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duties of committees, none are more constant in their attendance upon public meetings; others, again, weary themselves in their weekly rounds to collect the contributions of the rich or the offerings of the poor. These things, if they do not lead them coolly to reason and to conclude that they are believers, take off their attention from the real condition of their souls, leave them no leisure for reflection, repress the rising fear, and either stifle the voice of conscience, or enable them to drown its remonstrances in the eloquence of the platform or in the discussion of the committee-room. We doubt not that some unworthy professors of religion, in the present age, resort to public meetings for the same reason as many a guilty votary of pleasure does to public amusements,-to forget his own condition, and to turn away his ear, for a short season, from the voice that speaks to him from within. Individuals are known to us all, who, amidst the greatest zeal for various public institutions, are living in malice and all uncharitableness, in the indulgence of a predominant selfishness and uncontrolled wrath. But it will not do. This is not piety. Could we support the whole expenditure of the Missionary Society by our affluence, and direct its counsels by our wisdom, and keep alive its energy by our ardour, and yet at the same time were destitute of love, we should perish eternally, amidst the munificence of our liberality."

"Mammon, or Covetousness, the Sin of the Christian Church, by the Rev John Harris, author of The Great Teacher."

This was a vigorous effort of an English divine to bring the sins of the English churches against charity to their notice. It was a prize essay, and made a strong impression on the public mind. It partakes, however, of the same defects as the work of Mr. James-it does not cover the whole ground; because, doubtless, the author did not contemplate so large a task. A few extracts will give its tone:

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"It is clear, then, that the entire economy of salvation is constructed on the principle of restoring to the world the lost spirit of love. Its advent was an era in the universe." "It was confronting selfishness in its own native region with a system of benevolence prepared, as its avowed antagonist, by the hand of God itself."-P. 27. "But has its object been realized? more than 1800 years have elapsed since it was brought into operation-has its design succeeded. Succeeded! Alas! the question seems a taunt, a mockery. . . But why is it thus? why has the gospel been hitherto threatened with the failure of a mere business experiment?"-P. 28. Speaking of the success of the earliest preachers of Christianity: "The world was taken by surprise-never before had it beheld such men-every thing gave way before them-city after city, and province after province capitulated-yet the whole secret of their power was love." "A fire had been kindled in the earth which consumed the selfishness of men wherever it came."-P. 30. . . . "But who does not feel that the era of effective benevolence has yet to commence? Let him sketch the most simple scheme of benevolence which the gospel can approve, and he will perceive

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at every step that he is writing the condemnation of the church."-238 "The great lesson taught by our Lord's voluntary selection of a state of poverty is yet to be fully understood, the evident application of many plain passages of Scripture to be made, doctrines startling to selfishness to become familiar and welcome, the word benevolence itself to be differently understood, the demon of covetousness to be cast out of the church, and the whole economy of benevolence to be revised."-239.

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"Every nation has its idol. In some countries that idol is pleasure; in others, glory; in others, liberty: but the name of our idol (in Great Britain) is mammon." If it be true that each succeeding age has its representative; that it beholds itself reflected in some leading school, and impresses its image on the philosophy of the day, where shall we look for the image of the existing age, but in our systems of political economy."-80.... "Mammon is marching through the land in triumph."-81. "To the same unhallowed spirit of gain is to be traced that fierce competition,' of which the labourer, the artisan, the dealer, the manufacturer, and even the members of all the liberal professions alike complain." . "But when it rises to a struggle in which neither time nor strength is left for higher pursuits, in which every new competitor is looked upon in the light of an enemy, in which every personal exertion and practicable retrenchment do but barely leave a subsistence, there must be something essentially wrong in our ruling spirit or social constitution."-83. . . . "And on all hands it is admitted that the way in which business is now conducted, involves all the risk, uncertainty, and unnatural excitement of a game of chance."-84. Edit. Am. Tract Soc. 7.

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Three prize tracts on Benevolence or Christianity, have been recently published by the American Tract Society, entitled as follows: The Divine Law of Beneficence, by Rev. Parsons Cook, Lynn.

Zaccheus, or the Scriptural Plan of Benevolence, by Rev. Samuel Harris, Conway, Massachusetts.

The Mission of the Church, or Systematic Beneficence, by Rev. Edward A. Lawrence, Marblehead.

These tracts have great merit, but are confined to urging liberality in support of the various Christian enterprises of the day, and to the propriety of systematic appropriations of a regular portion of our incomes to charitable purposes. They are really good as far as they go, but fall short of developing the great principle of love to God and man as the motive of all giving to religious objects. Their tendency is more to make giving a business, to foster habits of giving, than to plant that deep spirit of Christian sympathy which promptly, spontaneously offers the needful aid, the sustaining hand, the cup of cold water, without staying to consult the state of the charitable fund, or acting from the impulse of a regular habit.

ON THE ENGLISH POOR-LAWS, AND THE LITERATURE TO WHICH THEY

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If the English Church has abjured all charge of the poor, neither feeding them, nor lodging them, nor clothing them, nor visiting them in prison, nor administering the cup of cold water to the thirsty; if English libraries furnish, neither by churchman, nor statesman, nor philanthropist, any complete treatise upon Christian Charity, the language is by no means deficient in literature of the poor; we mean, not poor literature, nor literature for the poor, but literature of the "Poorlaws." When the English civil authorities assumed the charge of the poor, whom the Church rejected, they undertook a most dangerous and difficult task, as the whole history of their poor-administration proves. We do not say it would have been done better by any other authorities, for we admit it was the most difficult undertaking ever assumed by civil authorities. The management of the poor in England has given birth to volumes of legislative enactments, volumes of judicial decisions on questions as to whether a pauper belonged to one parish or another, as to what sort of residence constituted a claim to relief, as to which parish the burden of the pauper belonged to, and which should be exempted from affording any aid; volumes upon the most economical mode of feeding and keeping these burdens of the parishes; volumes on the history of the poor-laws and their administration; on the management of the poor; on their employment, on workhouses, on the history of the poor, and on the poor-rates. This literature is unique-there is no parallel to it in any country. It exhibits a constant series of writers struggling against the whole system, disgusted with it, or approving it only as an inevitable evil without remedy; but all unable to rise to the Christian solution of the subject. The Protestants of England had absolutely lost sight of the relations between Christianity and poverty, and numberless humane writers were racking their brains during centuries to find some plan or theory in regard to the poor which might meet the object and quiet disturbed consciences. But no solution appeared, and the evil continually increased. We may characterize the actual state of the poor and the legislation for the poor during nearly the whole of this period by the following extract from a work of the highest authority, "The History of the Poor Laws," by Richard Burn, L.L. D. 1 vol. 8vo. London, 1764.

"THE OFFICE OF AN OVERSEER OF THE POOR seems to be understood to be this: To keep an extraordinary lookout to prevent persons coming to inhabit [his parish] without certificates, and to fly to the justices to remove them; and if a man brings a certificate, then to caution all the inhabitants not to let him a farm of £10 a year, [which would give him a settlement in the parish,] and to take care to keep him out of all parish offices; to warn them, if they will hire servants, to hire them half-yearly, or by the month, or by the week, or by the day, rather than by any way that shall give them a settlement [which entitles them to relief in case of their becoming poor;] or, if they do hire them for a year, then to try and pick a quarrel with them before the year's end, and so to get rid of them. To maintain their poor as cheaply as possibly they can, at all events; not to lay out twopence in prospect of any future good, but only to serve the present necessity. To bargain with some sturdy person to take them by the lump, who yet is not intended to take them, but to hang over them in terrorem, if they shall complain to the justices for want of maintenance. To send them out into the country abegging; for why not they, as well as others? To bind out poor children apprentices, no matter to whom or to what trade, so that the master live in another parish. To move heaven and earth, if any dispute happens about a settlement, and, in that particular, to invert the general rule, and stick at no expense. To pull down cottages. To drive out as many inhabitants and admit as few as possibly they can; that is, to depopulate the parish in order to lessen the poor-rate. To be generous indeed, in sometimes giving a portion with the mother of a bastard child to the reputed father, on condition that he will marry her [and support her;] or with a poor widow, for why should she be without the comforts of matrimony?—always provided that the husband is settled in another parish. Or, if a poor man with a large family appears to be industrious, they will charitably assist him in taking a farm in another parish at £10 a year, and give him the money to pay his first year's rent; and if any of the poor have a mercantile genius, they will purchase him a box of pins, needles, laces, buckles, and such-like wares, and send him abroad in the quality of a petty chapman: with the profits thereof, and a moderate knack at stealing, he can decently support himself, and educate his children in the same industrious way."-Page 211.

A CATALOGUE OF SOME ENGLISH WORKS ON THE POOR-LAWS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATION, AND ON THE POOR.

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Proposals for a College of Industry, by John Bellers,

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Considerations on Better Management of the Poor, 4to.......

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Of the Care of the Poor in most Civilized Nations, by Richard

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Causes of the Increase of the Poor, by Josiah Tucker, 4to..
Letters on the Rising Generation of the Labouring Part of our

Fellow-subjects, by Jonas Hanway, 2 vols. 8vo.

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A Dissertation on the Poor-laws, by Rev. Joseph Townsend, 8vo.
Causes of Increase of Poor and Poor-rates, by Rev. John
Howlett, 8vo........

History of the Poor, by Thomas Ruggles, 2 vols. 8vo........

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This writer first clearly announced the wrong which the Established Church had done to the poor, by taking possession of and holding the church property given for the relief of the poor. It is said he was compelled by clericat influence to expurgate his work and publish without these objectionable allegations upon the purity of the Church. Means of Providing Employment for the People, a Prize Essay,

..London, 1795

by Samuel Crumpe, 8vo.................. The Case of Labourers in Husbandry stated, by Rev. D. Davis, 4to. The State of the Poor; or, a History of the Labouring Classes in England from the Conquest to the Present Period; their Domestic Economy, with respect to diet, dress, fuel, habitation, and plans adopted for their relief, by Sir F. M. Eden, 3 vols. 4to.

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This is the most elaborate work to which this fruitful topic has given rise. It is highly valuable in the sense in which this subject was viewed. It descends to the merest minutiæ of food and clothing, and sifts numberless reports, documents, and accounts, to exhibit the true cost of maintaining the poor during the period to which it relates. The treatment of the poor is discussed solely in the light of economy. It is the best history of prices for the last three centuries extant, and is, otherwise, an important collection of facts. Can any thing more strongly exhibit the blindness of English people to the true relations of this subject, than that a work of 3 vols. 4to. could be written upon the State of the Poor, from the Conquest to the year 1797, on which so little should be said upon the true nature of the claims of the poor and the obligations of the rich? The author has, however, said enough to show that he was not ignorant of the truth, but he evidently considers that view of the subject as one of small importance.

Inquiry into the Policy and Humanity of the poor laws, by J.

Weyland, 8vo.....

London.

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Systematic Relief of Poor in different Countries, by J. Duncan, Bath,

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1815

A Treatise on Indigence, by P. Colquhoun, 8vo. [This is not elementary, as its title imports.]. . . .

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