hands of Judas, could take the money out of the treasury to bribe Judas to betray his Lord, and could put that Lord to death, without any compunctions of conscience within them. In this manner, you see, it comes to pass, that men will be scrupulous to the extreme about something ceremonial, at the very time that they are carrying into effect immoral and wicked purposes without the slightest misgiving" straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel."

Then again, no Pharisee would be seen, on any conceivable ground, to sit down at the board and partake of his meal without having washed his hands especially for the purpose. It was part of his religion so to do. But while he was careful about not partaking of his meal with unwashen hands, he thought nothing of the defilement of heart that was overlooked. I can easily conceive, that were I expounding things of this kind to the children by your fire-side, one of them, without being particularly acute, might be heard to say, 'Really, Sir, that was a very cheap mode of being religious-to be allowed to make clean hands do, without having a clean heart;' and yet, though this is a thing so obvious, that a child's unsophisticated mind might be thought to detect it, it is by that sort of formalism, that grey-headed bigots have allowed themselves to be deceived in all nations and in all times.

Then look, again, for illustration, at the case of the good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite, who saw the poor wounded man expiring by the way-side, and who passed by and left him to die, are meant by the Saviour to represent to us the man of ceremonial observances, built up in the visible institutions of religion, and feeling himself released from every thing beyond. Not only was it the case, that they neglected duty in the impression that the party was not a "neighbour" of theirs, but the Samaritans were a people subject to the sentence of excommunication, and as the consequence of being put under that ban the Jews had no dealings with them; and thus it would become a part of a man's religion, if he saw a Samaritan expiring by the way-side, to pass by and not render assistance. And thus you see how the institutes of religion, the forms of worship, may be worked up into a kind of machinery, the tendency of which, instead of being to bring generosity and benevolence into the souls of men, may be to destroy the very instincts of piety and compassion.

So, again, with regard to the Sabbath day. Christ performed His works of mercy upon the Sabbath day. The Pharisees complained that He had so done, and said that there were six days on which men ought to labour, and on them they should come and be healed and not on the Sabbath day. They looked upon the particular mode in which they observed the day as being religion; forgetting that the end for which the Sabbath was appointed at all, just as the end for which any visible institute of religion is appointed at all, is not that it may be observed, but that it may be observed in order that the ignorant may be instructed and the depraved become holy. This was so forgotten, that the benevolence, for the sake of which in part the Sabbath was instituted, as they saw it exercised by the Saviour in His works of mercy, went with them as for nothing, compared with their own superstitious mode of attending to the sanctity of that day.

I remember reading, not long ago, in one of our popular works of literature, an imaginary scene, which the writer presented, between Louis XIV. and his Confessor. Louis XIV. was described as a great and a glorious monarch-(he was a great monster in many things, and a great monster of cruelty in some of his wars) -and the author has represented a confession made by his Majesty. He had committed great cruelties in relation to some defenceless people, occupying certain districts of territory and certain towns that he overran with fire and sword and destruction; but the confessor easily releases the royal conscience from inquietude about that, for they were all heretics, and nothing that happened to them in such a form could be looked upon as other than coming as a just scourge from the judg ment of God. But his Majesty during that campaign had been somewhat unobservant of the forms of his Church-taking flesh in Lent and some little matters of that kind—and these come into the catalogue of confession; and as they do, the confessor becomes grave-awfully grave, as to the forgiveness of these. And then there are certain penances prescribed to his Majesty; a royal softness indeed pervades them, but still there are penances that must be gone through, in order that these delinquencies may be blotted out. There may be thought to be some extravagance in this; but I believe, that the thing is a kind of thing, which the wickedness of the human heart has permitted to prevail to a fearful extent, in regard to the moral being thrust aside and made nothing of, in comparison with the

institution; so that the man (as I said before) will "strain at a gnat and swallow a camel."

There follows from this, further, I may say, the tendency of formalism to dispose men to make use of power, when they possess it, in the way of persecution. If time permitted one to go into this matter, it would be easy to show this; but there is one point, that may suffice perhaps for the purpose. It is manifest to any one acquainted with the history of it, that the great amount of persecution that has taken place in the world, has been persecution in order to secure conformity and compliance with forms; that is, a perpetuating of formalism. The great point has been, to induce persons to concur with an existing course of things-to conform to that which has been set up and established, and which is observed generally; and provided they are content to do that, a licence of a large amount has been at once conceded to them in almost every other error. Now how natural is it, that this should be mischievous! It leaves men in a state of ignorance; their minds are not brought under discipline, so that they may know what is just and proper. It leaves their hearts, again, in a state of depravity; so that there is all the influence of unsubdued passions, to prompt man to violence for the sake of his objects. Besides, these forms are to the formalist what the laws, or the machinery and government of a kingdom, may be said to be to those who preside over it; they are the established things, by means of which the formalist gets his worldly reputation, his worldly power, his worldly emolument, and other things beside; they constitute the machinery of his religious kingdom, and any one who shall break in upon these by denouncing them as being what they really are, to calculate upon his wrath and indignation as the consequence.

has

I would only say, further, that the mischiefs of formality, in relation to this department of the subject, are obvious, inasmuch as from all these causes occasion arises to the enemy of religion to blaspheme. There are certain great principles of the true and the just, that are even anterior to or independent of the revelation of God. We are not allowed by the hand of God to have fallen into such a condition, as to be insensible to the fact, that to utter truth is more honourable and proper than to utter falsehood, and that to do as we would be done by is certainly more what ought to be than to do the opposite of that. God, in His great mercy, depraved as our nature is, lost as it is to all fitness for another world, has not suffered it to become so lost to ideas and feelings of social justice and social truth, as to be insensible to these things. But when a man becomes a professor of religion, and in place of adding to the Christian character "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report," he is found to forget those admitted principles of the just and the proper, which even the worldly man, who does not receive the Gospel, is prepared to acknowledge, what can be the conclusion? Christ saw the mischief in His time. He told these Pharisees, that they could "compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he was made, they made him twofold more the child of hell" than before; that is, the very morality of heathenism became corrupted, through the influence of a false profession of revealed religion. And wherever this is the case, what must follow? Who make the infidels, my brethren, but in a very great measure the parties, who rail at them the most bitterly when they are made-your proud, immoral, religious formalists-men who set up their high pretensions as to their religious connections and the like, but who do not carry along with them that sense of the true and the just, which an honourable man of the world knows how to respect? Tell me not about any profession of religion, in connection with any formal observances, that allows the man to become comparatively heedless about the great principles of the just and the true and the honourable.

2. Then there is the mischief of this formalism, as it regards "the love of God." But at this hour I can only say, that you must at once perceive how it operates in this direction, inasmuch as it serves to detain the mind in a state of ignorance in regard to the Divine nature, so as to exclude the love of God. And then, again, it leaves the heart in its subjection to all the depraved passions-the dominion of sin natural to it in its fallen state; and thus the love of God is shut out. In proportion as men are concentrating their attention upon such things as tithing mint and rue and all manner of herbs," in place of directing their eyes inward to ascertain what they are, and upward to ascertain the character of God, the understanding must be left in a state of gross darkness; and it is in vain to expect that men should love God until they know Him-glorify Him until they know His

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character, and can so apprehend His nature, as to perceive that there is a greatness in it to be revered, and a goodness in it to be loved, and a truth in it to be trusted, and the like. The degree in which a man becomes acquainted with the Divine character, is of course the degree in which he becomes acquainted with reasons for which he ought to love God; but the effect of formalism is to keep him away from such investigation, and to fasten the mind down in (as it were) à stereotype state of ignorance and alienation.

The effect of all this is a state of self-deception of the most fearful kind. When we describe the religion of the formalist to be the thing we have now depicted-a description, you will remember, that is borne out completely by the account that Christ himself gives of the formalism of His own age-we do not mean to say, that each man, in whom it is possible for you to see this spirit in its ascendancy, is himself aware that it carries with it all this evil; but the process, by means of which he has arrived at the conclusion he has reached, is not for that cause an innocent one. He has contracted guilt, by closing his eyes against the light, and shutting his heart against impression. By degrees he has worked himself on to the conclusion, at which he has arrived; obliged (as I have said) to obey the promptings, which will not allow him to be altogether without any religion, but then obeying also the impulse which has taught him to put a false religion in the place of the true, a corrupted Christianity in the place of the Christianity which enlightens and saves the soul. And the effect of this deception is such, that the mind may become confident to the highest degree in its safety. Christ has permitted us on one occasion to stand as by the gate of heaven-to mark who they are that go up and seek admission-to watch as they knock-and to listen as the answer comes from within. And for what is all this? It is that we may see these formalists go up to the gate, and ascertain the sort of reception they find when they get there. They go, and they knock, and they say, Lord, Lord, open to us.' And the voice from within answers "I know you not, whence you are." But there is a response from them-" We have eaten and drunk in Thy presence, and Thou hast taught in our streets; we have prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name done many wonderful works"-(formalists, you will mark, in the early Church; all these things had occurred in their history; they were among the most distinguished of early professors). But He from within answers again-" I tell you, I know you not whence you are; depart from Me, all ye workers of iniquity." The grace that delivers the soul from the dominion of sin is not theirs; and that being wanted, all is wanted. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

And now I can suppose, that I have been delivering these observations freely in the presence of some, who will be ready to say-'Ah! it is just as I say; a set of hypocrites and bigots altogether.' No, it is not as you say. They are not all hypocrites, they are not all bigots. "The excellent of the earth" belong to the Church still. And nothing could have saved Christianity from the loathing of mankind and from utter destruction, in the midst of so much of the kind that I have now described, but the fact that along with all this there has ever been the manifestation of the truth of the Gospel in the genuine morality and the genuine piety of the sincere professors of the Gospel of Christ. And if you are in danger of having your minds strengthened or fortified in a state of opposition to religion, by looking at the vices of formalism and the mischiefs it occasions, then be honest; be open to facts that speak for the Gospel, as you perhaps know you are to facts that seem to speak against it. If the hypocrisy of the hypocrite had a tendency to strengthen your scepticism, let the piety of the really good have its effect in bringing you to truth and to God. Oh! my hearers, be sure of it-this hallowed Book gives no sanction to any of those vices of formalism. Of all the books our world has seen, there is no one admitting a comparison to this, as to the graphic force with which it points out the abominations of this vice, at the same time that it presents to us the nature of true religion as it is. Think on these things, my friends; and learn to distinguish between things that differ. Look at formalism, so as to be aware of its errors, to discountenance it wherever you see it, to guard against it in yourselves; but take care, in discarding the form of godliness, that you do not abandon the power of it. "These things ought ye to have done, and not

to leave the other undone."

ON THE

STATE OF ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

IN THE

MANUFACTURING DISTRICTS.

BY THE HON. & REV. BAPTIST W. NOEL.

ADDRESSED TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORDS OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION.

Walthamstow, October 21, 1840. My Lords, Having been instructed by your lordships to obtain what information I might be able, on the state of elementary education in Birmingham, and in some of the great towns of Lancashire, visited Birmingham on Wednesday, July 8; and from that day, till September 8, I continued to prosecute my educational inquiries in that town, and in the principal towns of the cotton district. In those two months I visited 195 schools; of which 42 were in Birmingham, 26 in Manchester and Salford, 52 in Liverpool, and the rest in Stockport, Warrington, Hyde, Ashton, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Wigan, and Preston; 146 of these schools were day-schools of various kinds, and 49 were Sunday-schools. Having no authority from your lordships to inspect any school officially, I owed my introduction to these schools to the kindness of the patrons, and of the members of school Committees, from whom in general I received the greatest civility, and who were in almost every instance ready to facilitate my inquiries. In Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Salford, and Bury, my investigations were much assisted by the extensive and minute information which has been furnished in the printed Reports of the Manchester and Birmingham Statistical Societies. Their laborious and systematic examinations had collected an amount of facts, which it would have been impossible for me to obtain in the short space of time which I could devote to this object: and both from the statements of various gentlemen with whom I conversed, and from the comparison of numbers reported in their pages to be attending at various schools, with the numbers which I myself counted at those schools, on the occasion of my visit to each, I was enabled to judge that their reports were favourable to the existing schools. In two National-schools, reported to contain 220 boys and 104 girls, I found 170 boys and 76 girls: in another, where the reported number of children was 190, I found 67: another, said to have 94 girls, mustered on the day of my visit 50: and in several other schools I found the actual numbers inferior to the reported numbers.

The Report for Manchester was made in the year 1834; those for Salford and Bury followed in 1835; that for Liverpool was published in 1836; and that for Birmingham was written in 1838. Since the publication of the Reports there has been some increase of schools in each of the towns; but as the population of each town has also grown, the proportion of scholars to the whole population in each of these places cannot materially differ from the proportion which was found to subsist at the time of the Reports. They enable us therefore to ascertain, with considerable precision, the proportion of the educated and uneducated in each of those towns at the present time: and as the towns of the cotton district generally are by no means more advanced in education than the towns reported on, they enable us further to judge of the amount of education in the cotton district generally.

The combined population of these five towns is above 685,000: assuming, therefore, that in a healthy state of society the children between the ages of five and and fifteen ought generally to be at school, about 171,250, or one-fourth, ought to be under instruction. But the actual number between those two ages under

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instruction is only 96,974; so that 74,267 children, between those two ages, are left totally without instruction in those five towns alone.

But as it may be doubted by some persons, whether the whole juvenile population from five years of age to fifteen, can in any state of society enjoy the advantages of education, it may be more useful to compare the numbers educated in these towns with the numbers receiving education in several other countries. The proportion of scholars to the whole population in six States of the American Union is said to be as follows.-Maine (1833) 1 to 3; New Hampshire 1 to 3; New York (1834) 1 to 3.6; Massachusetts (1833) 1 to 4; Vermont (1831) 1 to 4; Ohio (1833) 1 to 4. The proportion in eight countries or provinces of Europe, though not so great, is still said to be as follows:-Thurgovia (1832) 1 to 48; Zurich (1832) 1 to 5; Argovid (1832) 1 to 5.3; Bohemia (1833) 1 to 5.7; Prussia (1838) 1 to 6; Baden (1830) 1 to 6; Drenthe (1835) 1 to 6; and Saxony 1 in 6. Thus in six States of the American Union, one-fourth of the whole population is under instruction; and in eight countries or provinces of Europe one-sixth; and if the children of England are not to be educated less than those of the Continental nations, one-sixth of the whole population should be also found in schools here. Upon the first inspection of the Statistical Reports this indeed appears to have been the case; for instead of one-sixth of the population of the five towns, or 114,166 being reported to be in their various schools, there are 122,758 gathered into them. But while the one-sixth reported to be under instruction in these various Continental states are all in day-schools, these 122,758 are distributed in different schools in the following proportion :-36,033 attend dame or common schools only; 48,966 attend Sunday-schools only; 10,236 are in superior schools; and 27,523 are in public elementary schools for the working classes.

In all the large towns of the cotton districts which I visited, the Sunday-schools are well attended, and the dame and common schools are numerous; but all of them, with the exception of Preston, are exceedingly deficient in public dayschools.

Ashton-under-Lyne, which had, in 1831, 11,720 inhabitants, and has since rapidly increased, has not one public infant-school or day-school; and the chapelry of Oldham, which, in 1831, contained 50,573 inhabitants, has three infant-schools, and one endowed school for 100 boys, who are nominated from the parish of Prestwick, and various neighbouring parishes, but has not one elementary day-school for the children of the chapelry.

The amount, then, of instruction in the great cotton towns generally is probably not greater than that in the five towns examined by the Statistical Societies. One nineteenth part of the population may be found in dame and common schools only; one-fourteenth in Sunday-schools only; and about one twenty-fifth in public elementary schools of all kinds.

Having made this rapid sketch of the amount of instruction in the cotton district, and especially in five great manufacturing towns, I beg now to direct the attention of your lordships to the quality of the instruction thus given.

Of 122,758 in the five towns, 49,413 are instructed in dame and common schools; 22,290 being in dame schools, 17,123 in common schools; of these numbers 16,245 attend dame-schools only, and 19,748 attend common schools only; and on the whole, 13,380 attend Sunday-schools as well as dame and conmon schools, while 36,033 attend dame and common schools only.

The instruction received in dame-schools is represented by the Statistical Reports to be of the most unsatisfactory kind in each of the five towns, as may be seen by the following extracts :

"Taking into consideration," says the Birmingham Report, "the extreme youth of the children attending these schools, together with the meagre amount of instruction, the total absence of properly qualified teachers, and the general impression which prevails among them, that the children are only sent to be kept out of the way, there will be some danger of over-estimating their value, if they are set down as a whole, as representing much more than nurseries, where children of the working classes are taken care of."

In Liverpool, "with few exceptions, the dame schools are dark and confined;