nearly all those persons who have been observed battling nobly with the tremendous difficulties of extreme poverty, and maintaining a degree of order, cleanliness, and endeavour after spiritual life, only to be secured by great and incessant exertion, it has been discovered that in very nearly all these cases, the parties had in youth attended some National, or British, or other charity school. By the pursuit of this inquiry for many years, so adept has the writer become in this matter, that on entering a room and making observations respecting the demeanour, persons, and habits of the parties visited, he has almost invariably determined aright in his own mind previous to questioning the parties upon the subject. If this be so, what vast, what amazing benefits have the educational efforts of the present century conferred on a class of the lowest order of society! But in visiting very poor persons in the decline of life, it has been also almost invariably found, that in their youth or afterwards, they had received no instruction in the very elements of knowledge. Such have frequently bitterly lamented, that when they were children charity schools were scarcely known in one parish of the country in a hundred. To attempt

conveying religious instruction to this class is a very painful task, followed in general by most unsatisfactory results, or rather by no results at all.

An aged and superannuated dustman and nightman, whose limbs are sadly contorted by rheumatism, the result of exposure whilst pursuing his labour under all circumstances of weather, spoke thus to me; he can neither read nor write :

"Bless you, sir," said he, "why, when I was a boy, there warnt no larning for gals and boys as there is now, not for miles there warnt; besides if there had a been, it warnt no use to me. My father was a brickmaker, and time I was seven years old he had me to work, and it was up afore daylight with me, and pretty quick too, or you'd catch it smartly, and into the field and at work as long as daylight lasted, and then up again. There warnt no time for schooling allowed me, depend on't, sir."

For several years this man appeared to pay little attention to my religious instructions, but at last he was persuaded to attend a place of worship, and has since then, a period of several years, been most regular in his attendance, but

his ignorance is extreme.

He is nearly seventy years old, and for some time came to our evening classes at the Ragged School, to endeavour to learn his letters, but failed. On one occasion I was endeavouring to raise some spiritual aspirations within him by describing the glories of heaven, and what we lost if we were lost, to which he was deeply attentive, and evidently felt what I was saying, as the tears came in his eyes. At last he said, "I wished to ax yer a question, sir, and I thought I'd ax yer, because I know'd you could set me right, if I'm wrong. When I gets to bed, I says my prayers as you bid me, and I puts my hands afore my eyes so, (covering his face with his hands,) well, I sees such beautiful things, sparkles like, all a floating about, and I wished to ax yer sir, if that aint a something of heaven, sir."

Not only is the extreme ignorance of the lowest classes to be deplored, but the extreme ignorance of some in high places respecting that ignorance, is to be deplored also. For example: Several years since, it was proposed at one of the City sittings that the Corporation of the City of London should make a grant to the City Mission,* and * A grant of £300 was carried.

various statements respecting the extreme ignorance of the lowest classes were detailed, similar to the one I have just quoted from my journals. One councilman, whose name I suppress, stated he did not believe such ignorance existed; nor was he alone. Very little, indeed, is known, comparatively, respecting the mental condition of large sections of the community by very many the higher walks of life.

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Fortune-telling is an evidence of ignorance that prevails to a considerable extent, and is patronized not by any means alone by the lowest classes. I am acquainted with four fortune-tellers, who lived within the limits of a single street, and who appeared to have been visited by persons of a character that would hardly be supposed to place confidence in such delusion.

One of these fortune-tellers, who, with the others, was visited by me with a view to their conversion, attempted repeatedly to make a convert of me. She assured me "gentlemen of my profession had their fortunes told," and would have been very happy to lay out the cards for my personal benefit. She informed me on various occasions respecting most remarkable revelations she had made to persons; and as no one was

present to contradict, and as, somehow or other, in every instance, there was no clue to the persons named, it was of course impossible for me to contradict her statements. This soothsayer was a woman capable of imposing upon many. She was a woman of commanding figure, and had an eye of piercing sharpness, a very prominent nose, and a large projecting chin, and she spoke with so correct a diction, and so much earnestness, that I cannot feel surprised she should have many dupes. Mrs. informed, of waving a lighted torch outside her window every morning at two o'clock. She always received my missionary visits very respectfully, and listened attentively to my religious instructions respecting sin and salvation, but I never was enabled to affect her heart with a sense of the impropriety of fortune-telling. She has gone to her final account, and I am deeply grieved to have so little favourable to report respecting her last end.

was in the habit, I am

It is a great pleasure to be enabled to record the hopeful conversion of one of these fortunetellers, Mrs. T. When first I visited her, and reproved her with the wickedness of pretending to usurp the prerogative of God, she