case in former times; if Athens or Corinth, if Ephesus or Tyre, if Agrigentum or Capua were the subjects of reprobation among the moralists of Greece or Rome; if Rome was said to draw to itself, and to exhibit in itself the various corruptions of an empire which comprehended the whole known world; what must be the opinion which we come to of the metropolis of the British empire, in the form which it is beheld at present. In extent and population London infinitely exceeds the other cities which I have named; and while it yields the palm in this respect to Imperial Rome, it yields it in this respect alone; while in wealth, and in the means of enjoying wealth; in the multitude of those who enjoy liberty and independence, and who possess the means of living according to their inclinations, it offers to the eye a breadth and length of comfort to which no other city ever approached, and overwhelms the imagination by the power and the resources which it includes. There was wealth, no doubt, at Rome; there was luxury and refinement; but the wealth and luxury were confined to the imperial palace, and to the dwellings of a limited number of patricians; and in either case, it formed a poor compensation for the jealousy, and fear, and anxiety in which the lives of the possessors were passed. The great bulk of the population, the crowds which filled the streets and tenanted the masses of buildings that formed the city, were slaves; men who had no other home than the cell which their masters assigned them; whose lives were at his disposal; who were subject to the whip or the dungeon if they happened to give offence, and whose brief enjoyments were only those, which they shared with the brutes, their fellows. Those works of art which, even now, we contemplate with admiration as indicative of general refinement, were seen then by eyes incapable of enjoying them. slave population hardly dared to waste time in gazing on such objects. The people, sensual and ill-educated, regarded them rather with pride, as the plunder of con

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quered nations, the trophies of successful war, than as masterpieces of genius, into the merit of which they could enter, like the Athenian populace; and they turned from the contemplation of beauties, which they could not understand, to clamour for a largess at the emperor's gate, or to fill the seats of an amphitheatre, where men were seen butchering men, or beasts devoured men for the amusement of the public.

How different a state of things, in every respect, is that which the metropolis of England offers! If she has not the same palaces to exhibit, which the old capital of the world, or some of the capitals of modern Europe present to the spectator; what a multitude of homes does she not contain, where all the refinements of life are actually enjoyed, and to a degree which the wealth of Roman emperors never reached. If she has not porticos, and arches, and amphitheatres, like those which formed the boast of Rome; what an amount of intelligence, knowledge, and mental activity does she not possess in her inhabitants. The population of Rome might have been considered as one vast family, of which Cæsar was the head, and a family which trembled at the step or the voice of their despotic master. London contains probably 400,000 families, thinking for themselves, acting for themselves, and only regarding the law under which they live as that which gives security to property and person, and adds stability and confidence to their enjoyments.

Such, then, is London; and the brief comparison which I have thus sketched between London, the metropolis of the British empire, and Rome, the metropolis of the ancient Roman empire, may serve to fix our thoughts on the subject by enabling us to perceive in some degree its greatness and importance.

But I stated, that general experience has led men to suppose, that the increase of population and condensation of numbers in any particular place will lead, by a kind of necessary law, to a more active and general corruption

of manners; so that great cities have been found the hot-beds where vice of every kind was most largely produced. But if this be so, and that it is so, the general consent of every age seems sufficient evidence, the prospect of such a population as that of London must awaken fear as to the character of society there. The distinctive qualities which we claimed for the inhabitants, their liberty, their independence, their intelligence, their wealth, are all very equivocal as to their bearing upon morals. It is possible that their effect may be good, but it also may be evil. Wealth is apt to encourage self-indulgence. Liberty may run into licentiousness. Independence may add stubbornness to error; and intelligence may only make vice more dangerous, by the refinement with which it pursues, and the ingenuity with which it defends it.

In making this statement, of course I do not leave out of my calculation, the great, the essential difference which even a nominal Christianity produces on the country where it is established. I am not gravely instituting a comparison between the moral character of ancient Rome and modern London, as if there could by any possibility be a doubt as to the preference; nor can I suppose, that we are able to form any adequate idea of the extent to which the corruption of manners reached in pagan times. I speak now merely of the World; of that multitude, and we must regret to say that it is a multitude, who live in a christian land without feeling the influence of the Gospel directly in themselves; who are more correct now, than they would have been, if they had seen light under the Roman empire, because the country in which they live is a christian country, and bears marks of Christianity in its institutions and practices; but who, if asked to give a reason of this conduct, could name nothing but respect for public opinion; and who do what is right merely because others do it; and because they feel that their interests are involved in following their example.

The mass of our population is in a condition little better than this. There are rays, no doubt, which break through the dense fog that overhangs the metropolis; and light falls on many a dark corner where it could be hardly expected; but if we subject the body of the people to any of those tests by which personal religion is usually proved, if we enquire into the extent of attendance on means of grace, the habits of domestic or private prayer, into any practice or habit which shall betoken godliness as distinct from morality; I fear that we shall be brought to the conclusion, that the moral creed is more correct than that of pagan Rome, and that the knowledge of moral truth is infinitely more extended; we shall find also, that the recognition of the Gospel by the State exercises a wholesome and restraining influence on the people; but that beyond this, the Gospel, if the Gospel be considered as the power of God unto salvation, is known but to a part of our population; and really and savingly felt by only a fraction of that part.

If the metropolis, therefore, is to be contemplated with regard to the social dangers which it offers; if we are to consider what will be the trials through which a young man must pass whose lot is cast there, whether he be transferred to London from the country, or whether he pass from the restraints of school and home to a life of freedom and independence there; those trials at once appear so various and so many, that the mind is overwhelmed at the prospect, and anxiety rises to a degree which it is not easy to controul. The bridge which the Spectator describes in the Vision of Mirza, melancholy as it is, if taken as an emblem of mortality, would be a still more melancholy and not less appropriate emblem of the waste of youth in the metropolis. That bridge is represented as having its road thick set with trap-doors, through which the travellers passing over it fell when they trod upon them, and were engulphed in the abyss below. The vision was made more painful by observing persons moving about upon that bridge, whose business.

it was to push the unwary passengers towards the trap which they might have otherwise escaped. But sad as the vision was in all its features, I fear that it would be but too faithful a picture of the course of the young men in London. A whole generation may be considered as rising up into maturity, and commencing its career in each single season; but before that season shall have completed its term, how many will have fallen into vicious habits, or habits which will lead to vice; how many will have forfeited that purity which parents had watched with so much jealousy through childhood; how many will have lost the candour, the simplicity, the integrity that made them the ornaments and comforts of home, and will have sunk into low, sensual habits or degrading associations; how many will have ceased to give joy and gladness to those whose affections are rivetted on them, and if named at all, are only named with a voice which trembles at repeating the word!

Nor can we be surprised at the fact, that such consequences have been found to follow such exposure. When we think what man is at the best of periods, and when we recollect what man must be at the worst; when we think what must be the effect of temptations at a time when the passions are strong and the reason is weak; and man becomes suddenly possessed of liberty and independence, without having learned how to govern and direct himself; when we take these things into consideration, and combine with them the multiplied and varied sources of temptation opened in a metropolis like London, there is less reason perhaps to wonder, at the number of those that perish through the process of exposure, than at the number of those who survive it; who, upheld and sustained by a power, above what they themselves possess, are led by a way they know not, are guided through the labyrinth of the world, and who, when brought to reflection, are astonished at the deliverance they have experienced.

The natural resource for persons thus exposed, would