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THE subject of the prospects of the working classes is a very large one; much too large and many-sided to be ranked-as it often is- as merely one of the many questions of the day. It is a great deal more than that, comprehending, as it does, within itself most of the questions of the day, however varied in themselves or remote from it those questions may at a first glance appear. Indeed, taken broadly-and it is worse than useless to approach a consideration of it in any but the broadest spirit-it is less a question of the day than the problem which the questions of the day seek to solve. It cannot be relegated to any one of the great spheres of thought or action under which questions of the day are usually classed. enters into the domains of religion, morality, politics, physics, and psychology. They all bear upon it, while it belongs exclusively to none of them; and, though politicians claim it as lying chiefly within their province, it is perhaps not too much to say that it belongs to no one of those spheres more than to another. Certain it is, at any rate, that no one of them, or all but one of them, could deal with it effectually while ignoring the influence and operation of the others, or other. It is as important as it is large and varied; and it is, moreover, a subject the discussion of which should have an attraction for every one, even on the low ground-supposing no higher one prompted attention to it-of self-interest. The future of the working

classes means more than a strictly literal interpretation of the phrase would indicate-means the future of all classes, the future of civilized society. Though they may not be as they are so often told they are the entire salt and savour of the earth, and the sole props and support of the social system; though they may not be all this, they are, undoubtedly, the most important division of society, and their importance is daily waxing greater as it becomes more and more evident that they are realizing the commanding extent of their potential strength, and moulding it into practical shapes. That there will always be distinctively working classes may, we think, be taken for granted-taken, that is, as a law of nature-but that they will remain in the same position relatively to other classes that they occupy now is highly improbable. So far as they can be taken as foreshadowing the future, the " signs of the times" all seem to indicate that there will be material changes in the condition of the working classes, and a moment's consideration must, we think, make it evident that this will involve changes in all other classes. And though the probabilities are in favour of the supposition that the coming changes will be for the better both for the working classes and society, that is not necessarily the case; therefore, as we have said, the subject of the prospects of the working classes concerns every one.

Before entering upon the direct consideration of these prospects, it is for the sake of clearness necessary that we should first glance at the existing condition of the working classes-the stand-point from whence the prospective outlook commences. There are some who

hold that the present condition of the working classes is of a flourishing and satisfactory character, and that if it is not all that could be desired the fault lies with those classes themselves-with their drunkenness, animal indulgences, improvidence, and (self-removable) ignorance. Those of this opinion, however, are few in number, are all outside the working classes, and so far as our own experience enables us to speak, are either very simple people, or people who are not very simple; who have a case involving this view to make out, and who are greatly wronged if they are not capable of manipulating and dislocating facts to make them appear to suit their view. For all practical purposes of dealing with our subject, it may be taken as a substantial and demonstrable fact, that the condition of the working classes is to them at any rate-of so hard and unsatisfactory a character as to, in a great measure, justify the bitter and, to a certain extent, dangerous discontent existing among them on the point. With nothing but their labour to depend upon, and the wages of labour so low as in a vast number of instances to make it a practical impossibility to do anything beyond provide in a coarse and limited

fashion for the material necessities of the passing day—with things in this state working men cannot be sure of constant employment— cannot when in work be sure that it will last, or know when the evil day may be drawing nigh. Thus a carking care is laid upon them, and prevents them from fully enjoying even the passing good of the times when they are in employ. Their homes are often distressingly unhealthy and comfortless, and at best are very scantily supplied with the health and comfort-giving appliances which are things of course in the homes of even the moderately rich. Either from the early age at which they have to go to work, or from the neglect of parents too ignorant to be able to understand the value of education, a majority of the working classes are unable to enter upon those pleasures of the mind which education opens up to all, and which do so much to soften or make us for a time forget the hardships of life; while others again, though having the necessary education, and a natural inclination for such pleasures, feel themselves deadened towards them, by reason of the sordid cares of poverty dulling their finer feelings, and the labour-tired body so jading and enervating the mind as to unfit it for the exertion of even a pleasurable pursuit. Supposing they linger long upon the stage of the world, after their capacity for labour has been so deteriorated by age that they are no longer able to find sale for it in a market in which there is an excess supply of a younger quality of the article, the generality of the working classes have no better prospect before them than the workhouse, or some other more capricious, if less degrading form of dependence.

This, broadly put, is the condition of the mass of the working classes, and to its material hardships is added a sense of injustice suffered, which rankles all the deeper from being blind and impotent. They are certainly born unto trouble. To labour with but scant reward, to endure with but little prospect of relief, is their lot from the cradle to the grave, and to crown all, they are but too often told that their evil fate will go with them beyond the grave. While they read in The Book that it is the rich who will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven, they are assured by those who assume to speak with authority upon such matters that it is they, the poor, who are likely to be excluded from the heavenly paradise, as they have been from the earthly. At the annual meeting of the Scripture Readers' Society held at Sheffield about three years ago, the Archbishop of York stated "that out of a district with two thousand families, nine hundred and fourteen, or nearly one-half, entered themselves as going to no place of worship whatever." From which he drew this conclusion: "that one-half of them had been accustomed to live, and had settled down to live, in a state which

professed no hope hereafter, and confessed no God here." In the case of the Archbishop some allowance is probably due to the sermonesque rounding of a period, but his doctrine as to the meaning of non-attendance at places of worship is substantially the one that is preached to the working classes by Scripture readers and others and it is a doctrine that does more than any other to keep the poor from places of worship. Uneducated though they may be, ignorant of theology as they mostly are, their common sense still tells them that to make church-going the be-all and endall, as a test of religion, is to confound religion with the observance of one of its mere mechanical rites; to put a premium upon hypocrisy and cheap self-righteousness. In individual instances they see the strictest religion-in the church-going sense of the term-associated with an utter want of Christianity; and, scoffing at the narrow-mindedness that puts so supreme a meaning upon so (comparatively) secondary a thing, they come to think but very lightly of church-going altogether. That it would in some respects be better for the working classes if they attended places of worship in the same degree that other classes do, may be freely conceded. But to say of them because they do not, they have no hope hereafter, or even that they have no real religion, or true Christianity, is, upon the part of those indulging in such utterances, saying in periphrastic language that they know nothing whatever of the working classes. And there are members of those classes who do not hesitate to say that it is in the same way saying that such speakers themselves lack one of the grander essentials of Christianity -the charity that thinks no evil. Though there is much in their life that at times is almost enough to drive them to doubt the existence of a principle of eternal justice, they do firmly believe in it; believe that though it is often set aside here, it will be asserted hereafter. Such a belief is to them a hope. They do "profess hope hereafter" —the hope of a brighter, better, juster, more all-equal hereafter, by which they cannot but be gainers, as those who have not had their good things in this life will get them there. And it is well for society that the masses have this hope and belief. If they had not, if they were hopeless as regards the hereafter, were really persuaded that

"Vain as the has-been is the great to-be,"

then would they not endure the present as patiently as they have done, and do. If they thought that all that they could know of good or evil was to be found in this world alone, can it be doubted that they would attempt to seize a larger share of the good things than now falls to their portion? and though they might be frustrated in

such an endeavour, they would destroy others, even if they were themselves destroyed in the effort. Of those who speak of the working classes in relation to religion, as the Archbishop of York did on the occasion to which we have referred, it may be safely and charitably said, "They know not what they say;" they cannot have realised the terrible significance of the idea of those who have so little to hope for here having no hope hereafter. If ever such a state of things does come to pass, a time will have arrived when there will be no highly-paid and narrow-thoughted prelates to moralise about it. In the essentials of Christianity-the feelings of brotherly and neighbourly love and kindness, and the virtue of patience-the working classes are not lacking. Their non-attendance at places of worship has not the grave meaning that even many of the more charitably inclined in other classes attach to it, and the reasons for it are simple and not far to seck. To many of the poor and uneducated, as well as to many of the rich and educated, the actualities of public worship are repellent rather than attractive. To minds that do not regard public worship as an essential of religion, but only an optional accessory, formalised services, however fine in their conception, become ineffective and meaningless by constant and mechanical repetition. Then sermons are, as a rule-for there are many noble exceptions-dull, and exhibit a sameness and mechanicality that cannot but remind attentive and intelligent hearers that the manufacture of sermons is as distinctively and commercially a trade as is the manufacture of three-volume novels. They are often delivered either with an evident lack of all earnestness, or with an earnestness that it is as palpable is directed solely to clerical mannerisms and oratorical effects; and in tone they are more sectarian than broadly or charitably Christian.

These things constitute the ground upon which many of the more thoughtful of the working classes justify themselves for not attending places of worship. Another reason often assigned is, that Sunday being the only day the working classes have entirely to themselves, they require it for rest, fresh air, and certain phases of social intercourse that the limited leisure of other days does not admit of their carrying out. But the reason most frequently given to Scripture readers, district visitors, ministers, and others who put working men to the question concerning their non-attendance at places of worship is, that they—the working men-have not clothes good enough to go in. "What a paltry, contemptible reason!" perhaps some reader exclaims. Indeed, what a no-reason, what an excuse; and with the ministers and Scripture readers they would doubtless make the obvious reply—"God does not look at clothes." But there is an equally obvious to working men-answer to that-"Congregations