third agency is that of the press, and it too they are working most vigorously. You have probably heard of the Derby reprints, cheap issues of their most plausible and popular controversial works. Again the Derby press sends forth a weekly periodical which circulates largely. The streets of Edinburgh are at this moment placarded with huge bills, telling how interesting and useful a publication it is. Still further, they are not only issuing reprints, but also original works. The cleverest priest in Scotland, Mr. Keenan of Dundee, has just published, a "Controversial Catechism," a singularly insidious and dangerous production, which it would puzzle most Protestants to answer, and which is sold at the price of 1s. or 1s. 6d. Of this book, published a few weeks ago, 4000 copies have already been disposed of. They are not only selling but distributing it. I met a copy immediately after it was published, in the hands of a very worthy, but not very well-informed gardener, near my own door. He had got it from a Roman Catholic acquaintance, and told me he was about to read it, as he was curious to see what the Roman Catholics could say for themselves. The fourth agency, which they are expected soon to set in operation, is that of education. And as it is in Edinburgh in respect of all these agencies, it either is, or will soon be, over the whole country.'

While this extract shows the spiritual dangers to which our neglected population are exposed, we need not look far for testimony, as to their moral condition. Perhaps the details of juvenile delinquency are some of the most affecting; for, if the stream be poisoned at its fountain, how long a course of destruction it must run! Let us then seriously ponder such statements as the following, extracted from a petition on the subject,

presented by Lord Brougham from the magistrates of Liverpool :

The petitioners stated, that in the population of Liverpool, amounting to 300,000 inhabitants, there had been committed for trial during the last seven years, in round numbers, 51,000 persons, one-tenth of whom, or about 5,500, had been offenders under seventeen years of age, and no less than one-fifth of the whole 51,000 had been committed five times on an average during those years. The petitioners had examined fourteen juvenile cases, taken indiscriminately from this fifth part comprising the 10,000 offenders; and it appeared, that these fourteen young persons had, on an average, been apprehended each fifteen times, and had, on the average, been committed and taken their trials, nine times, being generally convicted.'

One case is mentioned of a boy, nine years old, who could neither read nor write, and who, it appeared, had in two years been apprehended sixteen times for felonies of different kinds, and convicted four times; that unfortunate child was, finally, at the age of nine years, sentenced to seven years transportation.'

Surely these are speaking facts. In this year 1847, we have not only to accomplish the work of the year, in watching over, and training the lower classes, but a vast accumulation of difficulties, the result of past years of negligence, weighs upon the land. An Augean stable has to be cleansed ;-who will come to the Herculean task? It is, indeed, a symptom for good, when a nobleman like Lord Ashley will leave the saloons of taste and luxury, to penetrate in person the noisome and crowded alley, and satisfy himself as to the progress of ragged schools among those wild children, justly designated in an able article on the subject in the last

Quarterly, the Arabs of the metropolis. It is a still greater sacrifice that has been made by the heroic missionaries, both men and women, who have devoted the evenings, often of a toil-worn day, to the trying, and, in the first instance, invariably revolting duties of these schools. It is a hopeful sign, that a publication like the Churchman's Monthly Penny Magazine, patronized, we hope, by most of our readers, circulates 100,000 copies every month. The Church Pastoral Aid Society, Scripture Readers, City Missionaries, are all toiling in the field. Dear reader, what are you doing? What can the Christian Lady do? Is not the task too rough and coarse for her to attempt it? Oh, not entirely so. Domestic duties, health, in many cases propriety, and even personal safety, exclude her from many scenes of labour in our crowded cities; but it is often not so much labourers who are needed, as means to send out and support those whose hearts the Lord has already disposed to the work. Mary Magdalene, Susannah, and Salome of old, worked no miracles of healing, but they ministered to the Lord of their substance, they provided for His wants on His journey of love, and were thus fellow-workers in their humble measure, in bringing healing and life, truth and life eternal, to the doors of the wretched.

Our personal sphere of influence also is larger than we may at first sight imagine. It has been one danger of this age of religious societies, blessed as they have been, to distract our attention from those individual duties, which cannot be collectively performed by any committee. If it be true, that some of the greatest evils of society have arisen from trusting its weightiest concerns to the adjusting balance of self-interest, directly reversing the law of Divine love and wisdom,-" Look not

every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others," then it is only by a return to God's forsaken path, that these evils can be remedied. We must learn once more to think of every human being, with whom even the more distant links of society unite us, no longer as a machine to supply our wants, but a fellow-man, a fellow-immortal, with whom we must stand before the judgment-throne. And if, as we are so often told, women are quite unfit for business-affairs, and wholly unable to enter into their intricacies and bearings, may we not, for that very reason, be the more fitted for the great human business, which calls for the heart even more than the head, of bridging over the widening gulph between the various orders of society? Put these questions honestly, dear reader, to your own conscience: What influence have you over those beneath you in rank? Has this influence hitherto been humanizing? has it been christianizing? if not, what excuse can you offer for the neglected duty?

Are you living amongst a simple rural population, whose cottages you never enter? you little know the pleasure of which you are depriving yourself. You might become a centre of blessing to your poorer neighbours. They would naturally look up to your superior knowledge; a respect for rank is strong in the simple villages of England; your means also of affording relief will give you influence, and all this influence may be used in your Redeemer's service, to bring precious souls to him. Were it not for the stout resistance of our sinful hearts, abetted by our great enemy, the path before you is so inviting, it could not claim to be called one of self-denial.

If you reside in a crowded town, your way may be more beset with difficulties, but the Lord will not

leave the servant unemployed, who honestly wishes to be set to work. The wants of your family require the services of many of your inferiors; have you com menced with them? What care are you exercising over the spiritual condition of your domestic servants? It is a mistake to think you have done all that is required of you, when you have arranged that they shall attend public worship and family prayer. The words of the minister and the master may slide unheard over the careless ear. You may make opportunities of bringing truth more directly home to the conscience; and, a servant, seeing you feel for her something very different from a mere desire that her work should be done for your convenience, will already stand in a new position with regard to you. Do you, at the expense of additional care and trouble to yourself, strive to shield them from the temptations to which the designing dishonesty of others exposes them in large towns? In engaging a fresh servant, are you as careful to avoid having one who might introduce a corrupting influence into your kitchen, as you would be to shield your children from evil society? See, here is an intimate circle, immediately your own, even in the largest town. From this you might proceed to others of the poorer class, who have only occasional services to perform at your house, charwomen, work women, even the poor porter whom you may employ for your messages-he has, perhaps, a wife and children in distress at home, and you will find a chord in his rough heart, only the more ready to respond to your kindly touch, because so few who employ him care for him as a fellow-man. Perhaps you already: teach in some Sunday-school, and might gain access to the parents of your children? Perhaps your husbands are in business, and employ many under them, amongst whom, with a little less regard to fashion and custom,