a fair reform. It exasperates class against class, and makes each feel aggrieved by the other. Hence one accuses the other of dishonest treachery, selfishness, and tyranny; and the other throws back a charge of treason, contumacy, and desire for spoliation. Agitation excites apprehension, and indisposes men to yield that even which they would, and what they do they give grudgingly, reservedly. It looks on them as extortion, as no better than robbery, as a dishonest attainment of an end. Common sense should dictate some nobler method of redressing wrongs or gaining rights than monster meetings and threatening assemblages; than calling out mobs of unthinking men, and of asking the voice of those who are confessedly least qualified to give an opinion. Men trained in political knowledge, accustomed to reason, acquainted with the facts of history and with the present state of the law, hesitate to commit themselves to the assertion that votes could be safely entrusted to all the male inhabitants of Britain, and yet public agitation calls together the least reflective and the least informed into crowds-often invaded by rowdies and rogues, and asks them to decide on those momentous questions on which the prosperity of states depend. This is giving the majority to nonsense, and allowing the vote to go to the most ignorant; it is the enfranchisement of ignorance, and the putting to silence of intelligence and worth. Can it be possible for any sane person to believe that it is essential to political reform to stir up and influence the tenants in the slums of London, the lanes of Manchester, the back courts of Birmingham, the cellars of Liverpool, the wynds of Edinburgh, the closes of Glasgow, or the dens of Dublin? Yet this is little more than what public agitation does. The shopman, the clerk, the overseer, the skilled artisan, &c., do not form a perceptible per-centage of such mass meetings. At least four times as many rogues and vagabonds, as well as a great number of idle, lounging louts, who will not work if they can help it in any way, avail themselves of the monster meetings, as the somewhat educated labouring classes, and the wholly unskilled labourers, and the entirely uneducated constitute the bulk of them. These men are not trained to discriminate between theories of legislation, to investigate facts, to ponder over questions of moral right, to consider the claims of justice and equity over those of desire and inclination; they do not trace causes in their operation on society, or inquire into those which produce the effects they deplore; in fact, the mob cannot think, at least collectively, and on that account it cannot judge accurately. This being the case, public agitation, which is mob influence and intimidation, is not essential to political reform, but is, indeed, very inimical to any true and right consideration of representative government. Let us endeavour to get men to think calmly, to educate themselves, and to elevate their minds, and political reform will certainly and soon come. C. W. W. 66 Toiling Upward. JOHN YOUNG, LL.D. "Nor is the care of Heaven withheld Akenside. Ir is right, perhaps, to keep the glory of success before the minds of men; but we ought never to encourage them to forget the glory of duty. We can all attain the true and everlasting distinction of being good and faithful servants," according to our opportunities and talents, though we may not all be able to acquire the acclaim of admirers, or gain the glittering signs of worldly success in our selected course of life. While, therefore, we regard it as a legitimate and proper thing to stimulate the struggling and to excite the laggard by the exhibition of instances of great and grand successes in the highways of life, we think it is good occasionally to show the struggles of duty, performed honestly in the humbler situations which many must fill, and to point out the delights of diligence in the doing of one's duty, even when the success gained is less than brilliant, and the hopes which once irradiated the spirit may have been but imperfectly realized. The "even tenor" of human things may not be capable of such picturesque and sensational exhibition as that wherein the "rise and progress" of a hero can be marked by the rich surroundings of wealth, reputation, titles, and titled friends; but the details, humble though they be, of such a course of existence, filled with the performance of the daily round of daily tasks, may not be less useful, if less exciting. The highest prizes in life cannot be attained by every one. It is well to know that there are indeed higher delights in the humbler stations of Fortune than in the giddy top rounds of her ladder. Examples of extraordinary upward progress too often produce a faintness of heart in those who read, because of the rareness of the chance which leads to them, and the exceptional nature of the men and the circumstances of their times. To show the advantage of toiling upward in the common ways of common life is of greater utility than to tell of the marvels of human biography-of peasant boys becoming Popes, of sub-lieutenants reaching imperial thrones, of ship-lads rising to be millionaires, and of clerks becoming governors over mighty provinces and lords over potent princes. Dr. Samuel Johnson had a true view of the useful purpose of biography when he said that the most common every-day life, if honestly told, possessed more interest for humanity than the most artfully conceived fiction. The story of a life, to which I now desire to direct attention, has fewer even than ordinary of the elements of interest. It is indeed a "simple story," but it has, we believe, an important lesson in it of the possibilities of life, of the benefits of perseverance, of the ability to rise to true usefulness and dignity of being, even though nothing more than the most moderate competency may attend effort and attest success. John Young was born in the ancient burgh of Rutherglen, in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, in 1781, in humble circumstances. While he was yet a boy his family removed to Glasgow, where his father, Mr. George Young, adventured the opening of a shop on a small scale in the hosiery line. In this he succeeded fairly, and for the same pursuit he destined his son, who was consequently educated with a special view to his commercial prospects. About the age of fourteen he was transferred from the school desk to the shop counter, and from the state of pupilage to one of servitude. He was a boy of open, frank, and conscientious nature; he had been thoroughly drilled in religious duty by his mother, who was both pious and intelligent, and had undergone a great deal of the discipline of sorrow in seeing several children fade away out of her reach into the cold embraces of death before their mere childhood had passed away. He was, on this account, as well as from the attractiveness of his own disposition, the subject of much care and fondness. His father, who was somewhat sterner, relaxed into kindness, and with great assiduity cultured the moral principles of his sonapprentice. George Young was an elder, or lay-ruler in the Secession church, and was intensely interested in the religious progress of the people, fond of engaging in philanthropic projects, and anxious to see the morals of the men of his time raised to their highest possibilities. He was brought by this circumstance into close relationship with many gentlemen of earnest spirit and active intelligence. With them the only living son of the serious and struggling hosier became a great favourite. He was admitted to hear the conversation of these well-informed men, conversation quickened in interest by the French Revolution, and all the stir and turmoil of thought excited by that terrible strife of privilege and power against progress and popular freedom. He heard the principles of civil society, of social order, of religious toleration, of patriotism, and of parliamentary reform frequently debated, and learned to probe questions with a keen intellect and a ready insight. A thirst for information was roused within him, and he began to read with a fervour which seriously interfered with his performance of duty at the counter. At meals, at every momentary interval of slackness in the shop, in his walks in the fields, and far into the hours allotted for sleep, he read. His pockets were always filled with books, and his thoughts began to be over-absorbed in study, and his father not infrequently resented his neglect of business in the search for knowledge. He apologized, resisted, then relapsed, and found the contest between inclination and duty severe indeed. Still attempting to compromise and compound, be strove diligently to attend to his daily task, and then flew to his delightful occupation of perusing his beloved books. His growing dislike to business became the subject of remark among his father's friends, and his father was recommended to give his decided predilection a fair chance by permitting him to pursue a regular course of study. His previous education, which had been merely elementary and commercial, unfitted him for proceeding to college, and the length of time required to study the classics so as to qualify him to enter the university with a sufficient knowledge of them, made his father hesitate to undertake the burden of supporting him in unproductiveness, which could scarcely fail to be expensive. At the intercession of his mother, who died in 1798, his father promised to release him from apprenticeship, and to allow him to try by some effort of his own to work himself into a more congenial mode of life. Before this time he had not only devoted his mind to reading, but he had even aspired after productive thought. He contributed to the newspapers of the day several compositions which were accepted, and made him a partaker of the fascinating "glory and vanity of literature." These juvenile pieces, though not possessed of great merit, were sufficient to excite attention, and to bring the name of the literary neophyte to the lips of those who, at that time, constituted the men of letters in Glasgow. Help did not, however, come from them; it came, such as it was, from the Rev. Andrew Thomson, Secession minister at Mearns, a district about six miles from Glasgow, in which a small village named Newton was situated. Here there seemed to be an opening for a school, in which the elementary branches of education could be taught. Young was induced to open an adventure school, as it is called in Scotland-that is, one commenced at the teacher's own risk,-in this semi-rural village. He succeeded, and became a favourite with pupils and parents. He was looked on as a notable man; he had written in the papers and had made verses; he could talk like a clergyman, and read so as to light up with new meaning even the oft-conned volume of inspiration. Dr. M'Crie had commenced a periodical in Edinburgh as an organ of Dissent in Scotland. It was called "The Christian Magazine;" to that serial John Young contributed, and by his productions gained the favourable regard of the biographer of John Knox and Andrew Melville, and the historian of the Reformation in Italy. He drew to himself also not a little attention from many other friends of Dissent, which was at that time somewhat deficient in literary adherents, although strong in theologians. At this time Robert Pollock was but a baby, though he was afterwards to become the Milton of Scotland; and John Wilson (Christopher North) had but newly left the Mearns to begin at college his glorious meteor-like career. While plying his daily vocation as a village schoolmaster Young studied classics under Mr. Carson, the parochial teacher of the neighbouring parish, and conducted an extensive correspondence of a literary nature with many friends. His success exceeded his warmest expectations, and he gave himself to his work with delight. He had acquired the art of imparting knowledge under the stimulus of a love of knowledge in his spirit, and had learned to do schoolmasterly work in a schoolmasterly way. A firm in the neighbourhood, which gave employment to a great many people in the bleachfields they conducted, heard of the merits of John Young, and offered him the office of head clerk in their establishment. This, after having disposed of the good-will of his school advantageously, he accepted, and acquitted himself in his new situation so satisfactorily that in a short time he was able to obtain a similar position, with a liberal salary, in an extensive mercantile warehouse in the city of Glasgow. He returned to his father's house in 1805, not only able to support himself, but to assist his father in the maintenance of a house, comfortable enough to accommodate students connected with the learned professions, who gladly accepted the congenial abode of John Young during their attendance on the classics in the University of Glasgow. By such companionship his zeal for learning was inflamed, and having, through the introduction of his student friends, been admitted to the membership of some of the debating societies in which the gens togata of the University of Glasgow delight, he became even more enthusiastically bent on making literary progress. Engaged as he was in business during the hours of the college classes, he could not acquire the knowledge dispensed in them. He was compelled to be contented with the instruction which could be gained in the Andersonian University, at which he studied natural philosophy and chemistry, and became the intellectual leader of his class-fellows. At length desire overpowered prudence, and late though it was in life-he was twenty-seven years old-to commence such studies, he determined, in 1808, to enter the university. By permission of his employers he was allowed such time during the first two years as was requisite for collegiate attendance during business hours, provided he made up the two hours required in the forenoon after night. This he did, fulfilling his clerkly duties every day, and performing his student duties as well. These extraordinary exertions told hard on his health, and though he made fair progress he did not excite much interest either in the classes or in the professors. When, however, he came into Jardine's class (logic), and Mylne's (moral philosophy), he devoted his entire energies to the tasks, and amidst the applause of his fellow-students bore off the highest honours of these classes. In the college debating societies he was a favourite speaker, and many of his friends insisted on his going forward to the bar; but this "Stern poverty's unconquerable bar " |