brighten their leisure hours; acute Germans and brilliant Frenchmen are content to dissect their own minds and memories, to trot them through sciences, old and new, on almost royal roads; charitable and manly speculators are forming their schools, their gymnasiums, their universities for a knowledge of common things; and wherever we go we are prepared to hail the existence of the young as a sign of material as well as moral prosperity. This is certainly an advance, even upon Plato's time. No matter how old a world or a nation may be, so long as it is alive to the interest and wellbeing of its youthful population, it is renewing its own youth, defying decay, and rising to the full measure of a brighter civilization and a more intelligent life.

It may not be our only hope in dealing with the moral aspect of the questions in hand, but it is our best. We are long in building, but we build on sunken piers. Severe as it may be for the urchins accustomed to roam at large to be penned in a schoolroom for a few hours, it is best and quickest drill for them if they are to be made men. London is by no means behind in her provisions for those who will learn and work. She has now some one hundred and fifty ragged schools, containing something like twenty thousand children. There is, however, a rather striking deficiency in reformatories for such as have made a false start in life; and there is, consequently, a larger class of evilly-disposed boys than is to be found in our other centres of population. A few more reformatories, and a few years' discipline, would thin this class very much, if it did not at once check it and stifle it. In his recent report on reformatories, we are glad to observe that Mr. Sydney Turner does not fail to remark this, and concludes his suggestions by observing that elsewhere such lads are rarely met with, and in the metropolis they would soon disappear before such continuous and consistent action on the part of the magistrates and the police as have been brought to bear in Liverpool, Leeds, and Manchester.' We heartily wish this may be the case. Meanwhile, the existing machinery may do much. So much patience, good-humour, tact, and adroitness in avoiding dangerous topics cannot but issue in a healthier mental and moral stamina. We hear no complaints of a lack of acuteness in either ragged schools or reformatories. When lads are sent forth costermongering, anxious for their over-money or bunse,' as it is called, and therefore using all manner of means to get exorbitant prices, their wits may never be supposed to lie dormant. Their wit and precocity, however, is rather of an obstructive than helpful kind. It is, after all, but a low type of intellect, which is often mistaken in men of apparent, but, in reality, no education, for shrewdness and deep penetration, when it is nothing more than cunning-a kind of impure instinct and defaced intelligence. Yet there is ignorance enough to try all the patience

and

Girls difficult to manage.

311

and good temper of masters and teachers. The old master streetseller might be right when he said, 'All a fellow wants to know to sell potatoes is to tell how many tanners make a bob, and how many yennaps (pence) a tanner;' but to brace up a young mind fresh from so much corruption, and familiar with so much degradation, and teach its possessor to see himself aright, his duty, and his fellow-men, much more is required, as verily there shall be more reward for its well-doing. Some of the boys whose histories Mr. Mayhew has detailed have done well as their chances have improved, and they have reversed their previous habits.

The boys, indeed, are more manageable than girls. This is sad enough to state, but is too plainly true. Most of the confirmed criminals now in our prisons are women; and Mr. Turner admits that girls are more difficult to manage in reformatories than boys. It may arise from their previous habits, and from the comparatively small number who can really follow any employment when living in honesty at home. They can sell articles, but cannot work. Mr. Mayhew says and we have no reason to doubt his wordTo be a domestic servant, or a barmaid in a beerhouse, or a poor, badly-paid seamstress, is neither very inviting nor very lucrative.' That so many of them should turn aside into evil ways is not marvellous. So much filth, overcrowding, and disregard of commonest decency and cleanliness, issues, almost ere many are aware, in making them what they certainly never placed before themselves as an end, or even whispered to themselves as a secret wish. A temporary refuge for females, started by the Incumbent of St. Jude, in Boar's Head Yard, Petticoat Lane, in May, 1860, is spoken of by Mr. Hollingshead as having afforded temporary shelter to sixtyfour young women, of whom sixteen are doing well in situations, seven have been restored to their friends, one is married, one dead, nineteen have been sent to other institutions; and of the remaining twenty-eight, eight are now in the refuge, and the others have left, some as failures, and others as uncertain and unaccountable. self-supporting, and managed by a committee of ladies. Mr. Mayhew records a touching incident, bearing upon the virtue of a poor, peddling Irishwoman. Her parents both died soon after she came to London; but on her death-bed the mother said to her in a low, earnest tone, Mary, my darlint, if you starruve, be vartuous. Rimimber poor Illen's funeral.' This was a poor relative, who died unmarried, at a lying-in hospital; and as the coffin was carried into the churchyard to be buried, it was met by a brother who had not seen his sister for some time, and wanted to see her. The coffin was opened, and, bad man as he himself was, he cursed her fiercely. It made me ill,' said the poor woman, to see Illen in her coffin, and hear him curse her, and I've remembered it ever

since.'

It is

When

When once we have fairly instilled into the minds and hearts of the young such counsel as will stimulate them to honest work, it is our duty to find it them. This is easier with the boys than the girls, owing to many causes beyond our present province. Clothing and pecuniary assistance may be given at starting, but they should be led to understand that while an interest will always be felt in them, they cannot look towards charity for supplies to meet the defects of their own industry and thrift. The grand mainspring and motive power of their lives must be an inward, self-reliant, self-assertorial one. Heaven helps those who help themselves, and all the laws and ordinances of the universe so play and interplay in God's beneficence and law, that sooner or later work must end in victory. No good can come of them so long as they look back, look aside, or look down. There must be no lazy love for charitable homes and parish workhouses. All must be open, earnest, and transparent. Work, and work alone, shall be to them a holy worship, whereby they may toil out of murk and misery into thrift and contentment. As a rule, the poor, both young and old, are not and cannot be so lazy as in our ignorance we often imagine. It is pleasing to be told of the flourishing nature of such an institution as the Christ Church Penny Bank, in the district of St. George'sin-the-East, with its last year's receipt of 9447.; and also that there is a very large amount of modest, unobtrusive poor, who seldom clamour at police courts, crowd the soup-kitchens, or hurry theatrically to the workhouse, but who are always willing to work when they can get it, and will tramp miles through mire, and wind, and rain, to secure their bit of leather or strip of cloth, hurrying home joyfully as with precious treasure. It makes the future more hopeful when we find examples amongst the older and mature of what we are so anxious to impress upon the young and tender in experience. Such virtue, like its counterpart, may have to be dug out by frequent visits and patient querists; but its very existence is significant and cheering, and fruitful in suggestions that cannot be overlooked even if they are never realized.

There are many other considerations opening out of Mr. Hollingshead's volume, as also Mr. Mayhew's, which we cannot now discuss, and many special topics requiring lengthy and exhaustive treatment. Moderate in our wishes as well as in our hopes, we are neither inclined to be despairing nor joyful over the peculiar features of our great city life these works have unveiled. But we have still many reasons for believing that whosoever will write the history of the ragged London of 1871, will reveal a more brightening condition and a more wholesome atmosphere, moral as well as mental, in the dark places that hide our fellow men and women from the light of day, the light of truth, and the light of God.

ART.

The Rev. John Angell James.

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ART. II.-1. John Angell James: a Review of his History, Character, Eloquence, and Literary Labours. By John Campbell, D.D., Author of the Martyr of Erromanga,' &c. London: Shaw.

1860.

2. The Life and Letters of the Rev. John Angell James; including an Unfinished Autobiography. Edited by the Rev. R. W. Dale, M.A., his Colleague and Successor. Third edition. London: Nisbet & Co. 1861.

SIR

IR JOHN STODDART makes the following remarks in his admirable Introduction to Universal History:'If the attention of mankind is strongly drawn to the contemplation of great actions, it is perhaps still more forcibly attracted to that of remarkable persons. There is no object so interesting to man as man. There is no glass in which we can so well dress our moral nature. There is nothing that so fully enables us to obey the famous oracle, "Know thyself." There are no such effectual means to stir up our latent powers; to kindle passions unknown even to ourselves; and to impel us to act by showing us that we possess the means of action. If Cæsar wept before the statue of Alexander; if Burns felt the enthusiasm of a patriot possess his whole soul in perusing the valiant deeds of William Wallace; if the benevolence of the Roman Catholic has been kindled by the example of St. Vincent de Paul; if the British sailor will for ages to come feel his heart beat at the name of Nelson,-- all this, and a thousand times more, is owing to that most fascinating species of history which is called biography.' How much ministerial devotedbe traced to similar influences! The study of the life of a man of God has led many invested with the sacred office to emulate the virtues, and to imitate the labours of the holy and useful ministers of Christ. More perhaps has this been the case from the biographies of the good than of the great, of the carnest evangelist rather than of the profound divine. The means of doing good which such possessed are more within the range of other men than are the lofty powers of thought which belong to the great, and which place them on a pinnacle of, eminence too high for ordinary men to attain. John Angell James was one of these earnest and eminently useful men. Without learning or philosophy, with modest pretensions and ordinary powers, he attained an eminence and a ministerial success such as few in the ministry reach. His life, therefore, has a surpassing interest. I set out in my ministry, even when a student,' he said, with the idea of usefulness so deeply imprinted on my heart, and so constantly present to my thoughts, that I could never lose sight of it long together; and I mean usefulness of one kind-that is, the direct Vol. 4.- No. 16. conversion

ness may

Y

conversion of souls.' It pleased God to fulfil, in a large measure, this idea of his life and labour.

He was born at Blandford Forum, Dorsetshire, on 6th June, 1785, of humble but respectable parents. Like most men who have been eminent and honoured in the Church of Christ, he had a godly mother, who was wont to take her children to her chamber, and, with each separately, to pray for the salvation of their souls. This exercise, while fulfilling her own responsibility, was moulding the character of her children, and most, if not all, of them rose up to call her blessed. When did such means ever fail?

Another circumstance tended to his Christian decision. When apprenticed to a linendraper, at Poole, young James discontinued his daily prayers, from a sense of shame. But a new apprentice, who had lately joined the establishment, and who occupied the same room with him and the other apprentices, knelt down in his presence to seek his father's God. This faithfulness reproved the transgressor, and from that night he recommenced the practice which his mother taught him. He never left it off again. Conscience was henceforth at work, and filial piety passed into personal religion. In this transition the youth was aided by an aged shoemaker in the town, whose soul yearned after the young. John Angell James became a visitor at the old disciple's, and ere long his voice occasionally led the supplications of the little company in that good man's house. The circumstances connected with his first effort Mr. James mentions in his autobiographic sketch: In order to take off all fear from my mind, he requested me, the first time I prayed, to go and stand in a place that was boarded off, in which coals and other matters were kept. Here, in this dark corner, I stood to pour out an audible prayer for the first time with a fellowcreature. His religious impressions were greatly deepened at this time by a sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Sibree, of Frome, from these words: "Therefore will the Lord wait that he may be gracious unto you.' (Isa. xxx. 18.) Good books and good company aided the growing piety of the young apprentice, and he was induced to take a part in Sabbath-school teaching—a means of usefulness which has often reacted upon the religious convictions of youthful converts. While engaging in this work, a desire arose in his mind to become a minister of Christ.

When his mother discovered his serious impressions by observing a pocket Bible in his coat, her heart was overjoyed. It was to his sister, however, that he most freely communicated his religious thoughts. His letters home now became Christian. The new individuality pressed itself on paper; and his sister, who corresponded with him, had the joy of recognizing a brother in Christ in her brother by blood. She showed some of his letters to the Rev. Mr. Bennett, then of Romsey, where she was on a visit

to