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plies to exhausted Europe a surplus quota of the necessaries of life. Until man, with his inherent thirst for some during substance," sits down to appropriate for himself a place and a sphere on earth, attends to its peculiarities, marks the seasons that pass over it, and applies himself steadily to its cultivation, age after age, he is found wholly ignorant of its riches - and then-he is as certainly taught that this is no undisturbed resting place for him. Through want of forethought he at first neglects to husband his resources, and to prepare in a more plentiful for a less prosperous season: then, compacted in nations, his extreme anxiety teaches him to appropriate, and make permanent possessions of all he can; different human institutions arise, and large classes of men have to meet the precariousness, and almost the inconveniencies of savage life.

But what are really the evidences of a redundant population in any country, we have yet to learn. Distress in any one of the numerous, or even of the greater classes of the people, is not evidence of this kind. This may be but a partial evil working out a general benefit, or quickly to be remedied by directing the attention of that class to other and less exhausted pursuits than their old ones. We were lately much struck with a contrivance adjoining some of the locks of the Regent's Canal, north of London, whereby the overflow of one of its branches is deposited by the side of the works until it may be wanted at a future period, or by another. Now when the arts of peace can be fully and soberly cultivated amongst men, is it too much to hope, that the governors of the earth will see the necessity of providing similar contrivances in civil life, and in relation to the pursuits of the lower orders in particular? The classes most interested in a prudential foresight of the general tendency, and entire result of their pursuits, are the very classes least likely to exercise that foresight. They are by duty and necessity too much occupied in providing the day's bread as the day passes. One of the first acts of benevolence in the higher orders, then, as well as one of the first duties of a state, is, we hold, to think broadly and kindly for them. To anticipate the certain momentary evil that this excellent invention will bring on that class of manufacturers, and the absolute extinction of that branch of human labour, which the admirable application of the mere force of the elements will involve in another direction; to reckon up before-hand the want of some few thousands, that will thus become idle through necessity, and to

prepare that fraction of the aid for them, by way of prevention of their misery, which you must otherwise afford them in the shape of cure.

The

Nor should the sound of complaint in particular classes of the community mislead us. All classes have a greater opportunity of making their complaints heard, than in former times. Even the poorest are becoming, thank heaven, an educated class; they can read, if not so much as we could wish, much of what they will read relates to their own interests and affairs, the fluctuation of prices, the different markets that are to be found for their labour, the origin and descent of every kind of property, &c. The class immediately above the poorest, can pretty generally read and write, and, alas! they can speak! and the influence of their speeches and writings cannot, at last, be circumscribed by act of Parliament. These classes have felt themselves, in measure, men; and their richer neighbours, to govern them, must remember we are all but men. influence of false representations must be met by truth; of partial and misleading, and, therefore, mischievous knowledge, by the diffusion of more complete knowledge, and well-grounded, well-directed principle. The country is rising, as a whole, into the possession of new appetites, new propensities-a new and irresistible thirst of knowledge, ever accompanied by a new power to reason, and a new pride of intellect. You must meet these desires,-we would say to the better informed classes, you must govern this infant reasoning by better reasoning, you must convert this pride into a useful ambition of real and becoming excellence. But you need not, in the interim, mistake the greater sound of calamity for proof of its greater existence. The poor and some of their would-be friends, have ascended into a whispering-gallery of late years; they have neither any new powers of voice, nor any essentially new topic of complaint. We do not believe that they have had, in our time, any degree of calamity to compare with the days of the plagues, famine, and pestilence, known to our forefathers; but a whisper spreads and circulates in their present region, like a set speech of former times, and an ordinary shout like thunder.

On the other hand, those who " possess the world," as Mr. Malthus phrases it, the mercantile and privileged orders of society, can complain with greater effect than formerly, and like men, they do so. An indefinite number of new channels of information, must afford indefinite scope for

complaint. The manufacturer can tell his neighbours how impossible it is for him to live, if the working hand is also to live, in the county paper; mercantile men can advocate the honour of their country, in the necessity of supporting credit, and of the regular payment of the dividend, in the House of Commons; and in the Upper House of Parliament, richer though he be in blood, and linked with names that constitute all the pride of his country's history, what' noble does not feel that he is no longer speaking to his prince and his equals, but to the people? We infer that the sound of modern distress is, on the whole, much greater than the reality;-that the real distress of an enlightened country, like England, will always be heard travelling from class to class, now-a-days, and, therefore, at last, be much more likely to be traced to its true causes, than in former times; but above all that the bounty of the God of nature, though we have, as a people, learned systematically to under-rate and despise it, is yet equal to the wants of his intelligent creatures—and that the old-fashioned language of praise and penitence will, evén in these times, more decidedly become us, in all classes of society, than that of complaint.

Two Sermons, preached in the Parish Church of Saint Chadd, Shrewsbury, May 28, 1820, in Aid of the Funds of the Boys and Girls Sunday Schools, and School of Industry, established in that Parish. By the Rev. Sam. Lee, A. M. Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, 8vo. pp. 31. Shrewsbury, Howell.

FROM the time when Dr. Eachard wrote his "Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy and Religion," to the present, and indeed long before, the preparatory studies of candidates for holy orders have excited general notice, not to say occupied the profound attention of judicious and sober men. Still, however, there are persons who, by indulging prejudice, believe that no one can be qualified for the Christian ministry, unless educated at Eton or Westminster, Rugby or St. Paul's. Nor are others wanting, who, having their eyes directed only to the revenues of the church, regardless of the demands of the public, and the claims of a parish, look at a benefice as the only worthy object, without respect to piety or learning, or even to the decencies of exterior accomplishments. Hence, too frequent, alas! has been the occurrence

that,

if the young collegian could demonstrate a mathematical problem, or entertain a jovial circle with a quotation from Catullus or Anacreon, or even refer to years spent in a public school, and the regular routine of Oxford or Cambridge, he has been advanced to the cure of souls, with no other helps than can be supplied by Euclid, or the productions of heathen poets. "Now, what a champion for truth is such a thing likely to be? What an huge blaze he makes in the church! What a raiser of doctrines, what a confounder of heresies, what an able interpreter of hard places, what a resolver of cases of conscience, and what a prudent guide must he needs be to all his parish*!"

Such a course, though sadly common, happily is not universal. The grossness of the error has in itself a tendency to counteraction. Hence, of late years especially, the more enlightened friends, as well as ablest supporters of the hierarchy, have directed their energies to check the fearful evil, and, by classing theology with university studies, have done something towards its removal, Besides, men have been sought out and patronized, who possess minds well stored with knowledge, who exhibit, in the view of Christian charity, proofs of vital godliness, and who, from love to the Saviour, dedicate all their acquirements, and all their influence, to his service. Such only, we conceive, are the persons who should receive ordination. Then would the ministry not be blamed.

As friends of a learned priesthood, we delight to see the union of piety and literature: -religion will invariably sanctify human learning, and thus the beauties and force of divine truth will be exhibited and urged, with pre-eminent advantage. We think, with Bishop Horsley, that for any to" allege the apostles as instances of illiterate preachers, is of all fallacies the grossest. Originally, perhaps, they were men of little learning-fishermen, tent-makers, excisemen; but when they began to preach, they were no longer illiterate; they were rendered learned in an instant, without previous study of their own, by a miraclet." The champions of the reformation, let it be remembered, were men of extensive attainments, as well as distinguished piety, skilled in the learned languages, well read in ecclesiastical history, and masters of solid reason and argument. The British churches are now reaping the benefit of their disinterested and zealous exertions, both as scholars and divines; and,

* Eachard, p. 21. ed. 1672.

+ Sermons, Disc. xiv.

while all their success is attributable to the blessing of God, it would be insensibility not to venerate their studious diligence, their gigantic intellect. They transferred to religion all that was known, all that was valuable in literature. When, therefore, men of science united with piety, whether their knowledge has been acquired in a public school, or obtained by unassisted plodding, are brought forward in the service of the Gospel, we greatly rejoice, and, without regarding their early associations, we predict the furtherance of truth, the accelerated progress of all that is captivating in genuine devotion. In this view we recognise the reverend author of the sermons now before us; and the introduction of his discourses to our readers, presents an opportunity of recording the history, the energies, and the success of one of the most remarkable personages of ancient, or modern history.

Longnor, a small village near Shrewsbury, has the honour of being the birth-place of Professor Lee: destitute of the early advantages of education, while working as a carpenter* for daily subsistence, he toiled in the pursuit of knowledge, and, with unassisted and silent perseverance, he studied, from the age, we believe, of seventeen, the Latin tongue. This application originated in his inability to understand that language, as quoted in the English authors. Poverty obstructed his progress, but did not prevent it. A thirst for information created economy; and out of the scanty pittance of his weekly earnings, he purchased, at a book stall, a volume which, when read, was exchanged for another; and so, by degrees, he advanced in wisdom. As his wages increased, and, thereby, his ability to make larger purchases, he attended to the Greek, the Hebrew, the Chaldee, and the Syriac tongues. The loss by fire of the very tools of his trade, blasted his earthly prospects in that direction, and led him to consider how far his literary acquirements might be employed for the support of himself, and the partner he had recently married. His situation being made known to the Reverend Archdeacon Corbett, that liberal and enlightened clergyman afforded him, not

It has been remarked by a judicious writer, that "A person's original, his business and circumstances in life, often occasion prejudices against him. Thus the Jews were prejudiced against Christ. They were astonished that one who had worked among them as a common mechanic, should set up to be a public teacher." In connexion with the above remark, such prejudices are, by the same writer, shown to be "very absurd, unreasonable, and misghievous." See a Sermon entitled "Reflections on Christ's working as a Carpenter."- Job Orton's Discourses, vol. i. p. 65, &c. ed. 1776.