378 ENGLISH SUNDAY SCHOOLS. 



work, Sir ; but I don't wonder at that, for it took me twelve years ; 

 and, as his reverence says, it's slow and sure." 



" Does his reverence often visit the school, and take much interest 

 in it and in the children ?" 



" Just by times, Sir, if so be as any of the quality come a- 

 inspecting; then he visits us, and pats the children's heads, and 

 speaks grandly about them, else we don't often see him." 



I presented this intelligent Mentor with a small sum for the use of 

 the school or himself, and made during the day a round of every 

 other in the town. I found many teachers of a higher order of in- 

 tellect than my friend " ready-my-daisy," but the principle was the 

 same throughout; simple reading, and in some cases writing, com- 

 prising the course of instruction : a principle, I am satisfied, radically 

 wrong, as mere intellectual cultivation, considering the circumstances 

 under which the labouring poor are placed, is full as likely to prove 

 a rock for their destruction, as a harbour for their safety. During 

 the brief intervals of leisure which they can snatch from daily toil, 

 with bodies exhausted, and with minds in equal ratio depressed, if 

 not well guided or supported by a high sense of moral propriety, they 

 will seek mental food of a more stimulating nature than penny maga- 

 zines, or religious tracts, unless these latter are tales of rank super- 

 stition, highly wrought death-bed scenes, or something similar, than 

 which no mental food can be more exciting, but none more poisonous : 

 they may teach cant and hypocrisy, but neither true religion nor 

 domestic virtue. 



This abstract opinion was abundantly confirmed by our inquiries 

 on the following day. Cheap publications, I found, had ramified 

 deeply into this class, and of a most destructive character, both in 

 regard to its own social and moral interests, and to the safety of the 

 country at large : halfpenny sheets circulated through it, and were 

 printed for its exclusive use ; the contents of which were either 

 prurient stimulants of animal passion, blasphemy, or exaggerated 

 and treasonable political diatribes, calculated to make it dissatisfied 

 with its own lot, and pointing out revolutionary violence as the 

 shortest and only way of benefiting itself. But what had become 

 of the bibles, testaments, and other pious books, which had been 

 presented to them and to their children by well-disposed people ? 

 An incident which occurred taught me their fate. Happening 

 to pass a pawnbroker's shop, I saw a very curious-looking walking- 

 stick, ancl went in to purchase it. I found " mine uncle " one of 

 those queer shrewd animals so often found behind the counters of 

 these temptation-shops in England. 



" What, Mr. Cent, do you keep a circulating library !" said 

 I to him, casting my eye over several shelves filled with books. 



" A circulating library! I wish it would circulate : but there it 

 stands for me to curse it twenty times a day. You must know, Sir, 

 that these books are the bibles, testaments, hymn-books, prayer- 

 books, moral pieces, &c. which the Sunday school people and bible 

 'sociation folk have given to the poor : the first use which they make 

 of them is to bring them here : you see they have never been 

 opened, quite clean ; and if you are disposed to open a school, or 



