unusual in the circumstance to which he alluded. However, an amendment, that the question be not put, was carried by the meeting; and thus Mr. Clark's object was defeated.

Now we are greatly at a loss to conceive any rational motives for Mr. Clark's so strenuous opposition to the use of pictures in schools. From time immemorial pictures have been used as illustrations of scriptural subjects; and our belief is, that their use has been attended with great advantages to children and young persons. Even the Religious Tract Society-a Society not likely to be charged with Popish leanings-have for years been in the habit of sending forth, in their various publications, pictures of sacred subjects; and we never remember to have heard of any objection on the part of Mr. Clark, or any one else, to their proceedings. Why, then, is the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge to be precluded from a field of labour which has been so long occupied by the Religious Tract Society? To us the attempt appears preposterous; and we hope that the Committee will steadily refuse to adopt any such motion as that proposed by Mr. Clark. Of course they will exercise their discretion in the selection of proper prints; but by no means let them relinquish the task which they have undertaken, and which they have hitherto so successfully executed.

THE BRAINTREE CASE.

Of church-rates we have said much in preceding numbers; but, as the subject is so important, it is necessary to add a little more. The decision on the Braintree case in the Court of Exchequer, and the proceedings in the parish consequent upon that decision, render a slight notice necessary. It will be remembered that the decision was to this effect, namely, that the churchwardens were in error in levying the rate without calling a vestry; but that they were empowered to do so for necessary expenses after a vestry, even though a majority of the parish should pass a vote against the rate. The fabric must be kept in repair, whether the parishioners wish it or not, and a rate can be levied after a vestry has been duly summoned. A monition was issued by the Bishop of London, commanding the churchwardens of Braintree to make a rate for the necessary repairs. In obedience to this monition a vestry was summoned, at which a rate was proposed. An amendment against it was, however, carried; but the churchwardens proceeded to levy the rate, and if any parties object, they may take the case into a court of justice. Still, after the decision of the Court of Exchequer, it is not likely that the objectors will be successful in their application. In the former case, the rate had been made three days

after the vestry, instead of being made at the time; and on that account it was invalid, and not because a majority objected. Church-rates are a portion of the law of the land; and the laws, as long as they continue in force, must be obeyed, whether the people are disposed to submit or to resist. All laws would be useless, if the people were permitted to decide the question of obedience. We would, therefore, most strongly urge upon churchwardens, in parishes in which church-rates have been discontinued, in consequence of the clamours of a Radical and Dissenting faction, the duty of enforcing the laws, notwithstanding the objections of the parties who get up the opposition, and who may with just as much reason decline to pay poor-rates and assessed taxes. Dissenting journals talk of robbery, when persons refuse to pay, and the amount is forcibly levied; but surely it is much more like robbery for a man in possession of property to withhold that portion which is demanded in the form of a church-rate, to which he has no claim whatever, inasmuch as the property was purchased or acquired subject to the rate for the necessary repairs of the church.

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN BISHOPS.

We have on a former occasion fully entered upon the question connected with the Acts of Parliament, by which the bishops and clergy of the Episcopal Church in Scotland and America were, unless they had been ordained in England, disabled from entering our pulpits. The particulars need not, therefore, be repeated; but we notice the subject now for the purpose of mentioning that the Right Reverend Dr. Doane, Bishop of New Jersey, in the United States, officiated at All Souls' Church, St. Marylebone, in July last, and also more recently at the consecration of the new church at Leeds: we believe, too, that he has preached in other churches. It is gratifying to know that the bishops and clergy of the Churches in question, against whom there was no canonical objection, but who were merely prevented by an Act of Parliament, may now be admitted to our pulpits.

479

General Literature.

Familiar Observations on Life Insurances, and the causes affecting Population, &c. By R. Morgan, Actuary to the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society. Norwich: Fletcher. 1841.

WHETHER virtue may be defined "the love of being," we take not upon ourselves here to decide; but few will question the philosophy of enquiring into those accidents which affect the duration of human life, and cause the tide of existence to ebb and flow. There is more than the gratification of curiosity in such investigations, or even than the aid which they furnish the statesman and the philanthropist; the student himself is impressed with a salutary lesson of his own mortality, and taught, or at least imagines he is taught, how to husband his fortune and to prolong his life. It is, indeed, wonderful, that the statistics of our existence, and the various causes, physical, mental, and moral, which affect the duration of life, do not secure more general attention; and may be viewed as one among many instances of man's insensibility to events, however important, which only concern him remotely, and of his propensity, amidst a boasted knowledge of means of relief, to submit practically to an inevitable fatalism.

Mr. Morgan, laying aside the more recondite and difficult parts of his profession, has furnished some general and popular information with which it has rendered him familiar; and, we doubt not, his "Familiar Observations" will be read by many with considerable interest. He classes among the physical causes which permanently check the advance of population, or in other words, the longevity of man, intense cold or heat, marsh miasma or malaria, want of pure air, insufficient or unhealthy food, and occupations exposing workmen to deleterious vapours, &c. Of the moral class, intemperance and dissipation among the governed, and a want of knowledge or neglect of their duties among the governing. The extraordinary causes of mortality are epidemic diseases, war, fanaticism, and slavery-a numerous as well as a painful family of death, enough to evoke the dirges of another Gray!

It is distressing to see the havoc made by exhalations from humid lands, in such places as the Delta of Egypt, near the mouths of the Ganges, New York, New Orleans, and at the mouths of the African rivers; as well as in more inland districts, as the Pontine marshes.

"The wild luxuriance of the Indian jungle (our author remarks) conceals the seeds of the most fatal fevers; the woods of Demerara are

equally insidious; and the finest plains of Italy, which enchant the eye of the traveller by their vigorous and rich vegetation, are, alas! not only gardens, but graves."

Major Tullock reports that in our colonies of Western Africa, even among men of superior habits, the annual average of deaths is from 21 to 28. per cent.; while, among the more intemperate and immoral, the ratio of waste was double that amount-about one-half. From the records of the Registrar General, comprising thirty-two metropolitan unions, and twenty-four of the greatest towns, it appears, that out of 3,553,000 no less than 47,953 persons died; and that of 3,500,000, in certain rural districts, only 29,693 died in the same time: a statement in favour of the country, as far as longevity is concerned, in the proportion of about thirty to forty-eight-a most striking fact, showing the advantages of good air and exercise, united with temperate habits. Even the various districts of the same city furnish great difference in the ratio of mortality. Of 1,000 females, there die, in the parishes of Whitechapel, Shoreditch, Bermondsey, Holborn, and St. George's, East Smithfield, 31 2-5th; and of the same number, and in the same time, in the Strand, Stepney, Kennington, St. Pancras, City of London, Camberwell, Hackney, and St. George's, Hanover-square, an average of 21 3-5th. Here the result is a mortality in the former localities 50 per cent. greater than in the latter, or in a ratio of three to two the extremes of the scale even present a difference exceeding two to one.

Mr. Morgan furnishes some valuable information respecting miners, chimney-sweepers, workmen in metal, cotton, and other manufactories, and all sedentary employments, and then shows the superior healthiness of agricultural labour. Where only one manufacturer in thirteen receives parochial relief, and one agriculturist in five, it has been found that one in forty-nine of the former class die, while of the latter only one in fifty-one. A fact which shows, that if manufactories add to the wealth and independency of the nation, they do not increase its health and longevity.

We must refer our readers to some judicious remarks on navigation, war, bad government, and excessive taxation, as they affect population. The list of ordinary causes of mortality closes with intemperance. The effects of this vice are truly appalling! Whatever opinion may be entertained of abstinence, as an abstract question, what friend of virtue and of man does not rejoice in the efforts which are made, and with some success, to induce habits of sobriety and decorum.

The extraordinary causes of mortality are the plague, small pox, war, religious fanaticism, and slavery. Improvement in

drainage, ventilation and diet, and the discovery of vaccination, have, under Divine Providence, greatly lessened the waste of human life, by the agency of the first two evils; and, we trust, the latter-war, fanaticism, and slavery-are losing their fanged grasp of the public mind, and consequently their power of doing mischief. The author--having asserted "Cæsar is understood to have caused the death of three millions of human beings,” and "the havoc produced by the arms of Napoleon even exceeded this;" and having animadverted on the folly of both the Romans and the French doing homage to their respective destroyers, the Apollyons of their age-exclaims, "Surely this mania cannot endure!" We believe it cannot: the progress of civilization, the more sober views of civil governments, the extension of commercial relationships, and, above all, the growing influence of the Gospel of peace, must bedim the glitter of the sword, and induce a state of mind friendly to harmony and love, and abhorrent of shedding human blood; and, at no distant period, make nations see that there is as much absurdity, and more wickedness, in large communities appealing to the cannon, as in an accused individual proving his innocence by "wager of battle!"

Religious fanaticism our author views much the same as a spirit of persecution; and he takes a rapid and an affecting glance at the sufferings inflicted on Christians by the heathen, the Mohammedans, and the Papists. He notices, too, the voluntary endurance of torment and death by the superstitious, in pilgrimages to the temple of Juggernaut, the burning of widows on the funeral piles of their husbands, and the pollution of air and water by the casting of the dead into the sacred Ganges. The mild and rational spirit of Christianity is destined to overcome these depopulating evils-to annihilate the inquisition, and all the cruelty, both active and passive, of superstition, and to lead to Him who came to save men's lives, and not to destroy them.

"The introduction of slavery (remarks our author) into the new world, has depopulated extensive districts in Africa. It is needless to advert to the horrors of the passage, and the subsequent waste of life under enforced labour; all these things are fresh in the mind of the public: the horrible traffic still flourishes in the two Americas." We wish they were the only guilty parties. "The hand-writing is not yet seen on the wall, but let not the guilty nations hope to escape retribution: they are rapidly filling the vials of wrath; assuredly on their heads shall they be emptied !"

We cannot follow the author through his sketch of the history of the science of Life Assurance-his enumeration of the various

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