The Tract Society's Sunday at Home, and Leisure Hour, still maintain their high position amongst a number of competitors. Several new ones have appeared during the year, and others are announced. We can scarcely believe that they will all of them survive. A few of enormous circulation will destroy the rest. It is difficult to speak with justice of this class of publications in a few words. Those who wish to praise, and those who are disposed to blame, will both find materials suited to their taste. In many instances, no doubt, they supplant a much lower kind of literature, especially amongst the poor. And they bring the truths of religion, with more or less force and accuracy, before vast numbers, who would otherwise, perhaps, have no religious reading whatever. On the other hand, they are too fond of startling incidents, sudden conversions, and tragical and romantic tales. The impression they leave on our mind is, that the religion they describe is not that of ordinary life. As to their religious tales, we are barbarous enough to think they should be rejected altogether, or with very few exceptions. Young writers appear to think that it is the easiest thing in the world to write a religious tale, or a good hymn; on the contrary, we venture to think, that it is to achieve one of the highest and most difficult tasks; and we are afraid that a tawdry style, and a very imperfect acquaintance both with the human heart and the Bible, are doing much to bring down the general tone of evangelical religion, which needs. rather to be braced up and brought to a higher standard.

We notice, in conclusion, the Annuals of the Christian Knowledge Society, as well deserving a passing word. Besides the Churchman's Almanack, in several forms, as a broadsheet for the wall of the vestry or school-room, and as a pocket-book, we have a Cottager's Almanack, with a text for every Sunday, some useful notes on Church holydays, and the like, and much instruction in gardening and farming matters; and a Children's Almanack, such as would form a suitable present or reward-book in the Day or Sunday School. The distribution of such things, trifling as they may appear, accompanied by a kind word or two, will often do good, where graver lessons would be forgotten. May we notice here Hibberd's Gardener's Weekly Magazine, a good, scientific, practical, and amusing work, in a good and Christian spirit. Allen, Paternoster Row.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

SINCE we last wrote on Public Affairs, Dr. Trench has been promoted to the archbishopric of Dublin, and Dr. Stanley to the deanery of Westminster. The former appointment satisfies the Irish clergy, who had taken just alarm at the prospect of having Canon Stanley forced upon them. Dr. Trench is a writer of considerable power; as a governor of the Church, he is yet untried. As a theologian, we suppose he would class himself amongst moderate High Churchmen. We hope that he will avoid the eccentricities which so interfered with the usefulness of his predecessor, and that the grace and courage will Vol. 63.-No. 313.

M

be granted, together with the clear discernment of the truth, which his high office imperiously demands. The appointment of Canon Stanley to Westminster has called forth a very solemn protest from Canon Wordsworth. We most sincerely thank him for it; he has laid the whole Church of England under the deepest obligation. It affords an example of what such writings ought to be, and of the manner in which the inferior clergy should protest against the misconduct of their superiors. It states, with courtesy, and at the same time with the utmost plainness, the grounds on which Dr. Stanley is disqualified for the deanery of Westminster. It brings before him, in what strikes us as a solemn array which none but a seared conscience can disregard, the declarations which the new dean is called upon to make and sign on his entrance upon office; and appeals, in conclusion, with a solemnity the more affecting because of the deep and evident emotion of the writer, to Canon Stanley himself, whether he can safely dare to break down these safeguards, and intrude himself into the post of chief minister of the ancient Church of Christ in Westminster. If the clergy generally would imitate the Dublin clergy in their boldness, and unite with it the solemn earnestness of Dr. Wordsworth, improper appointments to bishoprics and deaneries would soon become impossible; for no minister of the Crown would dare to make them.

Parliament is expected to meet before the month closes. It will have many important subjects to discuss, both of home and foreign politics. At home, the condition of the working classes and their children clamours for a degree of attention it ought to have received long since. The first report of the Children's Employment Commission has brought to light facts which otherwise would have seemed incredible; and now that the public sympathy has been aroused, they are every day confirmed by fresh disclosures. The state of the children in the potteries, and that of the climbing boys, or chimney sweeps, is something horrible. Our present number gives an account of the Staffordshire potteries, and the condition of the children employed in them, from one who is well acquainted with the subject on which he writes; but for a description of the incredible sufferings of a climbing boy we must refer to the report itself, or to the speech of Lord Shaftesbury, on presenting it to the House of Lords, in last July. Despite a legislative enactment, dating so long ago as 1840, there are upwards of four thousand children still employed in this unnecessary and inhuman labour. That it is uncalled for is proved by the examples of London and Edinburgh, where the tallest houses and the most difficult chimneys are swept by a machine; and in neither of them are climbing boys employed. In Edinburgh there is an admirable plan, which well deserves to be followed in every town in the United Kingdom; the civic authorities undertake the task, and, without consulting the occupants, send the official sweeps at stated periods, and clean every chimney in the house. It is mere inhuman folly to pretend, that what can be done in London and Edinburgh cannot be done elsewhere. The children thus employed are in a condition worse than African slavery; in fact, many of them are actually slaves. A master chimney-sweep examined says, "I have hired a lad for a pound a year, and I have bought lads myself, giving the parents so much

a year." Another master sweep says, "They are bought, sold, and leased by their parents and guardians." And as to the cruelties practised upon them, they are such as scarcely bear recital. "In learning a child," says one master sweep, "you must use violence that I shudder to think of." We must implore our readers to read over a very small portion of a speech to which the House of Lords was compelled to listen.

I

"The number of these climbing boys throughout the country is two thousand" (we are informed on good authority four thousand), "and they begin to work, some as young even as five. In the smaller towns the hours of work vary from eight to nine hours a day, in the larger towns from twelve to sixteen. And I shall now submit to your lordships' notice not one-twentieth part of the evidence contained in these volumes with respect to this employment. These boys are, in the first place, subject to a most frightful disorder called the chimney-sweeper's cancer. have been in hospitals and seen cases of it myself, and I would now ask your lordships to listen for a moment to the evidence given on the point by Mr. Ruff, of Nottingham, who was himself a master-sweep, and who, be it said to his credit, has come forward to give testimony against the continuance of this abominable system. Mr. Ruff's evidence is as follows:-'No one knows the cruelty which a boy has to undergo in learning. The flesh must be hardened. This is done by rubbing it, chiefly on the elbows and knees, with the strongest brine, close by a hot fire. You must stand over them with a cane, or coax them by the promise of a halfpenny, &c., if they will stand a few more rubs. At first they will come back from their work with their arms and knees streaming with blood; then they must be rubbed with brine again.' Is this a state of things, my lords, which is to be permitted to go on? Are we to call ourselves a free and Christian country, knowing that two thousand of our fellow creatures, just as good as ourselves, are doomed to the most excruciating and intolerable agony, because some gentlemen gay they will have sweeping boys, and will not use machines, and because magistrates refuse to act, upon the clearest and most indisputable breaches of the law being proved before them ?"

There are other dangerous trades in which children are employed. This first report includes only six trades, and applies to seven thousand children of tender years. Other reports will bring up the number to a hundred thousand. Their claim to attention, as Lord Shaftesbury remarked, rests not merely on the ground of humanity. It rests upon political considerations; for the well-being of no inconsiderable number of our future citizens is involved. It seems needless to add, that the whole of these children are excluded from the advantages of education. Some of them attend the Sunday-school. There they may perhaps learn a text, or commit a hymn to memory. This may be blessed to the saving of their souls; but to speak of it as an education, would be childish. The poor exhausted child who stands in the class is more fit to lie down on his little bed. We cannot let the opportunity pass by of once more protesting against the education offered in the government schools as something utterly unfit for these the most necessitous of the children of the poor. We find one of the government inspectors complaining that in one school there was but a single child who could work a sum in compound multiplication! Was there one child who could read with ease to himself, and so as to give pleasure to the hearer, a chapter in the Bible and a page of Robinson Crusoe? who knew how to add and to subtract a few figures? who could write a legible letter to an absent parent? and who knew as much geography as a schoolmistress who understands her business can teach in an infant school, with the aid of an old globe or a few balls of gutta percha? This is what these hundred thousand children want; and with this, and pervading all of it, the fear and love of

God.

Lord Shaftesbury, if the government do not take up the question, intimates that he himself will do so in the next session.

We enter upon the year, as regards our foreign relations, with a determination to avoid war if possible, but with a growing apprehension that the time is coming when it may be no longer possible to do so. As we anticipated, our government have courteously declined the Emperor Napoleon's invitation to an European Congress. The consequence was a burst of wordy rage from the Paris newspapers, rivalled only by that of their brethren in New York. But there is no kind of eloquence which burns out more rapidly than that of undeserved abuse when left unnoticed. Even our revilers in America now pant for breath, and Paris has exhausted itself, or returned to a better mind. Still these are indications how slight a provocation would be held sufficient to justify a war with England in both quarters, whenever there may be the slightest prospect of success. Prussia and some of the German States threaten war with Denmark. How far it may be possible for us to maintain neutrality, if war should really take place, must depend on circumstances not yet foreseen.

The American war has lasted long enough to wear out the sympathy of England for either party. From the beginning, both were wrong, and neither of them has taken a single step to place its cause upon a better footing. The Satanic glee with which most of the Northern Statesmen and their subservient press speak of the horrors of war and the sacrifice of human life, must provoke the wrath of Him who will "scatter the people that delight in war." The Southern States have not taken the one step which would have gained for them not only the sympathy but the respect of all Europe. They have not shown the slightest disposition to emancipate their slaves. The manifesto of their ministers on behalf of slavery has been suicidal ; it has estranged from them the heart of all the religion in our country. We perceive that the Washington government have in their service a hundred thousand negroes, of whom one-half are soldiers. So at least they say; but not, we suspect, without indulging in that exaggeration which throws so much discredit even upon their most important despatches and State papers. But suppose only a few regiments to be embodied, and that they gain the confidence of their officers, and prove themselves good soldiers, it will be impossible to retain their fellow-negroes for many years in a state of slavery. They will have been taught the lesson which is all that is needed to secure their freedom-the lesson of their own capacity to emancipate themselves. And thus, in a manner neither intended nor foreseen by either party, that only result will be gained which can offer the slightest compensation for the misery, the crime, and the bloodshed of this most unnatural of civil wars.

The

TO CORRESPONDENTS.-Just received, "A BArrister." ERRATUM.-In our last Number, page 490, there is an unfortunate error. Times of June 12, 1854, is made to speak language it never used, owing to the inverted commas being misplaced. They should have been placed after "a selfish one." What follows respecting political gamesters is Mr. Poynder's; the

commas should be erased after "fanatics."

ON SOME ASPECTS OF THE TRANSFIGURATION.*

Ir is 1830 years ago, since Peter, James, and John saw the "excellent glory" of Christ. It is a scene much to be remembered, surrounded as it is with all that is attractive to the Jew on the one hand, and to the Christian on the other. No incidents in the annals of the despised and rejected One's life are more replete with highest interest. "Let us, therefore," says Bishop Hall, "ascend the holy mount, and see this great sight; for we cannot hope, while here on earth, to gain a nearer view of heaven; we shall thus behold Him glorious on earth, the region of His shame and abasement, who now reigns exalted high on the throne of His exceeding majesty."

According to St. Matthew's account (xvi. 13), our Lord had come into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, probably to be removed from Herod's jurisdiction; for it could not be that a prophet should perish out of Jerusalem, and He who "knew what was in man,” knew the designs of "that fox." Here he announced to His disciples His approaching death, and He concludes the prophetic intimation in the following memorable words, "Verily I say unto you,. There be some standing here, who shall not taste of death, until they have seen the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Six days afterwards, the sacred writer, in the 1st verse of the 17th chapter, says, "Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them; and His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light. And behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with Him." This is the first expla

We had a paper on the Transfiguration in our Volume for 1862. But the subject is so unspeakably grand, that we have not hesitated to admit the present article, in which it is treated by another writer from other points of view.