tions from the most putrid bogs does not show her mother, and was going to reply, when a that light does not proceed from on high, how-knock was heard at the door, and she hurried ever it may be refracted and defiled by the foul to answer it. medium through which it is transmitted.

hope, they will as faithfully keep as she prayed for some time engaged public attention, and many letters they might do.

HOME MISSIONS.

No. CXIII.

APRIL 24, 1869.

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to see how it was profaned and desecrated by all sorts of unnecessary work and trading being transacted. If the sabbath were abolished, it would be no benefit to the working-man. He "If we were to wait," says the late primate (archbishop would be simply robbed of the 52 days, or seven Longley), "till unholy or ungodly men came of their own ac- and a-half weeks in every year, which God had cord to listen to the words which condemn or the truths which given him for rest; and they would soon find shall convert them, no sinner would be converted from the that on the whole they would receive for seven error of his way, no wanderer reclaimed or brought to repentance and the knowledge of the truth." Exactly to the same days' work only the wages of six days. The effect are the words of Dr. Chalmers. "It is a grand mis- necessity of this day, wholly irrespective of spitake," he says, "that the demand for an article is always in ritual wants, was shown by man's physical need proportion to the real want of it-it is only in proportion to of rest. His lordship then referred to several its felt want. It is not in proportion to our want of righte- instances which had occurred in his own laboousness that we hunger and thirst after it. The greater our need of this the less is its value in our estimation. The appe- rious profession, one of which was within his tite must be created before we can minister to it. Because own knowledge, where barristers had been so men will not go forth in quest of Christianity, Christians have given up to their profession that they worked to go forth in quest of men. The gospel is an aggressive on Sundays as well as week-days. These men movement: none are attracted by it until it is carried to them." were cut off in early life; and the physicians said they might have been saved if they had only THE LORD'S-DAY REST.-"A meeting, to which taken their needful day of weekly rest. the working-classes were specially invited, was change had, however, happily come over the held at St. Margaret's school-room, Tothill- minds of lawyers in this respect. He rememstreet, on Friday evening, Jan. 8, for the bered the days when Sunday consultations were pose of forming a Working-Men's Society to quite common. There were none now; and it promote the better spiritual observance of the must be remembered that lawyers had many Lord's-day. The chair was taken by the right long holidays besides, or they could not stand hon. lord Hatherley, lord-chancellor*; and there against the mental strain of their work. But was a fair attendance of the class invited. The how about the working-men who had no holimeeting having been opened with singing and days? If we took away the seven weeks' holiprayer, the lord-chancellor said that he felt great it be said that we had bettered their condition? day in the year which God had appointed, could pleasure in acceding to the request of their esteemed rector, the rev. canon Conway, to pre-bour, and not increase their means of subsisWe should only give the men increase of laside over that meeting; the more especially as it was a meeting of working-men. They, as a London was not like the continental Sunday; tence. He was glad to say that our Sunday in class, were deeply interested in preserving the sanctity of the sabbath-day. All indeed had a but, unless some energetic steps were taken to deep interest; but the interest of the working-prevent it, the evil time might not be very far classes was deeper than that of any other, be- distant. Looking at the question from the cause it was their only day of rest. It was lowest point of view, it was the especial duty painful to every Christian man to walk through and interest of working-men to discourage all the streets of the metropolis on the Sunday, and attempts to interfere with the seventh day as a day of rest; for, once let the Parisian system come into vogue in this country, under which the scaffolds of public buildings were as crowded

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His lordship had for some years been a Sunday-school teacher in the parish of St. Margaret. No. 1960.

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VOL. LXVI.

with workmen on Sundays as on any other day, prove it to be indispensable. Police must patrol and they would have to work seven days for the our streets; but letters need not be sorted, pay they now received for six. That might not stamped, and delivered. The mere argument of be the immediate but it would be the ultimate convenience will apply equally to all kinds of effect. The question should, however, be re- Sunday toil; but to bring that forward in an garded from a higher ground. God might have swer is a disgrace to us as professed worshiprequired all our time for his service, but he de- pers of the Lord God of Sabaoth. Again, if sired only this one day out of seven as his por- London can do without her Sunday deliveries, tion Is it not a charm and a delight to serve a there seems an end to all argument as respects kind master ? God's service is a service of love. the provinces of the kingdom. If the public The day is not to be observed as a legal obser- generally knew but half of the sorrows of postvance claimed by a hard taskmaster. It should men as a body, we are quite sure they would at be our delight to spend it in the service of him once lend a helping hand in this matter of who had loved us and given himself for us, and Sunday toil. They want the rest for their who, as upon this day, rose again for us. If we bodies: they need it for their souls. There canlove his service, we find, in the words of the not be much of this world's beauty and joys for poet, "the labour we delight in physics pain," slaves on 12s. or 10s. per week: how hard, then, and our service would be light, like the long to deprive them of a day's rest, when at least years that Jacob served for Rachel, when he they might enjoy a little home-comfort with bore the frost at night and the heat by day, and their families, and forget for a time their sor it seemed as nothing to him for the love he rows! Truly has it been said that corporations bore to her. The Sunday is never a dull day to have no souls; and it really seems that men those who know what love and affection to God banded together in companies or associations are, and where it is dull it shows a great want for trade-purposes delegate to others doings of love to God, who deserves all our hearts. He that they would be ashamed to be parties had so far regarded men as working on the to more directly. We are sorry to see some Lord's-day; but there were many who pro- of the old British spirit dying out. Time faned it, and yet did not work; they spent the was when something more than a mere day in mere idleness: they took to making money-tie bound servants to their employers, it what they called a day of recreation, which and when the comfort of the one was a pride to took the form of animal and sensual indulgence. the others. But now we have got so very enNow, this was not rest for a man: mere idle-lightened that we scorn to indulge the better ness and indulgence was the rest only of brutes. The rest of a man was to look up to and find repose in serving his Creator. He thought there was a great deal of unnecessary Sunday trading in Westminster, and that many more shops were opened than was wanted. There had been an improvement. We were not like Paris, where the scaffoldings of the public buildings were filled with workmen during the day, and pleasure was made a toil of, and consisted chiefly in opening the theatres at night. He rejoiced at this contrast, but wanted to see the sabbath observed better still, and trusted their meeting to-night would help to make it so" ("Occasional Paper of the Society for Promoting the due Observance of the Lord's-day"). THE POSTMAN'S GRIEVANCE.-Appeal for public Sympathy."Fearing our Christian friends should lose sight of an important element in the present agitation, we again direct attention to postal Sunday labour. In the provinces of the kingdom this is felt to be a grievance; indeed, by many post-office employés the deprivation of the Sunday rest is more objected to than all the other evils. The fact is rather encouraging; for it shows that the men are not yet so demoralized by compelled heathenism and inordinate toil as to cease to value that best day of all the seven-that day which should be every man's birthright in this professedly-Christian land. How our government reconcile this with their consistency we are at a loss to understand; especially how many of the greatest objectors to its removal can feel satisfied with their conduct is an astonishing anomaly. Some work on the Sunday may be compulsory; but post-office labour is not of that character. The mere fact of its being a convenience does not

feelings, and can look on worn-out humanity, dying piecemeal, without a single joy of our own production, and not stretch forth a helping hand. In this matter there is bound up the happiness of wives and children; and perhaps this consideration may move those to whom man is no longer an object of sympathy. The wife of a rural messenger has very little time during the week to hold conversation with her husband; and the children can rarely receive ad vice or even caresses except the Sunday rest be accorded. We hardly dare refer to chapel or church. These are luxuries not for such poor. But this does not get quit of our duty. We are bound, by every Christian consideration, to give these men time for religious thought and reflection, time for the reception of instruction that may fit for a better and happier world. We ought, at least, to treat them as we would our horses. An excellent queen among the Mahrattas of India (and they had not many such there) used to say, when urged by her ministers to extreme acts of severity, We must beware how we destroy the handiwork of God.' How much more should Britain, the pioneer of the gospel, the unclasper of the bible to the world, owing all her greatness to these facts, beware how she obliterates, by constant Sunday toil in her post-offices, God's impressed image on the souls of a large number of her civil ser vants!" ("Postman," Oct. 3, 1868).

THE CLERGY OF NEW YORK ON THE SABBATHDAY.-"The day of holy rest to a land bearing the Christian name, and to a republic based on equal rights, has the highest civil worth. Man needs it physically, as a season when labour may wipe off its sweat, and breathe more freely after a week's exhaustion, and when care shall

slacken its hold upon the frame and the heart. The livings with populations between 8,000 and Man needs it morally, to rise by its aid out of 4,000 are 882 in number, with 932 curates; so engrossing secularities and materialism to the that there are 1,814 clergy in charge of the five remembrance of his spiritual interests, his final millions of people in these parishes. This afaccount, and his eternal destiny. Toil needs it, fords one clergyman to about 2,750 persons or to rescue its share of rest and its season of de- 500 houses, on the same supposition. The votion from the absorbing despotism of capital; livings with populations between 4,000 and and capital needs it, to shield its own accumu- 2,000 are 1,143 in number with 715 curates; 80 lations from the recklessness and anarchy of the that there are 1,858 clergy in charge of the 3 imbruted and the desperate, and to keep its millions of people in these parishes. This afown humanity and consciousness alive. The fords one clergyman to about 2,000 persons state needs it, as a safeguard of the public order, or 350 houses, on the same supposition. The quiet, and virtue; human laws becoming, how livings with populations below 2,000 are 10,398 ever wise in form, effete in practice, except as in number, with 2,645 curates; and the populathey are based upon conscience and upon the tion in their charge comprise 7 million persanctions of eternity, as recognized voluntarily sons. This affords one clergyman to about 600 by an intelligent people, and God's day culti-persons. But in this class the element of area, vating the one and reminding us of the other; which is absent in three other divisions, reand in a republic more especially, whose liber-quires to be taken into account. A mountain ties, under God, inhere in its virtues, the recognition, freely and devoutly, by an instructed nation, of God's paramount rights, is the moral under-pinning requisite to sustain the superstructure of man's rights; and without such support from religion, not as nationally established, but as personally and freely accepted, all human freedom finally moulders and topples into irretrievable ruin.'

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STATISTICS OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.-The parochial benefices are 12,888 in number, with 4,981 curates, so that the number of parochial clergy is 17,869. The alphabetical list contains 23,000 names; but of these many have independent incomes, and many are engaged in educational pursuits, and some do not exist except in that list. Probably 20,000 would closely approximate to the whole number of clergy of the church of England. The patronage of 6,403 out of these 12,888 livings is private (saleable) patronage: it belongs to 4,080 persons, of whom 1,046 are clergymen, for the most part incumbents resident on the preferments in their own gift. The patronage of 6,485 out of these 12,888 livings is in public (unsaleable) patronage, and may be divided conveniently into six classes. There are 967 livings in the gift of the crown, 2,088 in the gift of the bishops, 911 belong to the chapters, 851 to the colleges, 998 are in the gift of the parochial rectors and vicars, and 670 livings belong to hospitals, schools, public bodies, Simeon's and other trustees, without power of sale. The 12,888 benefices are within some 16,000 census districts. The population decennially decreases in 8,400 districts, and in 7,600 districts decennially increases; the former being agricultural, and the latter urban and mining, manufacturing or shipping districts. The relative position of the parochial clergy with the people will therefore be best ascertained by arranging the 12,888 preferments in the order of their respective populations, taking the limits of 8,000, 4,000, 2,000, and below 2,000 persons as the boundaries of four divisions. The livings with populations above 8,000 are 465 in number, with 689 curates under these 465 incumbents; so that there are 1,154 clergy in charge of the five millions of people in these parishes. This affords one clergyman to about 4,300 persons or 700 houses, supposing that the whole population are members of the church of England.

parish, with a sparse population and bleak country and no society, may be harder work than the charge of a densely-populated district of 700 contiguous houses, with ready access to libraries and all the advantages of civilization.

CHURCH-OF-ENGLAND SCHOOLS.-In the year ending March, 1866, out of a total amount of grants made to elementary schools in proportion to the results obtained, and reaching, for all England, £478,901, the church schools earned £351,498. Of the schools for the children of the poor 83 per cent. belong to the church of England; and of the children between the ages of 3 and 15 our church educates 78 per cent., or 1,560,000. Moreover, the royal commissioners reported in 1861 that "almost all the schools in the rural districts belong to the church of England; that the burden of supporting the schools falls principally upon parochial clergy; the proportion of clerical subscriptions being £10 10s. per head, as against £5 6s. from the land-owners." Meanwhile the property of the church is being carefully distributed by means of the ecclesiastical commission in such a way as may make it available for the greatest-possible increase of the pastorate. During the past year 82 new parochial districts have been formed; and in the present year an endowment of £300 per annum will be provided for every benefice in public patronage, the popu lation of which in 1861 was not below 4,000. The capital value of the grants to be made during the year will be no less than £700,000.

COTTAGE LECTURES AND SCHOOL-ROOM SERVICES.-Those who come to the lectures seldom attend public worship, but are kept away either under a sense of shame from their long absence or through want of decent clothes. Such excuses cease when the heart has been reached; and many persons, now living witnesses for Christ, trace their first awakening to the instrumentality of these humble services. An incumbent, writing to the committee of the Church Pastoral Aid Society, speaks in the warmest terms of the labours of the lay-agents (paid by a grant from the society), referring to this subject as follows: "Among the most cheering and encouraging features in our church-work during the past year has been the success which has attended our cottage and school-room services. Some of these services are intended only for those who,