yet unless alienated by infidelity, and indifferent to shame, are attracted thither by a sense of decency and propriety, and by the influence of public opinion. To the more wealthy the Lord's day is one of leisure, which often hangs heavy on their hands; they are naturally inclined to follow the general example of their equals, and they have children and servants whom they would gladly see governed by religious principles. A congregation is at once secured, which comprises almost every shade of moral and religious character. Its members differ widely in the motives and the regularity of their attendance, but in one thing they are alike. Nearly all belong to those classes of society which are above the pressure of want and the necessity of manual labour. And where are the remainder? They are excluded. The poor are naturally reluctant to mingle themselves with the rich; they are unwilling to exhibit poverty and rags in contrast with wealth and splendour. The very act, therefore, of attending the house of God, requires in them something of an effort; and they are moreover continually and importunately tempted to withdraw themselves: for their life is one of labour, and the Lord's day is inviting as a season of amusement; their families clamour for bread, and its sacred hours are invaded by the pursuit of gain. Such are the difficulties which they have to overcome; and we have proof accordingly, that abject and in

creasing poverty, has of itself caused many families to forsake the public worship of God, who once regularly frequented it. In fact, we may without much doubt assume that, without some measure of a sense of duty, a very poor man (especially in a large town) will scarcely be a regular worshipper in the house of God. But whence is this sense of duty to arise? How is it to be fostered among the neglected portion of our town population? The due discharge, indeed, of the pastoral care, as prescribed by the rules of the church, would (under God's blessing) produce it; but this, as we have seen, is precluded, and what have they to supply its place? They have been born and bred amid an habitual neglect of the sacred day of rest, and its blessed offices. They are but following the example of their parents, and accompanying the mass of their friends and companions when they neglect it-and they do neglect it; and are from habit unconscious of the neglect.

And yet after all that barrier has not yet been mentioned, by which the poor of our cities are most effectually excluded from the house of prayer. For if any considerable number of them should overcome all their natural and excusable reluctance, and should throng thither (as we may say, uninvited), how are they to be received? The consecrated area is partitioned, and almost. every inch appropriated. We have carried the rights of property into the very sanctuary of our

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God. Some parts belong to houses, others are let to individuals, and were any considerable mass of the labouring poor to seek for admission, they would not even be offered the alternative reprobated by St. James, "stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool." They are excluded not only by their own circumstances, and by their natural feelings, but by law and by the rights of others.

It is difficult to estimate the true magnitude of this evil. Were the rich excluded from our parish churches, it would be in comparison a slight thing; they could and would provide others for themselves. But to the mass of the poorest class, exclusion from the existing churches is practically total exclusion from the house of God, from all the means of grace, and from all the privileges of Christianity. And to this condition it is (we cannot too often repeat it), that hundreds of thousands of our countrymen are now reduced. How their lives are spent, and what is the comfort of their dying beds, who shall say? It can hardly be, but that numbers among them are altogether in a condition more wretched than that of their heathen ancestors, or of the unsophisticated savages of the American forests. Knowing nothing of civilization, but the heavy pressure of its laws and restrictions; of property, nothing but the invidious fences which ward off their iutrusions on that of others; of religion, nothing but a dark and gloomy

dread of something beyond the grave. And on what hope do they lean, among the sorrows and anxieties of life, which to every one that breathes is full of care," and to none more than to them? or how do they appease that restless and eager craving after "some good ", which the Creator has implanted in man to attract him to Himself? Man was not made to be like some machine, whose object is to produce the greatest amount of manufactures, to work through the day, and rest during the night, until, worn out at last, it is cast aside to make room for another. Something more his nature requires; and where do these men find it? Let our ginpalaces, our prisons, and our court-houses reply. In drunkenness and excess, in crime and violence, are expended those human energies which God has given for Himself, which by His blessing we may direct; but which, do what we may, we cannot extinguish.

The condition of our manufacturing and metropolitan population is an evil so overwhelming, so enormous, that it naturally demands our first attention; and yet there are others, for whom provision is urgently required in our national Church. Many of our country towns, even in the agricultural districts, have been

1 Psalm iv. 6. "There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us." St. Augustine explains men's restless wishes. "Quia fecisti nos ad Te et inquietum cor nostrum donec requiescat in Te." Conf. 1. 1.

very considerably augmented', and are insufficiently supplied with churches and ministers. Their wants, indeed, are less urgent than those which have been detailed, and yet, if custom had not reconciled us to these and worse things, we should surely feel them to be deeply impressive. We have become familiarized with awful facts, and we can speak of the spiritual destitution, of hundreds, or thousands, or millions, with as little emotion as a conqueror who numbers his army, and regards them not as so many individual responsible immortal beings, but as counters in the great game which he is playing. Let us divest ourselves of these habits of thought, and estimate, by the standard of God's word, the worth of a single soul. Let us consider how great it seems to us even now, in the chamber of death, or by the side of the grave, and then let us attempt to realize something of that value which it will assume in the great and dreadful day of judgment. These are the units of which our account is made up. It is of such interests that we speak, when we estimate the number of our countrymen, who live and die in habitual forgetfulness of God, and neglect of His gospel. If they could be told by hundreds, by tens, or by units, it were no light evil when weighed in the balance of the sanctuary.

And what is the case in the larger towns of our

1 Sussex has increased in population 80 per cent. in twenty years. See Address of the Lord Bishop, p. 6.