allow the dull machinery of acquisition, without a wholesome pause of joyous check, to go grinding on year after year, paralysing the limbs, cramping the energies, deadening the affections, and darkening the souls of our toiling millions? No. What have we done? No, we have shown, without parade, without unnecessarily shocking those prejudices I have alluded to, but seizing whatever opportunities were afforded us, that the people of England who work so hard, and so readily can stand the trial of a few days' holidays in the course of the year, that a cricket match does not necessarily imply the bowling down of the pillars of state, and that a village dance need not end in dancing off the Crown from her Majesty's head. Yes, you have shown this in Birmingham, and your example has been and is followed elsewhere; and I am sure that to you, as well as to me, it is a matter of sincere gratification to watch the gradual dispersion of these mists of money-getting prejudice, and the various attempts which are made in different parts of the kingdom to restore to the working people of England some small portion of that time for recreation, which in other days was their undoubted right; for don't let us suppose that ours is a mere isolated attempt. Isolated, indeed, it was in its conception and action, but it is only one among many links of a great chain of social progress. Recollect, my excellent friend Sir John Hanmer, on a former occasion, two years ago, mentioned what was then going on at Kingston-upon-Hull, the place represented by my honourable friend. It was a movement then going on in favour of the shortening of the hours of labour and the earlier closing of shops. Well, how general has that movement since become, and with what general success. The Ten-hours Bill, defeated as it was, in my opinion, on the most insulting and ludicrous grounds, viz., that the commerce of England would be destroyed, and its sun sink in darkness, if people in the factories worked only ten hours in the day, (cheers,)—that Bill, however, is now upon the eve, I believe, of being passed into a law, and rightly do you, the artisans of Birmingham, sympathise with the citizens of Manchester and Stockport. In the rural districts, too, a great advance has been made. The May-pole has been again erected in Kent, and cricket and manly games are fostered and encouraged; and I look forward in the course of a few weeks to be present at a festive meeting of three rural villages, where, after the service of the church, by those who wish to attend it, the rest of the day will be spent under the walls of my father's castle, in manly games and harmless merriment.-(Cheers.) I do not despond of being able, in a few years, to say with the poet :— "How often have I bless'd the coming day, But though I have spoken in rather a triumphant tone, I feel we must not suppose that the battle is won, and that henceforward the employers of labour will vie with each other in providing times and means leisure and recreation for their labourers. Political economy has still of many abstract votaries, and alarm humdrum many dogged adherents, and it rests mainly with you, and with societies like yours, to show that the sobriety, morals, intelligence, aye, and the industry, too, of the people, is promoted by a fair mixture of recreation, leisure, and amusements, with their time of toil and labour. Some would have us believe all old feelings are dead-all English sympathies extinguished-all national affections chilled. There is not a sequestered nook in the lakes of Cumberland-in the mines of Cornwall-in the dim, hot alleys of Manchester or Stockport-in the smoky streets of your Birmingham, in which the trustful, manly, English spirit is dead. Be it ours, then, to call it forth, to exercise it, and through it to bring this tight little island of ours through all straits, through all dangers; and this, gentlemen, rely upon it, we can do, if we will. "Fortunes and seasons, though they change, and customs pass away. Yet English laws and English hands will prove old England's stay: And tho' our coffers may not be filled as they were of yore, We still have hands to fight, if need, and hearts to help the poor.' The Hon. Gentleman then resumed his seat amidst general applause. Several toasts were then proposed, and the company separated. "THE NON-SYMPATHISERS." No. II. BY GEORGE R. TWINN. THAT man generally is inactive in regarding his fellow-creatures' necessities, and forming as an excuse for his apathetic unconcern the disgraceful assertion, that they are much below him, too degrading, there are worthier objects than they-besides, his own poor relatives often make numerous calls upon his charity-is most evident to the philanthropic observer. The grand and first cause, the origin of this cold, dead unconcern, arises chiefly from the parties themselves never having been afflicted by any misfortune. He who has never begged a scanty pittance from house to house, knows but little of the acute and haggard feelings of him who has the door slammed in his face nineteen times out of twenty; and, perhaps, at the twentieth, hath only a halfpenny to relieve his necessities. They who have never watched by the bed of affliction, are necessarily ignorant of the pain and care, the anxiety and suspense, which the watchers must experience. How truly is it asserted by Seneca, that great and profound moralist, that "he who was never acquainted with adversity, has seen the world but on one side!" and Dr. Johnson declares," that distress is necessary to the attainment of knowledge." With these high authorities, it becomes a duty incumbent on man to study his species, to mingle, not only in "the gay and courtly throng," but to tread the paths that conduct him to the home of sorrow, where weeping and sighing are distinguished, where the pale disfigurements of hunger are scanned in every feature of the inmates of that abode of wretchedness-where misery has stamped everything, and despair broods over all. It is man's duty not to shrink from the tattered rags of penury-not to turn away disgusted from the emaciated wretch that hath scarcely covering sufficient to conceal his sores-not to laugh at the pining wail of anguish, nor at the unseemly gestures of distracted regret. No; it is his privilege to become the good Samaritan; to exert his means and abilities to dry the wet cheeks, where tears have discoloured and made "sad havoc ;" to alleviate the powerful bursts of deep and heartfelt suffering; to infuse the balm, the rich balm of kindness, and draw forth sparks-perhaps, the first ever extracted-sparks of many a good and redeeming trait, that might earlier have diffused light, but for the thick gloom of cruel and oppressive neglect. The refined sensitiveness so prevalent in these modern days is the offspring of pride and contempt, and has the power of making its possessor (though he is blind to the truth) appear most ridiculous in the eyes of him who obeys Reason's voice, and listens not to affec tation or pretended superiority. Very few are the instances we meet with of evils inherent in the mind, subdued or eradicated, that virtue may be ennobled, and the goodness of self-control exalted. The great golden rule of acting to others as we, in like circumstances, would wish to be done by, has not been, since the dawn of Christianity, and it never will be, understood or practised by no inconsiderable portion of the dwellers on this earth: the result of this infringement, is the sole cause of all the horrors and distresses ever inflicted on this globe. That calamities are incidental to man, no one will dare to contradict; neither the brave repulses of virtue, nor the opposition of fortitude, can stay them; to all, monarch as well as subject, they occur; for none are exempt. Philosophers have exerted their time and talents to attempt the reconcilement of man to this evil, which cannot be resisted: that their labours were praiseworthy, from the result they aimed at, and the erudition evinced to gain that end, is never to be gainsaid; but laudable as were their efforts, how much more so would they appear, had they, in their philanthropic designs, taught man to lessen misery, rather than augment it; to instil early sentiments and notions of that "goodwill and peace," which the Saviour's birth ushered in, and which peace was given to the earth as its best blessing, as a Saviour's last legacy, and to thwart that innate pride, ever rising in man's bosom, the prompting of which is to create contempt, and engender self-esteem and a false superiority. The basis of their movement was human, and not divine. But to my illustration. I would here wish the reader to know, that my assertion must not be considered as a "sweeping censure" on all; far be such an act from the writer; for his heart glows with many another in responsive sympathy, that our modern times abound with several noble spirits, whose constant aim is to benefit their species. Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, the Howitts, and Fox, with a host of others, will arise in the reader's mind more rapidly than I could name them. Be it known, that the basis of their movement is divine, and not human. "It is glorious to find that the truly noble, the right-thinking, and generously acting are become Legion. And, as the true object of life, and the true mode of arriving at that object, are better and better understood, the number will be Reader, you are now with me in the chamber of a dying man; 'tis night, and the gloom of the room is more ghastly from the taper's gleam and dull burning; the rich heavy curtains are screens before the windows, guarding against every blast of the wind, roaring and blustering outside. On the couch, with its beautiful damask drapery, lies the sufferer; pain has distorted his features; anguish has made his glance more keen; and how awful does he appear as he throws his wildly-rolling eyes full upon you! The twitching of the lips-the restlessness of the tongue, attempting to utter words and scarcely able to produce the faintest sound, are terrible things for the beholder. Did ever moan, with its hollow monotonous noise, ring so intensely through your ears? were you ever so startled or alarmed as by that? turned not your blood cold and ached not your heart? Oh! the sufferings of that dying man are dreadful! he would purchase life were possible, by the loss of all his riches, for he possesses a store that has accumulated year by year, that its amount is astonishing. He fears to die; he trembles to quit earth; his soul already witnesses the power of a wronged Creator, and listens to the condemning accusations of a thousand opportunities (now past) once in his power of doing good. The widow's cry and entreaty, her earnest supplication and prayer, kneeling on the flinty stones at his feet, all humble prostration and tears before him, pleading forgiveness for her wayward boy, urging all the sympathies of a mother, and the pleas that woman's heart alone can contain and employ, asking pardon for her child's transgressionhis first offence too-rise before him with appalling vengeance. Who cast that lonely female's son in the dungeon of a prison? who parted parent and child, that affection might be checked, if possible, and early hopes blighted? who spurned expostulation, nor evinced that charitable spirit which the Saviour of mankind displayed? who obeyed the resistless impulses of anger and revenge, rather than forbearance and pity? who was the cause of that son's condemnation? an exile far beyond the seas, to endure a life of drudgery, toil, and regret for seven weary, lengthened years, with none to cheer and console, but rather to oppress and torture? Who, but the dying man Matthew Hales? Was there ever a more griping usurer towards the unfortunate, who had any transactions with him was there ever a more rigid and punctilious man, as to a minute or a farthing? was there ever a greater exactor, self-benefiting person, one who increased his riches by the lamentations of the wretched, and made himself affluent by the moans of orphans? one who was ever heedless of all save self? regardless of others' success, and interested in no affairs but what were connected with his own good? Such was Matthew Hales; and never had a dying sinner more accusers, racking his last hours of existence, than he. The tender treatment of his wife, (alas! she never experienced that a more daily increased. When people have really convinced themselves-and they have pretty nearly done it-that they are born without either horns or spurs, and were therefore never made for fighting and kicking; but are really born with hearts in their bosoms capable of the noblest sympathies; capable of a large participation in God's own divine feeling of benevolence, and with hands most admirably adapted for pressing the hands of their fellows, there will be from year to year immense augmentations of the genuine peerage."-W. Howitt. love a husband owes his partner,) can give him no respite; all remembrance of his coldness and his harshness is forgotten; she acts as a woman-as a wife; her heart, her feelings, her better nature would not allow her to add another pang to those he is writhing under. Oh, no! her endearing looks and her soothing words, her kind actions are unreservedly exercised, though their influence is lost. The overflowing beneficence of that inherent fondness, characteristic of the softer sex, has overwhelmed each misgiving that might naturally have sprung up in her bosom, from the chilling language there registered, that her husband once used towards her; from the withering and threatening scorn that he once threw at her; and from the gross insult of an upraised hand, proving the cowardice and littleness of the actor,-all these heart-recorded facts rise not in her mind; a love, pure and beautiful, unshaken in his attachment and everlasting, is the actuating principle with her; yet, for all this, no consolation can the poor victim find. What to him is the wife's tenderness, or the children's weeping gaze? What the embrace of his only son, or the kiss of his youngest daughter? What, indeed! they are nothing, for his soul is absorbed in the one bitter reflection, that instead of having promoted the welfare of his fellow beings, he has obstructed it; instead of benefiting mankind, he has wronged them; instead of regarding divine, moral, and social injunctions and usages, he has grossly violated all; instead of daily entreating Heaven's guidance, pardon, and blessing, he has never once thought of such a home; or dreamed of God, except when blaspheming. Instead of acting the husband's part and exercising a father's care, he has wilfully abused those privileges, and incurred the upbraidings of conscience. Ah! he once quieted that internal monitor, and lulled it to repose; for when in health he obeyed the calls of his selfish nature only: but now, vain are his means, his attempts; his memory can recall in the dying hour, no one act of kindness; no good deed; no praiseworthy purpose; no home made glad by his munificence; no abode of poverty illumined by a ray of charity; no unthinking youth saved from ruin and infamy by his instrumentality; no cause to benefit society, or confer good, ever aided or patronised by him; but few smiles and loving accents for her he vowed to love and cherish; but few instances of fondness to those he should have joyed to hear calling him "father," and making glad his heart by their gleesome prattle, or, in riper years, smoothing his decline. No; conscience cannot be quieted; the sentence is before his eyes; he is now thunderstruck, as it were; paralysed at the enormity of that crime, of not creating happiness as far as he could, being an instrument in God's hand-an accountable instrument; in short, of not doing to others as, in any circumstances, he would have wished to be done by. I draw the veil, and refrain from portraying the awful picture further. Let us, then, pause and sermonise; yet not exactly so; but teach ourselves a lesson, if that we are still ignorant, that it is our duty to study man, not merely superficially, but in every character of his mutable condition; in all the different stations and occupations ; in every variety of temperament and circumstance he is subject to. The philosophic mind, in contemplating man, can generally trace the |