Society has been conducted at Tunbridge Wells, chiefly by the personal and indefatigable exertions of one gifted Lady,* who has lately declined to receive any further contributions to the Fund, because its original and realized capital is deemed quite enough for the wants of the town. There is also, we understand, a Loan-Fund at Brighton, in connection with the District Provident Society of that town. The affairs of both which institutions, are, we believe, transacted on the same premises, under the able and energetic superintendence of Mr. D. King. In Liverpool a Friendly Loan Society† has been operating for more than two years, and has done extensive and valuable service. There is, in the same town, another Friendly Loan Society, which is connected with the local Savings' Bank, and which is so valuably conducted, as to be a great public blessing. Other associations of the sort have also been set on foot in the same town; but as they are chiefly carried on less upon the principle of doing good than of making money, we need at present do no more than advert to their existence.

During the past winter the efficacy and the safety of these Societies must have been everywhere severely tried, in consequence of the general depression of trade, and its necessary results among the labouring classes who depend upon it. We have read, with aching hearts, the accounts of the distress that has prevailed in many of our large towns, where no such institutions are in existence; believing, as we do, that, by their instrumentality, these fearful times might be deprived of a portion of their terrors. In Liverpool, this has been proved upon a very extensive scale. Numbers of large families must have wanted bread-hundreds of the industrious poor must have sunk all they had, of any use or value, at the pawn-shop-had they not had this, THE POOR MAN'S BANK, to apply to, and, bringing to it, not their goods, but their characters, their circumstances, and their friends, obtained from it what enabled them to preserve or redeem their property, to maintain their social footing, and to provide for their families. One of the most affecting circumstances to the conductors of these institutions, is the small amount of that which does so much good. Three, five, or ten pounds, will often draw the sting of a hard winter. And the capital so used, instead of being sunk in the act, returns again and again, with moral as well as fiscal interest upon it, to be sent forth anew upon other missions of benefi

Miss Chaloner.

It owes its origin to Lady Noel Byron, whose Loan of £50 for this purpose was the original nucleus about which has accumulated the whole present capital of the Society.

VOL. IV. No. 17.- New Series.

Z

cence, and to circulate through all the recesses of the poor man's world. Gladly would we avoid every thing that might appear like declamation; for it is our wish only to give a plain businesslike statement of the nature and workings of these institutions; we check the pen, therefore, where we fear we might use it too warmly; and return to that course of simple explanation, which will make perhaps the most general, as well as the most practical impression.

We have spoken of the safety of the capital thus invested. It may be asked, Is this perfect? We have no hesitation in saying, that if there be any thing like honourable and prudent conduct in the managers of such Societies, the capital must be as safe in their hands, as in the Government Savings', or any other Banks. No sum is lent from the Loan Fund, for which the character and property of three or more individuals are not held in pledge. A few scattered losses may perhaps be incurred; but they fall upon the profits, and not upon the principal; and are so small and rare, that they tell as nothing against the relatively large amount of realized gain. Between 27th December 1839 and 3rd January 1842, the Liverpool Friendly Loan Society has circulated £12,749 in 3,109 loans; upon all which mass of business, the solitary loss has been one of £1. 9s., which took place at a very early period of their transactions. And the managers of the Society have no fears of its working less securely. They have been fortunate in obtaining the services of a very active and intelligent agent; and the gentlemen who form the Committee-Board of the Society having been unremitting in their watchfulness over its interests, the result has been, that a vast amount of real social good has been done, with an unspeakably small intermixture of evil. The labouring classes themselves bank largely with this establishment, and some have even drawn out their cash from the Savings Bank, to deposit it anew with the Trustees of the Friendly Loan Society, with the avowed design of placing their money where it would be equally safe and do superior good. Their confidence is not misplaced. Their money will do good; and it will be circulated without any risk of its failing to return. We should, however, be cautious in advising any working-man to make this last experiment. No law can guard against the possibilities of unprincipled and interested conduct; and every Society must depend for its trustworthiness, less upon legal defences, than upon the character, judgment and application of those who direct it.

We may briefly advert to two valuable consequences which result from these institutions, when properly conducted. One

of them is, that they tend, directly and decidedly, to raise the standard of character, to place a premium upon good conduct. Character, as well as probable solvency, being strictly inquired into by the Society, and it being found that cases are uniformly rejected in which the shadow of past and present misconduct rests upon the applicant and his prospects, there is, of necessity, another motive given to the labouring classes, for that consideration of their ways, which has hitherto, we fear, been too often lost sight of, in the obscurity of neglect, or the recklessness of despair.

The other tendency referred to is that of binding the operative classes more kindly and firmly together, by an interchange of mutual good offices, which are not likely to be unappreciated or forgotten. He who becomes a surety for the integrity of his friend, at a time when much depends on that friend's obtaining his assistance, will have secured himself an interest in the bosom of the individual so obliged, which will be a source of kindly feelings towards him, possibly for the remainder of their lives. In time, perhaps, he is called upon to reciprocate the kindness; and this, instead of cancelling the obligation, will, in most cases, both deepen and endear it. Acts of miscalled charity have often a decided tendency to generate invidious and malevolent feelings among their objects; and it is a test and proof of the soundness of any embodied principle of beneficence, that it carries moral good along with it, and develops no feelings at variance with those in which it originated.

The Friendly Loan Society in Leicester Square, London, (which is patronized by the Queen, and many of the leading persons of the country,) adopted the excellent practice of applying to those who had received the benefit of the institution, for written statements of the kind and degree of service which the loans had rendered them. These statements were usually contained in the form of letters addressed to the Secretary of the Society. Many of these were most interesting and instructive documents; and there can be no doubt that the selection of them, annually printed and distributed by the Society, was of material use in drawing attention to its workings. The Directors of the Liverpool Friendly Loan Society have sought also to obtain such statements from their borrowers, and have published a selection from them in their two annual reports. These cannot, we think, be inspected without producing a conviction, that the benefits of such an institution deserve to be more widely extended. The worst of grammar and the rudest of orthography cannot obscure the great fact, of numerous families having been assisted, raised, maintained, or saved from ruin,

by the sums of money thus entrusted to them, and repaid, without a single breach of the stipulations on which they were granted. But this is not all. Deeper and more affecting incidents than those letters reveal have been made personally to the conductors of the institution, by those who, having moved in superior stations, have not been exempted from reverses and difficulties, which have brought them within the range of the Society's means and powers. Many touching romances are contained in its private history; and we have often thought of that pregnant line of poor Keates, "The poetry of earth is never dead," not as applicable only to irrational or inanimate natures, but to those murky haunts, in which Life hides its woes, and into which it is the noblest aim of Beneficence to carry the purest of its healing rays. There is a "poetry" in these haunts, which is "never dead," and to which the more we ourselves are alive, the better it will be for our own hearts, as well as for the most suffering of our fellow-creatures.

The shadows of sunset fall upon the flowers-its lights upon the clouds. So may forgetfulness steal over the brilliant vanities of Life, provided the rays of Evening Time condense themselves upon our long-gathered and ominous Masses of Evil; and, touching and transfiguring them by the omnipotence of Love, make the Future more beautiful for the errors and sorrows of the Past!

J. J.

ART. V.-DISCOURSES ON HUMAN LIFE. By ORVILLE DEWEY, Pastor of the Church of the Messiah, in New York. London: John Green, 121, Newgate Street; C. Fox, 67, Paternoster Row. 12mo, pp. 308.

WE hardly know how to speak of this volume so as to do justice to its eloquent Author, without also doing some injustice to its vast Subject. If the Book had no title-page, and each sermon was presented to us with no note of preparation but its text, we should have felt grateful for what was given, without abatement of interest from the absence of what was expected. It is true that the Author informs us, in his prefatory dedication, that the Discourses do not form a series, and we infer, from his account of the causes and manner of their appearance, that he does not regard them as covering the whole ground of the religious consideration of Human Life,-but still an expectation is awakened by the distinct Title of a work, which no prefatory explanations, or excellencies of another kind in the work itself, can satisfactorily extinguish. If considered as undertaking to present the religious view of human life, the book has two great faults,-it does not come sufficiently close to its subject,—and it is not becomingly simple, unaffected, grave, earnest in style. It consists of many important general views of Life, thrown together in a sketchy and oratorical form. Some of the leading aspects of human existence, and some of the most striking, and therefore most obvious and natural, reflections on its course and termination, are made the foundation of very animated and impressive pulpit addresses. Their taste may, at times, be more than questionable, their sentiment occasionally betraying the impulsive orator rather than the true observer, and their logic of that sentimental and declamatory character, which is the besetting sin of religious reasoners; but no man could read them, much less could have heard them, without receiving many solemn views, salutary impressions, and noble impulses. Still we wish we could say that it was a book of instruction,-that it presented a view of the religious consideration of Human Life, we will not say complete,-but even aiming at completeness. Our principal objection is, that it does not even make the effort to embrace its subject, it presents no religious consideration of human life as a whole, but deals, most effectively indeed, with some detached points, which belong to the general subject of Human Life, as every religious question necessarily does. Any set of Discourses might be entitled "Sermons on Human