880 of the children, books could not be procured in order to teach them to read. However, he continued to beg, borrow, and purchase from his little fond (reluctantly subscribed to him by a few of the neighbouring farmers) what were barely sufficient. The barn, which had only one aperture of any kind, and that the door, offered him but scanty light, which was the more to be regretted as the books he had collected together, being almost all of different letters, necessarily compelled him to attend to each child individually, and therefore demanded from hito not only the greater labour, but also a greater proportion of time. He, however, struggled with these difficulties until desired by the proprietor to remove himself, to make way for the grain. With much entreaty, he at last prevailed on an old woman to let him, for Sundays, a spare room; in this he continued his school, which now diminished for want of accommodation. His perseverance carried him through the winter, when he was again admitted to the barn. This statement of his first year may be On my applied to the remainder. visiting him, about a week since, I found his school to consist of 70 regularly attending scholars, 30 of whom read tolerably well, 20 repeat the Church Catechism, from memory, with accuracy, and the remaining spell words from two to eight syllables. His eldest son, impressed by the example of so good a father, was assiduously employed in teaching to write, as many as could procure materials: an old door, supported by two barrels, supplied the place of a table, and the fragments of an old loom, ingeniously arranged on stones, His hours of offered them a seat. teaching at present are, during the summer, from nine to twelve, and from two to six-in the winter, from nine to three. "The townland is so situated that no place of worship is nearer than three or four miles, which induced him, in winter, to trespass on the The Committee acknowledge their The Appendix contains a variety of proofs of the benefits derived from Sunday schools. We can afford room for only two or three of these. "Since we last addressed your respectable Committee, we have admitted about 160 new scholars, and appointed a number of teachers to supply the unprecedented increase of the school. It is cause of gratitude to the Author of all our mercies, that the fruits of our feeble exertions, in former years, in the time of necessity begin to appear, by a number of our former scholars having offered their services as teach ers. We are under the necessity of teaching in the open air, our house being too small to contain them all. The children require no compulsion to enforce attendance; their avidity and desire of being taught is astonishing." "I have to announce to you the The friends of formation of a Sunday school society in Belfast. this institution wished to have embraced a wider range of operation; but finding they might expect the co-operation of a greater number of individuals, by confining themselves at first to one object, they turned their attention to the establishment of Sunday schools. On the 2d of this month we opened our first school. In a very inclement morning our room was so crowded with scholars, that we were thrown into considerable confusion. We rented immediately another very large apartment-It is now completely filled. I cannot exactly tell our present number of scholars. I believe they will be about five hundred. I have never before witnessed so ample a field opened for doing good in so short a time. The harvest with us is truly plenteous." "The poor appear to be willing to send out their children; and I think two more rooms, capable of holding 300 each, may soon be filled, if we can procure teachers and books, and pay the rents of the places." "Masters say, where some of the children are apprenticed, that they never saw such alterations in their conduct. Before they went to the Sunday schools, they were liars, Sabbath-breakers, every thing that was bad. We are equally surprised to hear, from the parents of those children, of the great change wrought on them. We must only say, it is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good.'" SOCIETY FOR ENFORCING THE OB- THE Report, of this Society, made to a general meeting in May last, states that it has had various difficulties to struggle with. It has not met with the patronage nor cooperation that was expected: and its Committee have had to encounter many repulses and much opposition. They still, however, pursue their object undamped by these things; and in different parts of the metropolis, particularly the eastern, much good is stated to have been done through their exertions. The transaction of worldly business on the Lord's day is obviously an evil of great extent. District Committees have been formed to counteract it, which have been very active, and have brought to justice all who persisted in their violation of the Sabbath. During the last year, 583 offenders have been summoned and 446 convicted and fined. Bills of indictment have been found against some, and only stopt on condition that the parties would acknowledge their error and engage to desist from violating the Sabbath. Five bills of indictment preferred against the keepers of disorderly houses have been rejected, without any cause assigned, by a grand jury. One of the great obstacles to their success arises from the impression among the lower classes, that those in the higher ranks of life are unfriendly to the views of the Society;' and the offending tradesmen plead the unpunished example of the rich and noble in their own vindication. One noble Lord, however, has, on the representation of the Society, suppressed a public tea garden which brought him in a large income; and a public body accustomed to employ persons in forwarding their mercantile concerns on the Lord's day have been induced to discontinue this practice. A petition for the suppression of the Royalty Theatre, a dreadful nursery of vice, was rejected by a majority of the magistrates. made to the late Mr. Perceval for An application was his aid in procuring some parliamentary enactment which might facilitate the objects of the Society; but his death unhappily occurred while the subject was under consi deration. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I TAKE the liberty of presenting, through the medium of your work, to "those who are not weary in well doing," a class of people whose wants, in a moral and religious view, though many, have been little regarded, and whose cause was never before publicly advocated; I mean, the poor families in his Majesty's Forest of Dean, in the county and diocese of Gloucester. The parish of which it hath pleased Divine Providence to appoint me the minister, lies adjacent to this Forest, which contains 22,000 acres, and is inhabited by poor miners and colliers, who, as the Forest is extra-parochial, have no claim upon the services of any clergyman, and have been consequently left to the guidance of their own untutored understandings. Of the doctrines of the Establishment they were grossly ignorant. The church of Newland, of which I am vicar, having been from immemorial usage, generally considered as the parish-church of the Forest, for marriages, baptisms, and burials, I was frequently called upon to visit the sick. In the discharge of this office, I became an eye-witness to their poverty, and was led to a more immediate knowledge of the state of their morals and religious views. On my first coming here (nine years ago), I observed them profanely inattentive to the Sabbath day, and regardless of a judgment to come. Having resolved to make an effort to reclaim them from the error of their ways, I appropriated one evening in the week for visiting the Forest, in order to instruct them, after the close of their daily labours, in the principles of the Christian religion. This was done in one of their cottages, as I had no other means of communicating instruction to them. I have now the pleasure to say, from seven years' experience, that my labours among them have been attended, under the Divine blessing, with great success. Those of them who are able to walk so far, are regular and exemplary in their attendance on the ordinances of the church. A general reformation of morals has been produced. To myself they are most affectionate, respectful, and grateful; many of them attend the ordinance of the Lord's supper, and live in the faith, and fear, and love of God. The population of that part of the Forest, which has been the scene of my la bours consists of nearly 200 families, and 500 children, many of whom are fatherless, from the perils at tendant on the employment of the men. Frequent solicitations have been addressed to me by these poor people to establish a school among them, where their numerous familes might be trained up to fear God, and to honour that day, which they once so wickedly violated. The unspeakable benefits of such an institution can only be estimated by contrasting the personal, domestic, and civil consequences, the present and eternal effects of moral and religious impressions with extreme ignorance and depravity of life. were That the effort which has already been made, in dependance on the Divine blessing, to improve the civil and religious character of these long neglected people, has not been in vain, may be demonstrated by contrasting their present spirit and conduct with what occurred in the year 1800. That year was a season of grievous trial to the poor throughout the country. The scarcity which prevailed was severely felt by the lower classes of people. At that period the Foresters proved disorderly and riotous to so great a degree that two of them brought to an ignominious death. The present year is a season of similar difficulty; but from the effect of religious knowledge aud habits, instead of a riotous behaviour or even of their indulging in complaint or discontent, they bear their pri vations patiently, and under their pressure brought me a sum of money collected from their daily earnings (a sum inconsiderable in itself but large for them to produce), in consequence of which I ventured to lay the foundation-stone of a building among them to be devoted to the purposes of religious instruction. In the prosecution of my plan, I have received, after a full and plain exposition of my views, the most encouraging countenance from my worthy diocesan, from the Right Hon. the Earl of Liverpool, the Right Hon. theChancellor of the Exchequer, from many of the nobility, clergy, and gentry; also from the National Society for the Education of the Poor. Thus encouraged by the favour of Divine Providence and the liberality of the public, our building is nearly completed, and an eligible person has been sent up, to the central school in Baldwin's Gardens, to be qualified to manage our institution on the plan of the National Society. But there is another object in view it is intended that the same building,which is employed during six days for the instruction of children, shall be used as a place of Divine worship on the Sabbath day, and I hope I shall be able to obtain its consecration, or an episcopal licence for the exercise of the Christian ministry therein. But in order to this, and to perpetuate religious instruction among the foresters, I am anxious to endow the place both as an episcopal chapel and a school-house, and, when the means of such an endowment are procured, to vest it in trustees, who will feel for the salvation of these objects of my concern, and place among them a clergyman who will feed them, in their desert state, with the true bread that cometh down from heaven. I cannot entertain a doubt of being enabled to realize these pleasing hopes. The support I have already received is a pledge of their accomplishment. I accept it as such, and conûdently appeal to the religious and patriotic feelings of the public; persuaded that while the inhabitants of distant lands are cared for, our own country men will not be neglected. The case is now made known, and I can leave the result with "Him" who " careth for the stranger." I shall only add, that if any, who are disposed to assist in this good work, should wish for further information, I shall be truly happy and thankful to afford it, and shall be ready to receive advice as well as pecuniary aid. I am, &c. NAVY CHAPLAINS. EVERY ship in his Majesty's service, from a first to a fifth rate inclusive, is now allowed a chaplain. Every chaplain, after eight years (or if in a guard ship, ten years) actual service, during which period he shall not have been absent from his duty six weeks at any one time, except byspecial leave of the Admiralty Board, and who shall produce certificates of good conduct from the captains he may have served under, shall be entitled to half-pay of 5s. a-day. To this half-pay, however, he shall not be entitled, if he accept preferment with cure of souls during the specified period of service. In the event of peace, a rate of halfpay, proportioned to the period of service, provided it be not less than three will be allowed. Every year he serves more than the specified period, will entitle him, when placed on the half-pay list, to 6d. per day additional, until the whole shall amount to 10s. per day. Naval chaplains alone shall be eligible to chaplaincies of naval establishments, according to their length of service and meritorious conduct; and when' such preferment amounts to 400).. a-year, the half-pay shall cease, as is also the case in the divided living of Simonbourn. The pay of a chaplain, when on actual service, shall be as follows, viz. years, One hundred and fifty pounds per annum, and the established compensation of 111. Ss. a year for a servant, in each rate, and to have a cabin allotted for him, in the wardroom or gun room, where he is to mess with the lieutenants, and to be rated for victuals; and when the chaplain shall be willing to act as school-master, he shall be entitled to a bounty of 201. a year, provided he shall pass an examination; and he shall be further entitled to five pounds per annum, to be paid to him by every young midshipman and volunteer of the first class, as a remuneration for his education, the same to be stopped out of the young gentleman's pay. 5 S situations in life, interspersed with a few tales. Besides these, they have published, for circulation by hawkers and other venders, a number of tracts, which are less directly religi ous, but which yet have it in view to furnish not only innocent, but useful reading to the poor, the children of Sunday schools, &c. Many of the tracts are only re-publications of former works, or extracts from them; the rest, which are the greater number, are original. The price at which tracts are sold to the public is low; but subscribers obtain them at a considerably lower rate. Chaplains now serving, shall be allowed the time they may have served as part of that required. The Rev. Archdeacon Owen is appointed Chaplain-General to the fleet, to whom all letters are to be addressed, under cover to the Secretary of the Admiralty. All applications for appointments shall be made, or will be referred to him, and no warrant will be granted by the Board of Admiralty to any candidate, "unless recommended by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the Bishop of London, through the Chaplain-General, as in every way properly qualified." POOR CURATES. AT Christmas, 1812, and every future Christmas, 400l. will be distributed, under the will of Mrs. Jane Joy, of Hanover Square, deceased, by the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, among 20 poor clergyman, curates only, in actual duty, resident in England or Wales, whose incomes do not exceed 501. a year, except from keeping a school or teaching scholars, Blank forms of petitions may be had of Mr. Grimwood, Register of the Institution, Bloomsbury Place, London, between 11 and 3, Sundays excepted. RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY. THIS Society was instituted in 1799, and since that time, according to a Report made in May, had issued more than fourteen millions and a half of tracts; and in the year immediately preceding the date of the Report, had issued two millions nine hundred and sixty-seven thousand. There are 122 tracts on the Society's list in English, and 38 in different languages, viz. Welsh, Manks, Gaelic, French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Danish, con, sisting chiefly of short expositions of religious truth, earnest appeals to the conscience, biographical sketches, addresses, or dialogues, adapted to different occupations or During the past year "gratuitous supplies of tracts have been furnished to Gibraltar, Lisbon, and Cadiz; to Malta, Sicily, Naples, Zante, Constantinople, the Greek Islands, Halifax, Prince Edward's Island, and St. John's, Newfoundland; to Jamaica, Bermuda, St. Kitt's, and other West India islands; to the Bay of Honduras; to Buenos Ayres; to South Africa and Ba. tavia; and to New South Wales, by a colonial schoolmaster; to convicts going out to that settlement, and those in the hulks; to the foreign prisoners of war in different parts of the country; to seamen on board the tenders; to hospitals, workhouses, and jails; and for various other objects which appeared to have peculiar claims on the Society's bounty. The expenditure occasioned by the gratuitous issues of tracts, during the last year, has been upwards of 3601." An edition of the French Spelling-book has also been printed, for the children of French prisoners of war. In imitation of this Society, one has been established at Stockholm, about four years, which has printed several tracts in Swedish, Finnish, and Lapanese, and has circulated since its formation to the amount of upwards of 400,000. The Swedish Society has been supplied with sums of money by that in England. Another Religious Tract Society has been established at Philadelphia. |
