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It can hardly be necessary to say, that where morals are at so low an ebb, there can be little of true religion? In many parts of London there are whole districts in a state but little better than one of heathenism. I have made careful calculations as to the comparative numbers of the lower classes who are in the habit of reading their bible, and of those who are not, and the conclusion to which I have come is, that the former bear no greater proportion to the latter than that of one to one hundred. This must appear a startling position; but let any one compare the number of the lower classes with the proportion of them they see in our churches and chapels, and they will at once be convinced of its truth, in as far as relates to attendance on public worship. Is it not notorious that the vast majority of those who frequent churches and chapels consists of the middle classes? Of the lower classes, one only sees a mere sprinkling in our places of public worship. The inference would be perfectly conclusive, in the absence of specific facts, that the proportion of those of the lower classes who never read the bible is correspondingly great; for no one can read his bible habitually who does not, except in those cases where there are physical or accidental hindrances, regularly attend some place of worship. The Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel gives the number of the lower classes, who are living in the metropolis, in utter ignorance of all religion, as half a million at the very least. My own impression is, that the number is nearer 800,000.

Then there is the way in which the sabbath-day is spent by the lower classes of the metropolis. Who can walk through the streets, especially in the more densely populated parts of the town, without feeling shocked at the frightful extent to which he sees the sabbathday desecrated? The morning of that day is, with the lower classes, the busiest moment of their existence. Certain districts present the appearance of, and are in fact most stirring markets on that morning. Every article of food and clothing is openly exhibited for sale; and the place is so crowded with buyers that it is with great difficulty you can push your way through the dense mass of human beings. Sabbath morning indeed is, with hundreds of thousands of the lower classes in London, the only market-time they ever have. And what horrible language do you hear them use in their buying and selling transactions! Their oaths and imprecations are truly dreadful. They can hardly open their mouths without invoking eternal perdition on themselves or others. As might be expected, the adjoining gin-palaces are filled to the very doors on sabbath mornings with devoted worshippers. There are some of these gin-temples which do as much business before church hours-for then they are obliged to shut--on Sunday morning, as they do on any other entire day throughout the week. In the summer season, the better circumstanced of the lower classes spend the sabbath in " trips," as they call them, on the river, or in visits to the tea-gardens scattered in all directions throughout the suburbs of the metropolis. It has been ascertained that the average number of persons who go on board steam-boats on the Thames on Sundays, during the fine weather, is 50,000; of whom, at least, 40,000 belong to the lower classes. In the tea-gardens, in the afternoon, there are usually not less than 60,000; full 50,000 of

whom are of the lower classes. The reason why the number is not greater is, because those who remain at home have not decent clothes wherein to make their appearance, or because they prefer plying their usual avocations in order that they may have a little more

blunt,"

to use their own phraseology, to spend in the temple of Bacchus.

Perhaps nine out of every ten you meet among the operatives of the metropolis are professed infidels. They have read Paine's "Age of Reason" and the works of Carlile and Robert Taylor "the Devil's Chaplain," and have thus picked up, at second hand, a few of those objections against divine revelation which have been answered a thousand times over. They have never taken the trouble of examining the question of the divine origin of Christianity for themselves. Of the real merits of the religion of the bible, they are just as ignorant as are the inhabitants of Timbuctoo.

This is a frightful state of things. It is the more affecting when one recollects that this utter destitution occurs in the capital of a country distinguished above all others in the world for its Christian character and Christian privileges. The very fact implies a culpability of no ordinary magnitude on the part of those who have themselves been made partakers of the blessings of Christianity. Had they individually done their duty, the metropolis of Great Britain would not present the melancholy moral spectacle which it does at this moment. No person of right feeling and Christian philanthropy can view the vast machinery now in operation for evangelising the heathen world with other than emotions of supreme joy; but it ought to be matter of reproach to every Christian mind, that while so much has been done for the heathen of Africa, scarcely any thing has been done for the heathen of London. This the religious world ought to have done ; but they ought not to have left the other undone. Assuredly our own countrymen have the first and strongest claims on us. Religious charity, like every other charity, should begin at home. Though abstractedly it is, as I have just observed, a most gratifying thing to see the various denominations of Christians all cordially co-operating together in the diffusion of the blessings of the Gospel in heathen lands, yet one cannot help feeling pained to see this done at the expense of the claims of those with whom we daily come in contact in the ordinary intercourse of life. What we could wish to see would be an extensive agency at work for the moral regeneration both of the inhabitants of tropical climes and of the metropolis in which we live; but when the means available for so mighty a work are, in the present state of things, quite inadequate to the emergency of the case, I hold that the first efforts of Christian philanthropy ought to be brought to bear on the vast mass of moral ignorance and depravity which is constantly exhibited to our view in the poorer districts of London. It is one very important fact in the consideration of this most momentous question, that if we had once succeeded in Christianising the metropolis, that would give an unheard-of impetus to the cause of missionary exertion abroad; for it is one of the inevitable tendencies of the religion of Jesus, to inspire those who embrace it with a desire to communicate its blessings to others. The amount, therefore, of missionary exertion which would be made by the population of London, were it

all evangelised, would be vastly greater than it is: those very persons who are at this moment in as much need of Christian instruction as are the sable and most savage sons of Africa, would, if once made subjects of the saving power of the Gospel, assist by every means at their command to send that Gospel to heathen lands. But it cannot,

in the nature of things, be expected that the converted heathen should send missionaries and bibles back to Great Britain to Christianise the people of London. We should look on it as an insult if they did. Let not, then, our Christian benevolence overleap continents, and seas, and oceans, to single out for its objects the population of far distant countries, while there are so many myriads of our fellow-beings equally in need of our philanthropic exertions within the circumference of a few miles. It is only when the claims which exist on our benevolence at home have been adequately met, that we should turn our eye towards the nations in need of our aid abroad.

It is gratifying to think that of late the claims of the metropolis on the sympathies and exertions of the religious world, have begun to receive greater consideration than they ever did at any former period. "The Christian Instruction Society" has now been labouring for several years with great zeal and perseverance, though unostentatiously, in communicating religious knowledge to the benighted population of the metropolis. Its exertions have been in many instances attended with the happiest results. At this moment upwards of 200,000 individuals are in the course of stated instruction by its agents. But of all the institutions which have been formed, or which it were possible to form, with the view of spreading the knowledge of divine truth among the ignorant portion of the population of the metropolis, the City of London Mission" appears to me to promise the greatest good.' pp. 305-311.

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The Second Volume is devoted to an account of the Metropolitan Press-the Newspapers, Reviews, and Magazines. This will probably be, to general readers, the most amusing portion of the work. We must confess that, although in some degree behind the scenes ourselves, we have felt no small astonishment at the quantity of minute information which the Author has collected,-information of a kind peculiarly difficult to get at. Of course, he has been, unavoidably, led into many mistakes through misinformation, resting upon what, no doubt, seemed the best authority. But in several instances, where we suspect that he is in error, we do not feel confident of being in possession of more accurate knowledge. Dr. Southey was at no time, we believe, the Editor of the Quarterly Review. Mr. Gifford's successor was understood to be Mr. Coleridge, a relative of the Poet. The account given of the Monthly Review is in many respects erroneous;-but here we feel to be treading on delicate ground. For the manner in which our own journal is spoken of, we are bound to make our very best bow; and if the Writer should be deemed, in this and other instances, somewhat too complimentary, this is surely the more honourable side. The fair

ness of intention and studied impartiality evinced in the account given of journals of all grades and complexions, must disarm those who find themselves here dragged into public view, of all angry feeling. In the account given of the Times, the Author has, however, laid himself open to the charge of gross exaggeration. The high panegyric upon its city articles is ridiculously overwrought. The Times can never be trusted as to any thing bearing on the monetary system: either it blunders grossly, or it wilfully states what it knows to be false. Many of its assertions as to the affairs of the Bank of England are pure invention. In fact, the Times is politically, commercially, morally, dishonest; and its influence has of late declined still more rapidly than its sale, which has declined to a far greater extent than our Author appears to be aware. We shall, however, go no further into these matters; but earnestly recommend a careful revision of the Work, in the event of a new edition. With a little pains and research, the Author might make his history of periodical literature much more complete and accurate. Upon the whole, however, the Work exhibits marks of great care and diligence; and as it is replete with much curious information, and contains little that can be offensive to any parties, we may safely recommend it to those of our readers who wish.

From the loop-holes of retreat,
To peep at such a world.'

Art. VI. 1. The Christian Keepsake and Missionary Annual. Edited by the Rev. William Ellis. 1837. 16 Plates.

2. The Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837.

trations, by L. E. L. 4to, 36 Plates.

With Poetical Illus

3. Fisher's Juvenile Scrap Book, 1837. By Agnes Strickland and Bernard Barton.

4. Friendship's Offering; and Winter's Wreath: a Christmas and New Year's Present for M.DCCC.XXXVII. 12mo, 11 Plates.

5. The Oriental Annual. Lives of the Moghul Emperors. By the Rev. Hobart Caunter, B.D. With 22 Engravings from Drawings by William Daniell, R.A. 8vo.

WE are glad to find that the Christian Keepsake has obtained a sufficiently extensive sale to remunerate the exertions of the spirited proprietors. It is one of the few publications of this class which deserve a place in the library for the permanent value of the contents, and the intrinsic interest of the embellishments. The portraits of Mrs. Hemans, Dr. Carey, Thomas Clarkson, the

6

Rev. William Jay, Bishop Ryder, and the Caffer Chief, which are given in the present volume, are, with one exception, prefixed to biographical notices which form a very pleasing feature of the work. Among the other plates, which are all excellently engraved, are The Death of Heber,' a view of the bath in which he died; the Feast of the Mohurram; Worms; Basle; Malta; Rhodes Moscow; and the Mountains of Aboo, in Guzerat; all of them well chosen subjects, either as connected with historical associations of religious interest or as scenes of Missionary labour. Among the prose contributions are the following: Mohammedanism in India, by the Rev. W. Campbell, Missionary at Bangalore. Historical Recollections at Worms, by the Rev. Dr. J. P. Smith. Recollections of Bishop Heber, by the Rev. Dr. Doran. Malta, by the Rev. S. S. Wilson, Missionary. History of Rhodes, by the Rev. Dr. Redford. Basle, by the Rev. Dr. Steinkopff.

Of the poetical contributions, which are not very numerous, we shall give two. The lines on Tintern Abbey, by the Rev. W. L. Nichols, afford a specimen of what we do not often meet with,musical blank verse.

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TINTERN ABBEY.

By the Rev. W. L. Nichols, M.A.

Eloquent ruin! that, with hoary brow,
Tell'st thine old tale of frailty and decay,
And speak'st of man's vicissitude, to man!
Awe-struck, I tread thy grassy courts, and own
The spirit of the place, and feel the power
Of old religion, lingering still beside

Her prostrate shrines and altars cold, inviting
To meditation and to solemn thought.

'I dream of what thou wast, and thy dim aisles
People with airy shapes, and seem to hear
The chant of holy voices faintly die
Along the echoing walls! Lo! there with gem
Adorned, and gold, shone the High Altar! clouds
Of incense, forth from fragrant censer flung,
Mingled with choral symphonies, went up
And curled around each clustering pillar's shaft,
And hid the branchy roof, while bent around
The kneeling crowd of worshippers! Deem not,
Albeit with error mixed, their worship vain :-
Amidst a barbarous age, here learning found
A refuge; holy men from court or camp,
Heart-sore, and weary of the world, sought out
The shelter of monastic solitude,

Exchanged the soldier's mail for russet state
And robe of saintly hue, and hither came
To lay their bones in peace. They sleep within

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