but one class of mind-the social and communicative, which is usually the shallowest. The deep reserved disposition, full of thoughts that it can hardly fix, and aspirations that it cannot define, is either repelled from their system, or else forced to say what it does not feel, and made, in spite of itself, hypocritical. The whole thing should be optional; and then the system would be free from all objections, and might continue, as is at present, a great means of strengthening and holding the convert, and a great support and comfort to a large class of minds. Our last question, with respect to the Wesleyan Society, shall be, Is it desirable that it should be, at present, re-united with the Episcopal Church? To this we should answer decidedly, No. The present rules of that Church would, in a moment, clap a wet .blanket upon all its energy and zeal. The Bishop of London wished to stifle the City Mission in its infancy. Most of the bishops, especially those who have been schoolmasters or heads of colleges, dislike all that is vulgar, unlearned, and incorrect in taste, and want all spiritual work to be done by college men. The uses of the vulgar, the unlearned, and the incorrect in taste, must be recognised in the Church of England; and it must learn to appreciate its sturdy idiwraι before the Methodist Association can safely join it. Having thus considered the two leading English denominations, we proceed to describe those combined efforts that are a new, and now a very striking, feature of our religious world, and contain, as we firmly believe, the happiest omen for the future. We must preface our remarks on the City Missions with a short account of their founder-a man who deserves all the honour short of idolatry, that can be paid to departed merit. About the time when Dr. Chalmers preached his first sermon in the Tron Church at Glasgow, (30th March 1815,) a youth of sixteen, of humble birth, undistinguished personal appearance, and little apparent intellectual promise, was received into the fellowship of the Congregational Church in Nile Street, in the same city. No two persons could be more strongly contrasted. In Dr. Chalmers all was fresh and gorgeous, both in speech and writing; in David Nasmith all was plain, laborious, and undistinguished. Each has done a great work; yet it may be a question whether the work of the plain man will not be as enduring. and produce, for all time, as abundant fruit as that of the brilliant orator and profound divine. David was born in Glasgow, 21st He All was quite March, 1799, as his rather dull biographer informs us, "of parents respectable in circumstances and eminent for piety," members of the College Church. But it was, apparently, neither parental influence nor any external cause that made him what he was. The spring of his religious development was independent and internal. He had been self-guided and self-acting from a child. fourteen we find him secretary to an associa tion of boys in a Sunday-school, formed for distributing Bibles among the poor. At sixteen he chose, in a cool thoughtful manner, the religious communion (Independent) to which he held through life, though dissenting afterwards, in one important particular, from its religious practice. And to his latest hour he never seems to have lost for a moment his confidence in the personal guidance of his God. He knew that his own motives were right, and he was quite sure that God would guide him. Hence few religious lives have been so uniform in their tenor. was neither drawn to religion by overpowering terror nor tempted to it by romantic love; nor, as in some religious heroes, was there in him any period of agony or distress, or of feverish half-conscious exertion. He was visited by no heavenly visions and haunted by no demons. prosaic in him. He brought to his Maker's altar no shining abilities, no brilliant fancy, no eloquence, above all, no learning. He was a plain dry speaker; and when he wrote, he scratched away at an erased and blotted manuscript, until at last he hammered out the right thing. His gifts consisted of a commonplace, but very efficient, power of organization and management, such as would have made him a first-rate head in a large mercantile or manufacturing establishment; of a power of reading character by attentive and unimpassioned observation, which would have qualified him for a detective policeman; of the method and promptitude of a first-rate man of business; and of the steady, calculating perseverance of a cautious Scotsman. These are not the rarest gifts; but, we think, they are those that are most rarely sacrificed to the service of Heaven. And these-such as he had to give-David Nasmith devoted without a particle of reserve. He was the grand example of the Nineteenth-century type of saintship. This is not the most romantic form, or the most admired; but we are certain that it is the most useful, and we believe that it is the noblest. Men ad mire most the pictorial saints,—those ardent beings, whom the irresistible impulse of enthusiasm, or the thirst for religious glory, carries in a state of spiritual exaltation, which almost excludes self-consciousness, through terrible pains, and over enormous | At Manchester, where the Mission is condifficulties. A saint in a cave of the desert, ducted in the most business-like manner, and or a cell five feet square, or shrinking from (so far as a stranger can judge) with the observation upon a pillar seventy cubits largest measure of success; the course of a high, or half-dead with fast and vigil, or missionary's visits is regulated on the model kissing putrid ulcers in a crowded hospital of a policeman's beat. Three superintendas a proof of his extreme humility and utter ents, themselves experienced missionaries, contempt for the vanity of fame,-these look watch over the labours of the inferiors. One beautiful in pictures, and read well in story- of these, from time to time, without announcbooks. But give us, for Nineteenth-century ing his intention, joins each of his subordipurposes, a saint upon a three-legged stool, nates upon his beat; where the latter is exwith a ledger and correspondence-book for pected to be found in a fixed place at a fixed his disciplines, a committee for his board of hour of every day. He accompanies him inquisitors, and an office for his cell. We through a portion of his work, and inquires believe that the highest authority in the personally into all cases of particular imworld has pronounced his highest approval portance. In London, the superintendents upon the man who, before he resolves to are gentlemen or ministers, engaged, of give up all things, sits down and counts the course, in other business; and the superin cost, the cool calculator, and business-like tendence is perhaps not quite so uniform or philanthropist. Such was David Nasmith. efficient. The great merit of this system is, The fundamental idea of city missions, as that it extracts from each agent all that he indeed that of all purely Protestant mission- is capable of performing. It cannot, indeed, ary enterprise, is a very simple one. It is make men good, or draw from the hireling the all-powerfulness of the Gospel. Unlike that generous free-will offering that is not in the Roman system, whose chief strength him; but it extorts from him the full tale of consists in its almost perfect organization, hireling's work, and, in many instances, which can be worked with some effect even raises him by degrees to be capable of better by unbelievers; the Protestant Mission de- service; and it stimulates the earnest labourpends almost entirely on its faith. It pro- er, by applying to him that superintendence, ceeds on the belief, that if one brings the which, in some form or other, even fervent simple truth, as it is in Christ, to act with- zeal and perfect sincerity at times require. out let or hindrance, on the heart and mind, that truth exerts its own omnipotence, and the object of its action becomes a converted being, a willing servant, bound by a law of liberty, with a cord of love. So thought the founders of the City Mission, and, in realizing this simple idea, they adopted the most obvious and matter-of-fact machinery to bring the truth home to all. They engaged the best-qualified men that they could find, marked out a district for each, and obliged him to exert a prescribed kind and quantity of spiritual influence upon all within it. Their system is thus essentially a parochial or territorial one. But, unlike the old parochial system, it prescribes an exact course of daily duty to its agents, requires from them a minute account of the fulfilment of their duties, and exercises over them the strictest superintendence. Every missionary is expected "to spend thirty-six hours every week in visiting from house to house;" "to hold two meetings every week in dif ferent parts of the district, for the purpose of reading the Scriptures, exhortation, and prayer;" ;" "to write the journal of his daily proceedings with the strictest accuracy as to facts and circumstances, and to submit it once a week to the superintendent of the district for his inspection;" and to draw up annually a report of the state of his district. It will be seen by every thoughtful reader, that success in a work of this kind must depend chiefly on the character of the labourers. Though it is the Gospel that wins the victory, yet it is the Gospel written legibly on the tablet of a heart, and moving visibly in the life and conduct, of a Christian man. A sort of success, indeed, is granted even to the hireling; he may act as guide-post to the way of safety; but the good shepherd only can be a living guide. The thing that we require is well expressed by Mr. Miller : The great and urgent want of the Church [and Churches] of England is an immediate and a large increase of living agents-clerical and lay. . . . plication of living workers-workers of the true We believe that our human help lies in the multiBible stamp, men who have tasted of the grace of Christ, and in whose hearts is the Spirit, and men gifted for proclaiming the Gospel in simplicity, and in love, from our pulpits and from house to house. It becomes, therefore, a most interesting question, What kind of labourers those of the City Missions are. As respects the character of the agents of the tal education. The Society, however, has always Society, the mass are men of simple and rudimenhad a class of learned men. A doctor of divinity, a man of the commonest education, and a gradu ate of Oxford or Cambridge, might have been seen | labourers, and the wants of London as to the sitting side by side at its domestic meetings.* In the following curious cataloguet is contained the previous occupation of each of the 214 missionaries in the employment of the London Society in 1849: Irish can therefore be more easily met than those "3 ministers of the Gospel, 1 priest of the Church of Rome, 1 undergraduate of C. C. C., Cambridge, 1 student of St. Bee's College, 1 catechist of Church Missionary Society, 1 missionary of Wesleyan Missionary Society, 1 missionary of London Missionary Society, 1 catechist of London Jew's Society, 2 missionaries of Home Missionary Society, 3 missionaries of Town Mission and Scripture Reader's Society, 1 paid agent of Christian Instruction Society, 2 readers of Scripture Reader's Association, 5 Scripture Readers employed by clergymen privately, 4 Irish Scripture readers, 1 lay agent of Cork Pastoral Aid Society, 2 colporteurs of British and Foreign Bible Society, 2 Temperance Society agents, 24 schoolmasters, 2 teachers in schools, 1 public lecturer on scientific subjects, 1 surgeon, 1 artist, 7 servants, (1 steward, 2 butlers, 4 other servants,) 2 soldiers, 1 musician in 56th Regiment, 1 keeper of Alamode Beef Shop, 2 bakers, I bird-fancier, 1 block-printer, missionaries have hitherto constituted almost The previous voluntary labours of the 1 bookseller, 1 botanist, 1 brewer, 1 brushmaker, 5 builders, bricklayers, &c., 1 butcher, 2 cabinet- their whole training. The London Mission makers, 2 cabmen, 5 carpenters, 3 carvers and causes its agents to attend a course of theologilders, 3 clerks, (2 mercantile, 1 lawyer's,) 1 gical lectures during the first year of their coachmaker, 2 coachsmiths, 1 coal-merchant, 5 labours; and, in their first essays at visiting compositors, 2 confectioners, 2 corn-chandlers, 3 the poor, causes them to be accompanied by curriers, 7 farmers, 1 fell-monger, 4 gardners, 1 a training superintendent. All the missions general-shopkeeper, 1 greengrocer, 4 grocers, 1 institute a very strict and searching examinhairdresser, 1 iron-founder, 1 labourer in gasworks, 4 linen-drapers, 1 miller, 1 miner, 1 officer ation, in which the candidate's practical in the Corporation of the City of London, 9 paint- qualifications for the work are very severely ers, plumbers, &c., 1 paper-hanger, 1 patten and tested. But only one (the Country Towns clogmaker, 1 perfumer, 2 porters, 1 print-cutter, 2 Mission) possesses a training institution; sadlers, 1 salesman, 1 sealing-wax manufacturer, and the instruction there given is too short 1 ship-broker, 11 shoemakers, 3 shopmen, 1 silk- to be other than imperfect, and embraces so manufacturer, 6 silk-weavers, 1 silversmith, 1 stage-wide a range of subjects that it can hardly coachman, 1 tablecover-printer, 10 tailors, 1 to bacco manufacturer, 1 tobabacconist, 1 tobaccopipemaker, 2 travellers, 1 waiter at an hotel, 3 warehousemen, 1 wheelwright, 1 woolcomber, 1 woolstapler, 1 woollen-clothworker, 1 wove-spinner, 1 writer and grainer.-Total, 214. The Church of England has furnished about one-third of the 214 labourers, and other Christian bodies have tolerably equally furnished the remainder, the Wesleyan Methodists being slightly the most numerous, and the Independents rather the least numerous; and even the parts of the country from which the missionaries have been drawn are remarkably diversified, only a comparatively small proportion of them having previous ly resided in London itself. Scotland and Ireland have each contributed a fair proportion, and there are few counties of England which have not sent at least a single missionary.† imparting religious instruction to the Irish of London, Irish readers and missionaries are the best adapted and most suitable, especially if they can speak the Irish language. Now it so happens that Ireland furnishes a large supply of valuable For fail of being somewhat shallow. We believe that this is the point which now requires the most earnest attention from all these missions. They all represent that their men are improving fast; and the confidence and support that they are winning prove that their labours are meeting with success; but doubtless they might improve still faster; and, therefore, we beg leave to lay before the managers of these institutions the question, Whether it would not be well to maintain their men for a year in a training establishment, before sending them forth to labour independently? Without doubt, the constant sight of sin and misery generates of itself both earnestness and experience, yet a previous special training, conducted by one experienced in the work, and a good discerner of the human heart, would cause these qualities to be produced much faster and much more perfectly. The following | mortified; but duty to herself and to the commitextract from the report of a training-master, tee shut me up to the step. When there was no other way, she came to, and now her returns are on several newly-entered candidates, (most kindly communicated to us by Mr. Geldart, ship-shape." Secretary of the Country Towns Mission), describes, in a very graphic way, both what the material is, and how it is handled : A. and B. were each under training about seven weeks. The regular course consists of about thirty-three lectures, spread over eight weeks; in addition to which, there are conversational hints on practical duties. But the time is too short. "I find Mr. A. to be a devout Christian, and one who loves the work for the work's sake, steady, prudent, and industrious,-not given to while away his time, but seeks to live to purpose. "The period being so short for the stay of an As his opportunities have been few, his reading and general knowledge are of a limited order. He agent, I have barely time to light his lamp, teach is a shrewd, close observer, but was a feeble textu- him how to trim it, and pour in oil. When I have a mind disciplined by close consecutive ary. His experience is sound, but his creed was thought, something can be done with it; but a tangled thing. He seemed afraid to ask for a when a man comes, as a Sheffield person would reason, though that reason is revealed. Here his piety degenerated into superstition, for he is not say, with every screw loose, I have just time to tighten them, and then he leaves... [Notwithinert in controversy, and is given to ask a ques-standing,] C. has turned out a very excellent tion on worldly matters and things merely speculative. His creative faculty is weak, but his power of investigation good for his position. His spirit and manner were of the Wesley school, for he spoke and lived as if John Wesley looked over his shoulder. Religion has done much for him, but religious teaching little. ... missionary, working to the great satisfaction of The result, in the two first cases, is not "Mr. B. is an earnest Christian, but not so yet ascertained. We can hardly imagine devout as his brother, nor so prudent. In prayer, that a man so clear in judgment, so racy in his order of mind is clear, consecutive, and scrip- expression, and so totally devoid of cant, as tural. Considering his previous status as a village preacher, I never conversed with one whose the writer of the above, can fail of producing knowledge of Scripture history was so feeble. I useful men, if time and scope sufficient be put the Sabellian view of the Trinity, and the allowed him. Arian view of the Saviour's character, but he did not detect the errors; neither did he satisfactorily put the great doctrines of Justification, Regeneration, and Sanctification. He used hyper phrases, without thoroughly knowing their import, adopted sentiments without thinking through them, and was a feeble textuary. He will take, at first sight, with some. A. will grow in one's esteem. Their hearts are perfect towards God, but their heads are muddy. and "Mr. C. is by far the best man. He is not a read man, but loves reading: shrewd and apt. I know only one drawback-he is given to punning, and is a wit, and this produces lightness; hence a want of weight. His punning is to the purpose, and we have words of wisdom with his wit: but, after all, it is better to do things seriously. It seemed just that I should speak to him, and since then he has been better. Responsibility makes a good man think, ponder, and pray. I think the position will do him good, for he will be equal to it, and, of receiving instructions to that import, I wil prepare him specially for his position. C. is not an everyday man, and care will give him bal last. "The woman decidedly is the best man, as it refers to mental calibre. Miss D. is ready to leave. I have had no trouble with her, save on one point, or rather two. She wished to slip-shod her journals, and is not given to early rising; but many are given to the last deficiency, and I don't wonder at their lack of weight. Mrs. E. (the superintendent's wife) took her in hand for this matter. I refused to take her work, if not carefully attended to, at which she was somewhat The mode of operating in all the Missions is very simple: The district should be perambulated, and every family visited once a month. The visit consists uniformly of religious conversation, and, where the inmates of the house will permit, of Scripture read"The missionary, having ing and prayer. gained an entrance to a house, ascends to the highest room to begin his work, and descends from room to room until he has visited all the families in that house. Were he to commence at the bottom, he might not be allowed to reach the top, but, by beginning at the garret, he must descend, and thus he has the opportunity of visiting all who will admit him, even to the kitchen and cellar; and these are places in which he frequently meets with the most affecting and painful scenes. We have room for but one of these scenes, which we will insert as a specimen of Mr. Vanderkiste's character and style : This den of infamy . . . consisted of one small room on the ground-floor. . . I was in the habit of visiting this place morning, noon, and night, accompanied, when I could obtain his company, by an aged friend, bursting in upon them in the midst of their criminality; at other times visiting them while under the depressing effects of their previous night's debauch. It may be inquired, perhaps, how it happened such a course was prac ticable. The fact is, I appeared to have a great | wield in addition to their Bibles is the reliinfluence given me over the proprietor of this gious tract. Of these they circulate in Lonwretched place and others, in consequence, per- don alone the incredible number of 2,000,000 haps, of attentions paid to one of their companions in a year. The distribution of these little who died in a very dreadful manner. They appeared to retain so grateful a sense of these atten- pamphlets has been highly lauded, and contions, that they could not insult me. It consti- temptuously vilified. On this point Mr. tuted one of the strangest sights in the whole Mayhew and Mr. Vanderkiste are at issue. world to see me enter this place at night, some-The latter quotes instances, in which he has times alone. On one occasion my companion was ordered away; it was said to him, You go, else perhaps you'll have a knife put into you; he (me) may stop,'--disturbing all kinds of wickedness, and merely saying, 'I've come to read to you.' Standing in the midst of ferocious and horrible characters, reading the Scriptures, and explaining portions concerning our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, heaven and hell, and a prostitute holding a candle to me. This young would follow some discussion; one would say, 'I don't believe there's no hell-it's in your heart, mister.' Then some prostitute would burst out into indecent profanity, who would be sworn at until she was quiet. Then I would go down upon my knees in the midst of them and pray, waiting to see if the Spirit of God would act, (and the Spirit of God did act.) On one occasion while so engaged, with my hand over my face, I left a small space between my fingers for the purpose of making an observation, and perceived small articles (stolen, I suppose) being passed from one to another. They had no idea that I was observing woman has since abandoned her evil life. Then them. known good to arise. Religious tracts have, indeed the case with all publications, are no doubt, some good effects, but these, as is mostly inappreciable. It would be difficult to produce distinct instances of the effect even of the Bible; yet who can doubt the immense influence that it possesses over the British mind? If, as seems to be universally allowed, printed evil is pernicious, printed good must be to some extent salutary. We imagine that these little publications contribute as much as any cause, to keep up that deep though vague respect for religion and the Bible, and that sense of religious obligation with which the mind of the whole English people is saturated. They have no power to breathe religious life into the masses, but they can act as a salt that keeps the carcase from absolute putrefaction. The existing ones are, however, susceptible of immense improvement. We have no space to criticise them, but we will insert from one of our writers an admirable little sumWe recommend this scene to the pre-mary of the qualities that publications for Raffaelites. It would be picturesque enough the people ought to possess. for their pencil. Sin appears in it in all that ugliness that they so love to paint, and abundant entomological specimens would furnish opportunities for the most truthful delineation of minute nature. If one could divest Father Vanderkiste of the rusty black suit and white cravat of the modern missionary, and furnish him instead with cowl and crucifix, and the other properties of picturesque religion, the picture might take even at the West End. But, in all seriousness we must ask, what effects are produced by these bold irruptions into the very fortress of the enemy? One of Mr. Mayhew's informants, a prostitute, declared that in such places "the missioners call sometimes, but they're laughed at often when they're talking, andalways before the door is closed on them." Very true;-yet notwithstanding the bread is on the waters, and will be found after many days the thought is in the mind, and some day or other may act upon the conduct. Mr. Vanderkiste informs us, that his efforts in that den of vice were blessed to the conversion of four at least of the inmates, including the "proprietor of the place, who was a common thief, and the prostitute with whom he lived" "Every writer for the working classes, to be successful, must avoid all affectation in style, fawning obsequiousness, and childish simplicity of language. If he address himself to his task earnestly, honestly, plainly, and without flattery, he will be sure of approbation from those whom he desires to instruct and elevate." 21 But a new idea has been started on this point, from which we are bold to anticipate a new and more sound and real religious literature. This is to invite the labouring classes to become, at least in part, the producers of their own religious books. The mind of the religious portion of the highest classes has, in too many instances, been quite refined away, and become feeble, effete, and unoriginal. Hence in very many, religion has experienced its deepest possible fall, by being degraded into a polite amusement. They have straggled away after absurd hybrid worships, and are content to employ their minds about the paraphernalia of religion, and to vent such remains of fervour as they still retain, in Knightsbridge chanting émeutes and contemplating floral ceremonies * Essay on the "Literature of the Working Classes." The chief weapon that these missionaries | By J. Parker, in Meliora. |