poverty. Not so should we; not so will the philanthropist look upon these things. To his mind all here is the work of poverty, in its most dangerous and insinuating form. To his mind these painful and degrading employments as much claim redress and relief as absolute starvation; and that system of policy, whether public or private, which produces this state of things, is as much to be deprecated as that which brings inevitably in its train of consequences the absolute starvation of a large portion of our fellow-beings.

We do not believe that these evils to any great extent exist in this country. But let it be remembered that we have no large manufacturing towns, and of them and their influence alone have we been speaking. The evil, as it respects this country, is only prospective; Heaven grant that it may ever be so!

We know that it is customary to attribute the manufacturing grievances in England to the peculiar form of government and state of society there. With our free government and our immense room for emigration, it is said, we have nothing to fear. We cannot think this correct. How is government to suppress the grievance unless by suppressing the cause? if the cause is vitally connected with the establishments themselves, how can government act except by discouraging such establishments? For when once they are fairly seated, when once large manufacturing towns have arisen among us, no arm of public authority will dare to raise itself against them. The rights of private property are sacred. This, like most other evils, will perpetuate itself. The population which these establishments will raise up can be supported only by them; and, in destroying them, we shall take the bread from the mouths of the very persons whom we would benefit.

We can imagine a state of things in which even large manufacturing towns will not be particularly fertile in depravity and vice. If all the proprietors were wise men and Christians, and the overseers of the same character, and, from the commencement, all buildings and laws were framed in a spirit of wisdom and benevolence, many of the evils we have noticed might be neutralized. But these are conditions which we have no right to expect. Such measures would, doubtless, in the end be most advantageous to all. But avarice is short-sighted. Selfishness is short-sighted. Love of power is short-sighted. And, unfortunately, manufacturers, like other men, are too much under the control of these shortsighted motives. Honourable exceptions there are and will

be; but until the character of the world is changed, we have no right to presume that they will be anything more than exceptions. J. H. M.

The Coming of the Son of Man.

In a former article on this subject I explained what I suppose to have been the primary reference intended by our Saviour in the passage, Matthew xvi. 27, 28. This I stated to be "that establishment of his religion in the hearts of men which took place in the life-time of his apostles," and which was manifested in the rapid spread of his religion through the Roman empire, and especially in the signal overthrow of the Jewish nation, and the adoption of the Christian church, in their stead, as God's "peculiar people."

I would now add that the coming of the Son of Man, the coming to judgment, the coming in his kingdom and in the power and glory of his Father, may be regarded as having a general meaning, in which we all are interested. It is the establishment of Christianity in each individual bosom, the establishment of those principles by which alone we are to be judged, and by the influence of which upon our hearts and lives we are to become fitted for another state of existence and discipline and enjoyment. The question, whether our Saviour will appear in person as our Judge, is, to say the least, a doubtful question; one in which it becomes us not to be positive, and one in which we have but little concern. It is enough for us to know that the word which he has given us, the laws he has laid down, the same shall judge us at the last day; that if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged. These are the truths to which we are chiefly to attend ; the form and the manner of the judgment are of but little consequence. "I am come a Light into the world," was the language of Christ, "that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness. And if any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth him; the word

that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day." It need not be repeated that this judgment of the soul is an inward and a spiritual judgment. The good man needs no outward voice to tell him when to be happy, or the bad man when to be miserable. Whenever and wherever the human soul realizes the presence of the Almighty Father, and feels and thinks and acts upon that reality, whenever it comes to a full consciousness of its sins, and has an earnest and sincere longing for forgiveness and a return to holiness, whenever it sees clearly the goodness of God revealed as in the face of his son Jesus Christ, whenever and wherever it feels the great principles of piety to God and benevolence to man operating within it in the fulness of their power, then and there is a visitation of mercy like the coming of the Son of Man in the glory of his Father with his holy angels. And, on the other hand, whenever and wherever a human soul is conscious that it has exhausted all the treasures of this world in search for happiness, and in that search has exhausted its powers and lost its energy, when it feels that it is destitute of a treasure in heaven, of an interest in spiritual and heavenly things, then and there is the coming of the Son of Man to the judgment of that soul, to reward it for the deeds it has done in the body.

Now, this judgment of the soul of which I speak, this coming of the Son of Man to requite to every man according to his works, may take place in a measure in the present world. I appeal to the experience of each one of my readers, if he has not, at times, in an hour of reflection, felt that some pure and holy influence was operating within him, leading him to look inward into the recesses of his bosom, and to pass a severe and scrutinizing judgment upon his thoughts and feelings and words and actions. This judgment was of course imperfect, in the eye of Omniscience; for we cannot in this world see as we are seen and know as we are known; we are so surrounded and filled up with material things, we have so many prejudices to encounter, so much to blind the eye and to darken the mind, that it is very difficult, to say the least, to tear ourselves away, even for a season, from all material connexions; but that it can be done, and is done in some measure, no one, it seems to me, can doubt, whose mind has been enlightened and whose heart has been elevated by the principles of the gospel. It is the sentiment of a modern English writer, and one which, I believe, has much foundation in truth, "that the dread book of account which the Scriptures speak of is the mind itself of each individual, that there

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is no such thing as real forgetting possible to the mind, that a thousand accidents may interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the memory, that accidents of the same sort may rend away this veil, but alike Whether veiled or unveiled the inscription remains for ever." There is one event, however, coming sooner or later alike to all, one period in human existence, when this spiritual judgment takes place more effectually than at any other, when, perhaps more perfectly than he can be before, every man is rewarded according to his works. This is the event of death, the period of our separation from the present state, the dissolution of all our connexions with the material and outward world. Then it is that the human soul, disencumbered of this frail and mortal body, goes forth to stand in the presence of its Maker, naked and alone. Then the veil which so often separates the present from-the past, the veil of forgetfulness, is taken away. Then must we consider ourselves as we

really are. All outward distinctions, all that obscured our real characters from the world and ourselves, will then be destroyed. This, in its fullest and to us its most important sense, is the coming of the Son of Man. In this language it is frequently alluded to in the Scripture. "Watch, therefore; for ye know not in what hour your Lord may come. It is by constant watchfulness over our character and conduct, it is by that and that only, that we can be prepared for this event. The good man, the Christian, in proportion as he becomes good, in proportion as he is influenced by the spirit of his Master, has little to fear in the judgment that awaits him. For in the kingdom of heaven, which literally and properly should begin here in every man's own bosom and extend onward to eternity, in that kingdom the judgment is always going on, whether it be in the present or the future state. To him who has entered upon the work of this kingdom, with full purpose of heart to strive for greater and greater excellence, to him of whom it may be said that Jesus Christ has full possession of his soul, to him, wherever he may be, there is a voice which speaks as from the tongue of the Saviour," Come, thou blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for thee from the foundation of the world." The good man is in heaven and the wicked man is in hell whenever conscience does its work within them, whatever be the circumstances in which they may be placed. May this truth sink deep into our hearts and inspire us all with a stronger desire for glory, honour, and immortality, that we may enter at last

upon that eternal life which is with the Father, and is given us through his Son !

H. B. Goodwin.

Means of Providing the Cure and Preventing the Spread of Infidelity.

We must begin with an observation we lament the necessity of making, that in the investigation of this subject the conviction has grown strong and serious in our minds that the spirit in which measures to these ends have often been pursued heretofore is a spirit characterized by no mark either of justice or wisdom. Infidelity has been regarded as being always the same thing, and as being always an immense and horrible crime, as an internal, concentrated purpose of evil, as a wilful and malignant vice of the soul. But so long as it is true that some speculative infidels have been, during the continuance of their intellectual unbelief, actually far superior in goodness of heart and conscientiousness of effort to some speculative Christians, so long this view must be considered unjust. If belief or unbelief is made the grand surpassing test of holiness or sin, then, surely, in all logical fairness and exactness, it must in every case prove a degree of virtue in the intellectual Christian corresponding to the degree of vice which stains the soul of the unbeliever.

But there has been not only a want of justice, but a want also of wisdom. Infidelity has been looked at in the mass, and it has been opposed in the mass. It has not been discriminated into its several parts, detected in its various and ever-varying forms, and traced to its diverse, multiplied causes. Cause, process, and effect have been blended together in one general confusion of view, or rather everything has been crowded into the result, which result has been thought to consist in an enormous accumulation of guilt. This mode of viewing the subject has, of course, given rise to much illadaptation of the means to the ends desirable to be effected, and has often caused an entire misapprehension as to the ends themselves.

These remarks do not, of course, apply to the manner