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lage congregation, by an obscure and frail memorial in a country churchyard; and let them contrast with this the enthusiastic pride they would feel in knowing, that the glory which their family had achieved was not to pass away, but was to be publicly acknowledged, and publicly recorded, in a splendid and conspicuous monument, raised for this purpose by their exulting country! We may be sure that there is no person insensible to these valuable emotions; our country would be low indeed were it otherwise, it being clearly essential to a free country that such feel ings should exist; since, where there is no ambition to be venerated after death, there is no such thing as devotion to the public service when alive. There will be, and ought to be, a vast variety in the kind and degree of sentiment which will prompt us to raise such monuments, but the result must be the same in all-the security, the glory, the happiness of the country.

I shall trouble your Lordship and the public with only one other consideration.

It has often been asked, If such be really the advantages of the Grecian architecture above that which is the growth of this country, why have we not imported it before now? The answer to which is, that we were, until very lately, almost entirely ignorant of the existence of the fine buildings of Greece, or, to speak more correctly, we were ignorant of their extraordinary beauty, and of their effect in forming the taste and chastising the judgment in all matters connected with the science of architecture. The descriptions of a few old travellers failed altogether to strike our imagination; but, in process of time, as the facilities of travelling increased, these splendid monuments of ancient art became the objects of more frequent and careful examination, and numerous travellers returned to spread in this country, by their writings and drawings, as far as such means could do, the enlightened spirit which they had but just acquired themselves. The first effect of this was, to send abroad eminent artists and men of science of all descriptions. The next was, to induce many enterprising and public-spirited individuals to send to this country such detached fragments of those glorious edifices as were capable of transportation. The effect

VOL. VI.

on the public taste which arose out of these causes has been prodigious.

But, while every one allows the importance of these researches and these collections, in a national point of view, it does not appear to have been so generally felt, that a much greater advantage would arise from ferring to this country, not alone a few mutilated fragments of the sculpture which has ornamented a temple, but the whole, or rather a fac-simile of the whole temple itself.

trans

The reason of this appears to be, that, to understand to any useful purpose the merits of Grecian architecture, it must be seen. The effect, indeed, produced on the mind by the sight of Doric temples is most extraordinary, and not easily described. It imparts, in fact, a new sense, and without the aid of this the mind is not fitted to receive those ideas in which a right apprehension of the subject consists. There is no man of sense and education who has examined a temple of the pure Doric style without being strongly affected, or without being conscious of having thereby acquired an unexpected accession of correct taste, and sound judgment on architectural subjects. The impression left is never to be erased, and it has, moreover, the power of giving birth to and of cherishing a new class of perceptions, which are of use in improving the understanding not only when it is employed upon works of art, but when the objects of its consideration are in any way connected with the elegancies and refinements of society.

It is this strong impression of the magical effect, which the presence of such a temple as the Parthenon can alone produce, that urges the advocates of the present plan to recommend its adoption so earnestly. They feel persuaded that, to place the Temple of Minerva before the eyes, not of one or two travellers, but of the whole public, is the most certain means of cultivating our national taste and happiness at home, and, consequently, the power and importance of our country among other nations. Nothing short of this, it is greatly to be apprehended, can produce that ardent and valuable enthusiasm which, unhappily for so good a cause, has found, upon this occasion, such feeble and inadequate expression.

A TRAVELLER.

REMARKS ON DR CHALMERS'S

SECOND PAMPHLET.

ALTHOUGH We do not feel ourselves qualified to decide on Dr Chalmers's plans of improvement, their aspect is yet so simple and beautiful, and they are recommended in a strain of so much natural, though sometimes uncouth, eloquence, that we shall continue to lay them before our readers regularly as they appear. At all events, it is a very noble effort which he is making, and, if his fervid spirit is happier in seizing the grand general views of Christian exertion, than in meeting the objections which may be made in detail, it is still of infinite moment that those leading principles should be exhibited in all their simplicity. They all hang upon that grand discovery of the Gospel, that LOVE is omnipotent, and that every enterprise which is undertaken in the pure spirit of good-will to man, and is not vitiated by any by-ends, will sooner or later be successful. It is thus the leading feature of his plans, to bring Christian principle and affection into constant play, and to throw into the back-ground, as much less effectual, all the more operose machinery of charity. This runs through all his speculations on the maintenance of the poor; and whether or no, in the present artificial state of society, his views on that and on corresponding subjects may be always practicable, they certainly seem to proceed on sound and important principles. The subject of his speculations in the little tract before us is one of a very limited nature, yet it affords him scope for some admirable observations. He objects to the present system of many charitable institutions, that, instead of being confined to certain districts of a town, their operation soon becomes general over the whole, by which means it is much less effectual, in his view, than if it were fixed and concentrated to a particular spot. He finds it difficult to explain the exact nature of the principle on which this distinction proceeds, and which he terms" the

The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns. By Thomas Chalmers, D. D. Minister of St John's Church, Glasgow. No. 2.-On the Influence of Locality in Towns. Glasgow, 1820.

influence of locality in towns." The following passages, however, sufficiently illustrate his views. It is with regard to Sabbath-schools chiefly that he specifies the operation of his principle.

"The first effect of it which falls to be

He

considered, is that which it has upon the
teacher. He, with a select and appropri-
ate vineyard thus lying before him, will
feel himself far more powerfully urged,
than when under the common arrange-
ment, to go forth among its families.
However subtle an exercise it may re-
quire from another, faithfully to analyse
the effect upon his mind, he himself has
only to try it, and he will soon become
sensible of the strong additional interest
small and specific locality assigned to him.
that he acquires, in virtue of having a
When the subject on which he is to ope-
rate thus offers itself to his contemplation,
in the shape of one unbroken field, or of
one entire and continuous body, it acts as
a more distinct and imperative call upon
him, to go out upon the enterprise.
will feel a kind of property in the fami-
lies; and the very circumstance of a ma-
terial limit around their habitations serves
to strengthen this impression, by furnish-
ing to his mind a sort of association with
the hedges and the landmarks of property.
At all events, the very visibility of the
limit, by constantly leading him to per-
ceive the length and the breadth of his
task, holds out an inducement to his ener-
gies, which, however difficult to explain,
will be powerfully felt and proceeded on.
There is a very great difference, in respect
of its practical influence, between a task
that is indefinite, and a task that is clear-
ly seen to be overtakeable. The one has
the effect to paralyse, the other to quicken
exertion. It serves most essentially to
spirit on his undertaking, when, by every
new movement, one feels himself to be
drawing sensibly nearer to the accomplish-
ment of it-when, by every one house that
he enters, he can count the lessening num-
ber before him, through which he has yet
to pass with his proposals for the attend-
ance of their children-and when, by the
distinct and definite portion which is still
untravelled, he is constantly reminded of
what he has to do, ere that district, which
he feels to be his own, is thoroughly per-
vaded. He can go over his families too,
with far less expence of locomotion, than
under the common system of Sabbath-
schools; and, for the same reason, can he
more fully and frequently reiterate his at-
tentions; and it will charm him onwards,
to find that he is sensibly translating him-
self into a stricter and kinder relationship
with the people of his district; and, if he
have a taste for cordial intercourse with the

the resources of a mighty population, an overflowing attendance may be afforded to each of them, while an humble fraction of the whole is all that is overtaken; and below the goodly superficies of a great apparent stir and activity, may an unseen structure of baser materials deepen and accumulate underneath, so as to furnish a solution of the fact, that with an increase of Christian exertion amongst us, there should, at one and the same time, be an increase of heathenism.

fellows of his own nature, he will be glad dened and encouraged by his growing familiarity with them all; and thus will he turn the vicinity which he has chosen into a home-walk of many charities; and recognised as its moral benefactor, will his kindness, and his judgment, and his Christianity, be put forth with a wellearned and well-established influence, in behalf of a grateful population.”—p. 56-58. "Under a local system, the teachers move towards the people. Under a general system, such of the people as are dis- "It is the pervading operation of the posed to Christianity move towards them. local system, which gives it such a superiTo estimate the comparative effect of these or value and effect in our estimation. It two, take the actual state of every mixed is its thorough diffusion through that porand crowded population, where there must tion of the mass in which it operates. It be many among whom this disposition is is that movement, by which it traverses utterly extinguished. The question is, the whole population, and by which, inhow shall the influence of a Sabbath- stead of only holding forth its signals to school be brought most readily and most those of them who are awake, it knocks at abundantly into contact with their fami- the doors of those who are most profoundlies? Which of the two parties, the teach- ly asleep, and, with a force far more efer or those to be taught, should make the fective than if it were physical, drags them first advances to such an approximation? out to a willing attendance upon its miniTo meet this question, let it ever be re- strations. In this way, or indeed in any membered, that there is a wide and a way, may it still be impossible to reach mighty difference between the wants of the parents of our present generation. our physical, and those of our moral and But the important practical fact is, that, spiritual nature. In proportion to our averse as they may be to Christianity on want of food is our desire for food; but their own account, and negligent as they it is not so with our want of knowledge, often are, in their own persons, of the or virtue, or religion. The more desti- Christianity of their children, still there is tute we are of these last, the more dead a pride and a satisfaction felt in their atwe are as to any inclination for them. A tendance upon the Sabbath-schools, and general system of Sabbath-schooling may their proficiency at the Sabbath-schools. attract towards it all the predisposition Let the system be as impotent as it may that there is for Christian instruction, and in its efficiency upon the old, still it yet leave the majority as untouched and comes into extensive contact with the ducas unawakened as it found them. In tile and susceptible young; and, from the moving through the lanes and the recesses way in which it is fitted to muster them of a long-neglected population, will it be nearly all into its presence, is it fitted, in found of the fearful multitude, that not proper hands, to wield a high and a preonly is their acquaintance with the gospel siding influence over the destinies of a fuextinguished, but their wish to obtain an acquaintance with it is also extinguished. They not only have no righteousness, but they have no hungering nor thirsting after

it.

A general teacher may draw some kindred particles out of this assemblage. He may bring around him such families as are of a homogeneous quality with himself. Those purer ingredients of the mass, which retain so much of the etherial character as to have an etherial tendency, may move towards a place of central and congenial attraction, though at a consider able distance from them; and, even though, in so doing, they have to come separately out from that overwhelming admixture with which they are encompassed. But the bulky sediment remains untouched and stationary; and, by its power of assimilation, too, is all the while adding to its own magnitude. And thus it is both a possible thing that schools may multiply under a general system, and that out of

ture age.

"The schools, under a general system, are so many centres of attraction for all the existing desire that there is towards Christianity; and what is thus drawn is, doubtless, often bettered and advanced by the fellowship into which it has entered. The schools, under a local system, are so many centres of emanation, from which a vivifying influence is actively propagated through a dead and putrid mass. It does not surprise us to be told, that, under the former operation, there should be an increase of youthful delinquency, along with an increase of public instruction for the young. Should the latter operation become universal in cities, we would be surprised if there were still an increase of youthful delinquency; and it were a phenomenon we would be unable to explain.

"The former or general system draws around it the young of our more decent and reputable families. It can give an

impulse to all the matter that floats upon the surface of society. It is the pride of the latter, or local system, while it refuses not these, that it also fetches out from their obscurities, the very poorest and most profligate of children. It may have a painful encounter at the outset, with the filth, and the raggedness, and the other rude and revolting materials, which it has so laboriously excavated from those mines of depravity, that lie beneath the surface of common observation. But it may well be consoled with the thought, that, while much good has been done by its predecessor, which, we trust, that it is on the eve of supplanting, it holds in its own hands the materials of a far more glorious transformation.

There is

touched by them. There is the firm and
the obstinate growth of a sedentary cor-
ruption, which will require to be more ac-
tively assailed. It is certainly cheering to
count the positive numbers on the side of
Christianity. But, beyond the ken of or-
dinary notice, there is an outnumbering
both on the side of week-day profligacy,
and of Sabbath profanation.
room enough for apparent Christianity,
and real corruption, to be gaining ground
together, each in their respective terri-
tories; and the delusion is, that, while
many are rejoicing in the symptoms of
our country's reformation, the country
itself may be ripening for some awful cri-
sis, by which to mark, in characters of
vengeance, the consummation of its guilt."
p. 61-66.

We have given these passages at full length, because they are striking and important. Their eloquence, indeed, is the least part of their praise. The following remarks likewise are full of true Christian wisdom.

"There are so many philanthropists in this our day, that if each of them who is qualified were to betake himself, in his own line of usefulness, to one given locality, it would soon work a great and vi sible effect upon society. One great security for such an arrangement being propagated, is the actual comfort which is experienced by each, after he has entered on his own separate portion of it. But there is, at the same time, a temporary hin drance to it, in the prevailing spirit of the times. The truth is, that a task so isolated as that which we are now prescribing, does not suit with the present rage for generalising. There is an appetite for designs of magnificence. There is an impatience of every thing short of a universal scheme, landing in a universal result. Nothing will serve but a mighty organization, with the promise of mighty conse quences; and, let any single person be infected with this spirit, and he may decline from the work of a single court or lane in a city, as an object far too limited for his contemplation. He may like to share, with others, in the enterprise of sub

"This is an age of many ostensible doings in behalf of Christianity. And it looks a paradox to the general eye, that, with this feature of it standing out so conspicuously, there should also be an undoubted increase of crimes, and commitments, and executions, all marking an augmented depravity among our population. A very slight degree of arithmetic, we are persuaded, can explain the paradox. Let it simply be considered, in the case of any Christian institution, whether its chief office be to attract or to pervade. Should it only be the former, we have no doubt, that a great visible exhibition may be drawn around it--and that stationary pulpits and general Sabbath-schools, and open places of repair for instruction indiscriminately to all who will, must give rise to a great absolute amount of attendance. And whether we look at the streets, when all in a fervour with church-going-or witness the full assemblage of children, who come from all quarters, with their weekly preparations, to a pious and intelligent teacher or compute the overflowing auditory, that, Sabbath after Sabbath, some free evening sermon is sure to bring out from among the closely peopled massor, finally, read of the thousands which find a place in the enumerations of some great philanthropic society-we are apt, from all this, to think that a good and a religious influence is in full and busy circulation on every side of us. And yet, there is not a second-rate town in our em-ordinating a whole city to the power of pire, which does not afford materials enough, both for all this stir and appearance, on the one hand, and for a rapid in crease, in the quantum of moral deterioration, on the other. The doings to which we have adverted may bear, with a kind of magnetic influence, on all that is kindred in character to their own design, and their own principle. They may communicate a movement to the minority who will, but leave still and motionless the majority who will not. Whole streets and whole departments may be nearly un

some great and combined operation. And we may often have to deliver a man from this ambitious tendency, ere we can prevail upon him to sit humbly and persever ingly down to his task-ere we can lead him to forget the whole, and practically give himself to one of its particulars-ere we can satisfy him, that, should he moralise one district of three hundred people, he will not have lived in vain-ere we can get him to pervade his locality, and quit his speculation.

"This spirit has restrained the march of

philanthropy, as effectually as, in other days, it did that of philosophy. In the taste for splendid generalities, it was long ere the detail and the drudgery of experimental science were entered upon. There is a sound and inductive method of philanthropy, as well as a sound and inductive method of philosophising. A few patient disciples of the experimental school have constructed a far nobler and more enduring fabric of truth, than all the old schoolmen put together could have reared. And could we prevail on those who are unwearied in well-doing, each to take his own separate slip, or portion of the vast territory that lies before us, and to go forth upon it with the one preparation of common sense and common sympathy; and, resigning his more extended imaginations, actually to work with the materials that are put into his hand,-would we, in this inductive way of it, arrive at a far more solid, as well as striking consummation, than ever can be realised by any society of wide and lofty undertakings.

"The individual who thus sits soberly down to a work, that is commensurate with the real mediocrity of the human powers, will soon meet with much to reconcile him to the enterprise. He will not fail to contrast the impotency of every general management, in reference to the whole, with the efficacy of his own special manage ment, in reference to a part. His feeling of the superior comfort of his own walk, and his conviction of its superior productiveness, will soon make up to him for the loss of those more comprehensive surveys that are offered to his notice by Societies, which, however gigantic in their aim, are so inefficient in their performance. He loses a splendid deception, and he gets, in exchange for it, a solid reality, and a reality too, which will at length grow and brighten into splendour, by the simple apposition of other districts to his own-by the mere summation of particulars-by cach philanthropist betaking himself to the same path of exertion, and following out an example that is sure to become more alluring by every new act of expe

rience.

schools have been formed upon the principle which he here recommends. We shall give both of these in his own warm language, nor can we conclude better than with his eloquent conclusion. We really are desirous to give our feeble aid to the dissemination of the views of this distinguished philanthropist, and of the earnest words in which he clothes them. The first instance is that of the Saltmarket Sabbath School Society.

"There is an impatience on the part of many a raw and sanguine philanthropist, for doing something great; and, akin to this, there is an impatience for doing that great thing speedily. They spurn the condition of drivelling amongst littles; and unless there be a redeeming magnificence in the whole operation, of which they bear a part, are there some who could not be satisfied with a humble and detached allotment in the great vineyard of human usefulness." pp. 71-74.

Dr Chalmers mentions two remarkable instances in Glasgow in which

"The field of its operations takes in both sides of the street, with the deep, and narrow, and numerous lanes which branch off from them. It bears a population of 3624; and to cultivate this extent, there were only four individuals, at the outset of the undertaking, who, instead of spreading themselves over the whole, appropriated each a small locality, and waited for more agents, ere they proceeded to lay out the remainder. And, such is the impulse that lies in a field of exertion, with its boundaries lying visibly before you-such is the excitement given to human power, when linked with a task that may be surmounted, instead of being left to expatiate at random, over an obscure and fathomless unknown-such is the superior charm of a statistical over an extended territory, and such the more intense sympathy of a devoted few, in the prosecution of their common and defined object, than that of the scattered many, who have spread beyond the limits either of mutual inspection or of general control, that, in a few months, did this little association both complete its numbers, and thoroughly allocate and pervade the whole ground of its projected operations. It has now opened fourteen schools, and provided them with teachers. The number of scholars is 420, amounting to more than a ninth of the whole population. This is a very full proportion indeed; for, on pretty extensive surveys, is it found, that the whole number of children, from the age of six to fifteen, comes to about one-fifth of the population. Certain it is, that all the general societies in previous operation had brought out but a very slender fraction, indeed, of the number brought out by this local and pervading society-that many a crowded haunt of this district was as completely untouched by the antecedent methods, as are the families in the wilds of Tartary-that hundreds of young, never in church, and without one religious observation to mark and to separate their Sabbath from the other days of the week, have thus been brought within an atmosphere, which they now breathe for the first time in their existence-that, with a small collection of books attached to

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