itself to the noble task of shedding its light over common things; we are kept always in familiar paths, and see our ordinary life dignified and made beautiful by the charms of song. We learn how to live melodious days; we are shown what trials may await us, what sacrifices may be demanded of us, and in what spirit those sacrifices should be made, those trials borne; we are taught how, by purity of feeling and singleness of heart, what is lowly may become exalted, what is mean may be made noble, what is sorrowful may be turned into joy. Higher duty than this no man can perform; more glorious service no man can render to his fellows: Mr. Tennyson has never more clearly established his claim to our reverence as the true Poet and Teacher of his Age.

THE

NORTH BRITISH REVIEW.

NOVEMBER 1864.

ART. I.-1. Papers relating to the Educational, Moral, and Religious Improvement of the Persons employed by Price's Patent Candle Company, Belmont, Vauxhall, London. 1852-57. 2. Report of the Church, Schools, etc., in connexion with Messrs. John Bagnall and Sons' Ironworks, Gold's Hill, West Bromwich. July 1864.

3. Classified Catalogue of the Orwell Works' Library (Messrs. Ransome and Sims, Ipswich). Pp. 60. September 1863. 4. Report on the North Shore Mill Company's Factories, Liverpool. By LEONARD HORNER, Esq., Inspector of Factories. November 1845.

5. Palace of Industry: a Description of the Works at Saltaire, near Bradford, Yorkshire, belonging to Titus Salt, Esq., with Report of Proceedings at the Opening. September 1853. 6. Lectures delivered in the Establishment of Messrs. Copestake, Moore, Crampton, and Co., 5, Bow Church Yard, London.

1860-61.

7. Friendly Addresses to those engaged in the Establishment of Messrs. Thomas Adams and Co., Nottingham. By the CHAPLAIN. 1860-64.

8. Provident Regulations of " The Times" Office. 1862.

9. Catalogue of the Lending Library of Her Majesty's Printing Office, London. With Supplement. Pp. 66. 1860-63. 10. Catalogue of Books in Spottiswoode and Co.'s Lending Library, London. Pp. 48. October 1862.

11. Catalogue of the Bank of England Library. Pp. 173. 1863. 12. Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Bank of England Library and Literary Association. 1857.

13. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bank of England Library and Literary Association. 1864.

VOL. XLI.NO. LXXXII.

S

14. Catalogue of the Caxton Library, Bank of England. Pp. 20.

1863.

15. Catalogue of Books in the Office Library of Messrs. W. Clowes and Sons. Pp. 18. 1857.

16. Description of Messrs. Clowes and Sons' Printing Office, London.

(All printed for Private Circulation.)

FIVE-AND-TWENTY years ago, in a letter to his friend Julius Hare, Dr. Arnold of Rugby wrote as follows:-"Too late,' however, are the words which I should be inclined to affix to every plan for reforming society in England; we are engulfed, I believe, inevitably, and must go down the cataract, although ourselves--that is, you and I-may be in Hezekiah's case, and not live to see the catastrophe."

Dr. Arnold had just been reading Mr. Gladstone's book on Church Principles, much of which he counted erroneous, and greatly lamented, while at the same time he discovered something in the spirit of its gifted author that tended to encourage hope for England. It cheered him to find such a man advocating the application of Christianity to national affairs, and so protesting against "that wretched doctrine of Warburton's, that the State has only to look after body and goods." But in Arnold's view, the social disease had gone too far for any remedy or any physician. His correspondence is sprinkled throughout with similar forebodings. It greatly deepened their gloom, that so few persons seemed alive to those social evils which he regarded as the certain forerunners of the deluge. "My fear," he said, "with regard to every remedy that involves any sacrifices to the upper classes is, that the public mind is not yet enough aware of the magnitude of the evil to submit to them. Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?' was the question put to Pharaoh by his counsellors; for, unless he did know it, they were aware that he would not let Israel go from serving him." We know no other instance except that of Carlyle, from whom doubtless Arnold drew much of his inspiration, of a man feeling with such intense keenness, a state of things that lay outside his own personal and public sphere. It was so grievous as to "pierce through all his private happiness, and haunt him daily like a personal calamity." Worst of all was the being doomed to look on, and unable to do anything effectual in the way of relief; and again and again his eager heart was planning measures for rousing the rich, and guiding, elevating, and enlightening the poor.

If Arnold were living now, it cannot be thought that he would write so strongly. Indeed, it is only when we look back

on such pictures as his of the state of society in his time, that the change that five-and-twenty years have brought about can be rightly appreciated. The dangers that appalled him are indeed far from past, but the thinking part of the public are more alive to them, and much more is done to avert them, however little that may be of what might and ought to be done. It is not our present business to enumerate all the causes to which this change for the better is due. But we cannot omit noticing Arnold's own influence as one of them; an influence so greatly intensified by that sudden and early death which threw round him and his views a tenfold greater interest, while it served to make them much more widely known. Other prophets of evil have helped to fulfil their predictions, but Arnold did everything to falsify his. The earnestness with which he urged the application of Christianity to all the affairs of life in his Sermons, did much to dissipate the old feeling of the essential separation of things secular and things sacred. And the intense distress which his correspondence revealed at the want of sympathy between rich and poor, and at the neglected condition of the labouring classes, as well as the vivid pictures he sometimes drew of the good that might be done by thoughtful Christian men, who had large numbers of their fellows under them, touched the heart and conscience of at least some in that situation, and led to very beautiful plans being set on foot by them for the benefit of their people.

The manager of a large and interesting factory, for example, situated nearly opposite the Palace of Westminster, and therefore within sight of some of the most aristocratic mansions of London, becomes acquainted with the Life of Arnold. He is greatly struck with the earnestness and heartiness with which he devoted himself to his school. He admires intensely his personal interest in his boys, and finds the essence of practical wisdom in his counsel to schoolmasters "to take life in earnest," and "to enter upon the schooling heartily you are not then in danger of grudging every hour you give to it, and of thinking of how much privacy, and of how much society it is robbing you; but you devote your time to it, and then you find that it is in itself full of interest, and keeps life's current fresh and wholesome by bringing you into such perpetual contact with all the springs of youthful liveliness. I should say, have your pupils a good deal with you, and be as familiar with them as you possibly can." While he wonders whether this counsel may not have some application to the head of a factory where many boys are employed, he finds in Arnold's correspondence a letter of congratulation and encouragement to a manufacturer who has shown a desire to benefit his work

people. "Your letter," Dr. Arnold writes to this gentleman, "holds out a prospect which interests me very deeply. I have long felt a very deep concern about the state of our manufacturing population, and have seen how enormous was the work to be done there, and how much good men, especially those who were not clergymen, were wanted to do it. And therefore I think of you as engaged in business with no little satisfaction, being convinced that a good man, highly educated, cannot possibly be in a more important position in this kingdom than as one of the heads of a great manufacturing establishment." Pondering these weighty words, the manager of the Vauxhall Candle Company begins one of the most beautiful moral experiments that history records, and seems, by a happy instinct, or rather a divine guidance, to light on the very measures by which an employer may best promote the welfare of his work-people. It would not be easy to over-estimate the effect produced ten or twelve years ago by the wide circulation, through many reviews, magazines, and newspapers, of the plans proposed and carried out by Mr. James. Wilson at the Factory of Price's Patent Candle Company. In the cause of social improvement these operations served a purpose corresponding to that of George Stephenson's "Rocket" in the railway enterprise. They showed that the thing could be done; that it should be done was the inevitable inference; the public verdict was all but unanimous in its favour; and all over the kingdom, conscientious and Christian employers were set to think what they could do in the same direction. It is a cause of unspeakable grief that commercial difficulties and religious. dissensions have led of late years to the suspension of most of the operations at Vauxhall and Battersea that were once in so healthful and promising activity; but it is only justice to the Company and its manager to say, that before their sky began to be overcast, they had done yeoman's service, not merely to their own workers, but to the country at large.

Our purpose in the present article is, first of all, to give information to make our readers acquainted with some of the plans that have actually been devised and carried out by Christian employers for the benefit of their people; this historical statement will lay the foundation for some general views on the whole subject, and give to these a weight which no mere theories, however beautiful and plausible, could ever have. The subject is preeminently one on which theorizing will not do. "What we masters want," says one of the best and wisest of them, "is not any beautiful theory of our relation to our people, but some practical means of overcoming the enormous difficulties which there are in the way of really getting into a proper relation to them." It should be well known at the outset, that in practice