stained glass for windows. A recent writer, after speaking of the erection of an elegant Gothic church in the suburbs of Munich, says :-" The princely monarch seized the opportunity, and with a generosity unbounded, determined at his own expense to provide the windows of the church with paintings in glass-there are nineteen, nearly sixty English feet high, and more than fifteen broad. At the same time he agreed to pay the cost, which will be no less than 400,000 francs, by instalments, as he could afford it. Fourteen of these windows are already finished.” It is said that some of the stained windows produced at Munich are intended for an English church; and that the director of the porcelain manufacture at Sèvres has been to Munich to improve in his art by inspecting the glass-staining manufactory.

Lithography.-Munich was the birthplace of the beautiful art of drawing on stone; and it has been carried on there in an eminently successful manner. It was rather more than forty years ago, that Aloys Senefelder, a poor but ingenious man, discovered the process of printing from stone; he struggled against great difficulties before he could bring himself and his invention into notice, but at length succeeded in working out his idea. He was appointed, with the title of Inspector, and a well-merited pension, to the direction of the Royal Lithographic Establishment of Munich. The best stone for lithographic purposes is found in the neighbourhood of Munich; and this circumstance, taken in conjunction with the taste of the king for the fine arts, and with the rise of the art in that city, has led to the production of many beautiful specimens of this useful art. The pictures of Overbeck, Schnerr, Cornelius, Zimmerman, and other artists of the Bavarian school, have been copied in lithography in great number, and with great beauty. Many of these are now finding their way over to this country; and are acting as powerful stimulants to the genius of our own painters.

Such is a rapid sketch of the mode in which the King of Bavaria is encouraging the fine arts in his dominions; and it is worthy of inquiry, how far such encouragement is likely to affect the subjects of such a monarch. In the first place, it is necessary to bear in mind, that the expense of these proceedings is borne by the king himself, out of the supplies granted for his private use, and without encroaching on the national revenues. An anonymous writer who visited Munich a few months ago, after speaking of the buildings, says; -"But how he does what he does, is to me a mystery. Of the five new churches, two palaces, library, university, picture and sculpture galleries, a street equal to any in Europe,--the palaces, two of the churches, and sculpture gallery, are wholly at his individual cost, and all of them are at his suggestion; and this, with a civil list of not much more than £200,000 sterling. I confess I am puzzled."

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But although the funds with which this encou ragement of the fine arts has been upheld, have not been taken from the public purse, yet the public are admitted to share the pleasure which the contemplation of such objects confers. The picture and sculpture galleries, with palaces and other buildings where pictures, sculptures, and bronzes are deposited, are open to all at certain times, and under certain regulations. Mrs. Jameson happened to visit one of the palaces, at a time when numbers of the middle and humble classes were there; and she observes,-"Everything was done in order; two groups (of visitors) were never in the same apartment; but as one went out, another entered. Thus many hundreds of these poor people were gratified in the course of the day. It seemed to me a wise and benevolent policy in the king, thus to appeal to the sympathy, and gratify the patriotic feelings of his subjects of all classes, by allowing them-inviting them, to take an interest in his magnificent undertakings; to consider them national as well as royal." A man, after visiting a gallery of good pictures or sculptures, has something to think about on his return; he has an accession to his stock of ideas, calculated to assist in the elevation of his character and mode of thinking.

The effect on the mass of the people, induced by the fine arts, is one branch of the subject; the effect on artists is another. The employment of so large a number of sculptors, bronze-casters, oilpainters, encaustic-painters, fresco-painters, glasspainters, and lithographers, at Munich, cannot fail to generate a vigorous system of laudable emulation. The "Kunst-verein" (i. e. " Art-union"), or Society of Artists at Munich, is one of the most extensive in Germany; it includes several hundred members, who meet frequently for mutual advancement, and who have frequent opportunities of making their talents known to the public. A commerce is at the same time created, by the sale and diffusion of engravings from the most important artists of the Bavarian schools.

We cannot close this paper without adverting to the pleasing symptoms of increased regard to the fine arts, as a matter of national interest, among ourselves. If the British nation has hitherto been too strictly utilitarian in its ideas to afford due encouragement to these valuable accessories of civilization, there is reason to hope that more liberal views are gaining ground; and that such will not long continue to be its character. A gratifying illustration of the change that is taking place is afforded by the proceedings of the Commission recently appointed, respecting the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament with works of art. This, and other circumstances to which it is needless to allude, appears like the dawning of a brighter day for the fine arts in England.

No. XXV.

PRICE 3d.

THE

See

of human degradation presented in the engraving at the head of the present paper. Let them endeavour to realize the idea of a woman,—a MOTHER, —so dead to all the kindlier feelings of her nature, -so utterly regardless of that which is bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh,-so deaf to the indescribable claims of her helpless offspring, as this heathen native of Van Dieman's Land. her, not fondling her infant with maternal caresses, -not folding it in her arms, as if to protect it from every harm, but slinging it over her shoulder with the most stolid indifference, and betraying no emotion save that of dissatisfaction at the fatigue it occasions her. See her, in fact, "without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." To such a mother it would matter little to see her babe fall from her back and perish; nor can we wonder that she should even take fouler means to rid herself of her burden. The fearful image is surely calculated to rouse the feelings of a stoic, and cause him to stretch forth his hand for the relief of fellow-beings so deeply sunk in misery and degradation.

But how, it may be asked, is this relief to be afforded? How are beings so wretched to be elevated, to be civilized,-to be rendered worthy of the human name? Revelation and experience both tell us that the change must be wrought by the Gospel; and that this, the only efficient agent, is sufficient for the difficult, but noble task.

The revolting crime of infanticide often,-probably in an extended sense we might say always, is more or less immediately connected with the grand cause of demoralization and misery which formed the subject of the first paper of this series. IDOLATRY is there considered as the parent of a numerous progeny of social evils. By alienating the heart from the fountain of all good, it prepares the way for the entrance of every conceivable form of evil. We have seen, in the second paper, how the character and condition of woman is depressed under its baneful influence; let us now devote a short space to the contemplation of an evil intimately connected with, and springing out of, the degradation of female character.

In many cases the connection between infanticide and idolatry is too evident to be for a moment overlooked. When we behold, to use the words of Milton,

and all the better feelings of the heart eradicated; while the destruction of their offspring affords the ignorant and hardened parents a respite from burdensome care. Where, as in China, infanticide is practised merely as a measure of domestic policy, in order to avoid poverty or labour, we see human nature in a state of still deeper debasement than where the unnatural deed springs from blind superstition. In both cases, however, the same evil lies at the root; in both the same means must be employed to eradicate it.

The infanticide of India long since excited the sympathies of the British public; through the efforts of which much of its appalling enormity has been destroyed. As in most other countries, female infants were the chief victims of its prevalence. In too many cases the murder of the female offspring was regarded as the rule, from which exceptions were rare, and occasioned the relenting parents to be looked upon with scorn. One cause which greatly encouraged female infanticide in India was the prevalence of caste, and the fear lest it should be impossible to obtain suitable matches for daughters, if they were allowed to live. The dreadful facts elicited by several English gentlemen, who have travelled in India, have led the British authorities to use their influence for the suppression of this crime, and much has been effected through their efforts; yet it is to the evangelization of the people alone that we must look for the complete abolition of infanticide in Hindustan. Among those who have taken part in efforts for the removal of this evil, allusion may be made to Mr. Duncan, British Resident at Benares, who, in 1789, and subsequently, brought the subject forward in a prominent manner; and to Major, afterwards Colonel, Walker, by whose benevolent efforts very many were saved from an untimely end. The eminent missionary, Dr. Carey, also took an active part in the suppression of infanticide and the suttee. The subject having been laid before the Marquis Wellesley, then governor-general of India, he issued, in 1802, an order for its abolition, declaring the sacrifice of infants, by drowning or otherwise, to be murder, and punishable with death. The accounts published by Colonel Walker and others, several years afterwards, prove that infanticide continued to be very common, even in fami

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire To his grim idol,"

we feel that the subversion of the idol's power would remove the monstrous evil, and release the afflicted parents from the performance of a supposed duty, the execution of which goes nigh to burst their hearts. But this is not the saddest, nor, we regret to say, the most common aspect of infanticide. Too often do we find the conscience seared,

often, as a matter of course, drowned in milk. At a still more recent date, we find Bishop Heber deploring the existence of the same evil; and even to the present time, although much has been accomplished by the efforts of British Christians, much remains to be done before this monstrous evil will be eradicated in Hindustan.

We have alluded chiefly to the systematic, and, if we may use the expression, domestic immolation of female infants in India; but it is not the only form in which the crime has attracted the attention

of missionaries and travellers in this part of the world-in this part, be it ever remembered, of the British dominions. The agents of the Baptist Missionary Society at Serampore published some dreadful cases of infanticide, by way of sacrifice to the deities of the Hindoos, about the year 1813. Here we find fathers and mothers themselves throwing their children into the sacred stream, by the encouragement of their priests, as acceptable offerings to their false gods. In one instance the child sacrificed was a beautiful boy, about six years old; he being thrown into the Ganges in consequence of a vow made some years before by his deluded parent, who was very anxious for offspring, that he would devote his first-born to Gunga, should she be propitious to his wishes.

In Ceylon the practice of female infanticide had occasioned, in 1821, such a derangement in the natural proportion of the sexes, that Bishop Heber states the surplus number of males to have been twenty thousand! In one district there were only fifty-five females to one hundred males; and wherever the numbers approached the natural proportion, the population was almost exclusively Mussulman. Here, however, the humanizing influence of Christianity is lessening the evil.

The character of infanticide in China has been already alluded to. The Rev. Mr. Medhurst considers the crime to be, among the Chinese, more the result of poverty than of prejudice, and to arise rather from economical than religious considerations. It is here confined to the despised female sex; the birth of a son being hailed with joy, while the life of a female infant is valued so lightly, that its murder is considered a more venial offence than treading a printed paper under foot. As before expressed, this heartless practice of infanticide, without any inducement beyond that of saving expense and trouble, appears even more atrocious, than where it is associated with a blind superstition which invests the act with some supposed merit or efficacy.

Without pretending to distinguish the degrees of moral turpitude attached to infanticide, as practised by different nations, it may fairly be stated, that the custom nowhere displayed itself in a more shocking form, or to a more alarming extent, than among the natives of the South Sea islands; and nowhere has the renovating influence of Christianity been more signally successful in its abolition. But for the timely introduction of the Gospel, the practice of infanticide, coupled with other circumstances, would have rendered these islands utterly desolate. In 1774, when Captain Cook visited Tahiti, its population was estimated at from 160,000 to 200,000. On the arrival of the missionaries in 1797, it was only about 16,000; and during the next ten years it continued to diminish, until it was only from 5000 to 6000. Nor will this statement excite suprise, when it is found that, in addition

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to savage and desolating wars, diseases introduced by European intercourse, &c., two-thirds of the children born alive were immediately destroyed by their parents. Here, again, females were the principal victims; and Mr. Ellis states that, on the arrival of the missionaries, there were found to be four or five men to one woman. In Tahiti, and other islands of the Society group, infanticide was practised to a great extent, by the members of a mysterious society called the Arreoy, of which it appears to have been a fundamental rule that all the children of the members should be murdered. Mr. Williams mentions other causes for the practice, which were assigned by the natives; of which the first is the distressing character and frequency of their wars, which sometimes induced mothers rather to immolate their offspring, than to expose them to their horrors. Another cause was a custom, resembling the caste of the Hindoos, which required, in case of the marriage of a woman of high rank to a man of a lower grade, the murder of two, four, or six children, to equalise the rank of the parents. The children were also sacrificed at times, in order that nursing might not impair the personal attractions of the mother.

To the universality of the practice the missionaries bear painful testimony. Mr. Ellis states that, during the whole period of his residence in Tahiti, he does not recollect having met with one female who had been a mother, while idolatry prevailed, who had not imbued her hands in the blood of her offspring. During the visit of Messrs. Bennett and Tyerman, as a deputation from the London Missionary Society, in 1821, those gentlemen made inquiries with a view to ascertaining what had been the state of the people a few years previously, with regard to infanticide. Being one day at the residence of Mr. Williams, Mr. Bennett made some such inquiry; when Mr. Williams proposed asking three women, who happened to be in the room at the time, working under the direction of Mrs. Williams. Mr. Bennett could hardly conceive it possible that such motherly, respectable-looking women could have been guilty of such atrocity; yet it was found that they had destroyed, respectively, five, seven, and nine children! Here were three persons, casually taken, who had murdered twenty-one children; yet these women were, at the time of the conversation alluded to, consistent members of a Christian church.

It is unnecessary to harrow up the feelings of our readers, by the recital of narratives which differ only in minute circumstances. Enough has been related to show the need of some mighty power to change the hearts of this people, even if their case be viewed in the most limited way,merely in its bearings upon their temporal character. Let us turn, therefore, to a scene exhibiting the social blessings introduced in connection with the Gospel.