Inoculation, with this difference, that the disease after Vaccination is always very mild, while that after Inoculation is generally virulent and sometimes fatal, as the following observations, made at the Military Hospital, Chelsea, contribute to prove-out of 3060 persons Vaccinated at that Hospital, there were 24 who sometime afterwards were attacked with Small Pox, but the disease was mild, and none died; while out of 2532, who had been Inoculated, 26 were at some distance of time afterwards attacked with Small Pox, who had the disease virulently, and three died. Very many corresponding instances might be adduced, if it were necessary, but the testimony of Medical Men in favour of the preventative effects of Vaccination is so general, that it seems hardly possible to imagine how any parents, having a proper regard for their children, can hesitate to avail themselves of the Blessing to be derived from the protection afforded by this Providential discovery.

The Legislature anxious to guard against the propagation of that loathsome disease, have recently enacted that any person who shall Inoculate another for Small Pox, or who shall by contact, exposure, or by any other means, wilfully occasion another to have the Small Pox, such person, so offending shall be punishable by imprisonment; and any person publicly exposing him, or herself, or a child, when afflicted with Small Pox, is, by the provisions of another Act of Parliament, punishable for misdemeanor.

In order to promote and facilitate Vaccination, the Board of Guardians throughout the kingdom are authorised by Act of Parliament to make arrangements for general gratuitous Vaccination, and a room is now provided in Chester, where Medical Gentlemeu attend weekly, for the purpose of Vaccinating such persons as may apply, for which no charge is made.

The fact that Small Pox has sometimes occurred at distant periods after both Vaccination and Inoculation can only be accounted for by the presumption that the operation must have been imperfect, it is therefore very important to parents, to bring their children back for the inspection of the operator, to satisfy themselves of the success of the operation.

THE DISTRICT VISITOR.

MANY inquiries have been made for the continuation of the Merchant's Clerk, and we fully intended that it should appear in the present Number of the "Christian Beacon," but we must still delay his appearance, pledging ourselves, however, for his forthcoming, God willing, in the next Number.

At present we have a story for our readers, or rather, the true account of a circumstance which occurred a short time ago, at Liverpool.

A District Visitor in the town of Liverpool came to the chamber of an aged woman; she was very poor, and very ill-nay, so ill, that she was evidently in a dying state;-but she was hopeless and miserable. Her visitor had brought her a message from God. His earnestness made her feel its importance; his tenderness made her own its kindness, or we

should perhaps say, the God whose help that visitor implored, gave His grace to the efforts of His servant. The passages of Scripture which he read to her met her case; the prayer he offered up for her, and with her, expressed her feelings-the very feelings of her broken heart. With the deepest interest she hung upon his words; her prejudices melted away, as he urged upon her, in simple but forcible language, the truth of those Scriptures which she had doubted, and the necessity of fleeing, as for her life, and seeking, before it was too late, the only refuge from the wrath to come. He spoke to her of Jesus Christ, the Mighty God, but at the same time the gentlest, the most gracious, of the sons of men,-God manifest in the flesh, pouring out His precious blood to wash her clean from sin. He spoke of God the Spirit, the only true comforter to the wretched sinner, whose work it is to enable man to realize the things of God, giving that peace which the world cannot give. He told her that God the eternal Father so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son to the end that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The next morning the Clergyman of the district also found his way to the little wretched room of the dying woman. She was a new comer to that densely populated district, and neither he nor his district visitor had ever seen her before. She spoke of the kind and Christian friend who had visited her the day before. She told him that she was an actress, and that for fifty years she had been an infidel, that her heart had been cold and hard, and wilfully opposed to the only way by which a sinner, a vile and guilty sinner like herself, could return to God. At an Hotel, in Chester, fifty years before, she had met with a Jew, one, that is, who called himself a Jew, but was in reality an infidel, cold, heartless, and taking a cruel pleasure in making others as wretched and unbelieving as himself. The little religion which the poor actress had once possessed, was entirely destroyed by the poison of that wretched man; and during the whole space of that long and weary time, she had known nothing of the only consolation that can soothe a troubled mind,-she had known many troubles, she had been brought into the very desolation of misery and was then dying neglected and unpitied in the midst of strangers.

A ray of hope from heaven had, however, at length dawned in her heart, the messenger of Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners, had come to visit her, and God had given such grace to the words which had been spoken in simplicity and godly sincerity that she had come trembling and weeping to ask, "What must I do to be saved ?" and she had learnt to cry to Jesus Christ, "Save, Lord, or I perish.' Faint and failing as her strength was, she entreated to know who the Christian Friend was who had been the instrument, in God's hand, of bringing her back to the Saviour she had so long forsaken. The Clergyman told her, as it had been a Jew, an unconverted, unbelieving Jew, who had led her to deny and forsake her God fifty years before; so it was a Jew, but a converted Jew, a Jew who had learnt to say of Jesus Christ, He is the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace!—that had been the blessed instrument of leading her to believe in Him, who died for Sinners.

WE have been much gratified by the way in which our appeal on the subject of Houses of Refuge for the County and City of Chester has been met, and by the kind encouragement which has been given to the subject by some of those who hold the highest rank and possess the greatest influ ence in the county; and we hope that in time we shall find all coming forward to advance so good a work. The time at present has been very short, and, indeed, all our circulars have been scarcely sent out; but had we met with little encouragement, we should still have felt it our duty to go on with an undertaking so likely to be blessed, and to carry a blessing along with it, knowing how much may be done where even the humblest is resolute to leave no way untried of accomplishing it.

We have subjoined an extract from the Report of the Manor House Asylum at Chelsea, an institution which owes its existence to one private gentlewoman, who resolved, in humble faith and perseverance, to do what she could in her Master's service.

Much is said of the difficulty of keeping up such institutions, and the likelihood of their failing for want of funds. We would respectfully remind such objectors, that this is perhaps the poorest objection that can be brought forward, and the last that ought to be. Let it be once proved that an object is good, and that it is our duty to promote it, and then every one who has it in his power to promote it, has received his call to do so. It is often said, and with truth, that we have money for our luxuries, that we have money for our pleasures, we have money for our very vices, but that we have none for our God, and for those whom our Saviour has declared to be His own peculiar representatives in the world, the destitute, the poor, and them that are ready to perish. If the rich man knows his real office before God, he knows that on all his possessions is stamped-" Held in trust for God" and, therefore, it is at a frightful risk that he neglects to think about this trust, and wantonly abuses it. We do not think that the Houses of Refuge for the County and City of Chester will fail for want of funds. We believe that there are many, very many, who will deem it a very high privilege to supply those funds. We pray that it may be said of many by Him who knoweth the heart-" He hath done what he could; she hath done what she could."

IN the year 1822, a very small house was engaged in New Peter Street, Westminster, which only contained four individuals. The following year, part of a large house was taken in Ship Court, York Street, Westminster, when five persons were added to the number of inmates. In a few months, the whole house was engaged, and the number of inmates gradually rose to twenty-two. During fifteen years, that is from 1822 to 1837, two hundred and seventy-four persons received the benefit of the Institution, out of which number one hundred and two were either placed in service, provided with employment, or restored to their friends; whilst many others, who were found on trial to be unsuitable characters for this Institution, were recommended to others-to the Penitentiaries, the House of Occupation, or to the Refuge for the Destitute. Circumstances having constrained the Managers to quit the premises in York Street, the present house was prepared for the reception of forty individuals in the month of July, 1837. In the course of the first year forty-two persons were received, and thirteen have been placed in service, whereas the highest average of any preceding year was seventeen received, and eight provided

with employment. The purposes contemplated are the same as heretofore.

This Refuge is for the reception and reformation of young females who stand exposed to the fearful consequences of vice and ignorance, and who may be enumerated under the following heads :

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The young offender who has been convicted and imprisoned for her first offence.

Those discharged from service for dishonesty, but not prosecuted. The ignorant and destitute, who, although not guilty, are incapable of obtaining their livelihood.

Past experience has satisfactorily proved that this Asylum is rightly adapted to meet and remedy the evils above enumerated. In regard to the first class-the juvenile offender, it has been justly observed in a late publication, "On the necessity and advantages of Houses of Refuge," that no one becomes confirmed in depravity at once: before that takes place, several stages of guilt must be passed through; and it means were used to arrest the progress, on the expiration of first imprisonments, by furnishing the delinquents with shelter, and providing them with suitable employment, numbers, just entered within the threshold of crime, might be plucked as brands from the burning, reclaimed from the error of their ways, and brought eventually to become honest and decent members of the community. A House of Refuge is necessary to give to a prison all its perfection and effects; it supplies what the Bridewell system of necessity leaves defective; it furnishes an intermediate step between coercive confinement and unrestrained intercourse with the world; it confirms, voluntarily, a system of reform which the House of Correction has commenced compulsorily, and it gives time for ripening, in sheltering security, any seeds of good which may have been implanted; it furnishes an abode to those young persons who, from the carelessness or loss of parents or guardians, are left to wander, without a guide and without a home, exposed to every temptation, and too often to the commission of crime it is a place where the glad tidings of salvation are proclaimed to sinners, and where the wanderer may be restored to the fold of that gracious being, whose will is that not one of these little ones should perish."

And what more convincing argument can be used to prove the urgent need for such institutions, than the fact well known to every prison visitor, that the morning of the juvenile criminal's liberation is one, not of joy, but of grief and dread: frequently they entreat to be allowed to remain in confinement, because they know not where to go for shelter, and no one will give them employment: bereft of character, but not insensible to the value of what they have lost, these helpless children of affliction earnestly entreat to be saved from the dreadful alternative that awaits them in the unpitying world without, for the world's laws give them no encouragement to return to a virtuous course of life; they must either starve or find their resources amongst characters more debased and corrupt than themselves-persons who, knowing that their own conduct subjects them to suspicion and danger, are anxious to draw the simple and unwary into their toils, and to make them partakers of their iniquity. Very many instances might be given of the truly beneficial effects that

result from affording timely protection in cases of the above description, but as there is a great similarity in most of the leading circumstances, one shall suffice.

A young woman, twenty years of age, had been convicted of dishonesty, was prosecuted by her mistress, and sentenced to nine months imprisonment in Cold Bath Fields House of Correction, during which time she conducted herself with great propriety: at the expiration of her sentence, she relied on the protection of a married sister, her only remaining relative, in whose care she had deposited all her worldly good; but when she sought that sister, she found she had left her former residence; the neighbours reported that they had been unfortunate, that they had removed hastily, and left no clue by which they might be traced: had not this young woman been furnished with an order of admission into the Manor Hall Asylum, in the event of not being received by her sister, how wretched would have been her condition, without a friend, without money, or without even a change of raiment! She has now been nine months in the Asylum, during which time no one has ever visited her, but there is every reason to hope that ere a few months more have elapsed, her character and qualifications will bear the scrutiny that will entitle her to the protection and friendship of her future employers.

A case of this description is surely of itself sufficient to induce all who read it to countenance and support Houses of Refuge.

But the Manor Hall Asylum is distinguished in one essential point from all other Institutions, since in no other, a respectable and virtuous, but ignorant and destitude, young female can be received. Many in this class are, by birth and condition, much above the vulgar; others are so friendless and destitute, that the cry of the Prophet in his Lamentations would be well applied in their case-" Lift up thy hands for the life of thy children that faint for hunger at the top of every street." Of them it may be said, that no opportunity had been given them to become good members of society; they had entered upon the duties of life with minds untutored, and passions which had never been disciplined either by parental care or by the wholesome restraints of early education. These helpless beings, while it is yet time, are carefully instructed; and thus it is hoped will be rescued from the snares and temptations of an evil and dangerous world, with which they are not prepared to contend.

There are at present in the Asylum, seven discharged prisoners; fourteen dismissed from service for dishonesty, or who had robbed their parents; nineteen destitute, friendless, or neglected persons; making the number of forty.

As the success and well-being of the Institution depends mainly upon the degree of vigilant inspection that is kept up in each department, four Matrons and an Assisstant are engaged to superintend the Establishment, who could with ease extend their care to a greater number of pupils, the Committee fondly anticipate that they will be enabled, through the liberal aid of their friends, to add ten to their number in the course of this year. It is an appalling reflection, but the fact has been ascertained, that every year upwards of three hundred young persons, between the ages of eleven and eighteen, are discharged from different prisons, who are capable of being made valuable members of society, for, in very many