spread Christianity in heathen lands, their own brethren, fellow-countrymen and fellow-citizens, have been strangely forgotten. To the majority of the wealthier inhabitants of large cities, the miseries and privations of their poorer neighbours are as little known, as they are cared for; they are themselves gifted with wealth and all the luxuries which it brings; they "fare sumptuously every day," and squander money in the most trivial amusements, without giving a thought to the many who are perhaps dragging out their wretched existence in some cold garret or damp cellar, without food sufficient to nourish them, or clothes to protect them from the cold. It is the custom of many, who get or assume the credit of being very religious persons, to speak harshly and scornfully of those that are pining in want, as if by their own vice they had been reduced to such a state; but they forget that the same accident (humanly speaking) which has given them abundance, has also appointed others the portion of poverty; they forget that, as they themselves have attained an exalted rank and large wealth, without any labour or any particular desert on their own part; so are there many who, despite of toiling, and struggling, and saving, have been reduced by sickness, or some reverse of fortune, to the extremities of want. We have seen a poor woman, forsaken by her husband, and thrown on the world with six helpless children; for some months she managed by her own industry, and the occasional charity of a neighbour, to support herself and her little family; but unfortunately fever appeared in the neighbourhood where she lived, and her eldest child soon caught the disease and died. Hardly had she buried her first-born, wheu she and the rest of her children were seized with the sickness, to which their poor and scanty food made them too liable. At the time we first saw her, she was lying with her five children on a little straw in the dark corner of a garret; the mother was insensible, and the infant child, about six months old, was lying in her bosom. The whole scene was enough to make the hardest heart bleed; and yet "the gay licentious proud," if they had been told of the case of distress, would have uttered some unfeeling complaint about the vice and improvidence of the poor, and have passed on in their heartless round of folly. There are other causes than vice to bring human beings into distress, and we are

turning away from the commands of Christ, we are sinning against the promptings of our own nature, when we allow cases of distress to remain uncared for and unrelieved.

We admit, however, that much of the wretchedness that is spread through large cities, is the consequence of vice; and can we wonder that it is so, when we think of the neglected education of poor children, and the fruitful source of temptation which want and ignorance bring with them? What inducement has the man to whom Providence has given abundance, to violate the law of honesty, compared with him who is himself, and perhaps his family too, suffering for want of food, or raiment? What can he know of the temptations to sin against the laws of temperance, who has many sources of comfort and enjoyment in his home, in the pursuits of literature, or in the less rational amusements of refined life, when compared with him who has many a hardship weighing down his spirits, and who has no place to which he can retire for an hour's enjoyment after the toil of the day, but the neighbouring alehouse? There is vice among the poor that are crowded together in large cities, but their vice is not greater, nay it is not so great, as we might expect from the numberless temptatious to which they are exposed; and in proportion to the danger in which they lie of falling into wickedness, should the exertions be on the part of Christians, to defend them by human sympathies, by worldly aid, and by the doctrines, the promises, and the warnings of the Gospel. To the Poor the religion of Christ is especially fitted; it tells them of the dignity of their being, the worth of their soul, which they could never learn from the insolence and pride of the great, and the wretchedness of their own condition; it tells them of the care and guardianship of their Father in heaven, of the compassion and aid that Jesus offers them, of the future life in which accidental distinctions, designed here to train to virtue, shall no more continue, but all shall be happy in proportion as here they have cherished and exercised habits of charity, holiness, and trust in God.

We have spoken of the vices of the poor; but if they have their vices, they are not without virtues. Hear the testimony of the Baron De Gerando, whose work is now before us, derived from a minute and phi.

lanthropic attention to the poor for years in the most depraved city in the world-the metropolis of France.

"There is not perhaps on earth a virtue more necessary, more painful to practise, and at the same time more glorious, even in its obscurity, than patience. And it is in the asylum of the poor, that models of this virtue may be studied. It is often to this sanctuary that we must go, to contemplate it in all its sublimity. I confess, that it is sweet to me to find this opportunity to satisfy an urgent desire of my heart, to acquit, I might almost say, a sort of debt, by being able to render homage to those touching virtues of which the world has no suspicion. I would it were possible for me to show them living, to those who read this recital; and that they might partake of the profound emotion they inspire in myself.

She

"I have seen a well-born young lady, whom the reverses of her family had plunged into indigence, after having been reduced for subsistence to the labour of her hands, attacked by a cancer. suffered acute pains. Every thing failed her. She had not even linen with which to dress her wounds. She had not even a bed to repose upon in her agony. She saw her malady increase from day to day, and she felt that her strength was declining. She had no other prospect of relief than the tomb open to receive her. But not a complaint escaped her lips. Her countenance was serene and gentle, and her calmness was not impaired a single moment, till the hour of her release.

I have seen also a mother of six children extended night and day upon a little straw in a garret, with a fatal ulcer, which was destroying her, and not able to give bread to those poor little beings, who were weeping around her. In her own husband too, who ought to have been her consolation and support, she had an additional subject of cutting sorrow; and she was thus supporting, at the same time, the sufferings of body and soul. But she supported them with an unalterable sweetness, pardoning even the unworthy husband who aggravated her woes instead of relieving them; and who abused the succours destined for her, and consumed them himself in drunkenI have seen miseries which pass all belief, and physical tortures, united with the most pressing wants, and the most painful privations; and all these endured by martyrs of patience, without aid, hope, or witness, submitting to the divine will. Where are crowns worthy of such triumphs? What tenderness mingles with our respect, when we think, that the beings called to display such courage, are feeble women, and old men already exhausted by long trials!

ness.

*

"The too common effect of suffering and privation is to cool the heart, and incline it to selfishness. We too often see sad examples of this among persons who have received a careful education. How highly then should we regard, in the indigent, the affections which they preserve, when, instead of being soured by adversity, instead of being absorbed by the feeling of their own wants, they still know how to live for others, and in others! How powerful and beautiful must be this faculty of loving, which can survive such distress! In some families of the indigent, you will see the most touching examples of conjugal love, and of all the domestic affections; you will see mothers refusing themselves every thing, in order to support their children, and widows who cannot be consoled for the loss of their husbands. Lately we have been witnesses of a touching struggle between an aged mother and her daughter, herself the mother of a numerous family. The mother had asked to be received into a poorhouse, and insisted upon obtaining this favour, in order not to be a burden, in her last days, with the infirmities she foresaw for herself, to a family already very much 'straitened. The daughter warmly solicited a refusal for her mother, desiring to take care of her herself, when this care should become necessary; and only counting as pleasures, the sacrifices which she imposed upon herself, to fulfil this pious duty."

On reading such extracts as these, we feel that, however trampled on and despised, however clouded with ignorance and degraded by vice, there is dignity in human nature, there are goodly affections and feelings which require only to be unlocked, that they may exercise a purifying and ennobling influence on their possessors. To bring forth from their latent dwelling, and to cherish and strengthen the principles of virtue in the poor, should be the object of all Christians. Missionaries, set apart to this holy work, might do much, when aided by the plans that are now in operation, to educate even the most indigent; to effect a reformation in society more noble, more glorious, than that of the sixteenth century: it was only a reformation of opinion, this would be a reformation of principle and practice. But while missionaries appropriated to this office, might effect extensive good, it will appear evident by the perusal of the following extract from Dr. Tuckerman's Introduction to the work we have noticed, that there are few persons, however engaged in business, who cannot do something in this good and blessed work.

"Here, then, are a father and mother, with six children, between the ages of infancy and of sixteen years. The father is idle and intemperate, and has passed one term in the House of Correction. The mother is a slattern, inefficient and passionate, and feels little concern for the moral well-being of her children. The eldest child is a son. He is an idler, and is on the verge of vagrancy and crime. The second child is a daughter, whose uncombed hair, and dirty skin, and filthy tattered attire, are in keeping with an equally neglected mind and heart. She is rude, boisterous, and disobedient; now a beggar, and now a play-fellow of boys as ignorant, and as much without principle, as herself. Of the younger children, one is a truant, and has already begun to be a pilferer. Another is kept at home, because he needs some article of clothing, or some book, without which he cannot go to school; and another is also from school, because his brothers are not there. Is it asked, what can be hoped for in respect to this family? What can be done in it? Or, where is the man who will attempt the hopeless task of its reformation and salvation?

"The charge of this family is undertaken by a visitor of the poor, who has himself a young family; and the charge of a business which ordinarily requires the attention of eight or nine hours a day. One of the chil. dren goes to his house for food. He sees her, and inquires her name, and the residence of her parents; and on the same evening he visits this family. He is recognised by the beggar girl, who had informed her mother that a gentleman, at whose house she had been, had said that he would call and see her; and though he was not at the time expected, it is felt that he has a good reason to give for his appearance among them. The poor, disordered, and dirty bed; the few chairs, either with broken backs or with no backs; the table, with four or five unwashed plates upon it, and covered with the fragments of bread, and meat, and vegetables, the contents of the beggar's basket, which had apparently been emptied upon the board from the want of a dish to receive them; the lamp, from the want of a stand to support it, set into the neck of a bottle; the mother, in her person and her dress like the objects around her; now vociferating for silence among her lawless offspring, and now apologizing for the rudeness of one, and the