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48

for what has been given. To engage a mere boy to prepare him- self for an examination, by a match against time, is a practice worthy only of the racecourse ; to constrain him to take in mental goods, only that he may be able, at one time and place, to produce them, is to dishonour the dignity of learning, and to lead the learner to regard it, not as "the immediate jewel" of his soul, but as a paste diamond, worth only what it will fetch. Such practices too often accompany an examination, but they are by no means inseparable from it ; in itself it is most natural and useful, a full and formal act of repetition. Its object is to practise the young scholar in uttering what he has within; to encourage him by success. For the student mature and robust, questioning, that shows how much more remains to be learnt, may be legitimate and useful. When by genuine examination we ensure repetition, the rolls of memory will not be left out of sight, almost beyond reach, or at least only glanced at, so that the title imperfectly re- minds of the contents ; they will be always at hand ; the volumes will be easily unrolled, the column be read with ease and dehght.

If, according to Rousseau's advice, we regard our pupil as " man in the absti'act," and see what he requires, we shall learn what would be applicable, without any change of principle, to any por- tion of our race ; the system we shall form will elicit at starting, and exercise throughout the course, all the feelings and faculties of the individual ; will assimilate to each other the members of the family; will associate families in the schools; will assort schools as the nurseries of the State. Exactly as the whole body grows, gaining not new members, but strength; as the whole mind grows, acquiring not new faculties, but force ; — so the system of education, from the first comprising, at every stage retaining, all that it is at last to include, will be enlarged, not by addition of studies, but by extension of their treatment ; by proportional growth of eveiy part making symmetrical increase of the whole. Complete, though small, even in its beginning, such a system might findits emblem in that series of concentric spheres, formedin succes- sion around the central point, each like that which preceded it, except in dimension — the Egyptian root, which was to the wor- shipper of Osiris an emblem of the Universe, that gi'eat unit, formed by imion of parts, each, in its order, perfect.

God and His works admired and adored — man and the works of man studied and loved — a system of education such as we have conceived of, to use the words of an earnest writer, " amid the shocks of empire and opinion, would serve as a common insurance of this realm."

%Mk f ^ars in ^mi Mutt;

INTELLIGENCE FROM A MISSIONARY STATION IN LONDON.

BY THE

REV. JAMES AMOS, M.A.,

vicAU OF ST. Stephen's, kent street, soithwark.

LONDON:

PRINTED at the

OPEEA.TIVE JEWISH CONVEETS' INSTITUTION,

PALESTINE PLACE, CAMBEIDCE HEATH.

1873.

"Kent Street, with, all ts wretcliedness, seems as the High. Street to a little city of the wretched. It is hard to conceive what must be suffered by a sensitive gentleman and lady during years of daily contact with such severe distress, and daily single-handed struggle to help thousands in a battle against overwhelming want." — UouseJiold Words, May Bth, 1858.

" Some flowers might rise in the midst of the wilderness, some little rill gush out from the dry land. Kent Street, St. Stephen's, Southwark, was populated wholly by poor people. His lordship (the Bishop of Winchester) then described the work done for the advancement of the inhabitants, and closed by expressing a hope that he had shown that the devoted Christian people engaged in it were not only working, not altogether unprofitably, but were also bringing sheaves into the harvest." (Church Extension in South London — Meeting at Lambeth Palace.) — J)mly Telegraph, March 8th, 1865.

" The poor-rates in it are far in excess of Bethnal Green or of any of the Tower Hamlets parishes. In this poor neigh- bourhood St. Stephen's is the poorest district. In the fight between good and evil, which is perpetually carried on in the Kent Street district, the great thing wanting on the side of Christianity is that which is technically termed the sinews of war. Those who are blessed with abundance could not do better than send some of their superfluity to assist the Christian work going on in that poor locality." (** The Thieves' Quarters.") — Good Words, SejJtemher, 1868.

"Labours multifarious, bearing upon temporal and spiri- tual things, have been undertaken, with what result the Great Day will completely exhibit ; but some not inconsider- able trace thereof may be discerned by the sympathising observer even at the present time." ("The Practical Philosopher in Kent Street.") — Evening Sours, March, 1871.

Donations and Contrihdions to the Kent Street Mission Ftmd will he thankfully received hy the Rev. James Amos, i\^o. 5, Fara- yon, Neio Kent Road, London, S.E.

TWELVE YEAES IN KENT STEEET.

5, Paragon, New Kent Eoad, January, 1873.

Kent Street, on the south of the Thames, was formerly part of a main road leading out of tlie metropolis. Through the formation of new streets and buildings, it has for some eighty years subsided into a back street. A very large population has taken refuge in the exaggerated courts and alleys which flow out of this Kent Street itself, more particularly on the left-hand side as you approach the southernmost point. This large population of the very poorest sort, amounting to about seven thousand souls, forms the district parish of St. Stephen's, Kent Street. There is of course a trades- man here and there in Kent Street who rises above this description, but as a class even the tradesmen in Kent Street are but poor people. Kent Street occupies rather a singular position, for owing to a stream which formerly flowed in this direction, the boundary line between the great mother-parish of St. George's, Southwark, and St. Mary's, NcAvington, runs right down the centre, and the same line marks a boundary between the dioceses of Winchester and

A 2

London. It has thus happened in the subdivision of parishes which has taken place in the last thirty years, that many boundary lines of new ecclesiastical districts come about here, so that now two dioceses and four distinct parishes claim a part of Kent Street. The parish of St. Stephen's occupies, how- ever, the most singular position of all, that it has really less of the main street itself; but as the portion of the street which it has goes off into the peculiarities of large back courts and alleys which have been described, it rejoices in all but a small portion of what is known as the Kent Street neighbourhood ; and what is interesting to notice is, that the boundaries of our parish do not as in the other cases take in a single step beyond this Kent Street neighbourhood. The Church and Schools are all built in the very midst of it.

The difficulty is just this— a large number of families, somewhere about two thousand, in very low circumstances, in a desperate and often heroic struggle after a very scanty livelihood, many of these families renting only one small room. You will find not a few men and women living in ab- horrence of any gross vice, but, even if loosely sprinkled amongst the others, there are certainly some who are most dreadful examples of intem- perance, licentiousness, violence, and crime. It may be mentioned here that Susan Snellgrove, whose case attracted some public attention in March last, from the circumstance of her having suffered from giving evidence respecting a robbery with

violence, was an inhabitant of one of our back streets : one of her eyes was put out in the street in which she lived the first time she showed her.-elf after she came back from the trial. This dreadful deed was done by two other women, friends of tlie convicted man, who with the man himself lived in the same street. The two women were sentenced to penal servitude for life, the judge remarking that they seem unfitted ever to return to society again. The magistrates of the county and others con- tributed upwards of four hundred pounds, in order to make some permanent provision for Susan Snellgrove. The habits of this poor woman have not fitted her for making at present the best use of so much kindness, and she herself has since been brought into the police courts through intemperance, and an attempt to defraud some person with whom she lodged. I recall two other unhappy women in the neighbourhood who have also lost an eye through the fits of rage of those who have had a quarrel with them. In the past year a man was brutally striking a woman, and another man interfered, when the first man flew at the new comer, and in a fearful struggle they both rolled for some time on the ground, when he who began the whole matter got the ear of the other between his teeth and bit it quite off". The matter, after coming once before the magistrate, fell to the ground, as neither the ill-used woman or the injured man would appear to give evidence; the fact really being that the friends of the accused for several days running kept offering one pound to the

A 3

woman and two pounds to the man not to come for- ward. It was represented to these recipients that this was not a creditable transaction. The reply was that the money was taken very reluctantly, but that it was realjy quite as much as their lives were worth to show their faces in court. The past twelve months has been unhappily particularly notorious for instances of dreadful violence. Only yesterday a gentleman on horseback, with an inviting leather bag, return- ing from the funeral of the Emperor Napoleon, as was supposed, had just entered Kent Street, when he was attacked by a number of men and brought to the ground by a most severe blow on the face. One of the objections that a woman who lives in the lower boundary of our parish lately made to coming to our Church was, that the last time she came, a few months ago, she was roughly seized hold of as she returned down Kent Street, and her wedding ring was torn from her finger.

Sharp weapons have in anger been freely used, and the terrible threat, " I'll knife you ! " has lately become rather common in the vocabulary of pas- sionate rage. The ground from which such fruits arise rather freely, must require an immense degree of culture throughout, laboriously and carefully carried out.

We have of course our Church and Schools. The Church is fairly filled, especially in the evening, when about three hundred are present. This is a very considerable improvement upon the numbers in the earlier days when the present clergyman first

came, when a dozen persons at any service was a great matter. The Bishop of the diocese (Win- chester) has always been most ready to give us his aid in this most difficult matter of getting the poor to attend a place of worship. Since he has been our Bishop, he has regularly come to the Church at least once every year. In the past year he came to us, and held a Confirmation in our own Church, when thirty-eight very satisfactory candidates out of our own parish were confirmed. It is a very interesting question why poor men and poor women as a class do not attend public worship. A poor costermonger and hawker feels oppressed in his con- science at the thought of entering the house of God, if his whole life is not quite what he calls " according " to it. It is particularly humbling to the unlearned and unrestrained to be obliged to attend to forms of worship when they imperfectly understand the most part of what is going on. I suspect also that poor people in their close room contract a more than usual love of warmth, and that a cold and draughty Church is not very attractive. Our Church unhappily is a very cold one ; there is no warming apparatus, and the windows being composed of the common small squares of glass, wdth lead a good deal worn, the state of cold and draught in winter is somewhat a trial even to the better disposed. A warming apparatus in our Church would cost about eighty pounds, and the windows might be put all right for ab,out five-and-twenty pounds more. It is perhaps too much taken for granted that it is

sufficient to leave the privilege of Divine worship to overbear any ordinary inconveniences, but this is really to leave people to play the martyr, and the spiritual life and appreciation of the many whom we want to bring under the influence of religion is scarcely equal to the strain.

"We have in operation now three Schools. We are renting as a Mission House for parochial pur- poses a large house which, as report goes, once belonged to the highwayman, Dick Turpin. Here we have had a Free School, and about one hundred children have attended. This School is at the present moment in a transition state, and we are about to have it opened in the evening rather than in the daytime. The London School Board having three difi'erent stations and Day Schools close by, a good Evening School, with special attention to religious instruction, will probably be the best plan to meet the special wants which seem to arise from an altering state of things. We have besides a very excellent National School, in which there is an attendance of about three hundred children. We have in the past year opened in a separate buildins an Infant School, attended by upwards of one hundred young children. These two last Schools are under Government inspection, and re- ceive Government aid. The aid, however, which Government gives, whatever may be merited by results, is as usual made not to exceed the amount which from other sources is independently provided. These National and Infant Schools are carried on

in a way far exceeding what we could do without Government help ; but the conditions under whicli such help can be secured necessitates a demand upon our funds, which makes our school expenses really larger than they were before we received any aid at all. In our neighbourhood, the provisions for education of the London School Board will not take away from the number of children attending our Schools, but the whole action of the Board tends to drive children to School, and our poor are warm- hearted, and in their way respect religion, and so we are likely to have more than we can take in.

In large poor neighbourhoods, however, the battle is really to be fought and won in the homes of the people. I have been able to keep together for twelve years three Mission Women, who have assisted in going constantly into all the rooms of all the people throughout the parish. They have worked with my wife in a spirit of the deepest interest in the welfare of the poor, united with great aptness for making their way amongst them, joined to unaffected piety, with a good deal of indomitable cheerfulness and sound common sense. We have also an excellent woman of the poorer class as a Parochial Mission Woman, to visit the people and receive small sums of money towards paying for clothing and anything useful. With small aid from our funds we also secure a Scripture-reader, and we liave had a Curate through assistance from the Church Pastoral Aid Society.

Every night in the week our National School-

10

room is open for some purpose or other, the principal occasions being on Tuesdays, when there is the Mothers' Meeting, and on Thursday evening, when there is the Sewing Class for girls and young women. My wife with the Mission Women is always present at these gatherings, each of which numbers about one hundred in average attend- ance. On Monday evenings for some years past, during the six winter months, there is also a meeting for men, the average attendance being about one hundred also. This has been considered specially interesting, and has had a very excellent effect upon the parish. It par- takes something of the Penny Readings, but with reading of the Bible, singing of hymns, and prayer at the close, together with a cup of tea and just a slice of bread and butter, and a piece of cake at the beginning. We charge one penny the evening for this, and the additional cost is about three halfpence each man. We find that this tea business is con- venient for men getting home late, and it wonder- fully warms matters and brings them and us together to introduce this kind of evening party arrangement. We have no trouble with tea-tables, the man holds his cup, and with a piano playing is quite in tune for talking, and seems rather to enjoy your sitting down and cultivating his acquaintance. This interesting gathering, and the cordiality and friendship and confidence which it has given rise to, has been followed by other operations. Three years ago we started a Benefit Society for men, the

tl

object being to offer men the opportunity of joining such a useful institution without being obliged to go to a public-house in order to pay in their money. At the close of last year there were one hundred and fifty-nine members, and they paid in two hundred and one pounds in the course of the year. In the first instance 1 made the rules for the Club, and left it to be worked by the men themselves. I have been interested to see that after three years the members have asked me to take whole management entirely upon myself. 1 have just taken the oppor- tunity therefore of revising the rules, and the Club is starting with renewed vigour. It is the practice of the Clubs in this neighbourhood to share out at Christmas among their members any moneys which may remain over and above from what is spent in the year during sickness of members. The highest thing to do would be to allow this to accumulate for an annuity in old age. What generally happens is a member pays in sixpence a week, he receives or does not receive ten shillings a week during illness, and at Christmas he receives back again about twenty shillings. These twenty shillings may really be looked upon as a provision for the three or four weeks in the dead of winter, wdien the means of living are dear, and when all trade is nearly stagnant, and scarcely a man about has got any thing to do. And further than this, an early return of the men's money keeps up a wholesome excitement, stimulates confidence, and ensures a regular inspection of accounts. Taking all the circumstances of poor

A 4

12

neighbourhoods, and how open the poorer classes are to the artifices of designing people, I am not sure that accumulated funds even for the best pur- poses are generally advisable. It is surely a great matter to get men to combme in a way which takes with them, to make some provision for those amongst them who may be visited by sickness in the coming year, even if the matter is carried no further.

We have for some years had in connection with our Mothers' Meeting an arrangement whereby the women might pay a penny a week, and receive in sickness half-a-crown a week for a month. In this way upwards of one hundred and fifty pounds has been raised for the sick poor by themselves. From the great interest with which the operations of the men's Club has been regarded, at the desire of the women a Club Avas commenced last Tuesday week for them on somewhat of the same principles, so that by paying four-pence a week they will receive seven shillings a week during illness. Sixty-five joined at once, and to night (the following Tuesday) ten more have joined. The real value of these institu- tions is not merely from the immediate objects which they have in view, but from directing these move- ments you are brought into contact Avith that more vigorous class of the community who are more self- reliant, and who are likely to keep rather clear of a clergyman who approaches them in only the more ordinary way, but who, if he can prove himself equal to deal with the matters in which they are rather strong themselves, are found to attach them-

13

selves to him with a greater warmth than others, , and these are just those who are so very difficult to reach, and whose influence is really so consider- able and important to be thrown in the right scale.

These operations amongst the men have led us further on. In the past year, the plan for having a Workman's Hall built in our neighbourhood has been carried out. It is an iron building. There are three comfortable rooms. You enter the place when you find three doors, one on the right, one on the left, and one in front. The door on the right enters into the large room, capable of holding about one hundred and fifty men. There are curtains to the windows : some plain, highly- coloured, but striking pictures all round, in frames. Here and there there are several hardy green creeping plants in flower-pots, raised on brackets, placed against the walls. There is also a good-sized aquarium, with some half-dozen fish. The fire-place and grate are very comfortable looking. Above these is a large looking-glass, in a simple black frame ; and higher up there is a clock, with an extra big face and large hands. Beneath you have cocoa-nut matting, with a fire-place rug. There are two tables with neat cloths on, which rejoice in some books, a fair supply of papers and magazines, some writing paper and ink. On one of the tables there is an extra large size water bottle and a couple of large glasses. We have arrangements for supplying coffee to the men at a small cost, but the water bottle is generally emptied two or three times in an evening, which is

14

due, I rather think, to the bottle and glass being like what they have never seen before. It only re- mains to state that the walls are made of neat deal board, stained and varnished to look like satin-wood. Let there be in your mind's eye three rods from the roof, each having six gas-lights in a kind of star of brass, and you have the whole of the materials to make out the reading-room. On your entrance, the door to the left leads into a room somewhat smaller, but fitted up nearly in the same way. This smaller room is used for the purposes of the men's Club, taking the money, &c., Eeading and Writing Classes for the men, and will be otherwise useful for any occasional gatherings. The door in front at the entrance leads to two little rooms, between the larger rooms. Here is the kitchen for making the men's coffee, and cutting up any bread and butter they may require. A widow woman, a faithful and shrewd servant of the parish, resides here to look after the place, to take the men's money, and to do wdiat is required. The charge made is one penny for a week or part of a week, the penny becoming due at the beginning of each week. The Work- man's Hall is open every evening from seven till ten o'clock. The building was opened, amid very great enthusiasm amongst the people, on the eighteenth of last November. The occasion w' as marked by a tea-meeting in the School, and by a service in the Parish Church. The Church was never fuller, although it rained perfect floods. Mr. Benjamin Shaw, one of the trustees of the Church, who has

15

kindly advised us in the matter, and otherwise very liberally assisted us, was present on the occasion, as well as Mr. and Mrs. Droop, with other friends from a distance, to whom the parish is largely indebted for long continued sympathy and support. The impor- tance of having a really cheerful, comfortable place constantly open in the evening for the men to look in at occasionally, in a neighbourhood where families prevail who only lodge in one room, need not be enlarged upon. In the daytime we hold the In- fant School at the Workman's Hall : we thus gain much needed additional school room for about one hundred and fifty more children. The place is carefully cleared of all signs of what has taken place in the day by the time the evening comes on.

The Workman's Hall has cost £51-3, and other expenses with the fitting up will be about £70 more. In aid of this undertaking, we have at present received £417 10s. Amongst other expe- dients to complete the payment, we have invited our friends to make contributions for a Bazaar, to be held in June : we should be glad of aid in this direction. There are some difficulties attending this when there is no congregation who can take such a matter up, and when in the immediate business of the padsh we are up to our elbows. I hope that this eff'ort, if it should be kindly taken up, will realize enough to pay for the ex- penses, exclusive of the actual building, for which we require rather urgently about £100 more.

Our eff'orts in drawing public attention to the

16

wants of our parish in reference to this Workman's Hall, brought us into some difhculty in the early part of last year. At my request for a sermon in his Church in aid of this undertaking, a clergyman very kindly said he would come down some day and see our parish, and see the men's meeting in the evening, and he thought that an account of that meeting would be suitable for a magazine to which he contributed articles, and that perhaps it might prove of some use to us. Tlie result was that in the March number of " Evening Hours," an article on our whole parish appeared by the Rev. Gordon Calthrop, of St. Augustine's Church, Highbury. The shadows were dark — not darker than they would perhaps strike any intel- ligent stranger who went into the matter — not so dark, perhaps, as they might be made if all were known and told, but perhaps a trifle darker than would be agreeable to come again before some of the people who lived in the place written of. Observations as made by myself and our helpers were part of the article. The lights of the picture were bright enough, and the whole taken together seemed to many persons to represent the neighbour- hood in a more thorough way than had been done before in any paper. Parts of the article came to be industriously read, with selected portions of some of my own papers, to a certain number of the tradesmen of the main street, particularly in that part of it in other parishes than our own. They were instructed to consider themselves injured by

17

Kent Street being shown up to the world, that its fair name was in danger, and that trade was likely to suffer. Anyhow for the time they were very angry with the gentleman — who was by some thought to be " Calcraft " himself — who had written " the book," and also with me who had shown him about, and had evidently, from what I was said to have told him, not stood up, at least for the tradesmen of tlie main street, as they thought I should. When the subject began to be looked into further, these men were induced to read or hear all through what had been written, and it became somewhat clear to them that the dreadful sores of the neighbourhood had really been touched with a very gentle hand, and only with the best purpose, that of healing them. The tide of popular feeling amongst our own poor parishioners, contrary to what had been thought possible by those moving in the matter, and of which we could not have been quite certain ourselves, began on all sides, notwithstanding or- ganized eiforts to upset them, to declare itself in thorough opposition to the agitation into which a few tradesmen had been hurried. By discourag- ing this factious spirit on our side, and frankly recognizing that on the first blush of the matter a passing feeling of irritation might be not irrational on theirs, the storm subsided, after lasting about two months, leaving behind, I believe, no strong under-currents of ill-feeling, and I think the elements being a little disturbed, led to such in-

18

quiry and appreciation which possibly could not have been introduced so well and so readily in a less calm way. The state of a rough neighbourhood like ours, however much you may be satisfied of the general sympathy and common sense of the people, makes one feel a condition of things like the above a little critical for the time, and witness- bearing is an ofi'ence to be put down with a high hand in this quarter. We thought it best at first not to take the slightest notice of the matter, but this was probably a mistake, as among an illiterate people they are at the mercy of any rumour, and they ill understand what is even rightly brought to them. One family in the paper was spoken of so minutely, that a woman thought, and not wrongly, that it was her family mentioned. She Avas put on fire, and a very extended state of inflammation took place in consequence of her believing from the de- scription that her new-born child had been written of in an unheard of and most dreadful way. It had to be explained, that there was not intended any horrible idea in its being recorded that in the room with others there was the " inevitable " baby.

Our Benefit Club, with its economical arrange- ments and quiet place of business, has unavoidably in various wajs trodden on some toes, and we have lately taken Kent Street itself rather by storm in opening there a shop for the sale of cheap peri- odicals and literature of a wholesome kind. At the close of the year just past this shop had been opened thirteen months, and there had been a sale in that

19

time to the amount of upwards of sixty-one pounds: the profits have very nearly paid all expenses. Within the last six months we have also taken another house in the main street. We have for eleven years had a Nursery for receiving Infant Children for the day, at a charge of a penny. In a neighbourhood like this, where the women have to go out to work as well as the men, this is a very great boon, and has done much, it may be taken for granted, in saving infant life. About twelve children a day were the average number received ; but it was thought that if the institution was more seen and more accessible, it would be taken more advantage of. The Nursery now occupies the ground floor of a house in Kent Street, which is completely covered with young children and babies. There are now about five-and-twenty taken in daily. There is a nurse and a girl to look after them. There is a separate room for the sleepers. This in- teresting institution is carried on very economically at a cost of about fifty pounds a year, one half of which is paid through the pennies received. Above the Nursery there are four comfortable rooms, which are the number of rooms in the ordinary houses in the back streets. We have found it con- venient in several ways to occupy the upper part of this house as Shilling Homes for poor aged people, instead of taking a small separate house as we have done in other cases.

The idea of Shilling Homes for the aged poor has been most kindly taken up: we have now four

20

houses, in each of which there are four rooms, each fitted up for the residence of some aged man or woman, or of some aged couple ; the idea being at once to afford an asylum for the deservedly poor likely to be driven into the workhouse through stress of circumstances, and also an example here and there to families around of a neat and tidy place. Taking one house with another, fifteen pounds a year enables us to keep up a house with four rooms. We have not felt that it quite lay in our path, with other things, to pursue this idea if difficulties in obtaining the necessary help arose. We have two gentlemen who have each for several years taken upon themselves the charge of one house. I have a promise of similar great help from another gentleman, which has originated four additional rooms being occupied, so that the ex- penses of a remaining house have only to be pro- vided for ; and I think they will be fairly met .by smaller contributions to the object in general.

This question of improved dwellings for the poor lies at the root of much improvement in other directions : we have not felt that the above chari- table arrangement quite supplied all the example to the general population that it might be possible to give. Hence originated a plan about two years ago to take from the landlords some small blocks of houses, and let them again to poor families; but under such regulations, that the places should be kept thoroughly clean, and that each family should have two rooms and a floor to itself. The proposal

21

went further, for it took in doing up the houses — at least, in the first instance. In this way we have now ten houses beside the Shilling Homes, all of them in really good order, and occupied in the above manner. We insist upon the rent being regularly paid. By securing the landlords their rent, and having a short lease of three years, we get the houses at a comparatively cheap rate, and by taking advantage of our knowledge of the people to secure those likely to be good tenants we have fixed a moderate rent, but sufficient to cover our own rent to our landlord, and to meet as we hope the repairs and rates for which we are responsible. We have been most liberally assisted in two or three quarters in carrying out this design. W"e have been very anxious to make this transaction look well in a business light. In practice we are rather at a disadvantage, when through a family leaving a set of rooms becomes vacant. As the clergyman, I require not only to be clear of bad tenants, but also of otherwise indifferent people, and it is really difficult to pick up a family who has not a screw loose somewhere, and just at the time when you want them.

These house arrangements have been taken con- siderable notice of, and mentioned with great approval by the parish authorities and in the local papers. Curious instances are on record of people in the opposite houses getting curtains for their windows to correspond with what they see before them, and landlords doing extra painting, pleased

22

rather to assist the idea of a cleanly look by carry- ing it ont on adjoining premises. We had rather a further idea at the first start off, that the houses should be taken in the least favourable parts of the district, where the example of wholesome houses seemed more required, and where we thought a better element could be introduced under our influence. We have found, however, in practice that no inducement which we can offer will lead a large majority of our more decent poor people to live in the streets where our houses lie ; they have such an intense horror of certain parts of the neigh- bourhood, and really not without some reason, and we are on this account the more reduced for our supply of tenants to a narrower circle, who can stand the disturbance of continuous midnight brawls, and manage to overawe or soothe reckless disturbers of the peace when their attentions become more personal.

It is thus that in all directions, and by varied means, wholesome operations are brought to bear upon the people ; and we have the intense satisfac- tion of feeling, that the entire ground of our parish is not only occupied, but rather strongly. Constant changes and the very improvement of the people having a tendency to cause them to remove to better neighbourhoods, leave the place itself not so different as we who have to stay might at times like; but these different movements which have been described have given us such an insight into their condition and varying feelings, that we have

23

thus gained extraordinary and favourable opportu- nities for bringing the Gospel message before the minds of the people, and though elements of difficulty are in instances as apparent as ever, there remains upon the parish signs large and broad of a wholesome religious feeling and remarkable moral change. That this Mission work has in an utterly destitute locality comprised so many operations, and has had the peculiar advantage of having been sustained for some years, is in itself a remarkable fact. There are no local resources whatever to be derived from a set of very poor people throughout a parish, and much is needed Avhere none can give, and all may be taken as in a position to receive. The kindness of distant friends by their contribu- tions has for many years enabled us to carry out and carry on what has been done. We are very thankful to them.

A dozen years has now been completed of our work in this Mission field. Will they kindly help us a little further 1 Will a fresh hand or two come to hold us up, and supply the aid which those once gave us who have passed away, and whose " works do follow them ? " With useful efforts, as time goes on, they gradually stretch to a greater magnitude, craving more time to manage them and more expense to sustain them.

The past year has been one of special labour and anxiety, and we have had the further diffi- culty of contending against inadequate support. In the year before last our resources for general

24

purposes rather more than covered our liabilities ; but in the twelve months just ended, although we reduced our expenditure rather more than sixty pounds, our expenses have exceeded our income by rather more than a hundred pounds. I have not had the fortitude to break up any portion of a useful machinery, which, if anything, really requires being strengthened and enlarged. I have felt that the sympathy of members of the Church of England would be quite equal to the occasion if they only knew about it. The living interest of those friends who have generously assisted us in times past, forbids any feelings of serious discouragement ; but the number of those who aid us urgently needs being increased, and where not a little kind help is given, it seems a pity that others should not be found to bestow that comparatively small additional assistance which is requisite to give a completeness to a great and good work, and enable us to throw ourselves into it without the paralyzing sensation that perhaps we are unwise and imprudent in carrying it on to the extent we do, but which seems so necessary.

To have a useful mission work going on in a field so large, so notoriously difficult, and so destitute as the Kent Street neighbourhood, assists to take the point off many a cavil which is being thrown against the great Church of England, and serves to commend her with some additional weight to the confidence and respect of the

25

nation. Can we think without pleasure and without feeling of the thousands of poor people to whom this work has addressed itself in the twelve past years, and of all the benefits which it has been calculated to convey 1 By God's good providence and grace, what intolerable misery has it been the means of alleviating; what terrible temptations has it broken the force of ; what happiness has it introduced in many families ; what heavenly light has it been the instrument of conveying into many minds ; what salvation has it brought to many immortal souls! Surely it must concern us all that a work like this, in such a place, approved to be useful by the test of years, and the unanimous judgment of many competent persons, should not fail of securing the resources necessary for carrying it on. It must not be told that our mission fund lags be- hind our modest and most urgent requirements, or that we are at our wits' end to complete the small residue of payment required for an iron building, which the very success of our operations has rendered almost a necessity. We do not want our present kind and generous helpers to give us anything more than they have usually done ; but we rather want more to give us something. We want many friends whom we can think of as feeling for us, as well as funds which we may find useful in assisting us.

Our exceptional need seems fairly to throw us upon the earnest sympathy of the whole

26

Church of Christ, and we do not seem quite to get it. We indulge the hope that what we are attempting to do is not without the approval, the guidance, and the blessing of the Great Head of the Church. On Him we must ultimately repose for all that concerns the accomplishment of a work which we trust is in accordance with His will, and which he alone can eifectually bring to a happy issue. May He who in His infinite wisdom gives us more years and opportunities of usefulness supply all our need, and give us more grace in ourselves and more blessing upon all our endeavours, so that we may go forward with greater alacrity and truest success to the larger advancement of His Kingdom in the hearts of men !

27

Contributions will be thankfully received by the Eev. James Amos, 5, Paragon, New Kent Hoad, London, S.E., in aid of —

1 . The Mission Fund; £500 pariicidarlt/ required from contributions^ in support of Three Schools, having together 500 children in attendance ; the rent of a Mission House ; supple^nents to the salaries of six Mission Agents ; expenses connected with evening meetings, attended in the week hy 350 different adults, and 190 diff'erent young persons; and ad- ditional help for distressed poor.

2. To complete the payment of the Workman's Hall. Toted cost, £51 o : toivards this £417 have been received. Contributions to the Bazaar to be sent to Mrs. Amos, at the end of April next.

3. Improvement of the Homes of the Poor.

4. Warming Apparatus and Cleaning in Church.

It has been proposed to provide for the small living of St. Stephens, Kent Street, a Parsonage House. £1000 has been received by Trustees, and invested, and the interest is paid towards the rent of a Resi- dence. About £1000 more is required.

Priuted at t)ic Operative Jewish Conyeits' Institution, ralestinc Place, Caniliridgc Ucatli.

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ON TEACHING UNIVERSITIES

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EXAMINING BOAKDS.

By LYON PLAYFAIR,

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR TUE UNIVERSITIES OP EDINBURGH AND ST. ANDREWS.

THIRD EDITION.

WITH REFERENCE TO IRISH UNIVERSITY EDUCATION,

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DUBLIN:

HODGES, FOSTER AND CO. EDINBURGH: EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS,

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