gross social injustice of granting that as a favour which ought to be earned and had as a right, is an evil to them as well as a scourge to the people, and is even now undermining the very basis on which the privileged classes stand. Justice is the only sure foundation of the social fabric. Wherever there is a master class, and a slave class, there is peril and poverty and disorder as well. Nations are beginning to awaken to these great truths. When they are generally known and felt, then the principles which will mould the institutions of society are brotherhood and equality, and then, but not before, poverty will cease, together with the causes which have given so crushing an evil birth.

Let us now look for a moment to those classes among whom chiefly indigence is engendered, and alas! at the present hour, abounds. In what we are about to remark, we have no intention to give the slightest pain. But whether pain is given or not, we must speak what we consider truth. We write not to praise or to blame, but to probe to its sources a grievous wound; and as we will not on such an issue flatter the rich, so we must not be indulgent to the poor. Indeed we pity the poor too much, and love all men too well, to allow ourselves, on so grave a question at least, to employ any terms but what a strict regard to facts may justify.

The great cause of poverty among the poor themselves is still ignorance. The origin of the disease is moral; moral therefore may the cure be. And in this reflection we have not seldom found consolation when we have looked with weeping heart on the sufferings of the needy. It would be a terrible thought indeed if one were compelled to believe that chained down in the iron bonds of a relentless fate, or under the brute force of an inexorable law, the indigent and wretched father and mother were doomed to hand over their heritage of woe unmitigated to their children, who in their turn would serve only to beget beggars and perpetuate destitution. But how squalid soever the appearance of some, however bitter their cup, there is an alleviation for those who wish their fellow creatures well, in the thought that as the disease so the remedy is of human origin, and that the poorest and least happy may do something to lessen the woes, if not of this generation, yet of that which is rising up,—and thereby, with suitable assistance, to bring indigence to an end.

Manifold are the ways in which ignorance among the people engenders indigence. We can speak but of two-improvidence and vice.

Improvidence is clearly the offspring of ignorance. With the casualties to which man is liable from causes at once numerous and inevitable-with the peculiar casualties to which the working man is liable—he who carries all his resources in his hands-he, who is the sport of every fluctuation which commerce may undergo-with these casualties extending through the whole of life, but thickening and darkening as we draw towards its close, nothing but sheer ignorance can permit men to squander their means when abundant-nothing but actual experience would persuade one that they would not strain every nerve to make some, however small, provision against an evil day. It may be felt that this observation implies that the industrious possess the power of laying up a store against the dark time to come. Such we hold to be the fact. After all the unequal legislation by which the people have been laden with burdens grievous to be borne; after all-with the energies that belong to that noble blood which flows in the veins of every Englishman-it is possible for virtuous industry to gain a sufficiency at least for the body, and, with some privation, to make a slender provision for seasons of want.

We are now speaking of the great body of this nation generally, and know that there are many exceptions to the facts to which we are about to allude. With this qualification we ask whether to say nothing more of the want of forethought— unthriftiness is not the cause of a very large share of the family discomfort which prevails? It is waste that makes a huge portion of our actual want; it is not knowing how to turn a penny to the best account; it is the occasional indulgence in luxuries; it is buying at the worst hand because debt prevents our buying at the best; it is in the perpetual anticipation of our resources week by week, the year round, by which people tax themselves frequently at one tenth of their income, are always in arrears, always in peril, and consequently never at ease; it is in the sums-vast sums for a poor man—that are squandered every year on clubs which fail at the very moment of need; on projects which end generally in disappointment and often in deception. These are among the most prolific causes of the indigence we deplore. We verily believe that a knowledge of their true interests would at the present moment destroy at once more than one half of the sufferings of the poor. It is a very large amount of their actual woe that the industrious classes hold in their own hands, and ignorantly inflict upon themselves. If they are in earnest for the amelioration of their condition, let them look at home; let them see

what improvements lie in their own power. To themselves must they look; upon themselves must they depend; others may aid, but from themselves must their Salvation come.

Among the causes of Indigence, we have mentioned vice. This cause also rises and may terminate with man. Vice we consider as the great mistake, whose appropriate, whose only cure and prevention is knowledge. If in theology atheism is folly, in morals vice is downright infatuation. The merest prudential considerations have intrinsic weight enough to make vice appear as foolish as it is baneful. And will not knowledge --knowledge in the full and proper sense of the term-knowledge of the essential conditions of human happiness-go far in time to banish vice, and, with vice, its foul but too natural offspring, penury and pauperism? We are not looking for the vision of a millenium upon earth. Moral perfection in this state we shall never behold; and it is very unlikely that our remote posterity will be saluted with the grateful sight. But between vice and perfection there are many degrees of comparative goodness, and we do cherish the hope that knowledge will so far in time remove vice from the midst of us, as to put an end to indigence. Even at the present moment, if the millions of money that are annually expended by the people of this nation, on gratifications which are not only not needful to happiness, but tend to destroy it ;-many of which unstring the body, debase the mind, peril the soul-breaking up domestic peace, and sapping the very foundations of our country's strength;-if these vast sums-thus worse than squanderedwere applied to useful purposes, how would the face of society brighten, its burdens being lessened, its strength doubled, its morality renovated; and the sons of old England prove once more a race of hardy, true-hearted men, true to themselves, their country and their God. Even if the property still criminally wasted in drugging body and soul with narcotics were unreservedly cast into the Atlantic, our country would be a gainer; and every family, every individual who added his mite to the sacrifice, would be forthwith repaid in health of body and satisfaction of mind. No! with these facts before us, we cannot allow that, after all, it is property so much as knowledge that the people need. His resources will never cease to be insufficient, increase as they may, who knows not how to make a good use of what he has. Wisdom will make small means do more for happiness, than ignorance or folly can draw from the most splendid affluence. It is not so much what we have as how we use it, that keeps penury out of doors and comfort safe within. Property is power, and power in the hands of igno

rance is only an instrument of evil. It is knowledge and the virtues which ensue, that give wealth its worth; and they can take from poverty its sting.

This leads us to present one or two considerations which afford positive encouragement to the hope that indigence will at length disappear. We have called knowledge the panacea of our social ills. We do not mean by knowledge the treasures of information which are found in books. We do not mean any mere intellectual influence. We do not restrict ourselves to the expansion and culture of the domestic affections. These things are good; but there is something yet higher and better. If man is to be reformed, he must be treated as a religious as well as an intellectual and moral being; and by knowledge, consequently, we intend all those sacred and ennobling influences which address the higher capabilities of man, and do as much for the increase of our efficiency for earth, as to prepare us for the holy joys of heaven.

Now we affirm that the sum of these influences—after every deduction is made-is in the present day very great, and continually on the increase, and is incomparably greater than at any previous period. Unless we are mistaken, a much deeper interest is felt in man as man; in his moral nature, in his immortal welfare; in the condition of the people generally, in the causes and cure of the evils under which they suffer. We have no doubt that the increase is by thousands in this country of those who are thinking, and writing, and toiling to raise the industrious classes. The very thought of a National education is a grand idea, and replete with hope. Class interests are passing out of sight to give place and prominence to Man. But our best ground of hope is in the fact that the people themselves are awaking to the consideration of their condition, and of the means by which it may be improved. Sturdy thinkers are now to be found scattered throughout their body; and noble-hearted and devoted men too-men who are equal to any sacrifice to which duty may eventually point. Knowledge is at work, is doing its work. The leaven which shall leaven the whole lump is beginning to ferment. Readers exist now by tens of thousands, where fifty years since only scattered units could be found. The very literature which a century ago was limited to a few of the higher classes, and in its influence on them formed the minds which created what is good in the present age, is now operating on large masses of the people, and, together with other literature and other refining influences called into being by new and widely-spread social wants, is forming the mind of those who will give its shape and com

plexion to the coming age; and so onward age after age, the circle of light ever expanding over the surface of society, till, like the dial illumined by the meridian sun, the whole of our land shall be covered with its radiance.

We have also a very strong confidence in humanity when once its better feelings have been called into play. It is no small thing for the people to have been sent in quest of the true secret of happiness. It is no small thing for so many strong heads to have been set a thinking; so many energetic hearts to have been inspired by the spirit of benevolence; so many sincere and earnest spirits to have received a religious mission to their lost companions. It will be found that if

other classes are more cautious and refined, the industrious are more successful, because more devoted when they apply themselves to social reforms. It will be found that an earnest, straightforward simplicity of purpose will again confound the wisdom of the wise, and put the accomplished talker about civilization to an open shame. More still-it will be found that the people have a religion of their own, and a heroism of their own, a holy, moral heroism-a real personal religion which will be as the still small voice of God in working out the much needed and earnestly desired good of society at large. Little indeed do they know the people who could ever doubt this. Yes, they have their spirit of benevolence, their deeds of mercy; it is from the hand of poverty that thousands of needy men and women receive their sole relief. But why think of money merely, when there are other gifts more costly and more acceptable? Whence do the poor get the sympathy so dear to us all, but from the poor? Who watches by the bedside of the sick or dying? We do not ask who puts up the single prayer, or administers extreme unction, but who are there at the close of day, and in the morn, and when the clock sounds midnight, and when the city is all of a rush; who moistens ever and anon the parched lips, and relieves the weary head? Who spares a morsel from a scanty portion for children that have a scantier portion still? Who deny themselves in order to keep their aged parents from the degradation of a workhouse? Who will add another mouth to their half-fed family by adopting the orphan rather than he should be cast friendless on the mercies of the world? Yes! yes! there is power enough for good among the people ;-it only wants direction. It is not love but knowledge that they lack; and when their generousness shall have become enlightened, it will prove in itself and in its effects true Christian heroism. And if they will take a word of advice from one who would be proud to be accounted their friend, VOL. VI. No. 25.-New Series.

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