They all concur in stating that, go where they may amongst the poor, and more particularly amongst the ragged poor, the people,' to quote their own words, are depraved indeed, and seem to give themselves up to work wickedness.' And the report itself remarks, that in many of the districts in which vice is less gross than in others, irreligion, estrangement from God, and forgetfulness of all which concerns immortal creatures, are no less general. In the district,' it is added, bounded by Portland Place, Oxford Street, Great Marylebone Street, and Thayer and James Streets, and which is not by any means of the worst description, it was yet found this year, (1846,) that of the 652 families of the poor, interspersed with the abodes of the respectable, and the mansions of the affluent, in that small square, 290, or nearly one-half, were not even possessed of the word of God. Of 1,352 adults, 1,150 systematically and entirely neglected the house of God, 312 of whom could not even read; and of 716 children of a proper age for instruction, 447 went to no school, and were growing up so as to give no better hopes of another generation than of the present.' And then the report asks, as well it may, 'Is our London population to be suffered thus to remain ? adding, with great truth, that the enemy will be active in making it worse, if Christians be not active in seeking that it be made better.'

There are little histories of life in the situation and circumstances of the ragged which, while they account for much of their wretchedness and profligacy, must strengthen their claims upon the christian feeling of the country. One of these is thus related in the report of the London Mission:

The poor are very frequently to be pitied, as well as blamed, for the sad condition in which they are found. One of the thieves before referred to is a lad of fifteen years of age: his father died when he was quite young; his mother is a wicked drunkard, and put her children into the workhouse. Her son was placed out by the authorities at the workhouse as an apprentice to a chairmaker, by whom he was so badly used that he ran away. He then joined a gipsy camp in the country, where he was trained to commit small depredations. He was at length detected of some petty act of fraud, and committed to prison for it. This, to use his own words, at once "made him hard." He then fell in with practised and experienced depredators; again and again was he committed to prison, and again and again became more and more hardened, until he came to the missionary to be reformed; by whom, being trained to good as he had been before trained to evil, under the Divine blessing, he became honest and moral, and now gives attention to religious duties.'

And the case of this poor lad is only a specimen of a large class of cases which the missionaries are constantly encountering. Another little history, more painful still, is thus related:

During the year, one of the missionaries met with a young female, who, under religious impressions, by an address which he delivered at a meeting which she attended, was told by her worthless mother to go. on the streets to earn her some money. When the missionary expostulated with the mother, she only replied, "You had better keep the girl yourself. She must get her living how she can. I do not care how she gets it." At length the poor girl came to the missionary, saying, "Do, pray Sir, take care of me; I have no one else to whom to look. I do not like to tell you of my mother; but she wants money that she may spend it in drink." On this the missionary went again to the mother, to urge her in the gentlest manner to a more natural conduct, on which she took up a pail of water to throw at him, uttering the horrid words, "She may go to hell for what I care!" Ultimately the missionary got the girl into service, where,' adds the report, she has been nearly a year, and gives great satisfaction.'

Now, these are cases most forcibly in point. They are sam ples of the bulk of misery and depravity that surrounds us. They are proofs, also, of what Christian benevolence may do towards relieving it.

And when, therefore, we say that the ragged are neglected, we would not speak absolutely. Such an assertion, as we have shown, may be considerably qualified. Some efforts are made to rescue them from their wretchedness and degradation. But they are much too partial and desultory, it is to be feared, to be of any great effect; whilst it is most deplorable to observe, that the Church, which should be foremost in so truly charitable a work, is lending no hand in it whatever. What a pity-nay, what a scandal-that the Poor Man's Church,' which she is proudly designated, and really designed to be, should so systematically overlook these poorest of the poor, and miserablest of the miserable! Believe us, reader, we say this far more in sorrow than in anger.

That the harvest is great there is abundant evidence on every side; that the labourers are few is not only a subject of deep regret, but the source of unbounded social evils, if not the cause of fearful national judgments.

What is done irregularly, and feebly, though we admit with praiseworthy zeal and in fervent charity, gives assurance at least of what might be accomplished by some more systematic and vigorous effort. And to begin with, at any rate, the rising generation of the ragged should first be attended to. This is not only the most practicable, but will prove the most effectual means of leavening the whole mass with the leaven of Christian instruction. It may be answered, we are aware, that great educational efforts are now made-and made, too, by the Church. We admit, with pleasure, that such is the fact. But they are not only disproportionate to the exigences of the case-they do not pretend to

reach the root of the evil. Their schools are for the poor, it is true, but not for the ragged. This is virtually admitted in the last minutes of the Committee of Council on Education, where it is said,

'It must be observed, that in London we not only lose our children at a very early age, without any systematic means, or indeed for the most part of any kind of means of keeping up an intercourse with them after leaving school, but that a fearfully large proportion of poor children either do not enter our schools at all, or remain in them so short a time, that any expectation of their receiving real benefit from the instruction therein given must be mere illusion. It is true that so many schools have been established in which instruction, if not entirely gratuitous, is attainable at a very trifling cost, that every parent who desires to secure the advantages of education for his child may find one in most parts of London at a moderate distance; but it is equally true that thousands are either too indifferent, or too ignorant, or too vicious, or too little able to command their children, ever to avail themselves of the opportunity. One consequence of this want of elementary education, whether we consider it as a want of knowledge or of training, is admitted to be a frightful increase of depravity among pauper children. At the late Middlesex Sessions it was stated by Mr. Serjeant Adams, that no fewer than 500 children, between seven and twelve years of age, had been summarily convicted by the magistrates within a comparatively short period, as reputed thieves. All the magistrates could do was to send these children to prison for six weeks, or two months, and when the poor creatures came out again they were compelled to follow their former pursuits, because they were without any other means of obtaining subsistence.'

So that the case of the 'pauper children,' that is, the ragged -among whom there is admitted to be a frightful increase of depravity,' is not in reality provided for at all.

To meet this evil, it is true, Ragged Schools have been attempted, but not by the Committee of Council on Educationnot by the National Society of Education-not by the Church. Private benevolence has done something in that way; and the design is undoubtedly a noble one, however slightly it may so far have been carried out. But the merit of it is due, we believe, not to Churchmen, but to Dissenters. At any rate it is under the influence, if not the direction of Dissent,-to the honour of Dissent be it said.

The Ragged School Union' is the title of an institution which aims at promoting this truly benevolent object; and h many pious Churchmen have been induced to lend its operations, it can in no wise be regarded as a

Church principles, in fact, are not recognised at word or deed. In proportion, therefore, as it suc tminister to the augmentation of the ranks of

The Report of this Ragged School Union' is full of motives and incentives to exertion in such a cause. The ragged children, it tells us, are found in so wretched and miserable a plight, that it were useless to expect their admission into either the National Schools or those of the British and Foreign School Society. Gathered from some of the most vile and neglected purlieus of the metropolis, their ragged, dirty, and filthy condition form an insuperable barrier to their reception by any ordinary charity school. And as illustrations of the evil thus arising, we find such statitstics as these:-that in and around Field-lane, there were a thousand children, from eight to twelve years of age, running about, utterly lost in ignorance and immorality; and in Albany-street district, Britannia-street, Gray's-InnRoad, Jurston-street, there was much the same state of things. The children too ragged and filthy for the schools,—the adults too vile and profligate for the churches! And thus have they been permitted to sink lower and lower in the social scale-to become more and more hopelessly immersed in vice and degradation, without one arm to save!'

The importance of Ragged Schools is unquestionable. Yet they are with great difficulty established, and with much greater difficulty supported, even in situations where the necessity is most urgent. Lambeth New Cut is one of those situations, abounding as it does with abject poverty and gross depravity. A short time since an effort was made to provide a Ragged School in that neighbourhood. An address was issued, of which the following is an extract :

Every observer, who is at all acquainted with this locality, must readily admit the fact, that something had need be done to check the sources of depravity so prevalent in this benighted part of London; and what is so likely to effect this as the establishment of institutions whose object is to nip the evil in the bud? What mind can reflect on the existing evils in this neighbourhood, without lamenting their alarming extent? And when we add, that not only do these evils exist, but that there is every prospect of their being perpetuated two-fold in the next generation, unless something be done to arrest their progress, we feel assured nothing more is necessary to call in the assistance of the Christian Philanthropist, than the mere statement of the fact that a Ragged School is in existence.

The Provisional Committee have procured a large room in Grovelane, New Cut, where youths from the age of six to eighteen, will be taught the simple rudiments oflearning, savoured with the purity of the gospel of Christ, and that by men and women whose object will be to raise their degenerated mental and moral condition to the high standard of Christian principles, so that these youths, in whose appearance may be read their future depraved career, may not be altogether without a way of escape.

The above premises were formerly occupied by a set of strolling

theatricals, who introduced before the youthful mind (at the charge of one penny,) demoralizing scenes that only served to sink them lower in guilt, whereas now-mark the contrast !-they will be directed to Him who died to expiate the sin of fallen man, and raise him to the diguified character of heir of the kingdom of God. With such a work in hand, we do not fear the failure of God's help, but we do ask those who have the means, to come forward by their prayers, their subscriptions, and personal assistance, to the help of the Lord against the mighty, that thus the den of thieves may be turned into a house of prayer.'

This appeal has been but coldly responded to, powerful and practical though it be. We lately visited the school, which was only open one evening in the week, and on Sundays. There was no want of scholars, we learned; the ragged were generally glad to attend; and many instances were related to us of the great good already effected by this very partial experiment. But the funds were far too scanty to maintain it in daily operation. As to the religious instruction imparted, it was altogether left, we found, to voluntary effort. The Church had given no encouragement. No clergyman had taken the trouble to go near them. The only satisfaction we could obtain upon this head, was, that they were visited occasionally by the City Mission. Our conversation upon the subject was held with a pious shopkeeper in the neighbourhood of the school, one of its founders, and who evidently had the object much at heart. But he was a dissenter: no churchman, that we could find, had taken the slightest interest in a project so full of Christian charity.

It has often occurred to us, whilst contemplating these accumulations of grossest ignorance and immorality, that there must be many endowed asylums where such utterly destitute little ones might be, nay ought to be received, despite their raggedness and their dirtiness-whose very rags and filthiness, indeed, give them the strongest possible claim to become the recipients of such charities; that there are many free grammar schools too, to which the poorest of the poor have the first right of admission. But from all these the ragged are studiously excluded, The tradesman who is well to do, nay, many a one who has not only a competence but considerable wealth, finds it easy to get his children gratuitously educated, and often lodged, and fed, and clothed, and otherwise provided for besides, whilst the really poor man would be laughed to scorn, did he presume to assert his claim to participate in what, after all, was expressly designed for the really poor. Even Christ's Hospital, and several kindred institutions, as well as endowed charity schools without end, in all parts of the metropolis, are shamefully abused in this respect.

The importance of such institutions, in the present emergency, is not altogether overlooked in the Minutes of the Committee of