the poorest is secured by the same statutes, and defended by the same legal authority as that of the highest. Some signs are beginning to appear that the condition of the poor has attracted the attention of the legislator in the improvement of the discipline of our gaols; in the amelioration of the criminal code; in the mitigation of all punishments, and the limitation of the penalty of death to murder and a few crimes akin to it; in the attention now paid by Government to the sanitary arrangements of our towns, which has prepared public opinion for the adoption of a legislative arrangement intended to remove pestilence from the habitations of the poor, to promote the cleanliness and comfort of their dwellings, and thus to improve the morality of their households.

These are among the signs that the condition of the common people in England has become, in the opinion of Statesmen, one of the chief tests of the prosperity of the nation, and of the stability of public order. The enactments which have restricted the hours of labour of women, children, and young persons in public manufactories, are among the earliest provisions for a great moral reformation, intended to reach the condition of the entire body of the working classes.

There are social disorders not attributable to defects in the physical condition of the people. The mobs of machinebreakers, which resisted every improvement in the inventions of our manufacturing industry, ignorantly attempted to destroy the chief sources of their own domestic well-being, and of the national prosperity. The Trades' Unions, which have endeavoured to limit the number of workmen in the best-paid employments; to prescribe a minimum of wages; to impose a uniform standard of earnings for the young and old, the feeble and robust, the industrious and the negligent, and to withdraw the workmen from the control of their masters, have for long

periods rendered the working classes, particularly in Ireland and in the mining districts, the victims of their ignorance. They have adhered to these projects through many years at the expense of great privations, and of a sacrifice of personal liberty such as no despotic government has ever been able to enforce, and with a frequent disregard of justice and humanity.

The consequences have been most disastrous. Capital has been driven from entire districts; the labouring population has been dispersed; and if such combinations should become dominant, they would certainly destroy the manufacturing prosperity of this country. These are examples of a class of evils which arise from ignorance. It is difficult, but perhaps possible, to repress such evils, by giving summary and almost despotic powers to the magistrates, and by increasing the numbers, vigilance, and preventive authority of the police. But such measures are opposed to the spirit of our constitution, and the legislature has wisely determined to rely rather on the growth of intelligence among the great body of the people, than on the coercive powers of the law, for the correction of these disorders.

On the other hand, much social evil has its origin in the low condition of the morals of a people, who have not been reared under the influence of an efficient system of religious education. Vast expenses are incurred by the country for the relief of those forms of indigence which are attributable to these causes. The whole apparatus of criminal jurisprudence and of secondary punishment, including the outlay on the constabulary force, involves an expenditure of two millions per annum. The provisions for the preservation of public order and the suppression of popular tumults, are an expensive barrier against the eruptions of popular passion. It is obvious to Statesmen that to neglect the condition of the people is to permit society to be corrupted by domestic immorality; to render social order and the growth of national wealth insecure, by the combinations maintained by the prejudices of popular ignorance; to entail on the State the support of unnecessary indigence and physical suffering; tɔ endanger public liberty itself, by increasing the need of coercive and penal arrangements, and vastly to augment the charge by which persons and property can be secured against violence and fraud, and public order preserved against anarchy.

The relief of indigence is not confided solely to private charity; nor the sanitary improvements of our towns to benevolent associations; nor the defence of property and public order to voluntary combinations: can it then become any great Statesmen to abandon to voluntary charity alone, that improvement of the moral and intellectual condition of the people on which such