of shoes fitted to her feet by a man, without the thought that that business would be done more appropriately and acceptably by women. We hope to see women extending their industry in many directions, and not only as employed but as employers and receivers of profits. It will do much to increase their worth, independence, and self-respect. It will do much to prevent destitution and the necessity of alms-giving. And what is still more important, it will do much to diminish the temptations to moral degradation and ruinous vice.

We come now to the second department of the duties which Christianity enjoins with reference to poverty-that of relief. Until the preventive measures which have been indicated, or others better still, have produced their results, there will be many in such poverty as requires charitable relief. And it cannot be expected that such measures, however successful, will prevent all poverty; though we verily believe they would prevent nine-tenths of it. There will still be misfortune, and sickness, and insanity, and vice, and loss of natural guardians, and the infirmities of age-various causes of destitution and helplessness inseparable from our mortal state. That the destitute, whatever the causes of their need, should receive suitable aid is one of the plainest dictates of Christianity. It is required both by the spirit which the gospel inculcates, and by its numerous and positive precepts. We will, in a few words, indicate some of the methods in which such aid should be given. This general remark may be premised respecting them. They should be conducted with kindness and sympathy; they should be adapted to the particular cases needing aid; they should be safe, guarding against imposition, discouraging idleness and encouraging industry; and they should be thorough, covering the whole ground in any given town or city, and reaching every case of suffering or necessity.

The first and most obvious form of charitable relief is that which is administered privately by neighbors, kindred, acquaintances, and those who seek out the poor on errands of mercy. This is perhaps the best form of charity, useful to its authors, most grateful to the recipients, and usually bestowed wisely because bestowed by those who understand the circumstances of each case.

Next in importance we rank the charity of churches to their poor members. We hold that every church should adequately supply the wants of its own poor, unless the work transcends its ability-unless the church itself is very poor, or has experienced extraordinary calamities among its members. This mode

of charity, if faithfully exercised, would of itself relieve a large proportion of the needy.

But there is occasion, also, for wider associations than churches in the work of charity. For there are some cases of necessity which need peculiar treatment. The insane, the deaf and dumb, the blind and the idiotic, need to be cared for in institutions specially fitted to their condition. And orphans, also, need Asylums, where they will receive as nearly as may be the parental care and kindness which they have lost, and will be prepared for favorable situations in worthy families.

Moreover, in order to render the work of charitable relief complete and thorough, there must be in every city or large town an organization for the aid of the poor, which divides the place into small districts, assigning to each district one who volunteers to attend thoroughly and personally to the wants of the needy therein; which shall have a central office, and a book of record containing the report of the visitors concerning every person or family applying for help; and which shall secure the coöperation of the citizens, both in the form of suffi cient donations, and by their refusal to aid any applicant or beggar except by referring him to the visitor of the district to which he belongs. Such associations exist, and have enjoyed a large amount of success, in New York and Boston. And these methods have been found absolutely necessary in order to reach efficiently and suitably all cases of need, and to prevent the grossest abuse of charity by imposture, and especially by bartering its gifts for intoxicating drinks. The proceedings of these associations are well worthy of study and imitation. They combine personal visitation of the poor, thorough acquaintance with their condition and a suitable supply of their wants, with careful prevention of imposture and of the abuse or misappropriation of gifts by the recipients, and with the encouragement of industry and temperance.

But we must conclude. Our limits have compelled us to treat the topic of the relief of poverty more briefly than we intended. Yet we do not regret that we have given most space to the topic of its prevention: for we deem that far the most important. And the whole subject we regard as worthy of far more attention from Christians and Christian ministers than it has received. Both the spirit and the precepts of the gospel require it.

ART. VI.-THE COLLEGE AND THE CHURCH.

OUR object in the present article will be little more than to present a few prominent facts designed to show the intimate connection which our New England Colleges have had with the growth and prosperity of the Church. These facts will have reference to various periods of our New England history, and taken together will serve as a rapid survey of this general subject from the arrival of the first colonies down to the pres ent time.

We would at the outset guard against one inference, which is liable to be drawn from an article of this general aim and purport. We would not be understood as implying that our Colleges are of small importance, except so far as they are engaged in training up ministers of the gospel. They were founded, doubtless, primarily for this purpose. They had this in view as their especial end. No other sentiment was strong and intense enough, especially in the earlier periods of our history, to secure the means necessary for their foundation and support. At the same time, their founders had no mean and narrow view of the proper functions of a College. It was to be a source of life and well-being to the State as well as to the Church. It was to serve in the training of men, not alone for the pulpit, but for all the high and responsible positions in society.

The first ministers of New England were almost without exception, men who had sustained the pastoral office in England. In proportion to the whole number of persons composing the infant colonies, this class was numerous; so that it has been often said, and no doubt with truth, that at no subsequent period have the wants of society in this respect, been so adequately met, as during the first twenty years of our history. It was natural, yet none the less providential, that this should be

In the course of events which preceded and led to the settlement of New England, no class of persons would be more seriously affected in their feelings and interests than the non-conforming ministers. No class would suffer more severely from those oppressive laws, designed to secure strict conformity to the usages of the established Church. From their very position, they would stand as a mark upon which these laws would first expend their violence and they would consequently first be driven to cast about them to find a refuge for freedom of faith and con

science. Moreover, the very fact that so large a number of ministers of the gospel were included among the early colonists, is in itself a sufficient refutation of a certain calumny, which every now and then ventures to make its appearance, viz: that New England was settled mainly for mere mercenary purposes. Without reference to general facts, let it be once granted that a desire to gain religious liberty was the moving cause of those early emigrations, and you have an easy and reasonable explanation of the circumstance, that a very large number of persons of the clerical profession accompanied these colonies. This class of men would most naturally be moved from their attachments to their native land, in the condition it then was, under the impelling power of this particular motive, while the other motive assigned would act first upon altogether another class of men, and leave the ministers at home. Cotton Mather gives us the names of seventy-seven clergymen, who left the pastoral office in England for the work of the ministry in New England, during the twenty years after the first landing at Plymouth. Fourteen more, during the same period, who were in a course of education for the pastoral office, left their native land, completed their studies here, and entered upon their appropriate work. After the movement under Cromwell had fairly commenced, for a time, this emigration of ministers mostly ceased. Their position at home was so much improved, and their prospects of usefulness were so encouraging, that very few came over during the period of the commonwealth. By the establishment of the monarchy in 1660, every thing was suddenly changed, and Mather gives us the names of fourteen more who soon after came to New England, and entered upon the duties of the pastoral office. The learned, but somewhat fanciful author of the Magnalia finds an evident satisfaction in the sacred number seven, which, as will be noticed, recurs in these several enumerations; and there may be a slight suspicion, that he aided Providence a little in bringing these men into these precise groups. But as he gives us their names and their places of settlement in this country, his statistics may be regarded as essentially correct. It has been reckoned, that about the year 1640, there was one graduate of Cambridge University, England, for every 200 or 250 inhabitants of the colonies. There were also quite a number of the graduates of Oxford. Among these graduates must be reckoned a few in civil office, and in other professions than the ministerial. But for the most part, they were ministers of the gospel. No such state of things has existed in any of the later periods of our history. Notwithstanding our division at present into sects, (a circumstance which

tends to make ministers much more numerous in proportion to the whole population, than they would otherwise be,) if we include the ministers of every order and of every grade of education, it will be found probably that the number within the bounds of New England, does not at present exceed one to every 600 or 700 inhabitants. But these early ministers of New England were almost without exception of good education, according to the standard of the times, and they were of one order. Not a few of them were men of rare ability and accomplishment. The Rev. John Cotton, of Boston, had been Head Lecturer and Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He had a very accurate knowledge of the languages, and was able to converse in Hebrew and Latin. John Norton, first of Ipswich, then of Boston, was offered a fellowship at Cambridge. So various were the attainments of John Davenport, of New Haven, that he was called the Universal Scholar. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, the light of the western churches, had been advanced to a fellowship at Cambridge. Thomas Thacher, of Weymouth, composed a Hebrew Lexicon. Charles Chauncy, afterwards President of Harvard College, was Greek Professor for some time, in Trinity College, Cambridge. Many others were signal examples of scholarship and genius.'

It was among such men as these, that the idea of the first New England College originated. It was with them a deeply rooted sentiment, and it has continued to be the sentiment of the body to which they belonged, that a thorough systematic education is necessary, suitably to prepare one to preach the gospel. It may safely be asserted that the ministry of New England of the Congregational order, has been from the first until now, far more complete and thorough in its education than either of the other learned professions. A single fact will illustrate this remark. In one of the volumes of the Quarterly Register there may be found a complete list of the ministers of the Congregational Churches of Connecticut, from the earlier periods of the colonies, down to the year 1832, embracing 947 names; of these all but 33 were regular graduates of some College. A few of the earlier pastors were educated at the English Universities; 649 were graduates of Yale; 118 of Harvard, and the rest, who settled in the later periods, came from some of our newer Colleges, such as Amherst, Dartmouth, Williams and others. This fact serves to show how large has been the amount of culture bestowed upon the ministry, as compared with the other professions, and how fixed a hold the sentiment of an educated ministry has upon the New England mind.