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are sure to elevate the minds of the more youthful portion of an audience, and a 'ouse them to a sense of the value of a life well spent. This virtuous emulation for present usefulness, is above all necessary in a country like ours, in which there are often strong symptoms of all national virtue and devout religion running into a cash payment.

The wise and eloquent W. J. Fox, said, in an addresss lately delivered in Lancashire, "The country is badly educated, both as to the amount and quality of the instruction. It is difficult so say which is the worst. There are half a million of children of teachable age that have no tuition whatever-not even the limited instruction of the Sunday-school. It has been calculated that only one out of thirty has a fair opportunity of learning to read, and only one out of forty of learning to write; and when they are taught, the character of the instruction is too often perverted by the school being made only a recruiting shop for the church or chapel." To the reflective mind the fact stated by Mr. Fox is indeed a sad one; the more sad when we consider the connection between ignorance and crime, as stated on the same occasion. What an anomaly that, as a nation, we should think it necessary to minimize education and maximize crime! But if only one in thirty have the chance of learning to read and write, after all our recent bustle about national education and voluntary education-how deplorable must have been the state of our country thirty years ago! How much such a fact has a tendency to make one forgiving towards the brutalized and unfortunate members of society! That fact alone must make a high-minded and humane judge pause before he sentences juvenile or ignorant adult criminals to severe bodily punishment. Still all is not lost; there is a virtuous leaning in this much reviled human nature, that cannot always be smothered, though often misdirected. We require an adult as well as an infant education; we must not let the unfurrowed field, that now grows thistles and briars, be sown with hemlock and poisonous herbs. Neither must we allow the wastes to remain for ever uncultivated.

Your Letters to Young Men, are mainly valuable as an auxiliary to adult education there are many passages in them that tempt quotation and remark; but space forbids. I hope you will open the general question of an advanced and practical education for the young men in the pages of your journal. Nor the education of the church or chapel; but an education fitted for healthy and independent thinkers: such an education will tend to ensure a full development of mental treasures; and the gathering up of the rich and varied stores of wisdom and thought, that lay scattered by the hand of Genius over every age and every clime. I am, dear sir, Yours faithfully,

Mr. Thomas Cooper.

SAMUEL M. KYDD.

Letters to Lords Spiritual.

To the Right Reverend, the Lord Harry of Exeter.

MY DEAR BISHOP,-A happy new year to you-a year to your own heart-a good stirring year of church strife and mischief! You must have lamented the discontinuance of my little epistles in the Plain Speaker; and it has grieved me, in no small degree, I assure you, that our affectionate correspondence should be interrupted.

Ah, my dear bishop, there is nobody like you. You never change. You are always, either doing or being done. This fellow Gorham is goring you still! What of that? Whether he loses or wins his case before the Privy Council, it will waken up glorious sport for you! If there be a majority

of heretics there stupid enough to decide against you, it will only make you more resolute; for like every man of true mettle, you are always more desperate, when resisted. And if they confirm Fust's judgment, and declare you are right.-my stars! what a whip hand it will give you over that sleepy Sumner of Canterbury!

Receive the gratitude of our order, dear bishop! It is so sweetly edifying to us, to see you evermore earnestly contending for the faith.' Ŏf course, we see that you only are right in this Gorham case. An infant, which does not know right from wrong, nor its right hand from its left, is most assuredly made regenerate, by a few drops of water being sprinkled in its face at the church font. It was the heir of hell before; but just then it becomes the heir of heaven. How shocking, that an Archbishop of Canterbury should doubt this! Alas, for the orthodoxy of the church, if it were left to him to fix it, and you were no longer alive!

Your brother of London, too, how it must grieve your pious heart to hear of his carnal philosophizings. Who could have expected that he would have talked such very common sense about the causes of the cholera? Why he talked no more spiritually than those earthly scavengers, the Sanitary Commissioners! It must have been a deep source of consolation to you, however, to learn that there was one man after your own heart, even in Blomfield's own diocese. I mean, the Islington clergyman, who declared to us the real cause of the cholera: namely the omission from the new florin, or two shilling piece, of "By the Grace of God," after the Queen's name. Shall I tell you, my dear bishop, how it is whispered in town that you gave the Islington clergyman the hint? I don't expect you to tell whether it was so; but I, for one, have my thoughts. In a word, my dear old fellow,—I hold that there is but one head in the whole of our church sagacious enough to make such a discovery, and that head wears a nightcap in the palace at Exeter.

Talking of whispers: they say, too, that you are about to take for your chaplain, the truly enlightened and deeply pious clergyman who recently imitated Bonner, and burned the hand of the jade who had been sentenced to death, in order to bring her to repentance. If the report be premature, I can only say, my dear bishop, it is the decided opinion of all who love you that you ought to take this precious divine under your peculiar patronage. Really, you should have especial care of such a rare gem of orthodoxy in this age of heretic counterfeits. He might become to us a second Philpotts-if you, to our affliction, should be removed to your final reward. Just another word, and I have done. There is another rumour, not very agreeable to your friends. The clergyman who was disgraced in a law court for nem. con. or pro. con. or some other con.,' as the man calls it in the play-You did not pull his gown over his ears soon enough; but, as evil-minded people say evinced a disposition to protect him. But never mind these ill-natured remarks. Of course, you were right. You ought, like a true and gentle-hearted shepherd, to be tender in trifling cases. And what a trifle it is for a clergyman to be living in open adultery, compared with the sin of this Gorham-a fellow who denies your doctrine of baptism;-or that other fellow, Shore, who had the assurance to preach in a place you had not consecrated!

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I am, my beloved bishop,

Yours ever lovingly,

THOMAS COOPER.

are sure to elevate the minds of the more youthful portion of an audience, and a 'ouse them to a sense of the value of a life well spent. This virtuous emulation for present usefulness, is above all necessary in a country like ours, in which there are often strong symptoms of all national virtue and devout religion running into a cash payment.

The wise and eloquent W. J. Fox, said, in an addresss lately delivered in Lancashire, "The country is badly educated, both as to the amount and quality of the instruction. It is difficult so say which is the worst. There are half a million of children of teachable age that have no tuition whatever-not even the limited instruction of the Sunday-school. It has been calculated that only one out of thirty has a fair opportunity of learning to read, and only one out of forty of learning to write; and when they are taught, the eharacter of the instruction is too often perverted by the school being made only a recruiting shop for the church or chapel." To the reflective mind the fact stated by Mr. Fox is indeed a sad one; the more sad when we consider the connection between ignorance and crime, as stated on the same occasion. What an anomaly that, as a nation, we should think it necessary to minimize education and maximize crime! But if only one in thirty have the chance of learning to read and write, after all our recent bustle about national education and voluntary education-how deplorable must have been the state of our country thirty years ago! How much such a fact has a tendency to make one forgiving towards the brutalized and unfortunate members of society! That fact alone must make a high-minded and humane judge pause before he sentences juvenile or ignorant adult criminals to severe bodily punishment. Still all is not lost; there is a virtuous leaning in this much reviled human nature, that cannot always be smothered, though often misdirected. We require an adult as well as an infant education; we must not let the unfurrowed field, that now grows thistles and briars, be sown with hemlock and poisonous herbs. Neither must we allow the wastes to remain for ever uncultivated.

Your Letters to Young Men, are mainly valuable as an auxiliary to adult education there are many passages in them that tempt quotation and remark; but space forbids. I hope you will open the general question of an advanced and practical education for the young men in the pages of your journal. Nor the education of the church or chapel; but an education fitted for healthy and independent thinkers: such an education will tend to ensure a full development of mental treasures; and the gathering up of the rich and varied stores of wisdom and thought, that lay scattered by the hand of Genius over every age and every clime. I am, dear sir, Yours faithfully,

Mr. Thomas Cooper.

SAMUEL M. KYDD.

Letters to Lords Spiritual.

To the Right Reverend, the Lord Harry of Exeter.

MY DEAR BISHOP,-A happy new year to you-a year to your own heart-a good stirring year of church strife and mischief! You must have lamented the discontinuance of my little epistles in the Plain Speaker; and it has grieved me, in no small degree, I assure you, that our affectionate correspondence should be interrupted.

Ah, my dear bishop, there is nobody like you. You never change. You are always, either doing or being done. This fellow Gorham is goring you still! What of that? Whether he loses or wins his case before the Privy Council, it will waken up glorious sport for you! If there be a majority

of heretics there stupid enough to decide against you, it will only make you more resolute; for like every man of true mettle, you are always more desperate, when resisted. And if they confirm Fust's judgment, and declare you are right, my stars! what a whip hand it will give you over that sleepy Sumner of Canterbury!

Receive the gratitude of our order, dear bishop! It is so sweetly edifying to us, to see you evermore earnestly contending for the faith.' Ŏf course, we see that you only are right in this Gorham case. An infant, which does not know right from wrong, nor its right hand from its left, is most assuredly made regenerate, by a few drops of water being sprinkled in its face at the church font. It was the heir of hell before; but just then it becomes the heir of heaven. How shocking, that an Archbishop of Canterbury should doubt this! Alas, for the orthodoxy of the church, if it were left to him to fix it, and you were no longer alive!

Your brother of London, too, how it must grieve your pious heart to hear of his carnal philosophizings. Who could have expected that he would have talked such very common sense about the causes of the cholera? Why he talked no more spiritually than those earthly scavengers, the Sanitary Commissioners! It must have been a deep source of consolation to you, however, to learn that there was one man after your own heart, even in Blomfield's own diocese. I mean, the Islington clergyman, who declared to us the real cause of the cholera: namely the omission from the new florin, or two shilling piece, of "By the Grace of God," after the Queen's name. Shall I tell you, my dear bishop, how it is whispered in town that you gave the Islington clergyman the hint? I don't expect you to tell whether it was so; but I, for one, have my thoughts. In a word, my dear old fellow, I hold that there is but one head in the whole of our church sagacious enough to make such a discovery, and that head wears a nightcap in the palace at Exeter.

Talking of whispers: they say, too, that you are about to take for your chaplain, the truly enlightened and deeply pious clergyman who recently imitated Bonner, and burned the hand of the jade who had been sentenced to death, in order to bring her to repentance. If the report be premature, I can only say, my dear bishop, it is the decided opinion of all who love you that you ought to take this precious divine under your peculiar patronage. Really, you should have especial care of such a rare gem of orthodoxy in this age of heretic counterfeits. He might become to us a second Philpotts-if you, to our affliction, should be removed to your final reward. Just another word, and I have done. There is another rumour, not very agreeable to your friends. The clergyman who was disgraced in a law court for 'nem. con. or pro. con. or some other con.,' as the man calls it in the play-You did not pull his gown over his ears soon enough; but, as evil-minded people say-evinced a disposition to protect him. But never mind these ill-natured remarks. Of course, you were right. You ought, like a true and gentle-hearted shepherd, to be tender in trifling cases. And what a trifle it is for a clergyman to be living in open adultery, compared with the sin of this Gorham-a fellow who denies your doctrine of baptism;-or that other fellow, Shore, who had the assurance to preach in a place you had not consecrated!

I am, my beloved bishop,

Yours ever lovingly,

THOMAS COOPER.

To Correspondents.

Correspondents will please address, "THOMAS COOPER, 5, Park Row, Knightsbridge,

London."

T. J.-Yes; I shall have pleasure in giving the weekly list of Lectures, delivered at any popular Institution in London-if the Secretaries will forward to me the necessary information. W. L. requests that I will give notice of my own appointments in London, and of the subjects of discourse, during the present month. They are as follows:

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January 6. (Sunday evening at 7), Hall of Science, City Road. Gospel History: the Transfiguration," &c.

7. (Monday evening at 84), Finsbury Hall, Bunhill Row. "Life and Genius of Sir William Jones."

9. (Wednesday evening at 8), Mechanics' Institute, Gould Square. "The Wrongs of Ireland." 13. (Sunday evening at 7), Literary Institution, John-street. "The English Commonwealth, to the Execution of Charles Ist."

14. (Monday evening at 84), Finsbury Hall, Bunhill Row. Newton."

"Life and Character of Sir Isaac

16. (Wednesday evening at 8), Mechanics' Institute, Gould Square. "Raleigh, and the Age of Elizabeth."

20. (Sunday evening at 7), Hall of Science, City Road. " Gospel History: the Crucifixion," &c. 23. (Wednesday evening at 8), Mechanics' Institute Gould Square. "Life and Genius of Sir William Jones."

27. (Sunday evening at 7), Literary Institution, John-street. "The English Commonwealth: Government by the Council of State and Parliament: the Protectorate and Character of Oliver Cromwell."

28. (Monday evening at 8), Temperance Hall, Broadway, Westminster. Ireland."

30. (Wednesday evening at 8), Mechanics' Institute, Gould Square. Sir Isaac Newton."

"The Wrongs of

"Life and Character of

Sonnet.

TO SPENSER.

Bright spirit of another life, arise!

And with thy sweet conceptions charm my soul:
The cautious world with thy deep thought control,
And bear me with thee where thy fancy flies
Through unknown forests to the tower, where lies
The red-cross captive in his gloomy hole;
Or roam with me o'er many a woody knole;
Through grove and valley, under summer skies.
Bring Una with thee, and bring him, sweet bard,
Whose wondrous shield confounded villainy;

Let fearless Holiness still be the guard

Of spotless truth; and, Spenser, tell to me
With all thy magic grace, tales yet untold
Of evil overcome by champions bold.

F. TURNBULL.

WHO ARE THE Truly ValuablE IN SOCIETY.-The value set upon a member of society, should be, not according to the fineness or intensity of his feelings, to the acuteness of his sensibility, or his readiness to weep for, or deplore the misery he may meet with in the world; but in proportion to the sacrifices which he is ready to make, and to the knowledge and talents which he is able and willing to contribute towards removing this misery. To benefit mankind is a much more difficult task than some seem to imagine; it is not quite so easy as to make a display of amiable sensibility: the first requires long study and painful abstinence from the various alluring pleasures by which we are surrounded; the second in most cases demands only a little acting, and even when sincere, is utterly useless to the public.-Westminster Review, No. 3.

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