labour for want of assistance. The father was sitting on a little stool by the fire-place, though there was no fire, and endeavouring to keep the infant warm in his bosom. Five of the seven children, half naked, were asking their father for a piece of bread, while a fine boy, of about three years old, was standing by his mother at the bed-side, and crying as he was wont to do, "Take me, take me, mammy."— "Mammy is asleep," said one of his sisters, with two tears standing on her cheeks; " mammy is "asleep, Johnny; go play with the baby on daddy's "knee." The father took him up on his knee, and his grief, which had hitherto kept him dumb, and in a state of temporary insensibility, burst out in a torrent of tears, and relieved his heart, which seemed ready to break. "Don't cry, pray don't cry," said the eldest boy," the nurse is coming up stairs with a 66 two-penny loaf in her hand, and mammy will "wake presently, and I will carry her the largest "piece." Upon this, an old woman, crooked with age, and clothed in tatters, came hobbling on her little stick into the room, and, after heaving a groan, calmly sat down, dressed the child in its rags, then divided the loaf as far as it would go, and informed the poor man that the churchwardens, to whom she had gone, would send some relief, as soon as they had dispatched a naughty baggage to her own parish, who had delivered herself of twins in the Esquire's hovel. Relief indeed was sent, and a little contribution afterwards raised by the interposition of the Minister. If he had not seen the case, it would have passed on as a common affair, and a thing of

course.

Ministers and medical practitioners are often wit nesses to scenes even more wretched than this; where, to poverty, cold, nakedness, and death, are added the languors of lingering and loathsome diseases, and the torments of excruciating pain. A feeling heart, among the rich and the great, who are at the same time querulous without cause, would learn a lesson in many a garret of Broad St. Giles's or Shoreditch, more efficacious than all the lectures of the moral or divine philosopher.E

I cannot help mentioning and applauding a mode of charity of late much encouraged in this metropolis, which is indeed distinguished above all others for the wisdom and variety of its eleemosynary institutions. Dispensaries are established for the poor, and patients visited at their own habitations by physicians of allowed skill and distinguished character. I will only take the liberty to express a wish that some regulations may be made to prevent this noble design from being perverted, like many others, to purposes of private interest.

NO. CLI. ON THE UTILITY OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES, AND OF ADMITTING MUSIC AND EXTERNAL MAGNIFICENCE IN PLACES OF DEVOTION.

IF all men were enlightened by education and philosophy, and at all hours actuated by the principles of reason, it would be unnecessary to have recourse to external objects in producing devout and virtuous affections. But as there must always be a great majority, who, from the want of opportunities or capacities for improvement, are weak and igno

rant; and as even among the wise and learned there are none who are constantly exempted from the common infirmities of human nature, it becomes expedient to devise modes of operating on the soul through the medium of the senses. It was for this reason, that in all great communities the officers and offices of religion have been surrounded with whatever is calculated to rouse the attention, to interest the heart, to strike the eye, and to elevate the imagination.

I cannot help thinking, therefore, that those wellmeaning reformers, who wish to divest religion of external splendour, are unacquainted with the nature of man, or influenced by narrow motives. They mean, perhaps, to spiritualize every thing, and the purpose is laudable; but they know not, or they consider not, that ordinary spirits, such as are those of the vicious and vulgar, are most easily and effectually touched by the instrumentality of exterior and material objects. He who wishes to penetrate to the recesses of the vulgar soul, will succeed better by the co-operation of the eyes and the ears, than merely by addressing the rational faculty.

An idea may be formed of the potency of sounds and sights, unassisted by reason, if we contemplate their effect in war. The drum, the fife, the habiliments of a soldier, the flag, and all the pomp and parade of military transactions, contribute, perhaps, more than any sense of duty, or any native or acquired sentiments of bravery, to lead on the embattled phalanx even to the cannon's mouth. It is something operating in the mind in a similar manner, which most easily bows the stubborn knee of the VOL. III.

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hardened offender, and subdues to softness the steely heart on which no force of argument could of itself stamp an impression. There are few who cannot hear or see, but many who cannot understand. Alt can feel a powerful stroke on the fancy or passions, but few, in comparison, are affected by a syllogism. Music, therefore, poetry, painting, and architec ture, may very reasonably be associated as auxilia ries of Reason, an empress, whose subjects are rebel. lious. And I cannot help thinking, that they who repudiate all ornament, and all the modes of affecting the senses of the vulgar in the offices of religion, as indecent, impious, or improper, do not recollect the temple of Solomon, but suffer their good sense to be overpowered in this instance by the zeal of a bar barous fanaticism.

The offices of religion where music and artificial embellishments are admitted, become so alluring, that those who would never think of their more se rious duties, are often invited by them to the church, and gradually converted. Like the rake of antiquity, who mingled in the audience of a philosopher with a design to ridicule him, but who was made a convert before his departure, many of the loose and profligate votaries of vice have been enticed by the music and afterwards reformed by the sermon, which they intended to slight, and perhaps had begun to deride.

The processions and pompous formalities of religion, however exploded in the warmth of reformation as papistical relics, are certainly useful in the community, when they are not suffered to exceed the bounds of moderation. They were esteemed and ob

served in ancient Athens and ancient Rome, by those who loved and enjoyed liberty in its fullest extent. They were found to aggrandize the majesty of empire, to inspire a generous enthusiasm in the minds of the people, and to furnish them with an amusement, not only innocent and improving, but attended with a very high and satisfactory pleasure. None can detest popery more than myself; but yet it appears to me, that many of the splendid and august scenes which that persuasion admits, are highly useful, if considered only as furnishing a harmless entertainment to the lower orders of mankind. What charms can a London carman, chairman, hackneycoachman, fish-woman, find in an English meeting or a church? but they would be delighted and very powerfully affected, with the grandeur and solemnity of a Romish procession. As we have no allurements adapted to their ignorant and rude minds, they spend the Sunday at an alehouse, even at the next door to the church, without a wish to enter the consecrated place. All that passes there is above their comprehension. They are but little removed from the state of the brutes, and they must remain so; for there is nothing, in the only places in which they have an opportunity of instruction, to strike their imaginations, and penetrate, through the passage of the senses, to the recesses of the dormant soul.

It is true, indeed, that we admit music in the es tablished church; but it is also true, that it is in general a kind of music which is little better than discord to the vulgar ear. For in the metropolis, where organs are chiefly to be found, the performers are