gaged in the establishment of a society and schools of industry. (See Pamphlet.) In 1785, he was presented, by the late Bishop of Durham, to a stall at Salisbury, at the request of the late Queen Charlotte, to whom, a short time before, he had had the honour of presenting his pamphlet on the Society of Industry. In April, 1792, he was advanced to a stall at Durham, and at the same time was elected one of the trustees of the late Lord Crewe, both vacant by the death of Dr. Sharp. In November, 1803, he was appointed to the officialty of the Dean and Chapter of Durham. In 1810, he was presented to the vicarage of Egglingham, Northumberland, by the Bishop of Durham, and resigned his livings in Lincolnshire. He was installed Archdeacon of Northumberland, in May, 1812. In 1814, he was presented, by the Dean and Chapter of Durham, to the vicarage of Northallerton, and resigned Egglingham. About the year 1815, he established a District Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, consisting of the deaneries of Alnwick and Bamburgh, and soon afterwards divided the whole of the Archdeaconry and North Durham into six such committees. In January, 1823, he formed a plan for providing every parish within the Archdeaconry and North Durham with parochial lending libraries (see book); and being disappointed at finding the District Committees averse from undertaking it, he resolved to do it without their assistance, and at his own expense, and accordingly made arrangements for its completion in six years: but in the beginning of the year 1825, he altered his plan, resolving to execute it in the course of that year, which he accomplished at a very considerable expense. ENCHIRIDION THO. COMBER, D.D. E MSS. T. C. DUNELM PIE cogitationes manè mentem occupent et foveantur. Ferventi oratione anima ornanda et armanda. In solitudine cogitationes, in societate sermones, ad res divinas, et utilitatem sui ipsius et aliorum dirigantur. Nulla occasio benefaciendi omittenda. Meditando de morte tuâ disce contemnere mundana omnia. Ante somnum revolve omnia dicta et facta præteritæ diei. ON INFANT AND SUNDAY SCHOOLS. EXTRACT FROM A SERMON. My principal object in the foregoing observations has been, not so much to enforce the duty of contributing to the instruction of the poor in the truths of religion — (on that point I am satisfied that no exhortation can be wanting), as to impress upon your minds the necessity of commencing the work of instruction, at as early a period as possible. In furtherance of this object, I shall now proceed to say a few words respecting Infant Schools institutions calculated, in my opinion, to produce the most beneficial effects, particularly among the poorer inhabitants of large and populous cities. Objections have, I am aware, been made to these institutions, founded principally upon the notion that their tendency is, by removing the child at a very early age from the immediate superintendence of his parents, to loosen those bands of natural affection by which the author of nature manifestly designed them to be united; as well as to weaken in the minds of the parents, the sense of the obligation under which they are placed, to provide by their own personal care and exertions for the welfare of their offspring. I mean not to affirm that this reasoning is entirely destitute of weight. If, indeed, all parents possessed both inclination and ability to instruct their children at home, I should be ready to admit that the establishment of Infant Schools became a matter of much less importance. But, when we turn from speculation to practice - from abstract reasoning to the actual condition of society how seldom among the poorer classes of the community do we find this inclination and ability united! Consider the case, to which allusion has been already made, the case of parents placed under the imperious necessity of providing the means of daily subsistence for themselves and their families - compelled to be absent from their homes, and to commit their children to the care of their neighbours. In this case, the separation between parent and child, which is supposed to constitute an objection to the establishment of Infant Schools, has already commenced. Consider the more melancholy, but, I fear, not uncommon case, in which the early separation of the child from those who gave him birth, appears to afford the only chance of rescuing him from utter destruction I mean the case of vicious and abandoned parents, from whom their offspring can learn no other lessons than those of depravity. In these and all other instances, in which, through the ignorance, the neglect, or the poverty of parents, children are thrown as it were upon the world, the advantages to be derived from Infant Schools are so apparent, that they do not admit of being questioned. Nor is the utility of these institutions less apparent, when they are regarded in another point of view, as seminaries for the National Schools, of which I have this day undertaken to plead the cause. Not that I wish to attach any undue importance to the actual knowledge which can be communicated to the child at so early a period of his existence,-the object at which we principally aim is to give him useful habits. But when he has once been placed in an Infant School, and thus entered upon that course of Christian instruction, in which it is the design of the Church of England that all her members should be trained, the probability is, that his parents, sensible of the advantages which he has already derived, will become doubly solicitous for his subsequent admission into the National School; and when he is admitted, the habits of attention, regularity, and subordination, which he has previously acquired, will greatly facilitate his further progress, and render the work of education less irksome to himself and less laborious to his teachers. But the Infant School is not the only establishment in this parish, of which we may confidently affirm that its operation will be most beneficial to the community; the same remark may be applied with equal justice to another institution, the Sunday School, designed for the reception of those who have quitted the National School. Difficult as the artisan too frequently finds it to provide for the maintenance of his family, we cannot be surprised that he is anxious to relieve himself from a portion at least of the burthen, by seizing the earliest opportunity of turning the labour of his children to account. But the necessary consequence is, that they are withdrawn from the National School, and exposed to the numerous temptations, which great cities unhappily present, at an age when they are peculiarly liable to be led astray by the influence of evil example. Lest, therefore, their intercourse with the world should by degrees obliterate the recollection of the salutary lessons which they received in the National Schools, it is most important that they should be furnished from time to time, with the opportunity of renewing the impression. With this opportunity, they are furnished in the excellent Institution to which I am now alluding. I feel, indeed, that I am guilty of no exaggeration when I affirm, that in the three Institutions in this parish, the Infant, the National, and Sunday Schools, every provision is made which human care and prudence can make, that the children of the poor shall not only be trained, but shall be kept in the way in which they ought to go-shall become useful members of society, and secure their own eternal happiness. OXFORD DINNER GRACES. MR. EDITOR,-I inclose to you two Graces, which have been in daily use in one of the Colleges of Oxford, from the foundation, I should imagine, of the Society. They are short and eloquent prayers, as pious, but somewhat more figurative than the Collects of our Church. The very rythm of these graces recalls to my memory many incidents, both of youth and more mature age, and many friendships which have been severed by the common incidents of life. But another reflection also steals into my mind while I read them, namely, that I have never been so impressed at former times as I am at present with their beauty and piety. I regret this, and I cannot help thinking that similar regret may be felt by my contemporaries, if any chance should present this letter to their observation. Indeed, our ancestors have not failed to provide many excellent things, both for the soul and body, in places of public education: it would be a grievous error, if we were to lose the benefit of the former, while we estimate the latter at their just value. I do not say this for the purpose of animadverting upon the conduct of those who are now in the course of an academical education- far from it: my wish is to urge them not to throw away any advantage, with which their happy situation furnishes them, nor to consider as mere forms, what may afterwards be found to possess the nature of realities. Whatever shape prayer may assume, whether it be an ejaculation, a word of thanksgiving, a benediction-whether it be uttered in public or in private-it is still the intercourse of a very imperfect being, with an Omnipotent Creator, and should never pass the lips without a reverential feeling. If there be any weight in this observation, it will apply alike to all periods of life; and they who are willing to give good advice to the young will surely not think that it is too late to profit by it themselves. Ante Prandium. Ꮮ Ꮎ Nos miseri et egentes homines pro hoc cibo quem ad alimonim corporis nostri sanctificatum es largitus ut eo rectè utamur, tibi, Deus Omnipotens, Pater Cœlestis, reverenter gratias agimus: simul obsecrantes ut cibum angelorum, panem verum coelestem, Dei verbum æternum Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum nobis impertiaris, ut co mens nostra pascatur et per carnem et sanguinem ejus alamur, foveamur et corroboremur. Post Prandium. Infunde, quæsumus, Domine Deus, gratiam tuam in mentes nostras, ut hisce donis tuis, datis a Ricardo Fox fundatore nostro, cæterisque benefactoribus, rectè in tuam gloriam utentes unà cum fidelibus defunctis in vitam cœlestem resurgamus per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. Deus pro infinità sua clementia Ecclesiæ suæ concordiam et unitatem concedat, Regem nostrum conservet, pacem regno universo populoque Christiano largiatur per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum. MONTHLY REGISTER. SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL. THE Address which was read by the Secretary at the General Meeting of the Society, held at the Freemason's Tavern, on the 19th of May last, has been printed. We shall now present our readers with some extracts from it. It thus sets forth the origin and first labours of the Society : In the very beginning of the last century, long before Great Britain had acquired her vast empire of unbelievers in the East, and with it so heavy a burden of responsibility, this Society stood up to undertake, where a field was open to it abroad, the same good work of Evangelism, which its scarcely elder sister, the Society for VOL. VIII. NO. VII. Promoting Christian Knowledge, had already begun at home. Such a field it found in the widely-spread and populous colonies of British North America. The general state of these colonies, in a religious and moral point of view, was at that time deplorable in the extreme. Whole settlements were living without public worship, without the administration of the Sacraments, without spiritual instruction of any kind; in short, both speculatively and practically, almost without God in the world." Others again, though retaining "a form of godliness," were abandoned to all those manifold corruptions of Chris SI tianity, which are the natural consequences of the want of a regular and duly qualified ministry. Could there be more pitiable claimants upon genuine Christian benevolence? Could there be fitter objects of wise Christian zeal? It is true they were still Christians in name, though in many of them even this seemed to be passing away it is true they were descended from Christian parents, and had come forth from a land, which, above all others, enjoyed the light of the Gospel in splendour and purity, but this only deepened the gloom, and aggravated the wretchedness of their condition. The Apostle, indeed, had in view a still darker and more desperate case, (that of an altogether wilful and presumptuous rejection of grace and truth once embraced,) when he spoke of those for whom "it had been better not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they had known it, to turn away from the holy commandment delivered unto them:" but yet the awful saying was applicable, in a degree, and by analogy, even here. To bring back these unhappy wanderers to the fold from which they had strayed was the primary and principal object which the Society proposed to itself: the conversion of the Negroes who were intermixed with them, and of the Indians with whom they had occasional intercourse, completed its benevolent designs. Nor was this course any other than such as true wisdom and charity would point out. It is meet, we know, that from "the children's bread," the children's wants should be first supplied: and it has been justly concluded, that "the prevention of a Christian's apostasy to heathenism, is of as much consequence in itself as the conversion of a heathen to Christianity. The recovery of an apostate is as great an acquisition as the gaining of an original heathen." For the attainment of these ends the Society was engaged, during a long series of years, throughout both the continent and islands of North America, in sending forth ministers, catechists, and schoolmasters; in promoting the building places of worship; in distributing largely the Holy Scriptures, the Liturgy of the Church of England, and religious books suited to the differ ent characters and wants of the population. Nor would it be difficult to draw an affecting, yet a faithful picture of the toils and dangers, the privations and sufferings, to which its Missionaries were exposed, in prosecuting the Apostolical work to which they had devoted themselves. They were, indeed, like their great Prototype, "in journeyings often, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." But the Lord of the harvest was pleased to bless their labours with an abundant and a continuing return. That memorable event in the history of the last century, which cut off from Great Britain so large a part of her North American dependencies, cut off at the same time from this Society a very considerable portion of the objects of its spiritual care. But it did not retire from the field where it had wrought so long, and so beneficially, without leaving a glorious legacy behind; the legacy of a pure Episcopal Church-a church which, though deriving nothing from the state but its share in the common toleration, holds at this day a high, a pre-eminent place above the various forms of Christian worship by which it is surrounded -a church, which, though separated from its parent the Church of England by local and political barriers, and by some points of discipline, is still one with it in doctrine and in spirit, and regards it with gratitude and venera tion. The Address then states, that the Society has directed its efforts, happily successful, with redoubled zeal and activity, to those provinces of North America which were yet within the range of British benevolence. It observes, that of the increased exertions of the Society a better idea cannot be formed, than by comparing the records of its proceedings at a distance of ten years, with those of the present time. At the former date, its report exhibited a list of only forty ministers, and forty-one schoolmasters, dispersed over the whole surface of British North America; while the table for the last year contains not less than one hundred and three missionaries, and one |