and it is during the hours from five to eleven on Sunday evenings that the public house is seen in its truest aspect. Not so full, perhaps, as on Saturday nights, in villages where the wages are paid on that night; but still an aspect more wretched and deplorable, because of the day, and the longer time the men have at their disposal.

And this is not all; the village girls nearly throughout the whole of England are accustomed, or in fact make a point of meeting their lovers and walking with them on Sunday nights, and I am grieved to say that the village beer-house is not unfrequently the termination of their work. It is not necessary to state here what such walks as these may and do end in, with such associations.

Most public houses might as well be open all Sunday, they are open the greater portion of the day, they are virtually open all day, for the law is constantly evaded, and it is in fact the exception for it to be observed in country villages. The police could stop it, but they are few, and their visits far between; and instances are not wanting where the sale of beer and spirituous liquors is winked at by those functionaries.

Now by some means this should be put a stop to, not merely for the sake of morality and decency, but for the sake of the poor labourers, who cannot, who have not the means of doing away with it themselves.

On the presupposition, then, that the very men who frequent the public houses on Sundays, would be glad if there were no such things, I will, in as few words as I may, suggest some of the ideas which have struck me in regard to them, and which I feel confident, if adopted, would do much good.

And first I contend, that in country parishes, at all events, there is no real need at all for public houses, either on Sunday or during the week, as far as regards beer for the labourer; and for this reason, that if the malt tax were repealed every man could brew his own dinner beer.

In a country village there is generally some one or other who owns a set of brewing utensils, and he is always ready to lend them out to his neighbours; or there might, by a small subscription, be a set pro bono publico kept at the parson's or churchwarden's house. If these were lent out gratuitously, or at a small charge, every cottager would be able to brew at home without difficulty; this would always give the labourer his beer at his meals, and I am sure would greatly discountenance the public house. They have an idea, a very rational one, spite of all teetotal theories, that they ought to have some beer, and they will go to the public house if they can get it nowhere else.

The repeal of the malt tax and hop duties would also be a great move in the same direction, and I firmly believe that it would save many a good and strong man from destruction, and many a wife and child from starvation and misery.

Another remedy for Sundays, and I think a good one, would be

to stop the sale of beer "to be drunk on the premises" entirely on that day, except to bona fide travellers; stopping it, say, to all who live within three miles of the public house. In villages the landlord would know all the people within that distance, and then there should be a heavy penalty imposed upon the transgression of the law, which would make them unwilling to assist those who tried to cause them to transgress against it.

The only chance the police have, in the country, of detecting the sale of beer and spirituous liquors at illegal hours, is by stratagem, or, as we used to call it at school, "sneaking." The French and other Continental nations make great use of this mode of detection, but surely it is beneath such a nation as ourselves, and contrary alike to the genius of our laws, and to our national character.

But there is one means of prevention-and the old proverb holds good in this as well as in other things-which I would mention here. Most of the public houses in the country belong to private individuals. They are not the property of distant proprietors, they are not the houses of large brewing firms, who put in their own men, and turn them out if if they do not make their customers drink, and profane Sunday. The owners for the most part live in the parish, they ought to, and often do, take an interest in it. The legislature of the country can put a stop to the indiscriminate sale of liquors and the profanation of Sunday, and so cure the evil, but the owners of the houses can prevent the evil. I ask them, Do they think that they are justified in not moving in the question? Do they think that they are justified in letting their houses as beer shops at all? At all events they should insert a clause in their leases, rendering the lease void at the first sign of disorder on the first case of gross and permitted drunkenness.

It is a hard matter to decide, but the question of abolishing them ought and must be considered, sooner or later, if we are to make any real and permanent change for the better in the moral condition of the labouring classes. There are many ways of doing this, I have no doubt, which have not occurred to me. The above I have set down because they strike me as the most feasible, and because I think they are the most likely to answer. It is everybody's duty to think about this matter, and every one's duty to help in finding a remedy.

It will be urged that the beer shops are the only places where the men can meet, the only place in winter where the unmarried men can get round the fire, enjoy their pipe and their gossip, feel that they are not in the way of any one, and that no one is in their way: and it will be noticed that I have suggested nothing to supply this want. In my next chapter I hope to dwell at large on it, and propose something which will supply the want, and largely overbalance it.

A Dream of Passion-ide.

I dreamed, and in my dream I saw a throne;
'Twas great and brilliant, and the Mighty King
Of Glory sat thereon-while to His feet

I saw a loving Mother presents bring.

Around her stood her children: one by one
She took them by the hand, and to her Lord
Each child presented, each offering some gift,
Some token of obedience to His word.

Some brought the martyr's pang, and this I saw
Pleased the King best; some brought a broken heart,
The widow's mite-the secret deed of love,
Each was accepted, and then placed apart.

Some only brought their earliest chrisom robes:
And these were beautiful, young, fresh from Heaven;
Some looked like penitents, and brought their tears;
To each accepted soul a cross was given.

When I saw this I shook for very fear,
And waves of anguish rolled my heart within
For I had neither martyr's pang, nor tear,
Nor e'er one deed of love unstained by sin.

;

My robes Baptismal had been long defiled,
I knew that I had nought He could accept,
I saw Him bend on me a searching glance,
So my soul died within me, and I wept.

My Mother saw my tears, and in my
hands
She placed a chalice, filled with wine, dark red;
This at her bidding to the Throne I took,
And to the glorious King I trembling said—

"My Mother gave me this, and said 'twas Thine, "And when she gave it me she called it Blood;

66

And I believed her, though it seemed like wine,""Tis all I have to offer Thee, O God!"

My Mother joined with mine a tearful prayer;
"This Blood is Thine: could it be shed in vain ?"
O wondrous Love! the King my chalice took,
And bade me go and join His glorious train.

A CHARGE TO THE DIOCESE OF

ALTERORBURY.

[REPORTED SPECIALLY FOR THIS MAGAZINE.]

DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN,-The circumstances of the time at which it becomes my duty and my privilege to speak to you, for the first time collectively and officially, are of such a character as to make it desirable that I should acquaint you at once, and plainly, with my deliberately formed opinion on most of the points of difficulty by which we are now agitated within and without. I say both within and without, advisedly. For it is as desirable that each one of us should be free from inward disturbances of our conscience and judgment, as that our outward relations to our brother pastors, our flocks, and the sheep that are wandered from the fold, should be of a sound and unambiguous kind.

Be it ours, then, to consider these questions with a serious attention, and in such other manner as becomes our sacred and important office.

Chief heads of I shall confine my remarks principally to three the Charge. heads, the first being that of Divine Worship, or the duties of our office within the walls of the Church: the second, that of Parochial work, or our official duties without those walls; and the third will embrace several important particulars respecting Clerical life and practice. In speaking on each of these several heads, I shall endeavour to fit my remarks as accurately as I have power to do so, to the state of things at present existing in this large diocese, and throughout the Province, of Alterorbury.

Revision of the 1. In speaking of our duties within the walls of Prayer-Book the Church, I shall touch but lightly upon a subject which has occupied no small share of attention lately, -the Revision, that is, of those formularies by which the duties in question are guided. I do not think the Prayer-Book will undergo any material, perhaps not any, change Improbable, within the compass of our generation. There is a large proportion of Clergy who, for various reasons, all coincide in the one opinion that it is undesirable to alter, at least now, any portion of the actual Prayer-Book. The Laity also, if their feelings were aroused by the imminent prospect of a change in the familiar words of their Common Prayers, would certainly protest strongly, as a body, against such a measure. The very dead weight of the Prayer-Books already in use, numbering, as it does, many millions of all sizes, and of various value, from four pence to four pounds,

would, too, be a much more considerable obstacle than has been at all contemplated by the Revisionists. I am not, therefore, apprehensive, upon the whole, that the existing call which is heard in some quarters, (especially since it is more characterized by clamour and audacity, than by reason and conscience,) will meet with general favour at the hands of the nation.

Though not be- But at the same time I desire to guard myself yond our ability. from being supposed to make one among the number of those who think that we are wanting both in the right and the ability to revise our Book of Common Prayer. The same authority which revised, when translating it from Latin into English, at the period of the Reformation, and which on subsequent occasions during the following century ventured to make several important changes, could do the same work at the present day. And I have yet to learn that with a Neale, a Freeman, a Helmore, a Purchas, and many such as they, learned in Liturgical history, and in ritual practice, we are more deficient in the technical knowledge which is applicable to the reconstruction or revision of our Common Prayer-Book, than the century in which such revision and reconstruction were last undertaken. But I shall not say more on the subject, not deeming that we are likely to see any such knowledge called into use, except for the highly desirable purpose of accumulating material wherewith those may build, and tools wherewith they may work, who shall hereafter be entrusted with the very serious duty of re-edifying our formularies., if such a duty should be clearly imposed upon the Church of England.

Length of our Services.

I pass on to consider rather some of those particulars in which it is thought by many that our Divine Worship, according to received usages among us, does not meet the spirit of the age.

Much has been said, for instance, about the length of our services. Much more, perhaps, by the Clergy than-if we except Lord Ebury— by the Laity; though I allow that there may be a feeling of tediousness on the part of the latter which respect for established usages prevents them from expressing. Whatever weariness may occasionally be felt by those present at Divine Worship, I yet doubt whether any great change in present customs would be generally acceptable. Such weariness arises not unfrequently from want of interest on the part of the worshipper; or from his putting himself into the position of a listener only, rather than into that of an active partaker in the work of Divine Worship. In the case of sermons, it cannot but be that want of interest must often be felt, and little more conceded to the preacher than a respectful patience. But while we can none of us shut our eyes to the fact that a great improvement has taken place, both in the matter and manner of sermons, during the last few years, we ought also to remember that the mixed character of our congregations makes it almost a necessity that the kind of sermon which