being shut out from the pleasures of mind, he will seek only the pleasures of sense, and will seek them at such places and in such company as will ruin both body and soul.

Yes, the great complaint that must now be made concerning the schooling of the working classes is, that it is too short. It is not that they never go to school Nearly all of them go to school for a time. There is no difficulty in finding schools: they abound throughout the land: what is wanted is, boys and girls to fill them. They come when quite young, but just when they are beginning to make progress and to excite the hopes of their teachers, they are removed and set to some kind of work. The schools are left half empty, and the teachers see with melancholy feelings that the seed they have sown and watered, perishes just when it appears above ground. might as reasonably mow his wheat in the spring. the promise of a good crop, but it requires time to ripen to cut it in the tender blade, is to destroy the ear and the full corn in the ear that might have yielded a glorious harvest. It is folly to spend money for two or three years in keeping a child at school, and then to take him away before he has learnt anything to purpose, and before it is possible that he should retain what he has learnt.

A farmer

There is

The boy

No doubt the temptation is sometimes strong. might earn two or three shillings a week, and the girl might help her mother in the house. But how much wiser it would be, and how much kinder to the children, to let them remain at school till they are able to read and write well! It would often enable the boy to obtain a better situation. It would probably be more favourable to his health. But if these things were out of the question, it would fit him much better for the duties of life, and give him the means of cultivating his mind, by which both his virtue and his happiness would be promoted.

The price of education is so low, that it ought to be no obstacle at all. In excellent schools the payment is 2d., 4d., or 6d. a week, according to the branches of learning which the children are taught. For 6d. a week an education may now be

obtained superior to that which most tradesmen of the present day have received. For 2d. a week, a child may learn reading writing, arithmetic, and something of geography. At the present rate of wages, and with the present cheapness of food, there is scarcely any labouring man who could not afford to pay the school pence for two or three of his children. The agricultural labourers are actually paying the school fees in counties where the wages are not more than 7s. or 8s. a week. The very negroes of the West Indies, so lately released from slavery and so lately become Christians, are paying for their children's education, notwithstanding the scarcity of money there. Only this week I heard a Missionary from Jamaica speak of his day-schools;* and after he had explained that nearly all his congregation consisted of coloured labouring men, I asked him— "How many of the people of your congregation send their children to the day-school?" He replied "All!" I asked again "What payment do they make ?" He answered"Three pence a week for one child, but less where there are two or more children of the same family." I believe it is the same with the Hottentots of South Africa, and with the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. There is an Infant School at Upolu, in the Navigators' (or Samoan) Islands, where fifteen or sixteen years since the inhabitants were cannibals; and I have seen the copy-books written, and the maps drawn and coloured, by the little dusky children, which might be compared with those executed at any school in England. The map of the world was entitled "All under the Heaven."

Would it not be indeed a shame, if the offspring of slaves and cannibals, just rescued from the depths of heathen darkness, should be able to read, write, count, and draw better than the children of favoured England ? But they inevitably will, if these sable tribes should keep their children five or six years at school, and you should keep yours only two or three years. Now where is the difficulty?

A single fact shall show. Mr. Stephen Neale, the chief con*The Rev. Wm. Slatyer.

stable of Salford, published a report last year, in which he estimated that in the 2,037 public-houses and beer-houses of Manchester and Salford, £4,074 is spent every Saturday night in liquor, which would amount to £211,848 a year. That is, seven times as much

as was lately estimated to be necessary to educate all the children in Manchester ! Wicked and horrible waste ! Waste! did I say? Nay, rather, the purchase-money of degradation and misery. So dear do men buy their own ruin! Aching heads, and shattered health, and injured characters, and lost situations, and miserable homes, and broken-hearted wives, and neglected children, and early, hopeless death-beds ;-all these things do they buy at the expense of a large part of their hard earnings! And oh what unnumbered comforts and advantages would this £211,848 purchase for the working-men of Manchester! How charmingly would it clothe their wives; how amply would it educate their children; how neatly would it furnish their houses; how respectably would it spread their tables: how would it pay for books and magazines, for the sick-club and Mechanics' Institution, for sittings at church or chapel-in short, for all that would make them as independent, comfortable, and happy as men can expect to be in this world! And if I may judge from my own experience for fifteen years, and from the testimony of thousands of the hardest-working men in England, persons in ordinary health have no more need of beer, wine, or spirits, than they have of laudanum or arsenic.

At all events, it is clear and certain that one-seventh part of ale-money squandered on a Saturday night in Manchester, in debasing the population, would educate all the children, and thus elevate the next generation. And this proportion will hold throughout the kingdom. It is estimated that sixty millions of pounds sterling are spent every year in intoxicating drinks; and one-seventh of that (if it were spared) would give us £8,571,428 a-year for education;—an immense and splendid endowment exceeding anything the world has ever heard of, freely supplied

* The promoters of the Manchester and Salford Education Bill only asked for a rate to raise about £30,000 a year, for the support of all the schools in Manchester.

8

ON THE VALUE OF EDUCATION TO THE WORKING CLASSES.

There are many instances of noble sacrifices made by parents in humble life for, the education of their children. Perhaps these are more common in Scotland than in England. But I have known cases of parents pinching themselves in bad times to keep their children at school, and have heard them afterwards express the sweet satisfaction they had in reflecting on the sacrifice. The Rev. Benjamin Parsons, of Ebley, tells of a poor widow earning some seven or eight shillings a week, who contrived to let all her seven children attend his school in succession, and some of them at least for as much as seven years. How does this shame men earning their fifteen or twenty shillings a week, who take their children from school to put them to work before they have learned anything which they will be likely to retain !

My Friends, excuse this plain address, which is dictated by an earnest desire to see yourselves and your families well-informed, virtuous, and happy. I do not pretend that you can give your children a good education without considerable effort. Life is a constant struggle against temptations, but the more earnest the struggle the more glorious will be the victory.

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"PLENTY OF CORN AND WINE."

BY JOHN M'DOUGLAS.

"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth or is offended, or is made weak."-Rom. xiv. 21.

"Wine is a mocker."-Prov. xx. 1. "Drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." -Cant. v. 1.

"WHETHER YOU EAT OR DRINK, DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD."-Your chief end is to glorify and enjoy Him, and you acknowledge this. But we wish you to understand that it does not apply only or chiefly to the great things for which confessors and martyrs have suffered and died. The happiness of yourselves and of many others may depend wholly-certainly depends in great measure-on your glorifying God by serving Him in matters which most people think he does not regard. WE ARE ABSTAINERS FROM ALL INTOXICATING LIQUORS, and we ask you to join us in this as a matter deeply affecting His kingdom.

Perhaps you, like many others, reject this abstinence movement as an unspiritual and anti-scriptural reformation, and despise it and us together. You don't deny that it does good— much good-to the bodies of men; but after all, say you, they maybe lost for ever, and then where is the benefit? We answer, "It is enough for us servants to be as our Master." He went about continually doing good. He raised some to life, and many to health, but we know not that all or even most of them were saved; a large proportion of them did not even thank him. His first and his last acts of public ministry were the cleansings of the temple-an outward reformation. He cast out devils from many, which was a more directly spiritual work, but we do not know that all these persons were saved: we rather infer, from his statement in one place, that the end of some of them was seven times worse than the beginning. His great servants and types, the godly kings of Israel and Judah, were honoured by him for removing outward temptations, and putting down open vices of various sorts; and these external reformations He followed with great spiritual revivals. In every age he has required his people to cast un the paths, make straight and easy ways to Zion, and remove every stumbling-block and danger from the weak and unwary. And careful draining and ploughing, weeding and watering, are rewarded by Him, in the fields of