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for more secular grounds of division. And we are disposed to think that had the spirit of Owen, or Howe, or Watts, or Doddridge, been resting upon the great bulk of the present generation of Dissenters, there would not be anything like the amount of difficulty which now exists in the way of some national system of education. The very principle for which we contend, but which modern sectarianism repudiates-that civil power and station ought to be actively engaged in the encouragement and spread of religious truths and influences; and that the ruler or statesman, like those who fill the humbler relations of life, is bound to establish and perpetuate some form and standard of religious teaching, was fully recognized by the distinguished Owen and most of his compeers. "If once it comes to that," said he, in a sermon to the Parliament," that you will say that you have nothing to do with religion as rulers of the nation, God will quickly manifest that He hath nothing to do with you as rulers of the nation. The Lord hath promised that the magistrates whom he will give, own, and bless, shall put forth their power, and act in that capacity wherein he hath placed them in the world, for the good, furtherance, and prosperity of the truth and church of Christ."

It is easy, therefore, in giving a comparative statement of the education of the poor in this and other countries, to exhibit, as Mr. Kay has done, with notes of admiration, and such expressions as— "quite the contrary," &c., the great difference between our own country and others, as to the degree of harmony existing on the subject among various classes and sects of religionists. But it must not be forgotten, that the relation which Dissent bears to the Established form of religion in England, differs, in many important points, from that which is found to be the case in other countries; and the difference is such as to increase incalculably the difficulty of establishing a good system of education upon the broad basis of religious union.

At the same time we fully admit the necessity and the duty on the part of our Government of assuming a far more commanding position with regard to this great question, than they have hitherto seemed disposed to occupy. If the country is ever to be effectually and adequately educated, it must be set about upon a scale to which no voluntary association can be competent. We will repeat in confirmation of this remark a statement made in one of our earlier numbers (March 1843): "1,600,000 daily scholars is the least number that ought to be provided for in public schools; the cost at 11s. 2d.1 each per annum would be £893,333. And de

The estimated average cost of educating each child throughout the dioceses of Exeter, Chester, Ely, and St. David's, amounts to 10s. 7d. annually; whereas those whom the

ducting two-fifths supposed to be made up by the weekly payments of the parents, it would require a revenue of £536,000 to carry on the schools. If £250,000 of that sum be already raised by voluntary offerings, he must be a very sanguine man indeed who would hope to increase those offerings by nearly £300,000. We therefore come to the conclusion that without the intervention of Government it will be impossible to provide the daily instruction which is needful for our population." Much therefore as we differ from Dr. Hook in some of the principles advanced in his recent letter to the Bishop of St. David's upon this subject-principles the inconsistency of which, as coming from such a quarter, is positively startling; especially the liberal concession that "the state cannot recognize any exclusive religious claim," or give its weight and influence to the propagation of that form of religious truth and worship which it deems most conformed to the scriptural standard: we nevertheless agree with him in his forcible exhibition of the great and pressing obligation resting upon Her Majesty's Government, to attempt that which the Church of England is not and cannot be in a position to carry out the general and universal education of the people. We repeat, such an education the Church has not the means of supplying, even if it were not the case that a large portion of the population will not receive it at her hands. The State alone therefore can supply a system of education equal to the wants of the nation; and without committing ourselves to the details of such a scheme as Dr. Hook proposes, we do give our hearty affirmation to the question he asks--" Whether, for the sake of a great national object, there might not be a sacrifice, not of principle, but of prejudice on either side?

We shall hail with thankfulness any attempt on the part of her Majesty's Government maturely to weigh, and discreetly to settle, this long-agitated question. Let them cease from the miserable labour of merely holding the social structure together by "the iron cramps of power," and endeavour to consolidate it with "the cement of principle"-of sound and well-grounded knowledge. Let the prevention of crime be made the business of the State rather than its punishment, and the improvement of the community as much its object as the protection and order thereof.

"Binding herself by statute to secure,

For all the children whom her soil maintains,
The rudiments of letters; and inform

The mind with moral and religious truth

Both understood and practised."-Wordsworth.

want of education, or else a bad education, lead into courses of crime, prey upon society to the average amount, according to the constabulary report, of not less than twenty-five shillings weekly! What infatuation, then, is it to suffer our legislation to continue as it has hitherto done, possessing a punitive rather than a preventive character!

PHILIP MUSGRAVE; or, Memoirs of a Church of England Missionary in the North American Colonies. Edited by the Rev. J. ABBOTT, A.M. London: Murray. 1846.

Ir may be well, perhaps, at once to introduce our readers to the author and hero of this little volume-Philip Musgrave, a Church of England missionary in the North American colonies. "My name is Musgrave," says our autobiographer. "My name was Musgrave before I left England." We cannot therefore be mistaken; and having this high authority, we hope our venerable friend, whose "missionary life," he tells us, "is" now

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drawing to its close," will kindly excuse us, if now and then we presume thus to designate him. His book, no doubt, will earn him a name-probably this very one which designates his sketchy narrative—and we should be sorry to rob him of his just honours. What may be the connexion between Philip Musgrave of " Grenville Abbey, Canada East," and his editor," the Rev. J. Abbott, A.M.," (Missionary, we presume, of the Gospel Propagation Society, Grenville, Canada East,) we know not: nor do we quite see how so clever a writer as Philip Musgrave should need the services of a graduated friend to usher his volume into notice. It is very modest in our author of Grenville Abbey to say-"There will doubtless be many literary errors in the following pages: living, as I have done, for the last twenty-five years, in the backwoods of this wild country, shut out from the world, it would be extraordinary if there were not "--but really he is quite right in thinking that on this ground he has no need to "anticipate the severity of criticism," or "to attempt to soften it." He, or his editor (whose services, by the way, pass unnoticed and unacknowledged, except on the title-page), has contrived to furnish the readers of the "Home and Colonial Library "-(Mr. Murray would take care of that)-with a volume of very fair literary pretensions; and whether it be Philip Musgrave, or Mr. Abbott, to whom we owe these lively memoirs, we shall have no quarrel with him on this score. Whether it is altogether such "a simple memoir of missionary life" as we might have expected from one who for "" a period of more than a quarter of a century >> "has been devoted to missionary labour" in the colonies, is another question. But it may be best, as we said, to introduce the author

The Editor, we observe, is a missionary of the same standing as the Author. He was appointed in the year 1818. There is no missionary of the name of Musgrave on the Society's list.

at once to our readers, and allow him for a while to speak for himself. We will see him fairly settled at his first station, and then take up his narrative in brief, concluding with a few remarks. Commencing, then, ab ovo, the 'Memoirs' thus open

"Who or what I am-my birth, my parentage, or education--are questions of little or no interest to the general reader. Suffice it therefore to say, that I was not a needy adventurer, nor without a fair and reasonable prospect of preferment at home.

This

"The first rudiments of geographical knowledge which I received, were mingled with romantic ideas concerning America, in consequence of some near connexions of my mother's having emigrated to that country. gave a bent to my inclinations, which led me to make many inquiries concerning that country: the result of which was, that I resolved to leave my native land, and become a settler in what I was then inclined to consider an earthly paradise. But at this period I was very young, very thoughtless, and I fear I must add very vacillating: so that this resolution was never carried into effect.

"I was not intended for the Church, nor did I myself entertain the idea of entering into holy orders, until within a couple of years of my becoming old enough to do so, when a circumstance occurred, involving in its consequences so much of sorrow and misery, as led me to form a more true and correct estimate of the comparative value of the things of heaven and of earth than I had ever done before. This naturally gave a serious turn to my mind, and a new complexion to my destiny. Within two years of this time, I found myself the curate of a large and populous parish, the whole duties of which devolved upon myself, the incumbent having been suspended by the bishop for immoral conduct. These duties were extremely heavy and it was fortunate for my youth and inexperience that they required so regular a routine, that I could hardly have deviated from it without subjecting myself to the imputation of wilful and criminal negligence."-(p. 41.)

Our author, it seems, has "always kept a journal." Hence, no doubt, this sketchy volume: a volume just to the taste of Mr. Murray's readers. The first sketch, touching his labours as an English curate, we omit, and hurry at once in medias res.

"It will thus be seen," he observes, "that I knew something of the life of a hard-working curate at home, and my narrative will prove that I am still more familiarly acquainted with that of a missionary abroad.

"Before I entered upon my missionary career, I did certainly sit down and count the cost; but I had no certain grounds upon which to form anything like a correct estimate.

"In the year 18- I was appointed, by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, to the township of W, in one of the North American colonies. I succeeded a missionary who had been stationed there several years; so that, in my ignorance, I took it for granted that I should find a church, a parsonage-house, and a glebe, and everything else in the mission in regular order-the same, in short, as in a parish in England. In all these expectations I was doomed to be sadly disappointed.

"Such having been my ideas, it would be absurd for me to say that I was influenced in the important step I had taken by anything like that zealous and devoted missionary spirit which so often induces men to go forth into heathen lands to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation amid toil and privation."-(pp. 5, 6.)

Our missionary's voyage across the great Atlantic, is briefly

sketched. In short, it was, "altogether, a happy and a prosperous one."

"Nevertheless," he writes, " in the language of the sweet singer of Israel, 'We were glad when he brought us to the haven where we would be.'

66

was my

Early on a bright and beautiful morning in the month of July, 18-, I set out for the interior of the country, in search of the field of my future labours, which lay about fifty miles from the port at which I had landed. "A sluggish craft, without a deck, called a Durham boat, wearisome conveyance up one of these majestic rivers which abound on this continent, and which would float on their wide waste of waters the whole of the proud navy of England.

"I had for fellow-passengers a country-judge of the Court of Requests, a magistrate, and a colonel and major of militia, all belonging to, and residing in, my intended mission. Through the indefatigable exertions of some or all of these titled gentry.. my name and purpose had been successfully made out before I had been an hour in their company. I was far from being sorry for this, as I received from them the most marked and flattering attentions. ... I thought at first, that, as far as good society was concerned, 'I had fallen on my feet; but, alas! my judge turned out to be a petty shopkeeper, a doler-out of drams to the drunken raftsmen; the magistrate, an old rebel-soldier of the United States, living upon a pension of £20 a-year from that government, as the reward of his treason, and, at the same time, holding a commission of the peace under the one against which he had successfully fought. The colonel, the most respectable of my dignified companions, had been a serjeant in the regiment, and was now living upon his pension of a shilling a-day. And, to complete my catalogue, the major was the jolly landlord of a paltry village-tavern. *

"On arriving at the landing-place nearest the little village I was in search of, I left the boat: and, not being able to obtain any sort of conveyance for my luggage, or even for myself, I left my servant to look after it, until I could send some one for it. On foot, and alone, I set out for the village, five miles off. I never considered it a hardship to walk five miles on a good road, but on this occasion, tired and exhausted as I was, it proved a formidable undertaking."

"Ex

The description-though graphic enough-we omit. hausted with fatigue and the oppressive heat; . . . . worn out, and faint from want of food and natural rest; excited, besides, to an extraordinary degree by his over-wrought feelings; a hopeless and lonely exile in a strange land, with the wild, interminable wilderness of woods around him "—such was the state in which our missionary found himself, on awaking from a half-delirious reverie beneath an old pine-tree in the midst of a burying-ground, where he had laid him down, and wept and prayed as if his heart would break. "No wonder," he observes, " if my reason for a moment tottered on her throne, nor if my imagination wandered into the unknown regions of another world." The narrative thus pro

ceeds.

"The slight noise of wheels," he says, "in the sandy road restored me, although not entirely and at once, to a proper frame of mind: but not indeed until the person passing by had stopped, and kindly told me he had heard of

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