manent income. The labour of Great Britain is absorbed by a comparatively few. Their income is large, and the streams of wealth and liberal expenditure being large, the riches of the country are rated accordingly. But the nation is none the richer for this unequal distribution of income. England no longer appears so rich, if you divide her wealth by her population: other countries will excel her in wealth by that rule. The industry of the people is deeply mortgaged to produce this result. Masses of labourers are kept in hopeless poverty and dependence; they are allowed the scantiest subsistence which will support life, that high taxes and high rents may be paid, and that goods may be manufactured at prices so low as to secure them a market throughout the world. So long as this system is maintained, there can indeed be no amelioration of the bondage of the poor, whose labour must go to make up this large annual product; and it is because no suggestion of any change in this system is tolerated,

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AMELIORATION IMPLIES NO ROBBERY.

that the lot of the poor seems so hopeless in the eyes of Englishmen.

the

Such a policy, whether constructed upon wisdom of this world or not, cannot be regarded in the light of Christian truth, without utter detestation. It is a duty from which Christians cannot escape, to search for the best mode of raising their brethren from this political degradation. The amelioration sought implies neither revolution, bloodshed, nor robbery: it demands adequate remuneration for labour: it implies that the bones and sinews of the people must not be sacrificed to that infatuation for foreign commerce which subjects them to the competition of the whole world. Great Britain presses her goods upon the markets of the world, and keeps prices everywhere at a rate ruinous to industry: she keeps the price of labour at home at such a point as leaves the labourer no choice but death or the offered wages: she keeps hosts of unemployed and starving labourers always pressing on the labour market, or working at a point between

life and death, to sustain that commercial system which is absorbing the vitals of the country. Let Great Britain add five pounds each to the annual wages of ten millions of her poor operatives, and it will add fifty millions sterling to her trade, because the whole sum will be expended at home, in a way far more beneficial to that country than any operation of foreign trade.

(If English Protestants have in three centuries weeded out the errors and superstitions of Romanism; if they have searched the Scriptures and sifted from them the whole truth, and formed a system of Christian theology by which they can abide, it is time they should bear the fruits of Christian profession so enlightened. It is time they should exemplify the doctrines of their Master, and hold up that exemplification in the display of England's greatness before the world. This is what is needed to send Christianity with rapid pace round the world. Let those deeds of charity which are the legitimate fruit of a

truly Christian spirit, be exhibited in England according to the urgency of that poverty which calls for them, and according to the beauty of that example which was set by Him who went about continually ministering to the wants of the poor, and the missionary need only take the Bible in his hands and point to this happy fulfilment of its precepts, to insure among every people a ready obedience to its injunctions. How can English Christians preach Christ successfully throughout the world, whilst myriads of her own people are left to pine in ignorance, in want and utter destitution? Can these be followers of Christ, that permit this?-must be asked, not only by the heathen abroad, but by the skeptic or worldling at home. Every individual Christian of Great Britain is bound to do all that he can, by his hand, his mind, his voice and estate, to relieve and enlighten the poor, presently and permanently; so, in like manner, is the whole community of British Christians bound to exert their united ener

gies and means for the same end.

Nothing

less can acquit their obligations or fulfil their duties.

The Christians of Great Britain, if actuated by this spirit, could with ease guide the counsels of the nation: they would find many, very many, who now decline a profession of Christianity, prompt to engage with them in this great work, and ready to say, This, indeed, convinces us of the reality and truth of your religion. The solution of that problem which involves the social and religious elevation of the poor can never be reached by mere human wisdom; but British Christians, individually and in mass, are not the less bound to apply themselves to the task because it seems gigantic and above their knowledge; the effort is as necessary for their spiritual welfare as it is for the elevation of the poor. Every question of human well-being is solved directly or indirectly in the instructions left us by Christ. Every man is his steward; and