raise up the means of instruction wherever they are wanted, without this encouragement, and which then undesignedly and unconsciously adjusts the provision made to the wants and circumstances of each particular neighbourhood.

The well known maxim of policy which has led to the cessation of all meddling interference of enlightened governments in commerce and agriculture is not inapplicable to these speculations.-Leave us to ourselves1. Society will work out its own good of a temporal nature, through the medium of private interest, much better than Government can do it for us: while the grand error into which all plans of centralization naturally fall-that of treating in the same manner districts wholly different in circumstances and habits-is thus avoided. Cities, towns, villages, rural parishes, present a diversified field to act upon. They require a policy often widely different, and specially adapted to their respective conditions: and it is from a neglect of this simple but important truth, that some recent laws have tended far and wide to demoralize the country, in order to remedy alleged abuses of a particular branch of trade in a few great towns.

In saying this, I must not be understood as dis

1 Laissez nous faire was the answer made by the French merchants when the minister Colbert consulted them as to the measures Government might frame for their benefit.

couraging the plan for providing schools for the edu cation of children above the lower class; but the provision thus made ought not, in my opinion, to exceed what is necessary for the commencement of such an undertaking. If it succeeds, and deserves to succeed, it will support itself. If it fails for want of funds, it will be evidence that the thing is not called for by the circumstances of that place and neighbourhood. The design is, in fact, analogous to that, which in the reign of Edward the Sixth, greatly aided the reformation of religion. Schools were founded in almost every town for teaching the learned languages to the upper and middle classes of the laity; and thus Popery was driven from one of its strong holds, the ignorance of the people. She had, like the Pharisees of old, taken away the key of knowledge, and yet entered not in herself. These schools, however, having accomplished their purpose, after the lapse of less than a century were found to be more numerous than were wanted. The complaint was made so early as the reign of James the First, by the greatest philosopher and the most enlightened statesman of that age; one whom the innovaters of the present day are fond of exalting as a model of wisdom, in all that respects the practical improvement of mankind, as well as in enlarging the boundaries of human knowledge and extending the empire of mind over the material universe. Speaking of these schools in a formal address to his Sovereign, Lord Bacon declares, that there are already too many of

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them; and that they only furnish out when thus unduly multiplied materials for sedition and revolution'. These institutions still remain entire, although in very many instances dormant and useless. Being endowed by law with funds destined to a certain species of instruction, although it differs from what society after a lapse of ages now requires, yet the legal trustees must act according to the deed of grant, and the property cannot be diverted to any other channel. If some of these funds could, by process of law or by legislative enactment, be transferred to the uses now contemplated, it would be a solid benefit to the community, and would be an exemplification of that great man's doctrine, (who well deserves all the panegyric bestowed upon him) in his Essay on Innovation. He recommends us to keep pace with the silent inno

1 "Concerning the advancement of learning, I do subscribe to the opinion of one of the wisest and greatest men of your kingdom: That for grammar schools there are already too many, and therefore no providence to add where there is excess: for the great number of schools which are in your Highness' realm, does cause a want, and doth cause likewise an overflow; both of them inconvenient, and one of them dangerous. For by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry, and apprentices for trade; and on the other side, there being more scholars bred than the State can prefer and employ; and the active part of that life not bearing a proportion to the preparative, it must needs fall out, that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations, and unprofitable for that in which they are brought up; which fills the realm full of indigent, idle, and wanton people, which are but materia rerum novarum."-Lord Bacon's Advice to the King touching Mr. Sutton's Estate.

vations of time by corresponding innovations, gradually and progressively, not hastily and abruptly, made in our social institutions 1.

In the absence, however, of such resources an experiment will I hope soon be made in some populous district, perhaps in more than one, of this Diocese, of a school better adapted to the wants of the age; while the spirit which led to the formation of the National Society, and to the establishment of parochial schools in connexion with the Church, will, I trust, be every where revived-and still more the spirit of giving personal attention and encouragement to their daily duties.

The Clergy will, I am sure, take a leading part in this labour of love, and I doubt not we may thus

1 66 "Surely every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what will be the end?

It were good therefore, that men in their innovations would follow the example of time itself, which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly and by degrees scarce to be perceived.

It is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent, or the utility evident; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation."-Lord Bacon, Essay 29. Of Innovations.

supersede the necessity of inspection by strangers, who have little knowledge of local peculiarities, who come with their authorized table of weights and measures, and are too apt to apply the same standard to many widely different cases.

In all these operations, one leading purpose should be, to consolidate the elements of the National Church -to make people know and feel the sacred duty of maintaining a connexion with that household of faith to guard them against the corruptions and the arts of Popery on the one hand, and the unapostolical unscriptural practice, the unquestionable sin of causeless separation on the other. If our enemies of both these descriptions are now unusually activeif, in order to compass our ruin, they join hand in hand, forming an unnatural compact cemented by their common hatred of us-as Herod and Pilate were made friends by mutual hostility against Christ -let us, who value and who love the sanctuary, unite firmly for its defence in the hour of danger. It is a comfort to observe many instances of men differing widely in their political opinions and partialities, yet dropping their differences at the present crisis, and labouring heartily and zealously in the common cause of the Church. To this great end all our influence, as individuals and as members of the civil community, ought now to be directed. The attempts that are daily made to abridge the privileges and to diminish the resources of the Established