moral effect. To threats and misrepresentations are added promises of considerable relief, and offers to take their children at a less price. In some cases frequent visits have been made, and presents given, to induce compliance, but without effect."London Report, p. 11, 12.

The same poor families are frequently visited by several visitors; and it is no uncommon thing for two, three, and four persons to visit the same family on the same day. Conversing with a poor woman, she informed me of three ladies by whom she was regularly visited, besides others who occasionally found their way into her house to leave tracts; and that she had been urged by one to attend the Church, and by others to attend three differ'Miss ent Dissenting places of worship. -,' said she, has often asked me to go to Church, and I must go, or she will think it strange and be offended.' I know another poor person who was induced to leave a Dissenting Chapel and attend Church for the sake of an annual gift. I have heard of a third who left Church to attend at a Dissenting Chapel, for the purpose of procuring admission into an Alms House. I have been informed of a man who threatened to leave the Church, which he said he had served so many years,' and go to a certain Dissenting Chapel, if he did not obtain the gift he asked. Another instance let me notice, in which I cannot be deceived. A poor woman, who was regularly employed by a friend of mine in this city, having become very straitened in her circumstances, one day observed, that she must go to 'some place' (meaning some Church or Chapel), and see what she could get.' Go,' said the party addressed, 'to the

Chapel.' But,' she replied, 'I must go round and see where I can get most!' She did go round, and obtained her object. It is thus that the poor learn to patronize their patrons, and make religion a stalking-horse, for the most selfish purposes. I believe many benevolent ladies and gentlemen who are felicitating themselves, and who talk eloquently in their Reports of the good they are doing, would be shocked, if they could only realize to themselves all the sad results of their proceedings, at the magnitude of the evil which they are innocently perpetuating."Bristol Report, p. 14.

These statements will not surprise any one who is in the habit of visiting among the poor as a religious friend. The evil alluded to is one of the great discouragements in such a ministry, but it is one which only the more proves its necessity. There are two things which to us are perfectly clear in such circumstances. One is, that if other Societies choose to bribe, the Missionary must not bribe

again. This would indeed be a pitiable conflict. In cases where he has reason to believe that the poor person, who, if left free, would prefer his religious services, would be induced to seek other sources when accompanied by greater pecuniary benefit, he must leave him to be bribed, and let the responsibility lie where it falls. His business is to elevate where he can elevate, but if he cannot do this, at least never to degrade. We are inclined to think that the evil, after a time, cures itself—that bribery, like other things, becomes at length tired out, where it is all on one side. It is certainly lamentable to see the free conscience struck out of a man by the hand of so-called religion, but unfortunately this evil is not confined to the poor, but extends to every class of society; and if, in other ranks of life, we are obliged to leave the bribable to be bribed, we must acquiesce in the same misfortune, where we cannot prevent it by higher and holier influences among the poor.

The other remark which occurs to us is this,-that the misrepresentations of his religious sentiments which interrupt the Missionary in his peaceful and philanthropic labours, imperatively call upon him to defend those sentiments. He should not, indeed, light the torch of controversy; but when darkness is industriously spread around him, he must light the torch of Truth. We doubt not that most of our Missionaries have felt compelled to adopt this course, however reluctantly. But however reluctantly adopted, we think they must have found it productive of manifest advantage, in increased interest in the subject of religion, an increased knowledge of its purest principles, and a more enlightened perception of the nature and value of those truths for which many had perhaps been reviled, but for which they were subsequently able to give a reason. We remember to have heard of the Mission in Birmingham, that on one occasion a sermon explanatory of the Unitarian's views of religious truth, and in reply to some very gross public attack, was attended by all these beneficial results; and we doubt not that such has been the case in other quarters.

With all its difficulties and discouragements, the Domestic Mission is a truly apostolic work, and one of the

noblest and most Heaven-blest in which a Christian man can be engaged.*

* There are Domestic Missions established at Halifax, Leeds, Newington Green (London), and while this article has been in progress, we have been rejoiced to hear of another also at Birmingham, which will, we doubt not, enlarge the circle of good already occupied, without lessening the support and countenance hitherto richly deserved by, and so generously bestowed on, its predecessor in the same wide field. But of the above Missions no Reports have as yet been published.

ART. VI. THE LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS ARNOLD, D.D., late Head Master of Rugby School, and Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. By ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford. In 2 Vols. Fellowes. 1844.

In the preparation of these volumes Mr. Stanley had to perform a sad and solemn task. To present to the world the last glimpse of one who had been its benefactor, is at all times a melancholy office. But it is a bitter grief to do this for one whose past performance, admirable in itself, was less great than his future promise, and on whom men looked as yet with expectant, rather than with grateful eye. England was not prepared to lose Arnold; and finds it hard to accept his final image from his biographer, in place of much fruitful work from himself. Under the pressure of occupations that would exhaust the energy of ordinary men, he had not only meditated, but in part achieved, a system of designs by which the historical, philosophical, and Christian literature of his country would have been permanently enriched, and the spirit of its social life sensibly elevated. Just as he was raised into a position promising to render his industry and enthusiasm most rapidly productive, he has vanished from our hopes; and instead of those priceless stores of uncommunicated wisdom, the leaves casually scattered from his table are gathered together, and presented as his last memorial. In the midst of the third act the curtain has suddenly dropped; and rises only to show us the noble form, lately kindling with humane and earnest speech, now stretched in the silence of death.

Happily, however, it is only in the case of ordinary men that the value of a life can be measured by its quantity. The almost infinite worth to us of such a mind as Arnold's depends upon its quality: and if it only remains and toils in our midst long enough to show us the spirit and manner of its work, its highest function is performed. Let the deep game of life be played with a divine skill, and we must not complain though the calculable stake which is won in our behalf be only nominal. However great the

loss of Arnold's Roman History, it is as nothing to the wealth he leaves us in this Biography. From what a good man does there is no higher lesson to be learned than what he is; his workmanship interests and profits us as an expression of himself: and would become dead and indifferent to us, if, instead of being a human creation, it were the product of some mechanical necessity. That Arnold has lived, and shown how much nobleness and strength may maintain itself in an age of falsehood, negligence, and pretence, with this let us rest and be thankful.

The work before us is essentially an autobiography. The letters, which form its chief portion, extend from the year 1817 to 1842: and they present so vivid and complete an impression of the writer throughout the changes of his career, and the ripening of his character, that little occasion remained for their editor to appear as an original biographer. He has had the rare modesty and merit to perceive this; and in the Chapters of his own, by which we are introduced to the several periods of the correspondence, everything is kept in strict subordination to the legitimate purpose of the book: he evidently had no desire but to make us know the subject of his Memoirs; and the affectionate singleness of his aim was itself an adequate security for tact and success in its accomplishment. There are indeed traces of abstinence and self-restraint in the treatment of his materials, for which we honour him. Nothing would have been easier than to have created private heartburnings and sectarian animosities by the indiscreet use of such letters as Arnold's ;-letters full of reference to every controversy of the day, and passing the freest judgment on most of the conspicuous actors in Church or State. Mr. Stanley's good taste has conducted him wisely through a very delicate task. If we were disposed to find any fault with its execution, we should complain that he has not told us more of the personal habits and minuter traits which so materially help us to conceive the physiognomy of a character. The few things of this kind which he has given us, constitute most delightful elements in our image of Arnold;-his sofa full of books, his boyish play, his daily walk beside the pony, his mountaineering rambles; and we would fain have known his time of rising and of rest, the distribution of his hours, his