this we have in Chapter IV., which is entitled "Onward movements," and notices what are regarded as some hopeful signs, that, even in this "working world," the moral reformation of its inhabitants will come to receive the attention to which it is entitled. The signs recognised are-the growing conviction, that schools are not doing all that was expected of them-the fact, that the defects of our moral constitution are becoming more apparent—and the exposure of these defects by the lighter, as well as by the more serious writings of the day. These topics are very summarily disposed of, and by far the greater part of the chapter is taken up with a serious admonition to Christian parents to attend to the moral training of their children, as well as to pray God on their behalf, and with a lecture to men in general on the duty of paying their lawful debts, assigning as a reason for its delivery, the negligence of ministers of the gospel in inculcating this particular duty. The table of contents for this chapter we have not yet completely exhausted; but we must pause to remark-that, welltimed as this lecture may seem in these days of short dividends, it is surely misplaced among the "Onward movements." The state of things requiring such a counsel, and the backwardness of ministers to preach on the subject, and so supersede the necessity of ladies lecturing on it, would deserve a very different title. But to proceed with the enumeration, we have, next, an essay on the just distribution of praise and blame-then a vigorous and well-sustained attack on the barrier interposed by public opinion between females of the higher ranks of society, and such occupations as might yield them a pecuniary recompense, with the injurious results of that opinion-then a wholesome advice to superiors, that, if they would discourage pride and the love of finery in those beneath them in rank, they must practise themselves the opposite virtues. How admirably and effectively the predominating power of example over precept, in such a case, is hit off in the following picture, taken from the life:"The lady who visits in the cottage of the poor, or even superintends a Sunday school, may shake her head with solemn warning, and set in trembling motion every flower and feather by which it is adorned; but, so long as the flowers and feathers are there, she will fail to convince the little girl, who gazes up with admiration at her charms, that she herself has no right to wear the same, provided they are honestly paid for."

We cannot leave this chapter without extracting another passage, which presents the argument against rigorous, and especially capital, punishments in, to us, a very striking, and rather a novel light. Speak

ing of the difficulty of awarding a just amount of praise where it is due, and acknowledging it to be great, she continues"But if we bow with humbled heads before the Majesty of heaven, when speaking of our ignorance and incompetence so far to judge of what is right, as not to feel ourselves qualified to use so feeble an instrument as that of human praise; how should we blush, and bow our heads in dust and ashes, when we think of all our fierce array of punishments provided for moral delinquency, of the actual nature and degree of which we must necessarily know no more than we can know of the nature and degree of moral worth! Abashed at the audacity of those who venture on commendation,

*

* * * * * we look around, and behold our prisons and their gloomy cells. We hear the groans of the condemned; for life is not too great a price to pay when man believes it just; and those who dare not speak of human merit, nor commit themselves so far as to judge of moral worth, erect a scaffold in the sight of thousands, and, lifting up the murderous axe, let fall the fatal stroke upon a feeble neck, exclaiming virtually, So let the guilty perish! This man, at least, has had his due!"

From this extract it must be evident, that if there is a want of logical arrangement and natural sequence in the subjects treated, there is no want either of vigour of thought, or felicity of expression, in the mode of their treatment. Nor is this a picked specimen. Many passages, equally good, might be quoted did our space admit; and, indeed, we must make room for one or two more. Who can fail to recognise in the following descriptions the distinguishing characteristic of the present age, with its baneful influence on men of business in the higher ranks, as well as on the working classes; or who can question the importance of fastening the public attention on the materializing process that is going on? Would that the well-timed exposure of the evil might lead to the application of an efficient check, and divert the national euergies into a channel at once more befitting man's rational nature, and more in consistency with his immortal destiny!

"The tendency of this extreme pressure is necessarily to expend all its energies upon objects of practical utility in the material world; in fact, to exalt the material rather than the spiritual; and, in the higher range of human effort, the intellectual rather than the moral. Indeed, men now work upon matter, and obtain bread by their work, in many cases, with so much difficulty, and by such incessant application, that they seem to have neither time nor inclination to inquire whether, in reality, there be such a thing as spirit or not. Or, in other cases, men work

upon matter, and grow rich by their work, until, finding that riches procure them comforts, pleasures, honours, titles, they come, in time, to regard the whole world as interesting, and worthy of their attention, only just so far as it is material. They work upon matter-they spend upon it the strength of their sinews, and the sweat of their brows-they institute profound researches into its nature and propertiesthey bestow their wealth upon it, in the hope of a tenfold return--they fight for it, live for it, die for it! Can we, then, wonder that there should exist a prevailing tendency practically to recognise in material excellence our chief, if not our only good?"

To the social evils existing among the female portion of the community, Mrs Ellis is not less alive, nor to the sources whence they spring. Of these, the love of approbation, or vanity, is mentioned as the chief, and while its injurious operation is clearly pointed out and faithfully guarded against, care is taken, at the same time, to show wherein it is necessary to the development of the female character, and how it may be rendered subservient to the best of purposes. Thus-" If we can render the wife of the labouring man more vain of her clean house, and more anxious to display the fruits of her honest industry, than she ever was to flaunt her ribbons in the street; if we can render the poor girl more careful to preserve her unsullied character than to adorn her person;

if we can make both of them believe that economy and independence, just and ready payments, and the spirit that would rather work than beg, are all more honourable and more to be admired than any thing which money could procure for them, even if they possessed their masters' wellfilled purse, we shall not be idle workers for their benefit, nor for that of the community at large."

These extracts, which are but a few specimens of the book, will show that it is eminently practical in its bearing, and earnest in its tone. It speaks plainly, and boldly, and home to the hearts and conduct of men. Abuses and prejudices are attacked wherever they are found to prevail, whether among the higher or the lower ranks. To each wholesome truth is told, however unpalatable; and the disfavour with which what she reckons a good cause may be viewed by many, is not recognised as a sufficient reason for meeting it with hostility, or for passing it over in silent contempt or with a scornful jeer. In proof of this, we appeal to the place assigned in chap. iv. to the Temperance movement; a movement which, as it has not met with the countenance and support that its friends may have anticipated for it, from the phianthropists of our country, in their plans

for ameliorating the physical and moral condition of their species, writer of less candour and courage might have been tempted to pass with a slighter reference than it here receives.

True, the Total Abstinence cause has for some years numbered this gifted lady among its advocates. In that character she had appeared before the public, and acted her part in a manner worthy of the standing she has attained. In the volume before us, merging the total abstainer in the philanthropist, she seeks to render the measures of the former subservient to the projects of the latter. Probably this non-professional advocacy will have more weight than the arguments of any professed pleader, however talented, could have in recommending the cause; and if any thing more than her name and reputation were necessary to bespeak a favourable hearing, it will be found in the calm, and dignified, and temperate manner in which she conducts her plea. She comes at once to the point, showing the dangers of temperate drinking, and maintaining the suitableness as well as the necessity of total abstinence as a means of preventing drunkards. We do not attempt an abstract of her pleading, but we recommend its perusal as a labour that will abundantly repay itself.

Much, however, as we approve of the general spirit of the work, and useful as we think it is calculated to be; there are in it some things that appear to us very questionable, and others that we consider decidedly objectionable. Unity of aim and design is, without doubt, a great excellence in any work. But this is, to our taste, too much a book of one idea, filling the writer's mind, if not to the entire exclusion of others, at least to their compression within very narrow limits. Not that there is any intended exaggeration on the one hand, or depreciation on the other; but such an impression is sometimes left on the mind by the language employed, and the train of argument or illustration pursued. An example of this occurs towards the close of the chapter entitled "Universal Activity," where, to show that the much neglected subject she is discussing, must, from the very extremity of the case, force itself on the public consideration, the writer refers to the moral condition of the world at the present time, and the means that have been already employed, and are now recommended, for its amelioration. Of the one class of means, new churches, new ministers, town missionaries, and the wider circulation of the Scriptures, are enumerated; and of the other, the extension of education, the multiplication of books, the establishment of Mechanics' Institutes. The former, it is affirmed, have been tried and

failed, and the latter, it is predicted, will fail on the trial; and why?

Because, answers Mrs E., they all bear on "the head of the patient," while, "lo! the malady is of the heart!"-(See pp. 71, 72, 73). Indeed!-and are the doctrines and precepts of the Bible, like the statements and reasonings of a philosophical or literary lecture, only a specific for the "head," and not at all a balm for the heart; or are the appeals of the minister and the missionary, like the prelections of the astronomer and the chemist, addressed not at all to the heart, but exclusively to the head? Amid this total lack of skilled physicians, and suitable medicine, "the nation, like a sick patient, whose disease is not discovered, still grows worse." And how is he to be made better? If the Bible, and the labours of ministers and missionaries, as well as those of teachers, philosophers, &c., have failed to renovate his moral constitution because they are purely intellectual, and bear only on the head; where are we to look for the moral means by which the heart, the seat of the disease, may be affected? Or what claim to the character of moral, can any means have which exclude, or would suspend, the Bible? And if it has been tried, and failed, as is assertedalas! for the patient. He must just be let alone. Even Mrs E., we fear, can do nothing for him: death is inevitable.

While the subject of Education is frequently introduced, and two chapters are devoted to common schools, Sabbath schools, Infant schools, Ragged schools, the school of the family, and finally the school of the street, or, as the writer aptly calls it, the education of circumstances,—the quæstio vexata of government interference with education is not stirred; and this strikes us as an omission in a volume so comprehensive, especially in times like our own, when the empire is ringing with the question, and when a wide diversity of opinion prevails respecting it, even among those who, on other subjects, think and feel very much in unison. The only passage in the book, so far as we can see, giving any indication of the writer's views on this subject, is the following. Speaking of poor children whose parents are unable themselves to instruct their family, and are unwilling to send them to be instructed by others, she says-"Their case is well calculated to excite serious inquiry, whether the same authority which has been called upon to interfere in protecting these classes of children from the evils of excessive labour, might not be wisely and benevolently exercised in protecting them from the still greater evils of ignorance and vice." This seems to acknowledge the principle of government interference, though but in an

indirect manner, and to a limited extent. Many persons who can agree thus far with Mrs Ellis, will demur to any such limitation as is here suggested in regard to the parties who should participate in the benefits of a national system of education.

are

In closing, we must call attention to what we consider the grand defect of this book; and that is, the absence of any definite, tangible, and workable plan for the attainment of the end contemplated. "The moral wants of the world we live in made plain enough; (they are but too patent of themselves), but how are they to be supplied? This is the question; and it remains yet to be answered. That "prevention is better than cure," is incontrovertibly proved (it is, indeed, self-evident); but what are the preventive measures that are to effect what the curative means have failed in accomplishing? These are what we sought, and, carefully as we have read the volume, we have not been able to find them. The institution of hospitals, asylums, penitentiaries, houses of refuge and correction, and similar appliances, are represented as comparative failures; but what are the institutions whose success will be greater? Their names are not given, and if they can be said to be defined at all, it is very vaguely. They are to be preventive in their nature, and moral in their character; but that is all that we can glean fronr the book respecting them.

We quote the concluding paragraph of the work, as giving an accurate and comprehensive indication of its great design and main scope. After referring to the

multitudes who die victims to their country's justice, and the scarcely less appalling death-bed scenes of thousands on thousands on whom vice does not entail any such awful retribution in this world, she continues-"But let us turn away from thoughts and things so terrible. Each one of these, however corrupted and malignant now, had once a fresh bright infancy, comparatively guileless; born, it might be to lowest degradation, nursed in the lap of vice, and taught to lisp in words of infamy-still, theirs was infancy and childhood comparatively spotless, and then as capable of good impressions as it has proved to be of bad. All it required at that stage of experience was judicious training-the work which nature asks, and Christian benevolence can so well supply. Is it possible for an instant to suppose that any outward restraint in after life, however forcibly applied, and accompanied even with an array of justice, so important as to require the wisest, the wealthiest, and the noblest of the land to assist in executing judgment against the poorest and most ignorant? Is it possible that any one can compare all

this with the small amount of good which it actually accomplishes, and that by no means radical in its cure, and not feel convinced that the great business we have now to undertake, as earnest workers in a working world, is to apply our zealous efforts to the great duty of prevention, trusting that, with a blessing on our labours, there will be less necessity for a cure?

We must, however, take the case as it stands. Merely preventive measures will not cure, any more than merely curative measures can prevent. To the adage, therefore, which has been assumed as the title of this book, the supplement must be appended.-Prevention is better than cure;" but both are best, and, in the present state of society, both are needed.

British Quarterly Review for May 1848.

London: Jackson & Walford.

THIS number of Dr Vaughan's Quarterly contains much excellent discussion on a rich variety of subjects. "Borneo and the

Rajah of Sarawak" is the best account we have seen of Mr Brooke's generous and enlightened enterprises in the East. In the review of light literature, we have three articles in which the merits of Charles Lamb, Samuel Warren, and the author of "Ranthorpe," are discussed with much raciness and power, and in a spirit harmonizing with earnest, intelligent piety —a thing too seldom manifest in this department of criticism. "Congregational Independency" is a review of Dr Wardlaw's and Dr Davidson's recent works on the Independent system, and, by its keenness, seems to imply that the comparative working of Presbytery and Independency, at the present date, is not felt by the reviewer to be very flattering to the friends of the latter scheme. On "Animal Physiology," we have a paper abounding in practical obser vation and ingenious philosophical reflection, which has entertained and instructed us not a little. "Results of German Philosophy," exhibits an extensive acquaintance with the works of the modern neologists of Germany, and a sound appreciation of their merits and tendency. A review of Professor Norton's Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels, comprises a large amount of interesting information and able reasoning on this vital subject. The political articles in this number are specially worthy of notice, as well on account of the sound judgment and extensive observation they display, as for the exciting nature of the subjects they discuss. The recent commotions in France and Italy are treated in separate articles, which we have read with deep interest, and which we cordially commend to such of our readers as desire to

form a right view of these stupendous events. The British Quarterly seems to us to sustain fully its high character among the higher class of periodicals in our country.

The SIX DAYS of CREATION: A Series of Familiar Letters from a Father to his Children; describing the Natural History of each Day's Mercies, &c. By W. G. RHIND. 12mo, square. 3d Ed. Pp. 354.

London Bagster and Sons.

THIS is a book for the domestic circle, and specially for the rising hopes of the christian household. It discusses the leading branches of natural history in the order of the sacred narrative of the creation; and it is pervaded and illuminated throughout by the spirit of the Bible. Beginning with the scripture account of the rude and formless mass from which the earth was made, it carries forward the reader through the successive stages (illustrating each by a pictorial representation) by which the world attained its present condition, as the residence of the various animated beings, with man at their head. In treating of the multifarious objects presented in so extensive a field, there is necessarily a degree of brevity, which the more advanced reader will feel somewhat tantalising; but the selection of particulars is good as far as it goes, and is judiciously calculated to whet the youthful appetite for a more ample investigation. The illustrations, presenting the appearance of the globe, as it might be supposed to be at the close of each of the six days, are very ingeniously conceived, and cannot miss engaging and impressing the minds of the young. It will be a favourite family book, and as such has our best recommendation.

A BRIEF STATEMENT and EXPLANATION of the PRINCIPLES of the UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, &c. By the Rev. JOHN LAW, Dunfermline.

Dunfermline: W. Clark. Edinburgh: W. Oliphant and Sons.

As its title indicates, this manual contains a statement of the principles of our church, brought down to the present date, with scriptural proofs, occasional annotations, and a well filled margin of questions for the exercise of the learner. It is designed as a class-book for the young, and as a guide to candidates for admission to church fellowship. For conciseness, clearness, and simplicity, we know nothing to surpass it. Cheapness, too, is one of its recommendations. It requires only to be tried and known to come into general use.