lives for one murder? Is it right to inflict the same amount of punishment on two criminals, varying materially in the degrees of guilt? Are the spectators of gibbet exhibitions elevated in sentiment and rendered more capable of living holy lives? Is it the best way to heal one injury by perpetrating another injury? Should human life be taken on the unstable basis of circumstantial evidence? Are fallible tribunals equal to irrevocable decrees? Is it right for a finite being to inflict a punishment infinite in duration? Has any being but the God who gave life any right to take it away? Will any circumstance justify one human being in the exercise of that awful prerogative of God-the dispossessing another human being of his existence? Can man be improved by horror or fear? Is fear the strongest passion of the human mind? And if not, how can we deter criminals committing crimes by merely appealing to their fears? Has not the diminution of capital punishments been accompanied by a diminution of capital crimes? Has not the abolition of death-punishments for murder in several countries tended to the decrease of that fearful crime? Have not a great number of persons been executed who were completely innocent of the crimes imputed to them? Would those who defend the gallows perform, if need be, the office of Jack Ketch? Do they think the office of Jack Ketch a Christian one? Would it have been proper for Christ to have filled such an office? Do they not start back aghast when I ask the question? Then why advocate a thing which is so truly unchristian? Do they not hear the rotten timbers of the gallows creaking and wailing their speedy destruction? EDITOR.

THE LEVER OF LIFE.
A TALE OF MODERN TIMES.
CHAPTER I.

PASSING along Shoreditch, eastward, and turning away to the right through Church-street, we enter one of those vast, filthy, densely populated, and demoralized districts, which render London no less remarkable for its abject poverty and degradation, than it is for

its boundless wealth and civilisation. We are in the midst of a labyrinth of streets, lanes, and alleys, deep in mud, grimed, blackened, and disfigured with accumulated filth. The houses old and dilapidated, with battered windows and broken casements; the atmosphere heavy and damp, charged with intolerable odours from reeking drains and gutters, loaded with every species of decaying and offensive matter. We are in the district of fever and of gin, of everything most inimical to health, physical and moral-we are in Bethnal Green.

have done it for myself, only father has been so very ill, and it was so very, very hard to have nothing to give him that would do him good. I have worked as hard as I could; but wages are very low, and I couldn't earn enough to get half that the doctor ordered. Once, when I was at the warehouse, you stopped with your mamma in the carriage at the door, and I heard you speak so kindly to a poor little lame girl that had brought some work from her mother, and happened to stand near the carriage. It is not often that we get spoken to like that; and often after, when I watched my father in the fever, and the little ones cried for food, I thought I could hear the sound of your voice, and the word of pity you spoke to the poor lame child, and I thought that perhaps you wouldn't be angry if I told you how bad we were off; so I asked one of the young women at the warehouse, and they told me where you lived; so I wrote, but indeed I never thought of bringing you here-pray forgive me if I was too bold."

MEN OF BUSINESS.

BY EDMUND ERY.

We live in a business age. To obtain the character of a thorough man of business, is to obtain a passport to the admiration and confidence of mankind. There is no volume studied with more intense and laborious devotion than the Ledgerno pursuit so fascinating and absorbing as that of making money. We are not about to enter any protest against business men, and business habits. The age needs them; and their energies, wisely directed, contribute largely to the public good; but the age also demands that they should really be business men, and not business machines. He who gives up all the faculties and powers, all the time, and all the energy with which God has endowed him to the pursuit of wealth, to his countinghouse or his counter, may be an excellent business machine; as a thing of figures, weights, and measures, he may be first-rate-but the higher attributes of his manhood are gone; for the highest privilege is to be the steward of God, not the slave of self. For the government of the great human family,

Divine wisdom has framed laws as beautiful as they are simple and practical. He has written them by the finger of inspiration-He enforces them by the teachings of experience-He implants in every heart the power to understand and fulfil them. "Love is the fulfilling of the law;" but the love of what?-of gold, of power, of self? Nay! but the love of God, and the broad comprehensive love of universal humanity. Why, with all the wonderful resources which our country enjoys, the result of her energy and success in business, have we such gaunt, desperate, despairing poverty in our midst—why the deepening abyss of crime and degradation unequalled in the most savage states of barbarism-why do we see labour in its thousand attitudes of want and supplication struggling to maintain life in the midst of luxurious and wealthy cities, doing battle with hard, griping penury, amidst fruitful fields and valleys teeming with beauty and fertility? Why, but because men of power and of business, whose love should be universal, narrow down their senses and their sympathies to the service of one object, and that object is self. They regard their neighbours, not as men and women to be served, but to be used. Their solicitude is not how much happiness they can confer, but how much they can extract-not how much good they can do to others, but how much they can compel others to do for them. This is the working of a heartless system of trade machinery, but should never be the policy of a Christian man of business. Look, then, to it as you launch in life, that your stock ledger has no other entries than mere money debits. God entrusts you with a capital of time, intelligence, energy, influence, and human sympathy, which are to be as conscientiously invested and employed in His service as the material wealth, with which he endows you to be trafficked with, is your own; and never forget that when your last balance-sheet shall have been closed on earth, however satisfactory may be its testimony to your ability and success in the conduct of the business machine-there is yet another account to be audited, the account of your man

hood-every item and entry of which has been written with omniscient truthfulness and justice. You are not commanded to be careless and indifferent to your interest; but you are commanded not to be careless and indifferent to the welfare of others. You are to be more solicitous for the brotherhood than the servitude of your fellow-men -to live, not at the expense of those around you, but to the advancement of their welfare-to strive to be a better, rather than a richer, man than your neighbours; in a word, to practice that wisest of all selfishness-to live for the public good.

THE UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES OF ENGLAND.-No. I. BY THOS. BEGGS. Ir is a favourable time when attention is so strongly directed to the condition of the working classes, to suggest inquiring into the undeveloped resources of England. We shall be able to show that we have immense sources of wealth lying partially or wholly unimproved, while the labour, that if properly employed might cultivate them, is left to rest in idleness, and burthen the community by the cost of maintenance. The proportion of paupers at this time is about one in ten of the population, while the reports on vagrancy and mendicity show an awful increase of the indigent and destitute classes. The poor-rates have increased in about a century from one million and a half to about seven millions per annum. The public charities and philanthropic societies, which have multiplied in our time, are confessedly unable to meet the wants of those who rush with eagerness to every institution that opens its doors to the distressed, the suffering, and the erring. What is to be done with this immense mass of suffering? is the query of every thoughtful mind. Every one who attempts a practical answer is at least deserving of respectful attention. The following suggestions are not sent forth with any lofty pretensions; they are simply regarded as humble contributions to the common stock of practical suggestions on the condition of England question. They may possibly assist some minds

whose thoughts have been already turned in a similar direction.

It has been repeatedly held forth that the cultivation of the waste lands would greatly relieve the high pressure of competition which affects all kinds of labour. At any rate, employment might be found upon them for many of the agricultural labourers, who are engaged in a perpetual struggle for a meagre subsistence, and who are always alternating between independent labour and the poorhouse. By finding work for this class, by keeping in the rural districts the young and able-bodied, who under present circumstances crowd into the large towns, and compete there for every kind of unskilled labour, we should relieve our town populations. There has been no lack of plans for the attainment of such an end. Those of Mr. Owen and Mr. Morgan, it may be said, are not adapted to the present condition of society, whatever they may be in the future. Allotment systems have been tried, and most of the experiments have either entirely failed, or they have brought advantages in too small a scale to ensure general imitation. Any scheme, which purposes to take the artizan and mechanic from his workshop and usual occupation, and transplant him to an acre or two of land, must fail. We have had a recent proof of this. It does not follow, however, because premature measures have failed, that none others will succeed. It is surely possible that a scheme may be devised, suited to the spirit of the people, and endowed with the elements of success. In order that it should fully succeed, it must be based upon sound commercial principles. We may briefly suggest the leading features of such a plan.

We may first explain what is generally admitted, that a very small portion of the soil in England is cultivated to the extent that science has shewn to be practicable. There are large quantities left wholly undrained and uncultivated. Mr. Porter, in his Progress of the Nation, states, "that if all England were as well cultivated as Northumberland and Lincoln, it would produce more than double the quantity that is now obtained." And Mr. Alison somewhere

speaks of Great Britain being capable, by improvement in agriculture, of sustaining more than ten times its present amount of inhabitants. We shall be willing to take a much more reasonable calculation. In Great Britain and Ireland there are 77,394,433 acres of land; 46,522,970 acres of which are in a state of cultivation, 15,871,463 acres are considered unprofitable, and 15,000,000 acres are uncultivated, but capable of profitable cultivation. A wise economy would point to this immense field, on which to find employment for what is sometimes called our surplus labourers. We have no surplus labour if our opportunities were improved. What can be thought of a policy which allows the land to remain unproductive, while the labourer who would be glad to earn wages by tilling it, is idle. He must be fed, however, and he becomes a burthen upon the poor-rate. The manure that would enrich it is, by another system of waste, cast into our rivers, generating fever and disease. Why should not the labour and the land be brought together? The true means of adding to the national wealth is that of increasing the food of the people. Numbers of those subsisting upon charity, might be made producers of food, which food could be exchanged for manufactures. The pauper converted into a labourer, or what is still better, the labourer who is prevented from becoming a pauper, is so much clear gain to the community. By his remaining an independent labourer, the cost of maintenance is saved, he adds his industry to the stock of production, and becomes a consumer to a much greater extent. These men would increase the supply of food and the demand for labour. Why not take some of the property under the control of the Woods and Forests, which has been proved to be a loss rather than a gain to the revenue, and devote it for the purpose of an actual experiment?

THE HOME OF TASTE.

BY EDWIN PAXTON HOOD.

THE nobles of England long since carried Taste of some sort into their gardens and their halls; their alcoves and

groves are relieved by many a nymph and satyr wrought from the marble or the stone; and their long galleries have long since been decorated with the most precious gems of the pencil and the chisel. Every nobleman's residence has for years possessed its library, and also a room called by courtesy a study! The wealth of the noble owner could instantly command whatever the heart had coveted of beautiful, or graceful, or glorious; while the very opulence of the mansion not infrequently prevented its artistic features from conveying any impressions to the senses, or instructions to the intellect. But can we not make the home of the labourer of the poor counting-house clerk-of the humble tradesman-a Home of Taste also? May not such a place be a mansion for all lovely forms? May not the spiritual life, the intellectual discipline, shine on its walls? May not the consecrating elegancies of gentleness, the thrilling charms and powers of heroism and of beauty, in all their robing of instruction, be brought to the children of humble life. What deceiving spirit told the wealthy and the noble that the power of admiration was alone conferred on them? That the enchantments and the raptures of Nature were reserved for them alone. I do not believe it. I be lieve that the truest enjoyments which a cultivated taste can bestow, may frequently be spread in ample profusion for the more lowly children of our race. I believe that a true and sympathetic taste depends greatly on the state of the moral feelings. The intellect is refined and intensified by its moral associations; and it is matter of little doubt to my own mind that the lower fields of life contain the noblest illustrations and exhibitions of moral loveliness. Vulgarity is surely not confined to the workshop. Wherever bad manners colour the life, it is impossible there can be a Home of Taste; the materials of taste may be there, but the soul that frequents it is lost to the sense of enjoyment. To the man who whirls through midnight orgies, for whom the jockey and the gambler are companions, who lives almost solely for the purpose of flattering and adorning his body with the empty vanities of perishable fash