Provincial.

them to come unto me , and forbid them not . " Shall we not take them up Shall Ave not use those means which we know to be efficacious on the human mind and agreeable to the religion of Jesus ? Shall we not show them the arts of life aud teach them by honest industry to be of service to themselves and others ; to be happy here and hereafter 1 If the instructor be silent , will the foxes of the vineyard , evil passions , be so ? If regular and Avell qualified teachers neglect to guide the poor in the way of their salvationAvill not ravening Avolvesfoxes in

, , sheep ' s clothing , teachers of infidelity , obscenity , or false and erroneous doctrine , take advantage of their omission to tamper with the tender little ones . AVill they not use every art which Satan can inspire to cajole and mislead an ignorant and unwary people ? There are nigh upon a million of uneducated little ones growing up in this favoured land . And do not believe that this evil is a matter of distant dread , scarcely likely to affect our own country and neighbourhood . I can tell you , on the undeniable authority of the Government statistical tablesthat AVar

, wickshire takes rank as loivest but six of all the counties , in proportion of attendance of children at schools ; and that in proportion of criminals to population it is thirty above the average of the whole counties of England . Here is a moral plague to be met and combated , as strenuously as even the selfish -will combat material pestilence , when , having ivrought its will on their poorer neighbours , the taint of infection seems to hang around their own families aud firesides . But I knoAV well that these figures do not appeal to the sympathies of those who hear me

with the force and intensity of a single living example of neglected humanity . AVe read or hear them , and are forced by our reason to confess that they are sad and shameful , and have a claim on our excitement for their alleviation . Yet Ave do so calmly and easily , Avithout that tugging of the heart strings Avhich even the cold and selfish feel Avhen confronted with an embodied instance of misery , neglect , and vice . Listen then , brethren , to the accents of a perishing soul writhing from that deep abyss " which Ave have agreed to call by the smoother name of "the social evil , " to our leading new-spaper , in characters of lurid intensity : — " My parents

did not give me any education , they did not mstil into my mmd virtuous precepts , nor set me a good example . All my experinces in early life were gleaned among associates who knew nothing of the laws of God , but by dim tradition and faint report , and whose ohiefest triumphs of wisdom consisted in picking their way through the paths of destitution in which they were cast , by cunning evasion or open defiance of the laivs of man . Our neighbourhood furnished many subjects to the treadmill , the hulks , and the colonies , and some to the galloivs . AVe lived with the fear of these thingsand not ivith the fear

, of God before our eyes . " Then hear how bitter the reproach which this lost soul utters against the society which has so long passed her by , aud now notices her but with scorn and reproach . " Ye railers of the Society for the Suppression of Vice , you , the pious , the moral , the respectable , as you call yourselves ; who stand on your smooth aud pleasant side of the great gulf you have dug , and keep betiveen yourselves and the dregs , AA'hy don't you bridge it over or fill it up , and by some humane and generous process absorb us into the leavened mass until we become

interpenetrated with goodness like yourselves ? Why stand on your eminence shouting that Ave should be ashamed of ourselves ? AVhat have we to be ashamed of , w-e , ivho do not know what shame is—the shame you mean ? Why stand you there mouthing with sleek face about morality—what is morality ) AVill you make ua responsible for what Ave never knew ? Teach us Avhat is right and tutor us in good before you punish us for doing wrong . " Awful is the thought , that such a cry as this may be rising afc this moment from many a neglected soul , in

court or lane or hamlet of this land , to the mercy-seat of the Most High . And still more awful , that in one grand Availing unison of despair their collective voices ivill be heard on that day , Avhen the barriers of wealth and rank and station shall be sAvept doAvn , when we shall no longer be able to take refuge in broadcloth or velvet , in carriages or servants , or pews at church , but stand on a level ivith the ragged and barefoot , and paupers before the great white throne Avhich is in Heaven , and the wrath of the Lamb that sitteth thereon ; when the loftiness of man shall be bowed doivn , and the haughtiness of man shall be made low , and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day . Then , brethren , let me earnestly call upon you to