Sunday-school to make out what is deficient in their education. Now, the Sunday-school is invaluable as a means of religious instruction and impression; but it cannot supply the place of the day-school. In the Sunday-school, indeed, your children are taught to read the best of books, and to reverence and improve the Lord's day; they are taught the precious truths of religion: would that they generally remembered the lessons they learn there! But the Sunday-school is not intended to teach writing, or arithmetic, or grammar, or geography; and unless your children are able at least to write and cast accounts, their education is exceedingly defective. In these days they will scarcely be considered as educated at all.

The smallest quantity of education that working men should be satisfied with for their children is, that they should be able to read well, write well, and to keep plain accounts easily. Less than this is almost worthless. because it is soon forgot. What a person cannot do without difficulty he will seldom do at all. An indifferent reader or a poor writer will have no pleasure in reading or writing: he will, therefore, neglect to practise them, and in a short time he will have forgot them as completely as if he had never learned. All the money and time spent on his education will have been quite thrown away. He may be said never to have possessed the key of knowledge; or if he had it, the key was so rusty that it would not open the lock. He remains outside the door; and if he does not by great effort make up for the defects of his schooling, at a Mechanics' Institution or elsewhere, he will be excluded all his life long from the pleasant paths and fields of knowledge. It is to be feared that, 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 through

out 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 had sown and watered perishes just when it appears above ground. A farmer might as reasonably mow his wheat in the spring. There is 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.

No doubt the temptation is sometimes strong The boy 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 twopence, fourpence, or sixpence a week, according to the branches of learning which the children are taught. For sixpence a week an education may now be obtained superior to that which most tradesmen of the present day have received. For twopence a week a child may learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and something of geogra phy. 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

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paying the school fees in counties where the wages are not more than seven or eight shillings 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. 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 dayschool?" He replied, "All!" I asked again, "What payment do they make?" He answered, "Threepence 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.

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 brokenhearted 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 the alemoney 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 by the working people themselves, out of a small part of the savings rescued from intemperance and vice!

Working men! would not it be worth while? At all events, don't go to the public-house this evening, but go home and turn it over in your minds what a glorious people we should have in this England of ours, if they would all give up intoxicating drink.

crown.

But if you have the power, is it not your duty? Indeed it is. The dear children whom God has given you, brought into the world with them claims on your affection and care as strong as your own heart-strings. The first piteous cry of your helpless infant says in the ears of every thinking father and mother," Feed me, clothe me, educate me." The very animals in a sense educate, as well as protect and feed, their young. The hen teaches her chickens to find food, and the mother-eagle teaches her eaglets to fly. But to you is committed as much nobler a charge, as your little ones have superior natures. Within each breast lies a spirit that has angel's wings, now folded up in the ignorance and feebleness of infancy, but which knowledge will expand and cause to soar towards heaven. And that spirit is given into your care. Yes, as sure as the body is. You are responsible for it, at least till the period of education is over, with an honourable, an awful, a heavenimposed responsibility. God has said to you, "Take this child, and nurse it for me." He will demand it at your hands another day. That the intellectual and immortal nature entrusted to your care is weak and erring, is as strong a claim on your affectionate anxiety as that it is noble. You are bound to protect it from evil, as much as to train it in what is good. Now, how can this be done but by education? And that education should not be so imperfect that it will be lost in less time than it was gained; but a wellgrounded education, that will at least give sure possession of the key of knowledge, and will give something more, namely, an acquaintance with the laws of God and the rule of duty. No conscientious parent can feel that he has done his duty, till he has given such

But the education of children is no less the interest of parents than it is their duty. God always connects duty with happiness, as well as neglect of duty with suffering. Sometimes the connection is not immediate, and is not even experienced in this life. But in the matter of education the reward or punishment follows very close upon the discharge or the neglect of parental duty. Children may either be the greatest blessing to parents, or their greatest shame and sorrow. In a few years, or even a few months, father and mother reap what they have sown. If they have diligently and prudently watched over their children, and given them the advantages of a good dayschool and Sunday - school, there is every human probability that the children will be intelligent, well-conducted, dutiful, honest, sober, industrious, a credit amongst their neighbours, growing up in good habits and a good name, and a stay to their parents in sickness and old age. If, on the contrary, the children should have been allowed to range the streets and keep such company as they find there, with little or no schooling, and with no domestic discipline, they will naturally grow up ignorant, rude, undutiful, profane, intemperate, idle, and vicious-a torment and disgrace to their parents, and continuing so to their dying day. Every street of every town and village will prove that these pictures are drawn from the life.

When the importance of sending children to school is urged, it is not meant that this is every thing. There must be unceasing care at home, attention to temper and manners, and a constant recollection that a mother and father teach more by their own example than by all the precepts they can give.

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

distinctly traceable. The zoophites became crustacea and molluscs, dogfishes and herrings; the dog-fish, a low placoid, shot up chiefly into turbot, cod, and ling; but the smaller osseous fish was gradually converted into a batrachian reptile; in short, the herring became a frog-an animal that still testifies to its ichthyological origin, by commencing his life as a fish. Gradually, in the course of years, the reptile expanding in size, and improving in faculty, passed into a warm-blooded porpoise; the porpoise, at length tiring of the water as he began to know better, quitted it altogether, and became a monkey; and the monkey, by slow degrees, improved into man-yes, my friend, into man!"-p. 210. So that man, according to the development hypothesis, is the son of the monkey, grandson of the porpoise, great grandson of the frog, great great grandson of the herring, great great great grandson of the mussel, and the great great great great grandson of the sea-pen! Who that respects our common nature would not rather believe all the wonders of Revelation, than accept a system of degradation like this?

ORIGIN OF THE ARTS.

THE late learned and amiable Dr. John Pye Smith has observed, that "the whole Scripture narrative plainly represents the DEITY himself as condescending to assume a human form, and to employ human speech, in order to instruct and exercise the happy creatures whom he created for incorruptibility, and made an image of his own nature. The only plausible objection to this is, that the condescension is too great, an objection which can be no other than a presumptuous limiting of the Divine goodness. It was the voice of reason which burst through the, trammels of an infidel philosophy, when the celebrated German, Fichte, wrote, Who, then, educated the first human pair? A Spirit bestowed his care upon them, as is laid down in an ancient and venerable original record, which, taken altogether, contains the profoundest and the loftiest wisdom, and presents those results to which all philosophy must at last return. The

noble and sublime idea that man had thus his Maker for his teacher and guide, precludes a thousand difficulties. It shows us the simple, direct, and effectual method by which the newlyformed creature would have communicated to him all the intellectual knowledge and all the practical arts and manipulations which were needful and beneficial for him. The universal management of the garden in Eden eastward (Gen. ii 8), the treatment of the soil, the use of water, the various trainings of the plants and trees, the operations for insuring future produce, the necessary implements, and the way of using them; all these must have been included in the words, to dress it and keep it,' ver. 15. To have gained these attainments and habits without any instructions previous or concomitant, would have required the experience of men in society and co-operation for many years, with innumerable anxious experiments, and often the keenest disappointment. If we suppose that the first man and woman continued in their primitive state but even a few weeks, they must have required some tools for dressing and keeping the gardens; but if not, the condition of their children, when severe labour for subsistence became necessary, presented an obvious and undeniable need. They could not do well without iron instruments. Iron, the most useful and the most widely diffused of all the metals, cannot be brought into a serviceable state without processes and instruments which it seems impossible to imagine could have been first possessed, except in the way of supernatural communication. It would, in all reasonable estimation, have required the difficulties and the experience of some centuries, for men to have discovered the means of raising a sufficient heat, and the use of fluxes; and had that step been gained, the fused iron would not have answered the purposes wanted. To render it malleable and ductile, it must be beaten, at a white heat, by long continued strokes of prodigious hammers. To make iron (as is the technical term) requires previous iron. If it be said that the first iron used by man was native metallic iron, of which masses have been found, the reply is,