| | | <(1861) No.111, pp. 120-169.> | | | <2. Ploughing and Sowing. By A Clergyman's Daughter> | | <3. The Missing Link. By L.N.R. London: Nisbet> | <4. Sunshine in the Workhouse. By Mrs. G.W. Sheppard.> | | | Amidst much that is disquieting, and even alarming in our | social condition and prospects, it must be considered a | favourable sign that evils are not ignored. The nation is not | allowed to shut its eyes to the miseries of its lowest classes. | The want, the ignorance, the crime that prevail wherever masses of | men congregate, are set before us, again and again, with a | terrible distinctness. Forcible pens picture scenes of pain and guilt; | eloquent lips call upon us to do something to remedy them. Nor do | they speak in vain. From various and opposite quarters, we hear | the question asked,

'What can we do, how can we help, and, | especially, how can we use our time in the service of the lost and | miserable?'

Each questioner speaks for a class. The energy that | demands work upbraids others in like circumstances for standing | idle, assuming that it only needs a sphere of action, for each to find | himself armed and equipped for the conflict. The unoccupied are | not left to their leisure, they are not allowed to plead inexperience | or incapacity, they are shamed into difficult enterprises. It is | assumed that the emergency will make the missionary. There are | the poor, the erring, the miserable; confront want, and crime, and | despair, in person; | meet them face to face, the power will be given you to relieve, | instruct, console. In the words of one now organizing a great | scheme of centralized, all-pervading benevolence, and calling for the | West-end to his aid:

'Every unoccupied person can give us his | time, and we will make it precious.'

| | Language so sanguine found in the columns of the Times and | supported by an article, pressing on its readers the importance of | seeing the misery we relieve, must awake sympathy, | and, we may hope, will issue in real good: especially as we find | D. W.B., (Mr. Davenport Bromley) as time goes on, content with his | instruments, as though be had lighted on a wholly new vein of | charity, boasting that as much of our work is done hitherto by | idle men, so we have drawn and shall draw our funds from | sources which never flowed before. But our readers are of a class | too well versed by experience in the | | difficulties attendant on this duty, and in the thought and preparation | that are necessary for any effectual service to the poor, to accept | this language implicitly; it needs more than a zealous committee | of high aims to make the time of the unoccupied

'and idle'

| man precious; he can only do this for himself. Men are generally | unoccupied because on the whole they like having nothing to do, | or nothing of a very exacting and onerous character; an | unoccupied man is the last person in the world to adapt himself to | a system. Spasmodic efforts, a burst or effusion of benevolence, | are more in his way, where misery may be relieved by a kind word | and a liberal gift. But a great deal of this form of charity would | not be for the good of society. Nor is it the kind aimed at by Mr. | Bromley, though it would certainly be the form most in vogue if | fine gentlemen and ladies set out in their carriages | in search of distress. The most conspicuous destitution is | alone what touches the sensibilities of persons not trained by | observation and knowledge to see below the surface, and though | this naked poverty is often only too genuine in our great cities, it is | also the form that needs the most practised judgment to meet it; | for it is the aspect of want that belongs to utter improvidence, | misconduct, or direct imposture. These are the cases where, after | all, it is best to trust your alms to experience, if experience is to be | got at. A few cases of failure falling upon a newly awakened | zeal have often a fatal effect. The rich man not familiar with such | scenes, who has been three or four times taken in by cases of | obtrusive distress, under the immediate sight of which he had | been ready to charge every responsible person with neglect and | cruelty, is apt, after the excitement is over and his narrow | experience gained, to talk of the poor as if he had found them out, | and knew them to be a class there was no helping, and who were | endowed with a peculiar race of vices | with which he and his own rank had no participation. | | The way to know and help the poor is not to approach them first | where the distance is widest between their need and our | superfluities, where this contrast presses itself to the exclusion of | fellow feelings; but, for rich and poor to meet together, and know | each other, there must be the opportunities for sympathy which | intercourse of mind brings; and this needs time. It is a slow | process, and implies certain habits of thought hardly to be acquired | amid violent contrasts, sudden perturbations of feeling on one side, | and the pressure of immediate want on the other. It has been said, | not of the idle but the over busy, that a lawyer or merchant seeking | out the starving mechanic with no previous experience to guide | him, would, before the interview had lasted three minutes, blow his | nose, talk of the weather, give another | | half-crown, and retreat thinking the poor bores; and thus | increase the distance between them by making the man he had | relieved more alive to that distance than before. The picture | certainly has an air of probability, yet we should by no means | despair even of the lawyer if he had any opportunity of trying | again, under more natural circumstances ~ in the country for | example ~ where he might find leisure to approach the question and | learn something of the poor as a class, using his reason and his | habits of research; but these, or something like these, are the | conditions of useful service, and in the meanwhile with a mind | unprepared and preoccupied, his half-crown will probably do more | good and go farther, dispensed by one who has some chance of | knowing to whom he gives it. That the poor should be over visited | by fashionable ladies and gentlemen is hardly such a danger that | we need have touched on it, except as bearing on the important | question, now so often stirred, how the miseries of our lowest | classes shall be best met, relieved, and, if possible, | in some degree checked altogether; objects requiring tenderness, | firmness, and that tact and perception which only real | thought and study, joined with practice, can give. It is impossible | wholly to escape imposition, and imposture drowns the cry of real | want by its impudent and clamorous importunity; but the | inexperienced making trial on the confused masses of a London | poor quarter, are likely to be its first victims. If they have the gift | of perseverance they will take these as a sort of necessary fee of | entrance to a new occupation, and profit by the warning. | Many feeling themselves duped will retire in disgust. The strength | of the class who are to succour and civilize the poor of London, | must be drawn from such as have made the work a subject of | previous thought, even though circumstances may have stood in | the way of active participation in the work. | | One merit we cannot but note in Mr. Bromley's scheme, that it | calls upon men, and those laymen, to take their share in works of | active charity. Men, as men, always excepting the clergy and their | agents, are generally supposed to be too busy or self-important for | active benevolence, except what can be transacted in public | meetings and committees. He reckons on new life and vigour from | the hitherto unproductive class of unoccupied men; but that all | men, as such, should not only help the poor but come in contact | with them, is set forth as a duty. This is an exception to the general | order at present, which assigns the work to women, on the ground | generally that they have nothing else to do ~~ on the ground, too, that | both in numbers and zeal they have shown themselves most ready | and forward in the good work of service which human misery and | degradation have marked out for them. One reason for this | universal agreement | | lies in the fact that all the books written on the subject, all the calls | on popular attention, seem to be from the pens of women. All the | interest that has been excited is through their means; if we would | except the present movement of the newspaper press itself, | assisted, as is reported, by a noble female pen. If then we would | approach the subject at all, it must be as tinctured by the question | so inextricably wrapped up with it in our own day, how the | energies of women may be brought to bear on it, and how they | may best become ~~ according to the technical phrase in vogue ~~ | workers. | | But on this point it is not to be denied that a certain | collision takes place between the speculative philanthropy of the | two sexes. Men are very glad for women to assist, but women on | their side, if they are to work, demand a new and firmer basis for | their exertions; these are no longer to be desultory, accidental, | called out by some sudden emergency, as they have been, and so | finding them unprepared by method and discipline for the work, | but reduced to system. Hence the difference of view, and hence the | current agitation on the uselessness of women's lives. It is woman | Who discovers that women are unoccupied. The cry for | employment, more work, and that of a more responsible kind, | arises from eloquent female pens. This involves a claim of | independence which the world is slow to recognise, and very | naturally so, for all proposals for a separation of interests, and | dissolution of the old partnership, which man has always headed, | is a blow to the imperial idea of supremacy. It is clear, at any rate, | that the leading female philanthropy of the age suspects this, and is | in arms at every masculine demur. The old conservative fear | hitherto so futile, that educating the working classes should make | them discontented with a subordinate place, may shift its ground, | for women, it is said, are educated above the work assigned to | them; they are endowed with a fair share of man's knowledge, | and left with nothing to do except to | minister to man's needs and comfort, which, as matters now stand | in the existing anomalous state of things, half of them could do as | well or better than the whole. To accommodate themselves to this | posture of affairs, they demand not only room for individual | action, which has never been denied, and, indeed, constantly | accorded with acclamation, but a new system. They require that | men should alter their views of the natural position of women, that | society should go through some fundamental changes to enable | women to devote themselves with more concentration of purpose | to the great cause of ameliorating the condition of the poor and | ignorant of their own sex, or for their own private advantage. | Nothing short of this is really the aim of the work at the head of | our list, though characterised by a | | remarkable moderation of tone, as well as by much independent | thought and practical good sense. It has, indeed, been especially. | designated as sensible, as an example to, and exception from, | ordinary female writers, by a journal (The Saturday Review) which | does not often devote its columns to the praise of woman's sense | and judgement, nor to advocating for her a wider and more | independent sphere of action. There is so much to be done, and | women have such peculiar facilities for certain spheres of | usefulness, that we are ready to welcome any suggestions for the | development and application of their powers which do not | interfere with what we have been accustomed to regard as first | principles; but is there not something revolutionary in the | unflinching assertion that so soon as a woman is grown up, the | disposition of her time and the choice of her home cease to be | subjects for parental authority? The statement stands as peroration | to the chapter on female education. The authoress has been | speaking of the aspirations after usefulness which take form on | reaching womanhood, whenever that state is attained: | | It is very possible that the place the Christian Remembrancer | occupies in this lady's pages as a foe to progress and a type and | representative of man's selfishness, may have led us to seek the | grounds of difference between ourselves and one whose designs | for usefulness, and ordinary tone meet our sympathy and approbation; | but that certain remarks in our pages (see art. on Female | Occupation and Influence, Christian Remembrancer, April, 1858) | should have caused such marked and yet contradictory dissent | drives us to the conclusion that the extreme parts of her book | embody hopes for the future of her sex, with which we cannot | sympathize. Leaving our contemporaries, the Edinburgh and | Saturday Reviews, to defend themselves against the charge of | holding low and secular views of woman's place in the universe | we, who are taken to embody the sentiments of the | | domestic man, must declare ourselves not ashamed to have | assumed the father's house to be the home for his daughters, | which strictly speaking, is the gist of our offence ~~ one offence | we mean. In excusing some women for expending some ~~ only | some ~~ of their manual energies on a scarcely remunerative | class of toil ~~ needlework, or any other light easily laid down | employment ~~ we ventured to | express an opinion, that somebody in every house must | be open to interruption, and in such an attitude of readiness for any | new call as absorption in a severe pursuit does not imply. If this is | not so, then family life, as we all of us know it and value it, is a | mistake and a forbidden pleasure. But our simple plea elicits | satirical comments on how little the domestic man knows or | realizes the state of his grown-up | family; and a further argument to prove that one daughter | could in every house do the work, now divided among three or | four, and still be ready at the father's call to mend his gloves and | write his notes. We might complain on our side that we are | misunderstood, if we are supposed to have asserted that a man only | values the ladies of his household for their services. May not the | father have some likings, and longings for his daughters' society | beyond mere mechanical assistances? Even if one daughter could | do all the work he wanted, he might yet | cling to the society of two, and not wish to be rid of even four, | if Providence had given them to him and had not as yet called them | away by any unmistakeable voice. Nature and custom agree to | send his boys from him ~ often after ten years old, almost always | before they are twenty; home is called home by them, more in | virtue of affection than length of residence. But nature and custom | make no such demand on the daughters of the house, nor do we | believe that men can ever be brought to see an analogy between | the two cases. It could not come into a man's mind to regard his | younger daughters as set apart and dedicated to missionary work, | because they are superfluous. The experiment has yet to be tried of | young women leaving home for a perfectly independent existence, | subject only to their own ideas of right and duty: even though | that existence is to be spent in the service of others, in works of | mercy. All societies have felt the need of restraints, checks, and | stringent authority, and even vows, to replace the sacred discipline | of home. | | 'My Life, and What shall I do with It?' is addressed to young | gentlewomen; they are the class who are to be influenced by the | writer's arguments. We cannot think it sensible or wise to press on | them the consideration that in a very little time, indeed while they | read, they are in a condition to decide for themselves, whether | there is a work for them to do in their father's house, or whether it | is not rather their duty to go | |

where the work is and do it there,

and this on the | bidding of Bishop Butler, of all people in the world. | | In like manner to young girls we think the following strain | injudicious; our poor selves are still the objects of satire; we | are the advocates of needlework to keep superfluous young | ladies, that is, superfluous daughters, content at home. | | Now the care of nephews and nieces thus summarily treated | as the mere demand of selfishness is really a very excellent | practice and discipline for young people in the duties of life, | and the more excellent because natural. We perceive that this | lady and ourselves should differ very much as to whether a | given home did supply work or not. It may seem to a young | and ardent spirit a far grander, nobler, more self-denying thing | to quit her father's house and labour in some London scene of | want and wretchedness; but, when the age of thirty comes, we | sincerely believe that upon most characters the exercise of | patience and self-discipline in a home where there are children | to care for and train, and many and various calls for help and | assistance to be cheerfully complied with, will have been | more beneficial than a youth spent on the rule of seeking out | where the misery is greatest and the want most urgent. Nor | can we believe that there are so many homes where practical | work in the service of the poor is impossible; there may be | difficulties to be overcome needing a resolute determination | and clear judgment, but effectual service any where needs a | good share of these. | The authoress thus pleads with the daughters of a household, | assuming, we presume, that it lies in a scene where external | work does not offer itself: ~~ | | | We cannot but think it a great risk to press upon girls of | twenty the dulness of home, to fill their minds with these | gloomy prospects concerning the place to which custom at | any rate confines them, and where Providence seems | surely to have cast their lot. But it is not on this ground | alone or chiefly that we doubt the wisdom of this lady's | scheme. She thinks that she sufficiently bears in mind, | what in theory she never wishes to forget ~~ woman's | subordinate place in the human economy ~~ by confining | all her plans to the amelioration of women poor, ignorant, | and neglected by their more blessed and fortunate sisters; | but, in reality, the mighty evils of a vast neglected class | cannot be met by women separating themselves from | men and acting independently. What a picture does this | raise of a father and brothers staying at home and making | their fortunes quite away from that sphere of benevolence | pointed out by Bishop Butler, and the daughters going | forth to encounter it single-handed. If, in the progress of | refinement, or the caprices of fashion and luxury, men | have removed themselves and their families from the | neighbourhood and sight of the classes who labour in their | service, and by whom their wealth is won; it is not the right | remedy for his daughters to return to the city, the court, | and the alley, alone: society altogether must be roused, | must work in concert; not the most impressible, the most | tender, the most subject to impulse, be put forward as | pioneers or solitary workers. We describe them thus | because, though the authoress does not advise girls to | begin the Work, she does to prepare themselves for it by | intention, by deliberate facing of their prospects, and a | course of study; and the idea, in carrying out the scheme, | is to establish in the scene of labour a home of some kind | without, the ties of a sisterhood | | or the restraint of a superior invested with authority. It | often seems as if such a home might be a refuge indeed to | single women whose natural ties are broken, and who | would gladly spend their time in the service of others. We | will collect a few passages that embody the writer's | suggestions: ~~ | There follows a list of the particular works to be pursued in | such a home, obvious to those conversant in such plans: ~~ | | | | Experience has hitherto shown that societies must rather | tighten than relax rules of uniformity; a sisterhood of different | denominations is surely a Utopian scheme, though we do not | wonder that a lady whose thoughts are concentrated on the | one great evil and a scheme for its remedy, should treat most | difficulties and objections as fastidious and unimportant. In the | same spirit we find her, in discussing Sunday-school teaching, | warning against dogmatism, apart from the question of whether | the dogma is true; attributing, indeed, much of the infidelity of | our mechanics to the positive dogmatism of Sunday-school | teaching, as though it were reasonable to expect persons | engaged in so irksome a work to suppress their own opinions | and conclusions. Of course this is the natural tendency (and | has its useful side) in all engaged in some large comprehensive | scheme. The heart that swells at the prevalence of | unrestrained vice, frets at what are called party distinctions; but | this perhaps implies that feelings stirred, and a temper | rendered exacting by the emergency, do not constitute the state | of mind for organising large schemes and new combinations for | united action. The authoress shows a considerable practical | knowledge in the details of visiting and teaching. We have | glimpses of large personal experiences of the different classes she | treats of, and her advice on these details will be of service to | many who would have little sympathy with the theories to | which we have directed our readers' attention. | We are most favourably struck both by her judgment and right | feeling, when treating of the character and temper of the poor | in connexion with certain wholesale statements and popular | fallacies in regard to them. Take, for instance, the following | answer to the charge of ingratitude: ~~ | | | And there is food for thought in the following strictures on | ordinary religious talk, though perhaps the warning is somewhat | strongly put: ~~ | Different chapters are devoted to the subjects of | school-teaching, night-schools, Sunday-school classes of | young shop-women, to whom she shows (and we know it has | been proved) that ladies can be of great service by infusing | a higher tone of feeling, and a more rational basis of | self-respect ~~ Bible classes, visiting the poor, nursing ~~ | forming altogether a catalogue of good works, for which | women are fitting, if not, as in many they are, the very best | agents. In all these, if in some points of detail we differ, we | recognise a person whose experience, and manner of | using her experience, give her a right to enforce her | opinions. | One half of the book, however, is devoted to the | preparation necessary for fitting one class of women to be | teachers and benefactors of the other and larger class | which need their aid. Here we find ourselves sometimes at | odds with our authoress; but there is always satisfaction in | the real opinions of sincere earnest people; something | good and useful may always be drawn from the | conclusions of a reason guided by its own proper | observation; they are a quota to the general stock of | thought; though it must always be borne in mind that | experience in one field is no security for a right judgment | out of that field, and this lady's experience teaching her the | wants of the poor and how to work amongst them, does not | necessarily guide her to a knowledge of how the want is to | be supplied, or to clear views of the position, nature, and | duties of her own sex. Indeed, there is a constant clashing | and confusion between her original views of society and its | claims, and the necessities of want and ignorance. It | results in a compromise, in leaving a certain portion of her | sex ~~ all who are 'wanted' ~~ as they are, and | endeavouring to withdraw all who are not wanted, to labour | in her field. A very | | plausible notion, only it practically calls upon girls to decide | whether they are wanted or not by the time they are twenty, and | to begin then to fit themselves by an exceptional discipline; and | upon fathers to acquiesce in whatever decision is arrived at. And | here, we think, the domestic man, slighted as knowing so little what | are the feelings of his daughters, may turn tables on the authoress, | and demonstrate how little she knows of the peculiarities of | fathers. Fathers will give their daughters in marriage, they will | send them out into the world, if needs be, to get their own living, | they will settle them for life in nunneries but as for giving them a | yearly allowance, and sending them independent and untied into | the world to do good, | as they send their sons to learn trades and professions, the world | will never be mended at all, if this is to be the only way of | mending it. It should, however, be explained, that the plan is not | abandonment of home, even for those who make | benevolence their profession. She stipulates for occasional return | to society, which would answer to the son's vacations, explaining | very sensibly ~~ | | But in her sanguine moods she pictures a great social change, | and amuses herself with a picture of what may be: ~~ | | | The want of weight and practical bearing in all this, in spite of | much good sense in detail, lies in the antagonism which female | speculative writers are so apt to assume between the sexes. They | work themselves into a sort of partisanship. Each sex has its | individualities, its distinct tones of thought and feeling, but men | and women do know a great deal of one another, and the system | which is not built on this knowledge, which assumes antipathies | rather than sympathies, can make no way. | The first discussion between sensible men and women, the first | lively wrangle between boys and girls, will, on different grounds, | blow it all to the winds: the first by sound rational discourse, the | second because the young ladies will come to the conclusion that | they may not prove superfluities, that they may be wanted after all. | Our authoress's scheme of self-education has the merit of being her | own. She acquiesces in the pressure laid upon girls in the school-room | as a fact which does not concern her; when they have | passed through this phase, she pleads for a period of thorough | relaxation; travelling, lively society, dancing, singing, | and even what is understood by a London season, where this can | be obtained. She is not insensible to the risks of such a course, but, | on the whole, she deems it necessary to run some risks to secure | bright cheerful health, and animal spirits. But she reckons on all | young ladies worth anything to her, soon tiring of this course | running through it, and coming out feeling a | want ~~ a necessity of working for others ~~ and this need she | meets by suggestions both of a field and of a line of preparation | for it, consisting mainly of a course of correctives for what she | considers essentially female faults, on which she thus severely | reflects: ~~ | | Perhaps this is not so exclusively feminine a line of mental action, | but it no doubt hits a blot. The authoress's remedy is a severe | course of study of a very few books ~ Bishop Butler's 'Sermons and | Analogys,' Abercombie's 'Intellectual Powers and Moral | Sentiments,' Bishop Whately's 'Logic' and Hooker's 'Ecclesiastical | Polity' if within hearing of the controversies | | of the day; which are all to be read and re-read with notes | and abstracts, and the fullest severity of getting up. To form the | mind, to acquire habits of thought, to be able to fix the attention, | and hold the reason under control, are the motives for this | discipline, which demands no little sacrifice: ~~ | | All depends upon whether this sort of study is really congenial. | To some we quite believe it is. There is a great capacity for hard | mental work, for patiently following the leading of some mind | they can implicitly submit to, in some women. In this course they | can labour, without. any immediate end in view, more docilely | than men; yet we could say something on the risk of checking | certain feminine excellencies of mind and temperament by too | rigid a strain, if she could seriously contemplate any probability of | this advice being largely followed. But to the majority of young | ladies, zealous to begin some noble career of self-sacrifice, the | three years' discipline would oppose rather a chill, though perhaps | salutary barrier; and we admit that it tempers the apparent | imprudence of telling young women they are their own | mistresses, if, at the same time, they can be made to accept this as | the necessary tax of independence. But the work must be | congenial, it must not be mere plodding, if it is to strengthen the | mind and to bear any useful fruit. Lighter studies, if indeed history | is such a very light study, tell better, we suspect, on average minds, | nor do we like to throw even the faintest slight on the well-informed | woman, whose retentive memory serves her in such good | stead, and who is such a bright and valued member of every | intelligent circle. However, the authoress does not impose a burden | she has not herself borne. She recommends what she has | practised, though her style has | | not always the accuracy and clearness she assumes to be the sure | reward of such labours. Her merits and defects are still feminine. | There is the tendency she deplores in her sex of running away with | half impressions, and now and then the practice which has been | attributed to ladies of clearing up the intricacies of a long sentence | by interspersing it with full stops. There are the truth and | knowledge of detail, the observation, the right feeling, tact, and | sympathy, the judgment and good sense wherever personal | experience has been the guide which distinguish the | sensible woman, and the absence of power to take a large view and | embrace all sides of a question which so constantly go along with | these. That she has thought for herself, and kept clear of | conventional ideas and language, such passages as the following | prove. It contains not only useful counsel, but some thoughts | deserving to be called original: ~~ | | | > | On this same subject of expression there is also a very nice and | yet just distinction drawn between a knowledge of character and a | quick perception of states of feeling. In order to know | a character, we must be at least its equal, in some sort above it, | but to follow states of feeling implies rather sympathy, tact, and | observation centered on the present moment. She warns women | against what she considers a fashionable amusement of the | present day, the dissection and discussion of other people's | characters, which she regards as a very profitless pursuit, while | she urges them to the less ambitious study of present tempers | and feelings as more serviceable to the objects of it: ~~ | | There are some good remarks, in which we entirely concur, on the | present movement for employing women on what his hitherto been | exclusively man's work. The poor cannot eventually be benefited | by a general reduction of wages, which must follow where a large | additional supply of labour is brought into the market, for which | there is no increased demand. Besides that the labour of women | must always undersell that of men, because | | they can both live upon less, and are more | easily put upon, to use a popular phrase. In acknowledgment and | reply to this, it has been said, | in connexion with one branch of industry,

| 'We must have cheap watches; therefore women must make them':

| but this is an argument which surely cannot be expected to have | weight with the men who have hitherto made them, and who must | feel an, at least, equal necessity for a rate of wages | on which they can live with comfort and maintain a wife and | family; and it must be remembered that the circumstances which | prevent a man from marrying prevent a woman from being | married. It strikes us as another of those cases in which the | difficulties of our social position are sought to be remedied by | bringing man and women ~~ whose interests are the same, who can | only thrive by helping each other ~~ into antagonism. However, this | is a wide subject, in which we have space only for a passing opinion. | opinion. | In leaving this part of our subject, we should be | sorry indeed should anything we have said seem | to go counter to the very first lesson of this book, | that, in order to benefit the poor, ~~ in order to do | any effectual service to our fellow-creatures,' ~~ | we must bring our whole powers to bear upon our | work, and do our best to cultivate those powers to | the utmost. ' When God uses ' us as His agents | to help others, it is by and through the ' natural | faculties and talents He has given us, and | according to ' the measure and power they have | attained through the care 'with which we have | exercised them.' It is most important that persons | should enter upon this work using their best judgment, | and realizing its difficulty, and the necessity | of thought and preparation. It is not well, we | know, to multiply difficulties ~~ to seem to throw | obstacles in the way of what so many already feel | irksome: but thought and care for the needy are a | sacred obligation; it is surely important to bring | our best and highest powers to the task, and | work with all our heart and understanding. And | this brings us to the next book on our list. | Quoting from our own pages, and from the same | article, the authoress whose work we have just | discussed, at one time charges us with being | blind to the higher duties of her sex, and at | another accuses us of setting women on work | better, if not exclusively, fitted for men. | | | | If the authoress had read our remarks with any | attention before founding an argument upon them, | she would have seen that Miss Marsh did not | furnish the ground for them. But to quote the exact | words: ~~ 'We were led to these thoughts some | time since by the knowledge of a most successful | effort of this kind by a lady in an agricultural | district, working under the 'encouragement and | support of her pastor. Most interesting and | affecting details have reached us of the happy fruit | of her 'labours;' ~~ the writer going on to say that | he feared further to indicate their nature or locality, | lest he should seem to intrude on the privacy of a | strictly parochial work. Since then, as Mr. Legard's | preface tells us, the friends of this lady have | induced her to publish some of the letters and other | documents by which, in the course of her exertions, | she had sought to excite their interest, and to call | the attention of others to the moral and spiritual | condition of the whole district in which lay her own | sphere of labour. 'Ploughing and Sowing' is the | result ~~ a work of so little literary pretension that | it must rather be called a collection of letters and | documents than a book, using that word as | conveying the idea of deliberate authorship, but | which, on the other hand, contains so much that is | new to most readers, is really such a revelation of a | state of society, is written in so intelligent, candid, | and earnest a spirit, that we know no work of the | kind better worth reading | If the whole is put together without attempt at | literary effect, each page is written with a purpose, is | the fruit of a progressive experience, and expresses | what the writer feels of vital importance in a clear, | strictly simple, and yet cultivated style. It is curious | too, as a contribution to the study of race. A great | many of our readers probably know more of the | habits of the polar-bear than of the Yorkshire | farming lad, who, so far as this lady sees him and | has to do with him, is vividly brought before us, while | she never allows imagination to fill up the void | where, positive knowledge fails. We do not know all | about him, but we have full confidence that | everything we are told comes fresh from an | observation which adds no running commentary, no | flattering gloss, but sees things as they are. | And, for ourselves, we must own that a strong interest | is excited. She can describe ignorance without | conveying any ideas of contempt. We see through | the density that force and vigour of mind which have | advanced Yorkshire to so forward a place amongst | the shires, that undeniable power of work and will | | which will always make men foremost in whatever | they undertake, and which constitute | Yorkshiremen the best labourers in the world. It is | really affecting to see these sons of the soil, after | such a day's work as is accomplished nowhere | else, resolutely apply their unpractised, and | therefore slow brains, to the mysteries of letters, | and spelling, and books. It is delightful to see the | dulness clear up, and by degrees the power of | expression dawn upon them, to see the almost | heroic stolidity which dictated the reply, 'Working | and sleeping are enough for me,' give way to the | wish to learn. It is pleasant, too, to trace a dogged | truthfulness even in the least promising. Nothing | shirking or dishonest, even as an individual | characteristic, throws a doubt on the reality of | seeming good. The lady and her readers both | know where they are. The respect, and | consequent sense of equality, that sincerity on | each side brings, is one of the most, agreeable | points we have to rest upon. The 'I said I would | send you no lies,' of her correspondent, to which | she can confidently reply, 'I always knew you | would tell me no lies,' if it does not make a difficult | work easy, at least, guarantees those who would | labour in this field from (lie worst form of | disappointment. The independence of position, as | well as of character in these youths, tends, no | doubt, to sincerity, by making it easier than the | underpaid, often depressed labourer of less | favoured districts. The Yorkshire unmarried | farming lad lives on the fat of the land. His master | lodges him in his house, and, in exchange for the | full use of his strength, engages to feed him | abundantly, in order to maintain that strength at | its height. Meat three times a-day, and other | things in proportion, make it easier to hold your | own, and preserve from the more timid forms of | insincerity, however unfavourably full feeding may | affect the character in other ways, and to have the | physical strength developed to the utmost, while | the moral and spiritual natures are left without | their needful aliment. The following pictures, with | which the book opens, give us a very distinct | idea of the manner of life in the agricultural | districts of the East Hiding, and of the class for | whose cause it is written. It is as well to premise | that the describer is daughter of the rector of the | parish, and, what is inferred but never distinctly | stated, niece of the landowner, a position or | advantage, which must lend powerful aid even to | the highest personal qualifications, and which | constitute this lady's whole course of action, one | more for general, than close and particular | imitation. | | | | A week after, not allowing first impressions to lose | their power and first ardour to cool, she made what | she calls

"a bold plunge."

How and when to | make such a plunge, and the principles which guide | such a first effort, often indicate the degree of fitness | for exceptional work. | | | | She had no reason to complain of her scholars. | When harvest came, during which they work early | and late, she prepared to dismiss her night class | for the season; but some begged to continue for a | while longer with an earnestness she could not | refuse, though doubting the wisdom of it; adding, |

'One of them was so weary and exhausted, | yet made such efforts to learn and understand. It | goes to the heart to see their eagerness to learn | and acquire new ideas, and to think how few | opportunities they have!'

The sight of this | eagerness naturally awoke a feeling for the whole | class, out of which arose a correspondence with | friends, lay and clerical, amongst others with the | editor, himself experienced in the same work, and | so well aware, as we gather from his preface, of | its difficulty, as to be quite willing that

| 'woman's influence'

should be brought to | bear upon it. The book this lady chose for her | more intelligent pupils is so singular a one as to | throw great light on the nature of the teaching, | while it still seems to limit her successful imitators | to a small class. Let any ordinary teacher take | 'Rasselas' as a first reading book, and see how far | he can engage his pupils' attention. | | | | Instruction like this implies a vigilant sympathy, | clearness of illustration, and undeviating | attention on the teacher's part, and a willingness | to mental labour in the pupil not common on | either side. We feel the contrast between this and | routine teaching, by which the supple mind of | childhood commonly acquires its first knowledge. | A neglected plough-boy has no affinity with | routine. No mechanical method can find an | opening to his brain. There must be a contact of | mind; he must be always conscious of labour in | his teacher exacting labour in return. Nothing slips | in unconsciously or by chance. As far as we can | judge, however, often as she changes her | scholars, she never has to complain of | indifference to learning under, the stimulus of her | teaching. It was the easiest of her tasks to bring | them together after a hard day's work to tax their | unpractised faculties. Indeed, the respect for | knowledge never really slumbers in the midst of | the dense ignorance of which she complains. Here | and there one had taught himself to read, and in | the throng of harvest were others who

| 'snatched half an hour more than they ought from | their night's rest,'

but whose ardour she dare | not damp by a refusal. On the prevailing | ignorance, she thus writes: ~~ | | | | Of course, such ignorance as she goes on to | describe is exceptional in England; but we believe | the same searching investigation applied in many | other quarters would let out facts that would | surprise the world. In a letter to a friend, she | writes: ~~ | | | And shortly after, ~~ | It was by degrees that what she justly calls the | heathenism of this class dawned upon her; and | here we think the prevalent system and the nature | of the connexion between master and servant in | this part of the country, which has been already | alluded to, must largely bear the blame. The rule | is for the farm servants throughout the East | Riding to be changed every year. As men are | constituted, this must produce mutual indifference. | It requires a real enthusiasm of | benevolence to care a great deal ~~ to take daily | trouble for a constantly shifting household. The | actual state of things seems to us also the | natural | one, that each party should regard the contract as | a merely business one; as such it appears to be | honestly observed. The work is well done, the | master does his part, but religion and morality are | not in the bond. | The mere spectacle of the hiring is not | encouraging. Duly as Martinmas comes, the | market or main streets of the country towns of the | district are lined with young men and also with | young women, strapping healthy girls, set off in | their showiest and least tasteful finery, standing to | be looked at and to be hired. It is more like a | slave market than any English scene could be | supposed to be except for the jollity and | independence of the article exposed for the year's | purchase. The season of absolute unrestraint is | found to produce the worst consequences. The | clergy in different places set themselves against | the system wholly or in part, but it is an institution | so deeply rooted, and with so many conveniences | which are felt, ~~ perhaps, amongst these is, the | relief from the sense of responsibility, ~~ while | the evils are either disregarded or treated as | inevitable, that the farmers set themselves | against any change. Even our authoress sees | some advantages in it. The week's holiday, which | now | | comes with Martinmas, keeps up home ties which | might otherwise languish, and she naturally fears | that, if the annual hirings were given up, the | holiday might go with it; while in her own case | she accepts the constant change of pupils as in | advantage both as a stimulus to exertion in the | year's class, as knowing the shortness of the time, | and as a means of spreading her influence for | good by her former pupils: the number under her | immediate control being necessarily limited by the | distance of many of the farms, even in her father's | parish. | | As her acquaintance with her pupils increased, it | became apparent that mere teaching in classes | could not reach the exigencies of the case. Of | what use was mere learning, or even Bible | knowledge while there was the habitual neglect of | the first act of religion ~~ prayer ~~ either public, | or private. Only by degrees can this come home to | the religiously educated woman, who, from | infancy, has assumed that prayer in a Christian | land, at least, is an universal outward act. The real | shock that comes with the knowledge that it is not | so, that many never pray, may have made a | woman in this case the best instrument. There is | something very remarkable in the difficulty she | found, often in her best pupils, to induce them | even to an external observance. General | exhortations were ineffectual; she found it | essential to reach the conscience by a particular, | individual approach. To one of her pupils she | writes: ~~ | | | The difficulty in their case of beginning this practice | when once broken off is enormous: even some who | went to church shrank from it, and would make no | promises, though believing in the necessity. I cannot | be right some way, or I could pray, is the confession. | Where prayer has ceased to be even a form, we can | imagine the awe which may inspire a sincere mind in | the first effort. To some of these lads, the scruple | seems to have been of the nature which so often | deters from receiving the Holy Communion. Even | going down on their knees is a profession, especially | where, as in their case, it must be done in the sight | of scoffing companions. She is writing to one | Thomas, of his friend W. J., who had been in peril of | death from an accident. The letter gives us an insight | into the nature of her intercourse with former pupils, | whom she was most anxious to keep some hold | over. | | | | The last sentence brings us to the most remarkable | feature of this lady's work. It is mainly carried on in | the fields. The necessity of private conversation | drove her to the only chance for obtaining it, by | seeking her scholars in the solitude of their daily toil. | There seems rarely to have been any objection on | the part of these boys to so unusual a companion, | or to being thus forced, as it were, to serious | thought; though we observe in her Introduction that | she does not profess the book to give an adequate | idea of the failures and discouragements that | accompanied her efforts. In the instances recorded | she is evidently welcome. The work is so far | mechanical that conversation can be carried on with | only occasional interruption; and we seldom observe | in them any unwillingness to mental labour. Of | course, this could only go on where there is a strong | sense of mutual fitness and some similarity of | temperament. The two labourers walk side by side, | alike strenuous, and determined to overcome the | obduracy and difficulties of the respective soils. We | see that anything short of her perseverance and | importunity would not do. Her will is resolute to | overcome theirs. Having established a hold, she | never relaxes. All, we presume (only presume), are | Yorkshire together ~~ all endued with the same | strong wills, strong characters, and native | intelligence ~~ all with the same sense of loyalty | and duty to the work they have undertaken, and | which in each case is accepted as the work of life. | Nor do we observe, what we should certainly have | apprehended, any objection on the master's side. | She is permitted, with one strong exception, to | pursue her task unimpeded ~~ an immunity which, | of course, can only be attributed to joint respect for | the lady's character and position. That, under other | circumstances, farmers would like to have | mission-ladies walking by the side of their ploughs | and harrows, is not to be supposed, even if we did not | find direct mention of annoyance in one case where | the master supposed her a stranger, | | which gave way to marked attention on further | recognition. | She, on her part, is careful not to interfere with | work, and | would not pursue a conversation with one who | rested on his scythe till he explained to her that | he was doing piece-work. We mention this point, | however, to show how very exceptional efforts | precisely in this form must be. The scene and the | circumstances in which this work is carried on | constitute the book, instinct as it is with rustic life, | an idyll. A fresh country air breathes through it, | and the scent of new-turned earth. We accompany | her unflinching in the keen winter winds, and | sympathise with the refreshment of happy autumn | fields, thus sweetly touched upon in a vein of | feeling not often indulged. She is writing (August, | 1858) to a friend in the pause of harvest holidays, | and describing the course of her days, and the | nature of

field work.

| | | | We cannot resist, in connexion with the youths here | spoken of, giving, in her own words, a very striking | and affecting scene, showing, as it does, her power, | and some of the secrets of her power, over rude and | untaught natures. The account was written in the | beginning of the same year 1858, shortly, that is, | after the Martinmas hiring. Her own department in it | would be of especial value as an example to those | youths who feel laughter and ridicule the most | terrible of all trials; ~~ and one she had constantly to | combat, and with different success. Some to all her | arguments for not caring would doggedly hold to it | that they did care a great deal, while another, of a | higher spirit, declared his own resolution, and helped | her with a motto of encouragement, in the words, |

'I'm not afraid of them; they are only men.'

| | | | There are many scenes as well worth reading ~~ the | story of John and Betsey, the death of J. L., the walk | to a distant confirmation, which was to test her | powers. The boys are always willing enough to be | confirmed for the sake of the holiday; but as for getting | them to return in order and in good time, that was | regarded as simply impossible.

'Oh, yes,'

| said a farmer;

'we’ll tell 'em, but see if you get 'em | back before midnight How'll you do it? you can't force | 'em.'

She heard her folly and simplicity made a | joke of. Even the schoolmaster advised the boy and | girl candidates walking separately, not trusting to the | lads' sense of decorum, till his scruples were | overruled, and he was brought to regard the walk in | company as a lesson in proper behaviour. The result | was triumphant, the success complete, as far, that is, | as the day was concerned; her disappointments were | to come from another source. We should assume this | lady's personal influence unbounded over her scholars | but for the following spirited remonstrance, which is | inserted, no doubt, to show that she is not without | some rubs | | and slights, and also to illustrate the effect of relapse | into evil courses on the behaviour. It is addressed to a | backslider. | | Our readers need hardly be told what is the great | blot, the prevailing vice, of the locality and the class | to which these pages introduce us. This writer, in | one place, wonders how it is that some ladies who | write on the poor seem to treat drunkenness as the | chief sin, the one overpowering evil. With the young, | at any rate, this is not the case in the scene of her | labours. She could not go on long, scarcely enter | upon her work in earnest, without having to settle | with her own mind the course she must pursue, | whether to relinquish her work altogether, or to | overcome what must be called more than scruples. | In the almost stern simplicity of the mind before us, | the decision was soon made. | | And then follows an instance where her words had | proved an effectual check and warning. Under thus | lady's handling, we are | | satisfied that her course was a right one. It may | show that her mission altogether is an individual | one; but, in this case, the treatment of the whole | question ~~ the tone so severe, so pure so | emphatically earnest ~~ constitutes one main value | of this little book. Step by step she accepts the | responsibilities of her position as teacher and adviser | of these lads, who had practically no other, that is, | none with the same access to their minds and | knowledge of their temptations; she felt that to do | them good she must of all things be straightforward | and have no half confidences. She could not, for | example, go on teaching spiritual religion while she | knew the plainest morals were in danger and even | the conscience in this matter obscured. Nothing | could be taught these fellows by remote allusion, | they have not the training for it; they must be | approached in direct language; and then the more | direct, with scriptural plainness and severity as the | guide, the better. Where there is weight of character | and of standing to support the reproof, where the | authority is recognised and the influence already | established, the necessary conditions are secured; | and the warning or rebuke is the more effectual, if | horror of sin as hateful to God and men is shown to | overcome for a time all minor respects. While such | revelations reach us from all sides of cruel neglect | and indifference, of negligent masters and | mistresses, as in this case; of ill-lodging and hideous | overcrowding, as the reports of the Farringdon | Union just now bring to light ~~ | no-one can say where the chief sin lies; | whether with those who commit it, or with those who, | having the remedy in their power, have done nothing | to prevent it; but while the reproach continues, | something should be done to meet the gigantic evil | besides apportioning the blame, though we feel and | acknowledge the difficulty and are alive to the | danger. There is too much public talk of a certain | kind, obtrusive noisy talk, provoking unhallowed | curiosity; but in grave warning and precaution we | believe very little is said. The whole class of sins is | not made a matter of teaching at all, scarcely by | allusion. When we hear constant lamentations of the | continuance, some say the increase, of immorality, | in spite of Sunday school and other teaching (and it | is a constant reproach to Sunday schools | especially), we come to consider how is this danger | met. Is it not extremely likely that many a boy or girl | whose home lies in the midst of contamination has | never heard one single allusion or warning from his | or her teacher against the sin that surrounds him? | That home and school are consequently such | absolutely different worlds, that the instructions of | the school hardly take hoId of or apply at all to home | trials? A few solemn, weighty, plain words of | | warning might tell, if the teacher were competent to | pronounce them. It is sad to hear of these Yorkshire | youths not comprehending the words of Bible | warnings for want of being taught, and of a girl under | her mistress's reproaches flippantly answering,

| 'Why you think as much of it as if it was stealing or | murder;'

but we own to a jealousy of committing | such a task to the ordinary class of teachers. | Wherever private conversation is possible, this is | perhaps the best mode; and the closer different | classes approach in sympathy, the more silent | influence will tell. It must always be a shame to | speak of such things; and when it ceases to be so, | the counsellor has lost much of his usefulness, for | his sense of sin is blunted. In the particular case | before us, it is evident something must be done to | rouse the conscience where so general a deadness | prevails; and solemn Bible warnings, as much as | possible in the very words of Scripture, enforced by | an awful belief in those words vividly expressed, | seem not only permissible, but essential. Nor is it | only by warnings and severity that the evil is met | here; there are very tender appeals to the dormant | generosity of these youths, and to their innate | gallantry. Long as our extracts have been, we must | find room for the letter to G. M., on occasion of his | having protected some female candidates for | Confirmation from the rough ways of his companions. | | | | We feel a step is gained when an intimate address of | this kind is made with a prospect of its being | understood ~~ if the class to which 'George' belongs | can enter into this, it ought not to be inaccessible. We | regard such a letter as a sign of influence at work, for | the writer feels that her words will go home. The letters | to her scholars always so impress us; and here we are | led to consider how hard it is to establish an actuating | influence where persons are separated by wide social | distinctions. We are not speaking of influence in any | subtle sense, but only as the weight that better | knowledge and purer morals should obtain for the | teacher, and do obtain where he can get them a real | hearing. This book, in the midst of some | discouragement, shows this desired contact of mind. It | is well to reflect how rare this is ~~ what thought, and | labour, and concentration of purpose it needs to | acquire it ~~ and then we may the less wonder at the | small results so often lamented over from much | seeming labour. An application of the full powers of | mind and heart can alone gain this influence; those | whose services are of a mere mechanical nature, | however cheerfully bestowed, must not expect to | change the face of things, and to alter the standard | of morals and feelings. Take, for instance, the case of | many who do systematically devote a certain portion | of their time to the poor. How much do they get to | know of the people they visit? It is one of the mysteries | of classes that social differences of position | should raise such iron barriers against intimate | knowledge. Even slight distinctions of rank have an | effect, which we can scarcely comprehend, as | hindrances to a perfect understanding. Persons may | meet and hold intercourse day after day, and yet, from | this cause, know nothing of each other's inner life and | modes of viewing things; but in the broad distinctions | of rich and poor, educated and uneducated, the | difficulty is felt most sharply. And so it is that many see | a great deal of the poor, and know nothing of their | minds. And how should they? for how rarely have we a | glimpse of their home life! and respect and constraint | prevent any chance revelations. Thus the visitor pays | a call, and finds the mistress of the house surrounded | by her youngest children. She receives him gladly; | she willingly answers all | | questions; she has no intentional concealments; | she probably thinks that what is so familiar to her is | evident and open to him; she speaks of the | different members of her family; talks of work and | wages, school and church, easily and naturally, he | goes away knowing so much that he does not know | that, in one point, he knows nothing. He forms a fair | opinion of the industry, the honesty, and the means | of the family, if he is experienced and observant, | and their relative standing; but he may still come | away, after years of such intercourse, with no more | notion of the family tone of feeling than if he had | never known them. What they talk of, in what light | the great interests of life are regained, what ideas, | what manners prevail round the hearth, he is in the | dark about. Are poverty and anxieties the constant | theme with all that he finds them to be with the | mother? Or are their troubles dismissed with the | visitor, and does the family continue to be | light-hearted, open to new impressions, touching, by | turns, upon gossip, public events, and popular | amusements? What is the relation, of parents and | children, brothers and sisters; what aspect religion | assumes where there is a profession; how it | influences the moral tone; he can only surmise. | What interests, what amuses them, what pleases, | what propitiates, what excites gratitude, what lasting | grudge, ~~ must be constant matter of guess, with | very little chance of guessing right. And still less | does he know how the most important and deeply | interesting questions to the young, such as our | extract treats of, are regarded; for about these there | is generally an intentional reserve on both sides. It | is the thing the mother never likes to think of; for a | lover is a signal of separation, often of diminished | means, and the prospect of a daughter-in-law is still | worse: and the visitor, by experience, finds the | subject of love and courtship so hedged about with | trouble and dangers, that he had best not know | anything about it. | What a revelation to most of us would an invisible | insight, or two or three days of entirely equal | intercourse be, in a mechanic's or labourer's family | ~~ how it would at once enlarge our charity and | modify our expectations to be cooped up with them | within those narrow crowded bounds where | retirement and reflection seem impossible: to | witness in such a new scene the workings of family | life ~~ to realize the want of so many aids to | refinement and to goodness hitherto taken for | granted by us rather than viewed as privileges, and | to trace the effect of these privations on their social | code, manners, and tempers, and on the requirements | of their public opinion. That the poor have a | scale of virtues and vices founded on their peculiar | trials and temptations, not all in strict conformity with | our own, we knew beforehand, | | and that to be quiet, and to pay your way, is to be | regarded in spite of an occasional lapse in other | ways, and perhaps we have never tried to realize how | this tolerant moral code is expressed in the family | circle, or how it affects the infant mind, only that we | may be certain it has affected them before they came | under any direct teaching whatever, and that it has | affected them, in some degree, as members of a | class; for we none of us can help being in a certain | degree influenced by the opinions of our equals. | When we have thought of all this, and picture what | the trials and disadvantages of many a cottage | home must be, we shall perhaps wonder less that | the clergyman or his wife, or the ladies, or the | teacher, have spoken in vain, and ask what chance | have they against the counter influences of | neighbourhood and association, and traditional | morals, and the training of a home where work is the | only discipline. All people will expect so much from | direct instruction ~~ they will even expect more | effects from instruction to the poor than to their | own circle, both because they assume a greater | weight of authority where there is superiority of rank | and the claims of gratitude, as well as office, and | that they are habituated to make allowance for | adverse influence where their experience can act, | while they are prone to think of the poor only as | under this instruction, and to ignore what they do | not see: for it needs almost an effort of imagination | to follow men into scenes of which we have no | personal knowledge. | The present work realizes to the full all these | difficulties, from the influences of training, and the | earliest imbibed ideas. The only mode of opposing | what is objectionable in these is personal direct | appeals to the reason, feelings, and conscience; to | establish a counter authority, hoping that her work | will tell in the next generation on fathers and | mothers, who can infuse higher principles. If her | words influence these Thomases and Georges now, | it may be hoped their daughters will be objects of a | more careful and tender watchfulness than fathers | or mothers either seem to bestow upon them now. | But laxity of moral principle in one great essential | point is not the only cause, the only hindrance, | raised by traditional ideas; the notion of religion | itself, in the class of which she treats, has become a | conventional one, and synonymous with the various | phases of Methodism. It is clear that the subject of | Dissent had not occupied this lady's thoughts much, | before she began, or in the first stages of, her work. | In that part of the country where Methodism is | almost the only form of Dissent, it does not take an | antagonistic attitude towards the Church. It | separates its followers, and causes divisions more in | fact than in theory. It is felt more | | through empty churches than in the bitterness of | polemics. They are Dissenters in act

‘without | having ever heard the word, or attaching any notion | to the idea.’

Under these circumstances, our | friend might well hope that in bringing her pupils to | a sense of religion she was bringing them to | Church; and we can fancy the chill that would strike | on these hopes as she received the following naive | felicitation: ~~

'Have you heard, ma'am, ' that | ~~ ~~, that favourite lad of yours, has grown so | good he's joined the Primitives, and I believe it's a | deal from your talking to him;'

and from this | time she found that, in all their seeming indifference, | her scholars had imbibed, long before she knew | them, a certain notion of religion. Even here she | was not first in the field. She could not impart her | ideas, she could only give life and vigour to their | own, derived in earliest infancy, or at any rate, long | before her influence began. She soon found all her | instructions increasingly tend to this, and writes | upon the words just quoted;

'and if that was the | case in one instance last year, it has been in twenty | this.'

They seemed as if they could not take in | any other idea than that to be religious implied | being

'converted,' ' brought in,' 'joined,'

| wound up into a strange state of excitement at | some chapel; consequently we find, in a letter to a | friend, the following result of the Confirmation, some | details of which we have already noticed. It follows | on an urgent appeal to the newly-confirmed to | receive the Holy Communion, who had in many | cases pleaded,

'I'm not good enough.'

| There was an evident earnestness about them; the | plea was not made to put aside an irksome thought, | but this duty did not accord with their conventional | notions of the soul's progress. Even in her | disappointment she adduces it as a proof of | sincerity. | | | | The subject is about fairness. There is more than | tolerance and feeling wherever she recognizes | practical applications and few doctrinal charges. It is | as causing division that she mainly attacks | Methodism, and she even allows attendance at | chapel, where there is no Church, for those boys who | would otherwise be left without public worship at all. | But her own mind is in strong anatagonism to | Methodism as the religion of mere feeling, and she | meets it in her scholars’ minds with definite questions, | ~~

‘Do you pray?’ ‘Do you lead pure lives?’ ‘Do | you go to church?’ ‘Do you communicate?’ ‘Do you do | all these things now?’

| | Another excused himself for having left off prayer on | the plea that when at school he had not been allowed | to go to chapel. We insert the argument, and also his | letter. The Church servies to which he conformed | seem to have satisfied some of the natural desires to | which Methodism ministers, good sining, and | energetic preaching ~~ | | | | We must be allowed, in passing, to express a hope | that letters such as these, will never reach the eyes of | the writers in their present form. The authoress has an | apparent reliance on the indifference, darkness, and | utter removal from all external knowledge and interests | characterizing the farmers of her neighbourhood and | their dependents, which we should be glad to believe | so far well-founded as to prevent all danger of initials | being recognised, and letters and conversations being | traced to their authors. The book is addressed to the | educated classes, and therefore this scruple is | perhaps superfluous; but it is one to be read with | interest and profit by all classes, except the people | who are the cause of it being written. | There is a chapter devoted to 'reflections on Dissent,' | from which we will quote a passage or two, as both | interesting and suggestive. | | | | Then follows an interesting account of a class-leader, | a pattern husband and father, who, overhearing her | exhort a youth to come to church instead of chapel, | joins in the conversation, accompanies her to church, | and subsequently receives the Communion (for the | first time, strange to say), without implying by this | course any change in his views or practices. As there | is never any shrinking from difficulties in our friend, | and as she is fortunate in a very ready and clear | self-possession, we find her in friendly discussion and | amicable contest with all the leading Wesleyans and | Primitives who come in her way, evidently an object of | interest and respect to them, while she is not without | hope that under wise and loving management, zeal | tempered with discretion, the whole body may be | brought back to the Church. One Wesleyan minister | sends her his sermon by one of her pupils, which, | with one exception, she seems to have found a very | good one ~~ the exception being the assumption | universal in that system, that every righteous person | had at one time led a wicked life. But for this, she | sees no reason why he should not seek ordination | from the bishop; from which we may infer that her | experience possibly leads her to desire a more | animated style of preaching for a rustic audience than | custom sanctions in our church; though this is inferred | from her reflections on the difficulty a classical | education throws in the way of being understood, | rather than in any direct expression of opinion; and it | must be noted that she refers to her father’s sermons | with a confidence of their having been attended to | and comprehended. The whole East Riding district, of | which this lady treats, is in a wonderfully altered and | improved condition since the time when its clergy | were a byword ~~ the time, no doubt, when | Methodism first gained its footing. There is a | | body of zealous clergy and a general movement in | Church restoration, ~~ yet are there still churches | and services which force on us the question, How | far are they efficient as means to an end? Near one | of these often stands the chapel, passing which the | resounding hymn answers for the numbers within, or | the preacher's voice and the respondent amens | show that attention of some sort has been gained, | that no-one can possibly | be asleep. The preacher and his hearers evidently | stand in a relation to one another. Arrived in | church, it is impossible not to feel a contrast: the | scanty congregation, the feeble hymn from | shrill-voiced untunable school children, the service | hastily performed, the sermon not classical, we | must say, and with a twang fully equal to the | Methodist preacher over the way, but sing-song, | monotonous, wanting his action, and seemingly | uttered without the hope of producing an | impression; ~~ a dead sleepy silence brooding over | all; and it may be dust, damp, and cobweb adding | a sense of desolation and decay to the sad | oppressive scene. This is no fair picture of the | present, it is an utter contrast to many ~~ we trust, | to most ~~ churches and services in that part now; | but it shows us what has been: it is a relic of a very | common and general state of things; it accounts to | our feelings and senses for the spread of | Methodism, whatever other and less humiliating | causes reason may suggest for the general | defection, derived from the foolish preferences, the | weakness, and perversity of corrupt human nature. | But it is no part of this lady's aim to point out | defects in our own system, and probably our | extreme instances may not have come within her | experience ~~ still we find occasional hints at a | want which might be supplied by more energetic | action, as in her discussions. | | It is beyond a doubt that, whatever life can be given | to our services, it is indispensable should be given. | For our part, the mere difficulty of understanding in | these untaught youths to which she attributes | everything, seems to us possibly overstated. The | fact that people cannot explain words is no proof that | they do not in a dim way understand them. These | boys may be only like children, who are always | entirely at a loss for a definition. | | They may even not know the meaning of separate | words, and yet arrive at a correct notion of a whole | sentence. But that sentence must be uttered with a | certain effect. Preachers must be able to force their | way into dense minds by a vigorous diction | emphatically delivered, where, if the words are new | to ignorant ears, they shall explain themselves as | they are spoken. | This is the way children learn the meaning of | words; nobody explains words to them ~~ at least | not many thousand. But the power of sustaining an | outward act on our part belongs to cultivated | people as to children and those who are like | children for any length of time is difficult, almost | impossible. For our part, we should not be sorry if a | change of attitude, if some subdued expression of | feeling or of assent, were permissible during a | sermon addressed mainly to rustic or mechanic | hearers ~~ something that should keep their | attention alive, and show the preacher how far he | carried them along with him. Many a man with no | power of extempore preaching might, thus | encouraged, be stimulated to some more pointed and | searching address than was suggested to him in | the stillness of his study. In the simple | congregations of native Christians in Tinnevelly, we | are told that the clergy of both our Missionary | Societies have found it necessary to establish this | prompt response of feeling between preacher and | hearer. When he gives out his text, he waits for the | congregation to give it back to him in one | unanimous repetition, and even the body of his discourse | is often catechetical; he asks questions, he | demands an audible assent to his statements. It | cannot be easy to sleep in such a scene, though | we can imagine not a few counteracting evils. In | one of the poorer quarters of Dublin, we once | witnessed a Roman Catholic congregation go down | on their knees amidst sighs, and tears, and groans, | while the preacher told, with much action, but in | almost Scriptural wording, Elijah's miracle for the | poor widow and her son. The scene was striking, | though it needs to follow these impressionable | people to their homes to know what good excited | feeling had done them. We know that if people can | sit absolutely motionless, and attend with an | attention which loses not a word, this is the ideal of | good listening; it is the only form of attention at | which the educated classes can aim; but we also | know that decorous wandering, decorous sleeping | amongst the elders, and indecorous restlessness | amongst the children, is the mode of reception of | many a sermon, prompted by the preacher's heart, | and containing words of life able to save souls if | they would only make a way to them. | It is mainly the fault of the hearers in this case, who | have not resisted as they ought habits of | dreaminess and inattention; | | but in the case of these farming lads, the model | labourers of the world, we can hardly wonder if | they should succumb, in their day of rest, to the | atmosphere of repose, if they do sleep (though | the charge is not brought against them); and | perhaps leave with the impression that the | Primitives are more awakening. We should like | to know if the experiment was ever tried in a | rustic church, of permission to express feeling | and attention. It is always pleasant and rousing | to see some sturdy self-possessed hearer | deliberately stand up, as the only mode of | shaking off his drowsiness; what we imagine, is a | step further in individual action. We knew the | charge would be brought that it was like a | Methodist meeting; but if the meeting gets the | hearers, perhaps there may be as much example | as warning in the practice. Hard as it is to induce | congregations to respond and to sing, when once | habits of silence are broken down in any church, | and a universal Bound of human voices | introduced in its place, that church is popular. | Men feel the thrill of membership, they experience | a sensation, an influence is abroad amongst | them. This is an undoubted good: to any further | extension of the privilege of speech, experiment | might show grave objections. That preacher and | hearers would be roused we may feel sure; but | mere rousing, if the taste of the better sort were | shocked, and due reverence were infringed | upon, would be no substantial gain. If ever man | or woman converts Wesleyan, Primitive, or | Ranter preacher to the Church, and he have | influence to bring his flock with him, we shall see | the experiment tried in a natural manner. | The passages we have extracted, and the whole | tone of the book, show that the writer came to | this subject with no strong prejudices; a naturally | candid mind brought no inherited antipathies to | its consideration. She was ready to seek for, to | welcome every sign of agreement and fellow-feeling. | She can admire and, what is more, make | our hearts warm to individual Methodists, but her | conclusions against the system gather strength | with experience. The book is one gradual growth | of opinion against it, solely, as it seems, from | witnessing its effects on the community at large | and on its especial converts. Mere practical | experience must always be limited, personal | observation must always have a narrow range, | and the very concentration of the mind before us | on one subject of interest, the work of her life, | enjoins caution in accepting conclusions arrived | at in disappointment amid baffled hopes and | various forms of trial. She is in a position we see | to realize the harm, while there may be good she | does not see. We may not know the full truth of | the case, indeed we do not know how a woman | confining herself to her own small legitimate field | of action can give us this. But not | | The less is the book valuable for the truth it does | contain; enforced by cogent reasons, and illustrated | by examples from her own immediate knowledge and | observation; and we think she proves that to an | ignorant population, under the very peculiar | temptations which this book exposes, the system of | Methodism is to the highest degree injurious ~~ that | its superstitious creed of conversion deadens the | conscience, interferes with the reception of the simple | truths of the Gospel, and gives a conventional | meaning to religion. In a note which embodies her | opinions on this point, we read ~~ | | In her conversations with promising scholars who | have subsequently been

‘brought in,’

are | many curious instances of the readiness with which | the mind falls into the one requirement of the system | and of all anti-sacramental systems ~~ that is, naming | the day and hour of conversion. The bold and | seemingly genuine and conscientious assertions on | this point which characterize so much religious | biography receive a useful illustration from the facts of | this history. We are not doubting sudden conversions | as such, but we constantly suspect the truth of | particular instances as being influenced by anxiety to | prove a desired point, and by a sort of false humility | willing to depreciate past self in favour of present self. | Men’s memories often play them strange tricks. In | such cases, lookers-on are better judges than | | the man's self, whose word is received as beyond | appeal. This is proved satisfactorily by such | instances as the following: ~~ | | She reminds another, who had told her he had | been converted six weeks before, of a gradual | change which she had herself witnessed, and | indeed had been instrumental in. She is so used to | this language and tone that it has evidently lost its | power over her, and she can dispute and disprove | what a youth assumes to have been facts known to | himself only, in a way that must perplex if it does | not convince him against his will; for it is an article | of faith very important to the comfort and spiritual | credit of the holder, which he will naturally cling to | ~~ as we may judge from the following instance of | the imperative demand for precise time and place, | before a religious profession can be made: ~~ | | An instructive instance of the force of public opinion! | We cannot wonder at the effect these views have | upon education. Her experience is, that Wesleyan | parents go from one chapel service to another, from | one camp-meeting to another, and leave their | children at the best to the teaching of their Sunday | school: ~~ | | | | And to one who is taking to bad ways, she writes: ~~ | | In all fields of labour where the work | quarters with the individuals to be benefitted, there | must be disappointment and there must be | controversy. Men cannot be indifferent to opinions | which thwart all their efforts and neutralise their | hopes. While people theorise, and while they do not | test their theories too severely ~~ that is, while they | have ample space, and are in no danger of being | brought to book by too close a scrutiny of results ~~ | there may be unbounded toleration, and there may | be unvarying exultant hope. Such books as the | 'Missing Link' illustrate this order of well-doing. It is a | grand jubilant report of other persons' successful | efforts. We are shown a brilliant career in a new field. | Only keep clear of Popery and Tractarianism | (nobody is absolutely without prejudices), and hire | Bible women of the lower class, irrespective of sect | and minor distinctions, and it would seem the secret | of social regeneration is discovered. Let us borrow a | page from this sanguine publication, in contrast with | the sober and not seldom depressing pages we have | been called to think over: ~~ | | | | We do not think that this strain could be maintained | by anyone who himself | or herself visited the same locality for four years ~~ | the range of 'Ploughing and Sowing.' Difficulties and | opposing influences would modify expectation, | would infuse misgiving, would produce an abundant | crop of disappointment, and would besides bring | proofs that religious differences, called minor when | first viewed, in the working do interfere with united | action. When people are absolutely brought face to | face with evil, when they feel themselves as it were | contending against it in a tangible form, the tone is | sobered at once. The state of the East Riding | agricultural districts, bad as it is, cannot equal the | worst purlieus of London, but our authoress has | sorrowfully to record in her concluding pages that it is | such as to make lapse and backsliding things to be | grieved over rather than wondered at, and that the | customs of farmhouse life are of a nature to put a | stumbling-block in the way of individual purity and | holiness of life, such as only Divine grace can | render powerless for harm. | | | Now this R. R., but for the eye kept upon him, | would have formed a signal instance of good done; | nor are we still left without hope of his repentance | and return. The labour bestowed on him and many | like him has not, we trust, been in vain, though it | does not make the show a shorter or less intimate | knowledge of circumstances would have justified. | Often, after a secession to Methodist ranks and a | course of religious excitement, there follows a fall. | The converts relapse into drinking and swearing, | and are denounced by their new friends as

| 'broke,'

as

having given up religion,

| in which state their first teacher seeks them out, and | wins them by warning, entreaty, and every form of | persuasion, till they show some sign of repentance. | We talk of disappointment and seeming failure, but | the story is not without marked and signal | encouragements. The following letter from a | Scripture Reader to the garrison at Chatham | concerning one of her pupils, she records as matter | of fact and as a welcome refreshment in the midst of | discouragements. | | The reception here noted of Holy Communion gives | us the secret of constancy. We have always | observed that with the poor Communion is the test of | membership; to be a member of the Church is with | them, as it is in truth, being a communicant. It is the | turning point in the instances before us, whether they | receive the Communion or join the Primitives, who | seem | | strangely inobservant of this rite.

'If only we | could get some to attend the sacrament!'

she | writes.

'I am trying now; but, oh! the difficulty!' |

~~ and many pages are devoted to plain | Scriptural arguments, and earnest pleadings on this | point. To one of her numerous clerical helpers and | encouragers she writes: ~~ | | This neglect in the

'religious' of

so obvious | a duty and privilege may arise, in this particular | instance, from the feeling of disunion with the | Church, existing without the profession of disunion | ~~ that, in fact, they do not feel themselves at home | in the more solemn Church services. But, of course, | it is a part of the working of Dissent to undervalue | appointed and enjoined religious privileges in favour | of self-elected ones. | But our article has run to a length which takes us by | surprise. Many points of the book we have left | untouched. There are scenes of cottage life and | traits of manners which come in with excellent effect, | and constitute it very amusing reading, though we | half apologise for being diverted where the writer is | in such profound earnest, and is influenced solely by | a deep sense of responsibility ~~ that engine which | is said to lay its weight so heavily on women. It is, | indeed, a very serious book on a very weighty topic. | We have said before, that, as an example of work for | women, it can only be taken for general imitation. All | that this lady has done has come naturally in her | way to do; that is, being deeply impressed by the | state of things in which she lives, in which her lot is | providentially cast, she has not put aside her first | impulses, but has followed them out simply and step | by step, so that, exceptional as the work is, it is | natural to her. It is only women similarly | circumstanced who can expect to prosper and be | useful in such a field. How few are physically or | mentally constituted for such a mission! How few | would be permitted to set it on foot with so little | hindrance as is here recorded! The one striking | value of her work is that it rescues the class of | ploughboys from the limbo of hopeless indifference | | and aversion in which too many hold them, | comforting themselves in the persuasion that the | hapless clowns are out of reach of ordinary | humanizing influences. They have been here found | open and impressible to kindness, and, in the full | sense, teachable. In spite of all the sins of these | poor lads, we leave off with a liking and regard for | them; they are capable of inspiring and returning | Christian tenderness and love; they have a strong | sense of gratitude and even chivalrous affection for | the lady who gives up time, thought, and ease in | their cause. There is stuff in them to make good, | generous, honest, religious men; and we doubt not | that, if our unknown friend is spared to witness the | issue of her toil, she will see and rejoice in many fair | fruits of her zealous, and persevering, and faithful | service. In the rush of promiscuous advice, | suggestion, and effort, which the vast Unsatisfied | demands of our population are continually creating | in our age of active and ambitious benevolence, this | work of a sincere, consistent, and devoted daughter | of our own Church, carried on under its auspices | and in its service, has seemed to us to call for | especial notice and sympathy.