1,174. They might have ten day schools instead of five. They might have 1,400 children instead of 700. There might be six city missionaries instead of three, and these might hold 1,560 meetings instead of 780. There might be two schools of industry instead of one, and twenty eight Sunday-schools instead of fourteen. They might instruct 10,500 children, instead of 5,250. They might have two missionaries for the Southwark Mission instead of one, and hold 1,200 meetings in connection with it instead of 600. They might distribute 200,000 tracts instead of 100,000. And after these distributions were made, there would be £740. in money left for other objects. How impossible it was, with all their importunity, to raise such a sum as was mentioned! How easy it would be, by means of such fasting, to raise funds for the evangelization of the whole of London.

YOUTHS IN HOUSES OF BUSINESS.

To the Editor of the "BAND OF HOPE RECORD."

Dear Sir,-As a young man, I have for some years sought to do good amongst those of my own age and condition, by aiding societies seeking our spiritual and moral welfare.

My connection with such societies has brought me into contact with large numbers of youths and young men, mostly engaged in large warehouses and retail establishments. I have by this means learnt a great deal concerning the interior arrangements of such places, and with the habits of those employed in them.

It is customary for youths of fourteen and fifteen years of age to be engaged as juniors. Nearly all are from the country, and have just left school or the homes of their boyhood; they eat, drink, and sleep upon the premises Here are not a few young men who are thoroughly depraved, and who endeavour to ruin the bodies and souls of the boys thus brought near them. A pure-hearted, free, and generous lad has not to be long in their company, ere he is contaminated by their wretched example. The blush of youthful innocence soon flees away, and nothing but disease, degradation, and premature death is substituted. My heart sickens as I think of several I myself have known in this condition. The annals of youths and young men engaged in the commerce of great cities, are fearful to think about.

A pious youth of nineteen years of age, told me not long since, that in the house of business where he was employed, he did not know of more than three, out of, I think, one hundred and fifty, who professed Christianity: it was almost impossible for him to live a consistent life in such society, especially as his hours of devotion and rest were constantly disturbed by the drunken ribaldry of several young men sleeping in the same room with him.

If such be the testimony of a godly young man, what can we hope for those of unfixed principles ?

Can nothing be done? I venture to think, much. The poet has said truly

"But evil is wrought by want of thought,

As well as want of heart."

I venture to suggest that,

1. Employers of labour could do something.-In many houses beer is supplied both to youths and young men ad libitum. Ought employers to do this? Surely some remonstrance should be made by all who have any influence with them.

Again, Is it kind or considerate to place tender youths in the same sleeping apartments with men who, to say the least, are suspected of not being moral characters? How would some of these gentlemen like to put their own sons in such a situation?

2. Parents and Guardians can do a great deal.-Let them teach abstinence at home. Young people learn to like alcohol under a father's roof, and by a mother's knee, and they are not able to withstand temptation when parental restraint is no longer exercised over them. Parents! do not offer your children the bottle, and you may save them from the ruin of intemperance.

3. Country Band of Hope Leaders may help.-Let them all look after the youths while they are at school, and before they leave their native home. Seek to send them to London, abstainers. When they leave, give them a letter of introduction to some friends of the Band of Hope and Religion. If to no one else, to the Secretaries of the Band of Hope Union, who (I have no doubt,) would introduce strangers to some Temperance Society in the locality where they might be living.

4. Abstainers in Houses of Business can assist us.-Look after the friendless boys who are constantly coming amongst you. "Speak a kind word where you can." Get them to attend our meetings, and endeavour to exert an influence over them.

Thus something may be done. I should not forget the noble efforts made by the Committee of the National Temperance League, in holding meetings in the houses of basiness. May they be greatly multiplied. Much good I feel sure must be done by that effort.

Yours very truly,

Canonbury, March, 1864.

T. C. U.

Annals of the United Kingdom Band of Hope Union.

THE ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS.

The Subscribers of the Union assembled on Wednesday, March 9th, in Shirley's hotel, 37, Queen square. Notwithstanding the great inclemency of the weather, there was a good attendance, and a most earnest and united spirit prevailed during the evening. After tea and coffee had been served, W. West Esq. presided, and called upon the Rev. G. W. M' Cree to read the Annual Report, which was a long and interesting document, and gave great satisfaction. From the report it was found, that 1,142 meetings had been held, 480

festivals attended, 75,000 publications sold, 7 agents employed, 190 dissolving view engagements given, and that the income for the year was £884. 4s. 9d. The usual resolutions were passed unanimously, and a vote of thanks to W. West Esq. brought the meeting to a close.

LABOURS OF THE AGENTS.

During the past month, Mr. WILLIAM BELL has been engaged in addressing large meetings of children in connection with the Leeds Band of Hope League.

Mr. G. BLABY has attended meetings as follows:-Stepney Meeting; George Street, Edgware road; Rotherhithe, twice; Denmark Street, twice; Bloomsbury Refuge, twice; Earl Street, London Road; Exeter Buildings, Chelsea; St. Matthews, Princes Square; Liverpool Road, Islington; Meadow Row, New Kent Road; Amicable Row; Peckham; Dalston; and Ealing. He has also preached eight sermons, and addressed three Sunday Schools.

Mr. T. O. CHAPMAN continues his useful labours in connection with Sunday Schools. Full details will appear in our next number.

Mr. WILLIAM LAY has attended meetings as follows:-George Street, Bryanstone Square; Weigh House Chapel Sunday School; Esher Street, Kennington; Barnsbury Independent Chapel; Iron Church, Victoria Park; Myddleton Road, Dalston; Rotherhithe; Brixton; Victoria Street, and Mercers street, Shadwell; Windsor Street, Islington; Britannia Fields; and Commercial Road.

Mr. FREDERIC SMITH has addressed meetings, and lectured as follows: -Maidstone; Whitstable; Midhurst; Reigate; Romsey; Christchurch; Bridport; Taunton; Shaftesbury; Newbury; Frome. These were mostly lectures with the Dissolving Views, and generally successful. In one small town, where the meetings were well managed, a profit of more than £5. was realised.

The FITZROY BAND OF HOPE held their fourteenth anniversary on Wednesday, March 16th. In the afternoon, 150 children took tea in the Society's hall, Little Portland street; after tea their numbers were largely added to. The whole then adjourned to the Hanover square rooms, which was speedily crowded with a fine audience. Jabez Inwards Esq., took the chair. Addresses were given by Rev. W. Stott of Abbey road, Rev. B. Nicols, incumbent of Mill Hill, and Mr. G. M. Murphy. About eighteen recitations and airs, with a very interesting dialogue, were given by different members of the Band; while the whole of the children well sung several choruses during the evening. Beside the children and the speakers, the chairman was well surrounded on the platfotm by a number of old friends of our cause.

PROVINCIAL CORRESPONDENTS.

The Rev. SAMUEL COULING, Scarborough.

Mr. D. B. HOOKE, Jun, Bath.

Mr. J. P. HUTCHINSON, Darlington.

J. BALE, Prin ter, 78, Great Titchfield-street, Marylebone.

BAND OF HOPE RECORD.

AN APOSTLE INDEED.

By E. WALFORD.

Early in December, 1856, the news went far and wide through the South of Ireland, that the "Apostle of Temperance," Father Matthew, had paid the last debt of nature. He died, as he had lived, devoted to the good cause of reclaiming his volatile countrymen from their archenemy, the whiskey-bottle; and his name ought to stand, in Ireland at least, written in the brightest and most indelible colors among the roll of her philanthropists and patriots.

Theobald Matthew's life, from first to last, was in full keeping and harmony with his profession as a priest of the church in which his lot was cast. We have been, of late years, by far too much familiarised with such warlike spirits as Dr. Cahil and John McHale, as types of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy, to fancy that one so meek, so gentle, so humble, so self-denying as "Father Matthew," could have submitted to the ecclesiasticle tonsure in the sister island, and worn the monastic cowl. Yet so it was: Father Matthew was not only a Roman Catholic, but a Roman Catholic priest; nor only a priest, but a monk--a humble Capuchin. But under the Capuchin's coarse dress he concealed the heart of a Christian and a gentleman. No doubt, some portion of these qualities he owed to the fact that gentle blood flowed in his veins; and that, instead of being taken (as most Irish priests are) from the plough-tail to the altar, viá Maynooth, he was brought up in the refined society of his kinsman, the late Earl of Llandaff, and of his sister, Lady Elizabeth Matthew; and that, in the family circle of Thomastown House, and amongst its guests, as a boy, he rubbed off some of that rust, and most of those angles, which, somehow or other, seem to mark for life the man who has once passed the gates of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, and has been subjected to its rough and uninviting discipline.

Mr. Macguire, the M.P. for Cork, has recently given to the world a biographical account of the Apostle of Temperance, to which we are indebted for most of the facts in the present brief and hasty sketch. Born at Thomastown, in 1790, Theobald or Toby Matthew (as he was called at home) was almost from infancy the pet of his mother and sisters and elder brothers, in whose rude and rough sports he found little pleasure. He appears to have been most loveable as a child, and to have shown from the first, as if by nature and instinct, an inborn desire of giving pleasure to others. Having spoken as we have already of the general character of the Irish priesthood, it seems almost a satire to add here that his mother, a good and pious Romanist, regarded him from childhood as a sort of Nazarite, and declared that the church was his "vocation." But so it was. As he grew up, not even the attractions of the pleasant society of Thomastown House could wean him from his early taste; and so we find him in 1807 entered as a student for orders at Maynooth.

The recently published Reports of the Visitors of this college, whose very name strikes such a panic in the hearts of worthy individuals in England, will serve to show that, so far from being intellectually formidable as an institution, it is one of the worst managed close-boroughs in the three kingdoms; and the only wonder still is that it sends out the raw material which finds admission there in any less crude condition than that in which it entered. The same was the case upwards of half a century ago. Then, as now, it would seem to have been a sort of ecclesiastical "Dotheboy's Hall;" and its professors seem to have done their best to break the spirits and crush the affections of those unhappy youths who were sent there to "study for the Church." In one respect, Theobald Matthew seems to have been extremely fortunate. He escaped the blighting and withering influence of the dreary place; for he had not been more than a few weeks in residence when he was desired summarily to remove his name from the books of Mynooth, for the heinous offence of having invited one or two of his fellow-students into his room and given them tea and supper! This must have been at the time a sad dissapointment to the future "Apostle; " for the punishment appeared to shut the door of the Romish priesthood against him for ever; but after a while, the late Dr. Murray, the worthy and tolerant prelate who sat so long in the chair of Dublin, having admitted him into orders, we find him settled quietly down as a sort of curate under “Father” Donovan, in the chapel attached to a Capuchin friary in a back street in Cork. Here, for nearly twenty years, Theobald Matthew passed his life between his duties at the altar, in the confessional, and in the workhouse and gaol of the city, and gaining the highest character, among both rich and poor, by his amiable character and by his eloquence-which was effective because it came from the heart. He was no mob-orator or surpliced demagogue, like too many of his fellows, but a peacemaker at home and abroad: he was eloquent in his pulpit, not on the hustings; and, therefore, no doubt, it was that he was left to "blush unseen " in obscurity, too good, too self-denying, and too spiritual to gain a chance of obtaining an Irish mitre.

It was only in the year 1838 that his name became known beyond the narrow limits of the provincial city in which his lot was cast, and then almost by an accident. In the course of his labors in the workhouse and the gaol, he saw how large a share the vice of drunkenness had in pauperising and degrading his countrymen, and for many months he pondered over the best means of providing a remedy against its baneful effects. He saw that the Celt could not be treated as the Saxon, and that with such an excitable people as the Irish there was no middle course open which was likely to induce them to abandon their love of the whisky-bottle. But it was not so easy to determine where he should fix his starting-point. At last, the feeling and heart-spoken appeal of a Quaker inhabitant of the town of Cork-"Oh! Theobald Matthew, if thou would only give thy aid to the cause, what good thou would do!" came to him as a home-thrust. He looked on the speech as the voice of conscience, or rather of God himself; he thought the matter over well,