from them-they are not incited to discontent; but an outbreak from the mass lying at the very bottom of society would be very terrible, and fatal to all who have established any stake for themselves in the world. They are altogether unfit and unable to guide themselves, and are capable of being very dangerous under any extraordinary pressure or excitement. At first sight one would be tempted to consider a mild slavery, to enlightened masters, the most compendious way of providing for this semi-rational mass, so that they might be taken care of, and provided for like domestic animals, and redeemed from their sordid misery to a life of reasonable comfort. That is not the solution of the difficulty, nor the manner in which any class would be justified in dealing with a social problem. The task is far more difficult : they must be taught, and educated, and civilised. Ready-made animal comforts provided for men, without any thought or foresight of their own, enervates them-destroys the root of all energy and manliness within them-degrades them to the rank of cattle. But though those above them are not bound to conduct their worldly affairs for them, they are bound to see that they have instruction and means of acquiring the necessary practical skill for themselves. "What is everybody's business is nobody's business," says the proverb; and what is left to the optional and voluntary efforts of those who may feel their conscience moved, will not be adequately done. To civilise a mass like the lowest orders in this country, requires a well-digested and imperative system; to educate and civilise an entire class, effectively to raise them to the rank of rational beings, cannot be done by the efforts of amateur benevolence, and never will get done by those means. A Government ought to be the focus of the enlightenment and wisdom of a country: it has the unlimited command of all needful means for the best mode of instructing and civilising those who have no means of getting instruction for themselves, who are too brutishly ignorant to know whether there be such a thing as education. However desirable it may be that the other classes should co-operate for the benefit of their ignorant brethren, still the responsibility of seeing that the work is done, rests entirely on a Government, and no theory can transfer the burthen to others, no voluntary undertaking can ever be made imperative; and in a case of such supreme importance, optional good-will and effort are not adequate to the work in hand.

We are not going to set up a theory of education on the best

mode of civilising the lower orders. Education and civilisation are sciences, which require patient sagacity to work out into practice; but one thing is certain, that something more solid and systematic than lectures and lyceums is required for the great work of civilising the mass of our lower orders, and making them rational, well-regulated members of the community. MisSIONARIES-able to teach and lead those rude, half-savage, and wholly ignorant beings-full of a spirit of love and wisdom, and a sound mind, are wanted for this work! Mere schoolmasters and schoolmistresses are not equal to the task: more is required: energy and zeal, and a passionate yearning love for the multitude "ready to perish," and a disposition to spend and be spent -to dedicate all their powers to redeem the souls of these outcasts, dwelling in misery. "Who is sufficient for these things?" Who will arise amongst us and offer themselves for

this work?

Let the Government, let the people join together. There is enough to task the power of both. They are not separate powers -they are ONE, and they are wishing to bring in amongst them those yet lying desolate and forlorn on the outskirts of Humanity. G. E. J.

LINES

WRITTEN ON SEEING A BEGGAR KNEELING ON THE PAVEMENT TO
SOLICIT ALMS.

WHY kneels't thou there, thou abject slave?
Why crouch thus low, with looks so wan?
Stand up, erect! if thou wouldst crave
Assistance from thy fellow man.

The Almighty Framer of this earth,
In love, with plenty made it teem ;
And thou wert heir, e'en from thy birth,
Of wealth more than thou dar'st to dream.

Yes! thou-poor, humble, simple fool,-
Art joint inheritor of earth,

And yet remain'st the willing tool

Of those who wrong'd thee from thy birth.

THE Village Doctor was dead. The snow lay thick upon his solitary grave; and the Christmas berries waved to and fro above it, in the chill December wind.

He had been buried three days, and this was now the sabbath morning. The hoar frost, like the breath of nature, hung as a curtain round the distant wold; but here, in the very heart of Staffordshire coal-pits, blast-furnaces, and forges, the vapour had cleared off, and the insatiable flames from a hundred sweltering hearths, rose up and hastened on the misty dawn. There was no one yet abroad in the narrow lanes and huddled streets except some night-feeder of the furnaces from his weary watch, or a milkman to his cowsheds, and no unshuttered windows except one, and in this upon the narrow casement panes, flickered the bright glow of an ample fire. The cottage where this social comfort seemed within was more decent looking, though scarcely larger, than the squalid tenements around. As the house joined others close upon the pathway of the narrow street, a man was seen sitting at a small, round, well-polished mahogany table, with a few well-used books, an ink-horn, some papers, and an extinguished candle before him, and already, though little more than six o'clock, shaved and dressed, a warm substantial outer coat and sunday hat

lying on a chair hard by, as if a day's journey were presently before him. He was a man of giant frame and stature, ironhanded, iron-limbed, with a front that might look a despot in the face, and quail the vicious power of hierarchies and kings. He could, he would, he dared: even now, rough-handed giant as he was, he was forging a mighty weapon by ink-horn and goose-quill, to thrust into the bloated side of all-besotted power, and show the generations their might from LABOUR, and their right from NATURE. This man was fitly named John Ironshaft; and every man from forge to mine knew clear-headed, self-taught, fearless, outspoken John; for Nature had made him their king, their counsellor, their priest! He stood up foremost in an unconscious democracy of black-handed labour.

The kettle was already on the bright clean hob, for the kitchen, though small, was very clean and substantially furnished, when just as the wainscot clock struck seven, an elderly, decent woman came down the small staircase, laid the neat breakfast-table, made the coffee, and John, after pushing aside his writing-table and locking up his papers, sat down to breakfast. Though he made a hearty meal, for John was hearty every way, he sat in deep abstraction all the time, and this his housekeeper made no attempt to interrupt; but after feeding with their usual saucer of milk the little brisk wiry terrier and old black cat upon the hearth-rug, she took up her spectacles and bible. As soon however as he had finished, John put on his coat and hat, took a stout stick from the corner by the clock, whistled to his dog, and merely saying he should be back by nightfall, went on his way.

The housekeeper closed her book, and took off her spectacles, and poured out and well sugared a comforting cup of coffee.

66

'Well, I wonder where he's gone," she said at last,—" to see the old Doctor's grave I dares-to-say. Ah! I am sorry he 's dead. His last box of pills-he gave 'em, bless his heart,—did me uncommon good.'

John set forth as a man who has a long way before him; his rapid steps kept almost pace with the swiftness of his crisp-eared little dog, which nevertheless had time here and there to take small diversions in the drifts of snow, and come back hot and breathless, and with lolling tongue. By-and-by forge and mine were left far rereward, and the country began to show undulating swells, and a wide stretch of primitive forest land, then at intervals substantial homesteads, broad fallows, if not snowed over, crisp

with frost; ancient halls with their ivied turrets showing clearly with the back-ground of the cold, grey, morning sky, and freshets and brooks too swift to be in bondage to the sternest winter; and so, on and on-so lost in thought, as scarcely to see one of themJohn Ironshaft reached a straggling out-of-the-way village. The primitive thatched church lay in solitude just upon its outskirts, and its being not yet service-time, and as yet undisturbed, he climbed the stile, and entered the burial-ground.

The old bell for service had ding-dong-ed some time, the clerk had unlocked the doors and opened the books, and come back to the porch to look for the parson, and some chaw-bacons were spelling out the reading on the upright grave-stones, and blowing their numbed fingers, when John strode again towards the church. Looking to see no one was near he walked up to the clerk"You can keep a secret I suppose, sir," he said laconically, without other address.

66 I suppose I can," spoke the clerk somewhat nettled, and giving a lift to the collar of his black coat, "religious dooties don't corrupt the tongue, I'm thinking.'

"You and I might materially differ on that point, sir," answered John, "were the matter worth conversation. But as it's not, take this sovereign and see that the Doctor's grave is neatly levelled and trimmed and made fit for a gravestone. See to this, and be silent, and I shall be infinitely obliged. Good-day."

Gold made the clerk respectful. "I'm obleeged, sir, as our vicar says at his tithe audit. The grave shall be attended to, and secrets kept into the bargain, sir, if needs be."

"I may try," said John. With this Spartan brevity of words. he left the churchyard.

The grander people of the village were on their way to service. John loitered till they had passed, and then kept on till he reached a small detached cottage, much dilapidated and neglected; the thick scarlet-berried pyracanthus sweeping massively around it from porch to chimney tops, scarcely hiding broad rents in the mouldy thatch, and long want of paint upon the casement frames and ledges. Yet the fair-sized garden stretching on one side the house, as on the other was a yard and two or three ruinous outbuildings, separated from the village street by a low wooden paling, had been apparently long tended with care, for even with the thick snow upon it, the smooth-kept turf peeped out here and there, and the laurustinus bent to it with their tufts of blossom.