neral. This in rulers-in the official guardians of religion and morals -in those who stand at the head of society as models of conduct, is bad enough in the way of example, but this is not the whole of its evil operation. If the King give a grand Sunday dinner, it may only cause him and his guests to feast, but it compels his domestics and tradesmen to toil. Thus these Sunday entertainments of the great, collectively, bind a vast portion of the trading and labouring orders to regular Sunday trade and labour.

Much is justly said in favour of giving religious instruction to the young. Let the children, who at charity schools receive it, and are taught to keep the Sabbath sacred, enter the service of the great, or their tradesmen, and what follows? It is made their duty to disregard what they have been taught; they are in a large degree prohibited from attending divine worship, and compelled to make the Sunday as much a day of labour as the rest of the week; thus their religious instruction is rendered useless. not say how this must operate when they become heads of families.

We need

Independently of this great cause, the labouring classes of the metropolis violate the Sabbath in the most appalling manner. The lower of them, who cannot follow their respective callings on it, spend it in drunkenness, which they commence before, or immediately after, breakfast. A man cannot go to divine service in the morning, without seeing numbers of them reeling about the streets in the different stages of intoxication. Mechanics and artisans work as regularly at their respective trades, on at least great part of the Sunday, as they do on any other day; their masters' shops are closed, but they do it at their lodgings. Their wives are of course made to share the guilt, and their children are reared in it.

Let this be looked at also, with reference to the religious instruction of youth. If the children of these classes be put to charitable schools, what they see, hear, and are made to do at home, renders the instruction they receive almost ineffectual. If they be put to labour in the lower callings, as apprentices, or otherwise,

they are incited to abandon their religious principles. Young men, just out of their apprenticeship, labourers, &c., whose morals in the country have been well protected, continually pour into London in search of employment; and as soon as they enter it, they are not only led by example, but almost compelled by their brother workmen, to make the Sabbath a day of vice or labour. Thus the religious instruction of youth is in general deprived of value by the irreligion of adults.

Speaking merely as men of the world, and as infidels would speak, what flows from this conduct in the labouring classes? Those who spend the Sabbath in drinking, spend it in qualifying both themselves and their families for every kind of vice and crime; they make themselves brutal husbands, unnatural fathers, rioters, and robbers; they starve their wives into prostitution, and their children into begging and stealing. Those who spend it in labour do the same more effectually. Nature, as we have said, requires a seventh day of rest, and because they work on Sunday, they do nothing on Monday. The latter is their day of drunkenness, when there is no religious restraint, and when the stimulants to general profligacy are the most numerous and powerful. Because these classes, as a whole, do not employ the Sabbath in acquiring moral principles and habits, they employ it in acquiring the contrary; to the use they make of it may be clearly traced their general bad morals; and the latter form the great cause of their hatred of the better part of society, hostility to public institutions, love of demagogues, insubordination and disaffection.

With regard to remedy, the great, at any rate, are not above the reach of reproof. If one prelate be insufficient for giving it, let all unite; and if this will not do, let the parochial clergy combine with them. Every prelate has a deep interest in supporting the morals of London. If a strong remonstrance, signed by every prelate, and the whole London clergy, were presented, not generally, but to every offender, without sparing the Legislature, the Cabinet, or the Throne, it would have the best ef

fects. The great, both in authority and out of it, have now melancholy proof before them, that none have so deep a stake in the preservation of morals, as themselves.

No valid reason can be urged why gin and beer-shops should be open on the Sunday before one o'clock. If they were closed until this hour, it would narrow Sunday drunkenness greatly. At present, they are compelled to close at eleven, and during divine service; and in consequence, the better part of society, in proceeding to the latter, has its religious feelings shocked at every step, by the sight of individuals and groups half drunk, or wholly so, just turned out of them. If, in addition, these places were prohibited from selling any liquor on the Sunday, to be drank in them, it would operate mightily against drunkenness, without encroaching on the just needs of society. Exceptions might be made on proper grounds.

The custom of making Monday a holyday, is the great cause of voluntary Sunday labour amidst mechanics and artisans. It not only gives them the bodily rest, which otherwise they would be compelled to take on the Sunday; but it necessitates them to make the latter a day of toil, by expense and loss of wages. And it is a prolific source of general profligacy. A greater benefit could hardly be conferred on the working orders, than the suppression of this idle, vicious, and destructive custom. Very much might be done by masters, who are great sufferers from it, if they would, as far as possible, employ none but workmen willing to labour regularly on the Monday.

A powerful cause of Sabbath-breaking, and general immorality amidst the lower orders of the metropolis, is to be found in their separation from not only the church and the clergy, but also the chapel and the dissenting minister. We have heretofore adverted to this, and we will do it again and again, until we see something attempted in the way of remedy. If a mechanic or labourer never enter the church, or see a clergyman, save in the streets, he naturally thinks he has nothing to do with either. This is the case with the mass of the lower orders in question: they are practically as much

and estranged from both as the inhabitants of the other hemisphere; and in consequence they are ready to believe every thing they hear against them. The political evil of this, great as it is, is not the worst. Man has been truly called a religious animal, and the Englishman is peculiarly one; the latter has not the mercurial spirits of the Frenchman, or the crazy resolution of the Irishman, or the unconquerable self-approbation of the Scotchman, to sustain him in his guilt; but remorse tortures him at every step, and he is enabled to persevere, mainly because the voice of religion cannot reach him. Let the most depraved of men attend divine worship regularly, or be acted upon in any other way by spiritual admonition; and in most cases they will soon be reclaimed. In general, perseverance in vice, guilt, irreligion, and infidelity, is only made practicable by voluntary or compulsory separation from both the sight and hearing of religion.

Boys, on being put to many trades young men on the expiration of their apprenticeship-servants of both sexes to a large extent-young men from the country-both sexes in humble life on marrying-have no place of worship to go to. They may individually gain occasional admission into one or another; but they have none they can go to regularly. In consequence, the mass of them absent themselves wholly from divine service, and awful are both the political and the moral fruits.

New churches are built, but they are in a great measure monopolized by the wealthy; the free seats in them are totally inadequate for the accommodation of the lower orders. There is another great defect in them

not only free seats, but cheap ones, and particularly cheap pews, are wanted; there are none.

Build, in proper situations, plain, neat chapels, and place in them pious and reasonably eloquent clergymen. In each, confine the pews for the rich, and even the free seats, to a small number; devote the principal part to pews capable of holding three adult a man, his wife, and two

do not let the pew rise above to forty; to a

certain extent, let them in single sittings, at from two to four shillings per quarter each. An organ probably cannot be afforded; therefore, instead, let a certain number of singers be hired amidst the lower orders; plenty could be found who would attend for a trifle. Our conviction is, that every pew would be constantly let. Many mechanics, labourers, domestic servants, &c., would much rather pay for pews or sittings which they could call their own and constantly occupy, than use the free seats. To make people regular church-goers, it is essential for them to know they have seats of their own to go to.

The chapels, in our judgment, would pay all their expenses, including the support of their ministers; we speak less from conjecture than from what we have seen of actual trial in country places, where the preposterous rule is unknown of compelling people to choose between free seats, and such exorbitant pew rents as only the wealthy can pay. But where is the money to be found for erecting them? Could the Church do nothing? We are speaking only of the metropolis, therefore could no contribution be gained from St Paul's and Westminster Abbey? If the comparatively poor Dissenters can rear such superb chapels as they do, it cannot be impossible for opulent churchmen to imitate them. Suppose the King, and also the Queen-for the matter concerns the fair sex as well as the other-were to nobly subscribe L.10,000 each, to be paid in five or ten annual portions-the Cabinet Ministers, prelates, and beneficed clergy, were to subscribe in proportion-and the appeal were thus made to the nobility and opulent classes generally-there would be no lack of money for supplying the poor with places of worship.

But in regard to religion and morals, as well as other things, much depends on keeping on the right side the guides of public opinion. These in the main are the press the legislature and, in respect of example, the court and aristocracy. The first governs the others in these times, although it is largely influenced by them. Including in the term both newspapers and periodi

cals, the press is decidedly vicious in its construction, and its bonds and temptations are almost all on the side of evil. A publication is carried on solely or chiefly for the sake of pecuniary profit; and it must depend for this on either the bribes of party or sale. If it accept the former, it of course sacrifices public to party interests; if it have only the latter to look to, it takes the side which will bring the most, without regard to merits. The gigantic revolution, from which in late years scarcely any thing has escaped, has had extraordinary effects on the mechanism of the London press.

Previously, it was the policy of every Ministry to have its newspapers to correct the press by means of the press. Such a statesman as Mr Pitt would almost as soon have thought of carrying on the government without a majority in Parliament, as without the aid of this mighty engine. The connexion of the Ministry with its newspapers was known, therefore it made itself responsible for their general contents, and it bound them to the advocacy of loyalty and order. Their exclusive information, their talent, and the party spirit of the Ministry's supporters, gave them very large circulation and influence.

It necessarily followed that the Opposition also had its newspapers, which, by their connexion with it, were at least bound from revolutionary doctrines. They, also, possessed the means of securing great circulation and influence.

These two descriptions of newspapers naturally bore down all competitors; others could gain no weight with the respectable part of society, and, in general, could scarcely keep themselves in being. The " reading public," then, had little to do with the lower orders, and this operated greatly both to give them the lead, and to keep them from improper conduct.

The Liverpool Ministry, by its intestine divisions and contempt of literary talent, almost destroyed the Treasury press, and then, as its only means of retaining place, it apostatized to the Opposition. In late years, the Ministry has had no press under its control; instead of commanding, it has been the slave of its

newspapers; its wretched system has been to bribe and supplicate the Opposition ones to support it personally, and yet give them liberty to write down its policy and principles. Thus we have seen the depraved sycophant laud the Duke of Wellington as a god, and attack the aristocracy, church, corn law, and all besides on which the Wellington Ministry could stand, in the same article. It has followed, that the Opposition has, in a great measure, ceased to control its newspapers; all have been voluntarily fighting its battles.

The immense increase of readers

amidst the lower orders has operated largely both to emancipate the press from the control of public men, and to range it on the wrong side. The patronage of gin, beer, and coffee-shops, and eating-houses, is now more safe and lucrative than that of the Ministry or Opposition; if a publication enjoy the latter, it must labour to gain the former also as far as possible; if the Ministry and Opposition will have nothing to do with it, the patronage of gin-shops, &c., is almost essential for keeping it in being. The doctrine that the press is the source of public opinion contains more error than truth. The press, amidst the intelligent classes, has great effect in guiding opinion; but amidst the lower ones, it must follow them in opinion to be read; it may in many things even give them new opinion, but this it must borrow from their interests and prejudices.

Thus in losing, or casting off the control of the two great constitutional parties of the state, the London press placed itself under the control of the populace. The sale to the private dwelling and the counting-house was comparatively nothing without that to the liquor shop and eating-house. If we grant that it did this honestly, it is of small moment, because, with an exception or two, the journals which did not do it could not be kept in being. But the honesty of the matter is very questionable. Any man who has noticed the conduct of those daily papers which have the largest circulation, must have seen that on every subject they have consulted nothing, saving the dictates of their own rivalry and the bribes of parties, but

the passions and prejudices of the multitude. The proprietors of certain of them have gone almost from door to door, amidst the gin and coffee-shops, to solicit orders; of course, they have done this with the knowledge that only opinions of a particular kind would be vendible in such places. One of the reviews has used even lower arts than the lowest newspaper ever stooped to, in order to force itself into the gin and coffee-shops, and pick up filthy pence at the cost of truth and independence. Various papers which have been commenced in late years on right principles, have glided into mob politics as the only means of escaping ruin, or at least of making profit. The two or three which have not espoused the popular cause have little sale in London, save to the aristocracy.

Unhappily, therefore, the case now stands thus. Newspapers cannot gain a living circulation, or any influence of moment, amidst the inhabitants of London, unless they take the popular side; therefore, they are necessarily about all on this side. In supporting it, they must be the most abject slaves that ever wore the chains of slavery. Driven along like brutes in harness, the least act of disobedience to their mob drivers receives a flogging in the shape of loss of circulation quite intolerable; bound to the loathsome toil of pandering to the interests and passions of the multitude, their competition cannot go beyond efforts to outstrip each other in dishonest subserviency to them. What could be more impossible than for the popular London newspapers and periodicals to discuss great national questions-reform, the corn laws, taxes and retrenchment, with truth and impartiality, when they dare not, under penalty of heavy fine and ruin, say any thing that may displease the populace?

Various matters conspire to give these the worst operation. The doctrines which suit the palate of the populace are also relished by that of the middle classes. The press is chiefly in the hands of Scotchmen and Irishmen, whose feelings of nationality are hostile to England, and cause them to regard her as little better than a victim for barbarous experiments. The population of the

metropolis consists, to a vast extent, of Scotchmen and Irishmen, and to these must be added a very large number of foreigners.

Liberal opinions, as they are called, confessedly strike at the obligations of religion and morals; and the press must necessarily sink in immorality with the populace. A few years since, it was the fashion to give a religious tone to popular literature, and, looking no farther, this had excellent effect in keeping the press from irreligion. This fashion has been reversed; the literary mechanics, who at present carry on the low and depraved trade of criticism, declare religion shall have no place in such literature; and every writer to whom character is dear, must now, when he touches on morals, carefully protest against being thought "a saint" or "straitlaced;" and also interlard his composition with the expletives of the coalheaver. It is extraordinary that, after the vulgar and odious vice of swearing had been banished from every grade of society save the lowest, it is adopted by gifted writers; and genius in cool blood makes its elaborate displays of "What the d-1!"-" By G―d!”—“ D▬▬n!" &c. We feel assured that the genius which does this, never in conversation heard a swearer without disgust, even when his oaths had the best elocution, and the warmth of passion, to soften their repulsive character. Will taste, keeping better things from the critical seat, slum

ber for ever?

In late years the London press has, with little exception, opposed itself to religion and morals. A part of it openly teaches infidelity, but it is the least mischievous one. Another influential part, under the pretence of attacking what it calls evangelism and puritanism, furiously writes down religious feeling and practice. A third part, under the name of sporting papers, teaches gaming, drunkenness, and every kind of depravity. These papers, in a great measure, form the Sunday reading of the godless lower orders; they are almost the only ones which find their way on the Sabbath into the lower eating-houses and liquor-shops. It is a melancholy singularity that many of the London Sunday papers are, in one way or another, far more hostile

to religion and morals than the daily ones. Then the general press opposes religious societies, aud throws its shield over every source of immorality.

The London press, no matter what may govern it, must always, to a vast extent, govern the Legislature; and, in its influential part, it must be ruled by, or rule the Executive. Its "independence" makes it the tyrant over both, and in late years it has ranged both on the side of irreligion and immorality. It generates in them evil feelings and conduct, and then this stimulates it to farther profligacy.

We who write have always belonged to the Church of England, and in communion with her we hope to die; but we have never spared the transgressions of her clergy, or been tardy in defending the Dissenters. In that spirit of impartial justice which has ever animated us, we must say, that in latter times the Dissenters have had a gigantic share in placing both the press and the Legislature on the side of irreligion and immorality, and that in this their ministers have taken the lead. To which political party do the Protestant Dissenters attach themselves? That which not only comprehends the avowed infidel and profligate, but boasts of its godless character, and makes a virtue of defending licentiousness. What newspapers do these Dissenters support? Those which teach Sabbathbreaking, and attack every source of morals. Whom do these Dissenters vote for as members of the Legislature? Freethinkers, gamesters, men stained with every vice, and whose creed strikes at the foundations of religion. The Dissenting ministers of the metropolis must have a university, not only destitute of religion, but supported and governed by its avowed enemies; rather than one tainted with the heresies of the Church. The Dissenters of Southwark, Leeds, and other places, must be represented in Parliament by any mountebank who will spread infidelity and vice by law, rather than by the conscientious friend of the national religion. The preaching minister and the scoffing Atheist, the praying convert and the swearing drunkard, draw side by side, in brotherly affection, to array both the