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Bethnal Green, now divided into twelve parishes or districts, there are employed at the present time 20 additional clergymen, having under their immediate direction 15 schoolmasters or mistresses, 100 Sunday school teachers, 8 scripture readers, and 101 district visitors, all engaged in making known the truths and duties of our holy religion to that vast and long neglected mass of human beings; and in administering to their temporal wants; instruments of that pastoral intercourse, which is indispensably necessary to give full effect to the public ministrations of the clergy. But it has been justly observed by the excellent person to whom I have already alluded, that "we must be content to wait for the result of their labours. As generations have passed away in total ignorance of religion, some generations, it is to be feared, must now pass, before the great mass of the population can be awakened to a becoming sense of religion.*-(Charge of the Bp. of London, 1846.)

THE BISHOP OF LONDON ON NATIONAL EDUCATION.

I fear that I have already made too great a demand upon your patience: but I cannot conclude this address without saying a few words, and they shall be a very few, upon that most important subject, the education of the poor. The proposal

which has lately been made, that the government of the country should undertake to provide for the secular education of the people, leaving their religious instruction to the voluntary exertions of the clergy and other ministers of religion, appears to demand some expression of opinion on the part of those to whom the clergy will naturally look, in such a matter, for counsel, if not for direction.

I said, in the charge which I delivered in 1834, that religion ought to be made the ground work of all education; that its lessons should be interwoven with the whole tissue of instruction; and that its principles should regulate the entire system of discipline in our national schools; while I added, that the lessons of religion would not be rendered less impressive or effectual, by being interspersed with teaching of a different kind. I adhere to that opinion, and deprecate, as I have always done, all attempts to divorce religious from secular instruction in the process of education; a separation which must of necessity be made, if the government of the country were to take the education of the people into its own hands, and to provide secular instruction for all; leaving the work of religious teaching, not to the masters or mistresses of schools, who must then, as a bounden duty, manifest an absolute indifferentism; but to the voluntary exertions of the clergy, and of the ministers of different sects. How far those exertions might be depended upon, and to what extent they might clash and interfere with one another, and embitter sectarian feelings, I will not stay to inquire: but surely to forbid by law the direct teaching of religion, (to prevent the indirect teaching of religion or irreligion, is impossible); to proscribe the reading of the Bible as a subject of instruction, and the use of prayer also by the teachers of schools, would not only deprive religion and knowledge of the support, which they ought mutually to render to each other, and habituate the learner to a notion, that religion has nothing to do with the ordinary occupations and pursuits of life; but would unavoidably lead to the training up of a race of school teachers devoid of all religious character; for no truly religi ous teacher could reconcile it to his conscience to be altogether silent on the most important of all subjects; especially if he saw reason for believing that the minister of religion, to whom that department would be exclusively entrusted, was either a negligent or incompetent instructor. We have only to look to the present state of popular education in Germany, and France, and the United States of America, to be convinced of the truth of this assertion.† I am more and more convinced that

Mr. Cotton's Letter to the Bishop of London on the State of the Bethnal Green Churches' Fund, and what has been accomplished by it. June, 1846.

With respect to America, the following statement is made by the Rev. Dr. Jarvis, in a sermon preached during his visit to England, in 1844 :-" Worldly and Christian Education Compared," p. 15. "So far, then, are the present public schools of New England from being the system of the Puritans, matured by subsequent experience, that they are in fact the wreck of that system. To all serious minded persons their insufficiency is daily becoming more and more and more apparent. They may indeed be efficacious in extending a general knowledge of reading, writing, grammar, geography, and - arithmetic; they may in a word develop the intellectual faculties; but they are not suf

it will be best, for the interests of the people at large, and most conducive to the ends of charity and peace, that the state should continue to assist, but with an increased measure of aid, the voluntary efforts of the Church, in the cause of popular education. The present, certainly, is not the time at which it would be prudent to try an entirely new system; when we are beginning, if I mistake not, to perceive the fruits of those improvements which have been of late years introduced into the old one. In connection with this subject, I would urge upon you the desirableness of your co-operating with the London Diocesan Board of Education, by placing your schools in union with it, and by obtaining subscriptions in aid of its funds. For information as to the manner in which those funds are applied towards the extension and improvement of education, I would refer you to the full and clear reports of the board's proceedings for the last two years.-(Ibid.)

Poetry.

A BROTHER'S FAULT.

(For the Fourth Sunday after Trinity.)

WE walk together side by side,
Within one hamlet we abide,

And play beneath the same green tree;

Along the self-same path we roam,
The like temptations round us come,
And all are pilgrims hasting home

Where CHRIST our LORD shall ever be.

We must not linger in the race
To look into each other's face,

And count the sins our brothers do,
And tell them o'er, as though we found
A pleasure in the grievous sound,
As tho' our own hands were not bound,
And we had nothing bad to rue.

Each has his own appointed part,
To watch the sins of his own heart,

To keep his bridal garment bright;

The beam is dark in his own eye,
He must not scan too curiously

The little motes that dimly lie

And darken less his brother's light.

It is a sad unlovely sight,
When little children take delight

To tell a comrade's evil deed;

ficient as moral instruments in training the youthful mind to virtue and happiness. It cannot be denied, that a great deterioration of morals has taken place in the New England States. The fact is generally admitted; and is fondly attributed to the decline of Puritan institutions; but the truth is, that it has proceeded from the banishment of christianity from the schools. It is the want of that counteracting principle which God has established in the world for its conversion and sanctification, the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."

With regard to France and Germany, I may refer to the proofs collected by the writer of an admirable article in the 11th No. of the English Review, on Dr. Hook's Letter to the Lord Bishop of St. David's. The facts there stated appear to me to be conclusive, as to the utter insufficiency of such a system as Mr. Simpson and Dr. Hook have proposed, to prevent the growth of irreligion, or, rather, as to its tendency to produce it.

Far better would they look within
And find out their own hidden sin,
And then in penitence begin

In truth the better life to lead.

For, when our trial time is done,
All for themselves, and each alone,
Must stand before the judgment seat;
Then let us not with thought unkind
Delight another's fault to find,
The self-accusing humble mind

For sinful man is far more meet.

(Verses for Holy Seasons.)

THE APPOINTED PLACE.

(For the Sunday after Ascension Day.)

I love our hamlet's lowly church,

Its ivied tower and open door;

The suns of hundred years have stained
Its rugged roof and turret hoar.

Here duly came our sires of old;

They trod the pavement's echoing stones,

They knelt within these holy walls,

That shadow now their mouldering bones.

And hither shall our footsteps turn,

To lift the heart, to bend the knee, With all our Christian brethren round, Strong in our holy unity.

Here, in the words our fathers loved,

The wonted prayers swell clear and sweet,
And here CHRIST's chosen shepherd leads
His faithful flock in pastures meet.

I will not stray, nor turn aside

To other place for praise and prayer;

The very soldiers, rude and stern,

Christ's seamless garment would not tear.

Shall Christian hands be more unkind?

Shall they CHRIST'S Holy Church divide,

And scorn His chosen ministers,

And cast His holy rites aside ?

No, I will tread the ancient paths,

Pray the dear prayers my fathers pray'd;

Here was I early born anew,

Here would I have mine ashes laid.

One great united family,

Part lingering here, part pass'd above,

IS CHRIST's true church; and one should be
Her children's voice, their faith, their love.

(Ibid.)

Document.

MEMORIAL TO THE PREMIER FROM THE LICHFIELD DIOCESAN BOARD.

THE following memorial to Her Majesty's government 'has been signed by the Duke of Sutherland, the Marquis of Anglesey, Earls Talbot, Dartmouth, Harrowby, Powis, and Liverpool; Lords Bagot, Denman, Hatherton, Hill, St. Vincent, Warterpark, and Wrotesley, Viscountess Tamworth, Lady Ward, the High Sheriff for the County of Stafford, Lord Sandon, the Dean of Lichfield, the Honourables J. C. Talbot, W. Bagot, Hervey Bagot; Barts, Sir Oswald Mosley, Matthew Blakeston, Charles Clarke, Henry Fitzherbert, Robert Pigot, Thomas Cotton Sheppard, Henry Wilmot, Generals Monckton and A'Court; the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Quarter Sessions for the County of Stafford, the three Archdeacons of the Diocese, more than 180 country gentlemen, including magistrates, merchants, manufacturers, bankers, solicitors, and others, together with upwards of 140 clergymen, 30 of whom are Rural Deans of the different Archdeaconries. The memorial has been transmitted by the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, to the First Lord of the Treasury.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD JOHN RUSSELL,

FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY, ETC.

The Memorial of the President, Standing Committee, Constituent Members, and other friends and supporters of the Lichfield Diocesan Board of Education, adopted at a Special Meeting of the Board, held at Lichfield, on Tuesday, the 10th day of November, 1846,

SHEWETH,

That your Memorialists are deeply sensible of the advantages which have resulted to the cause of National Education in this Country from the Grants of public money annually voted by Parliament, and distributed by the Committee of Privy Council in conformity to the regulations of Parliament, during the last thirteen years;-advantages in which this diocese has largely participated, through the aid afforded to the erection or improvement of more than one hundred schools and school-residences, providing for the instruction of not fewer than twenty thousand children, in parishes or districts whose united population is not less than two hundred thousand:

That, salutary as the impulse thus given to the education of the poor, by calling forth and aiding local efforts for the establishment or enlargement of schools, has undoubtedly been, experience, nevertheless, has shewn, that the benefit arising from the increase of school buildings has, in too many instances, been painfully circumscribed, and the benevolent endeavours of their founders and promoters rendered in a great measure unavailing, by the difficulty of procuring, and of adequately remunerating when procured, the services of persons duly qualified for the important office of school teachers:

That, with a view to the remedying of this defect, the Diocesan Board of Education, formed in this diocese seven years ago, has, in conjunction with the district boards in the several Archdeaconries, directed its attention to the twofold object of training schoolmasters, and of bringing newly-formed schools into effective operation, by adding to the funds raised in poor and populous parishes for their establishment and support.

That, in order to the attainment of these important objects, upwards of thirty schools have been supplied with masters-trained, for periods varying from one to three years, in the Central School at Lichfield-to whose conduct and efficiency the most satisfactory testimonies have been borne by their employers; while assistance has been afforded, out of the very limited means at the disposal

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of the Board, towards augmenting the salaries of seventeen masters and mistresses in schools, which, without such help, could not have been opened or sustained; and that the want of funds, alone, has prevented the Board from greatly extending its operations in both these departments of educational service. Anxious, therefore, to place the means of acquiring a sound and useful education, both secular and religious, within the reach of all who need and will embrace them, in every part of this large and populous diocese, your Memorialists venture humbly to request that, in the future application of Parliamentary Grants for education, regard may be had to the maintenance, as well as the establishment, of elementary schools; and that assistance may also be extended to Training Institutions;-the aid afforded in both cases being proportioned to the amount of local contributions, and granted (as hitherto) on the express conditions, that the schools so assisted be open to the inspection of Visitors appointed by the Crown, and that a yearly account be rendered of the manner in which the Grants made to them, respectively, shall have been employed.

Should Her Majesty's Government be pleased to entertain this request favourably, your Memorialists would further submit to their consideration, whether a portion of the grants annually voted by Parliament for educational purposes might not,-advantageously for the Country at large, as well as in strict conformity to the intentions of the Legislature in granting them, and to the rules prescribed for their distribution-be placed (subject to the above conditions) at the disposal of local Boards of Education, to be employed partly in training efficient Teachers, partly in augmenting their scanty incomes; "there being no class of men" (as was justly observed by Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, in a Letter dated February 4, 1839) "whose rewards are so disproportionate to their services to the community as that of deserving schoolmasters."

But in whatever mode, or through whatever channel, the bounty of Parliament shall be dispensed-whether through the medium of local Boards, or by grants made directly to individual schools, on the recommendation of such Boards-your Memorialists are anxious to assure you that no efforts shall be wanting on their part to render the Parliamentary aid effective within the sphere of their influence, and to co-operate with the Committee of Privy Council as the coadjutors, at least, if not as the responsible agents and almoners, of the State, in the great work of National Education. And your Memorialists will ever pray, &c., &c.

J. LICHFIELD, Chairman.

Statistics.

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EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS OF THE METROPOLIS.

THE parishes in the city are for the most part supplied with parochial or endowed schools; and in some of the districts which have been formed by the operation of the Metropolis Churches' Fund, the accommodation for the children of the poor is for the present adequate to the demand: the deficiency therefore is partial, and on that account escapes the notice of those who have no opportunities of general observation. But in some parishes and districts it is palpable and alarming: omitting the destitute thousands behind Westminster Abbey (for supplying which a special fund is now being raised, and to which your Lordship has, I believe, contributed 10007.), it will be sufficient to fix your attention upon a few of the large parishes at the East and West ends of London. The parishes. I have selected are, for the most part, those which, from the opulence they contain, may be supposed to be the least destitute; they have an aggregate population, as will be seen from an inspection of the annexed table, of 505,743 souls; and if the reasonable proportion of one in ten be adopted, for the number that ought to be provided with daily instruction, 50,574 scholars should be found at school in those seven parishes. From recent returns to the inquiry, instituted by the National Society, aided by a government grant for that purpose, and from other

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