"Father," said the daughter, "dear gered, or partially, or, alas! totally defather!" "Hush !" said I, in a low tone; prived of its magnificent utility,-it is then and beckoning her to come near me, I we value it at a right estimation. Experto whispered to her startled ear :

crede.

"I fear, my dear child, your poor father My slender funds, in addition to a liberal is deprived of sight. Be calm, or fatal donation from my dear kind friend, the consequences may ensue.' physician, enabled me to provide a nurse A deep sob, but instantly repressed with and all requisite necessaries for the poor heroic effort, escaped the grief-worn bosom blind man. His daughter had the good of this hapless daughter. She fell on her knees; bowed herself down in earnest prayer to that adorable Being who alone can comfort the broken heart.

"Ellen," exclaimed the old man, with a sharp and querulous tone, "why don't you bring the candle! Time is money; I must not waste it."

fortune to get a little needle-work from one of her late employers. This timely occupation prevented her mind from being corroded by grief, and enabled her to sit constantly by the bed-side of her father, and speak to him from time to time those loving words of affection which none but a good and true-hearted women can so "Dearest father," she answered, the effectually use in the sick chamber of suffertears coursing their way rapidly down her ing man. It is then that the helpless lords cheeks," don't write any more to-night- of the creation pine after the soothing let me lead you to bed. I am sure you ministry of woman's tenderness and comare tired." passion. Their own sex are too apt to regard He was patient and submissive in her their sufferings with calm and stolid indiffehands, he knew not the extent of his rence; not so a wife, or daughter, or sister, calamity, he wondered why night had whose loving hand smoothes the tossed and come so quickly, he wished it would tumbled pillow,-whose pitying eye is ever go, and leave him to work again. kindly directed towards you-and whose voice is ever low and gentle, and full of comforting influence.

go1 I went instantly to my friend, the physician, who was fortunately at home. He came back with me, and carefully, and in My good old penitent was very calm and silence, examined his patient's eyes. On resigned; much more so than I expected he his return to the little sitting-room, Ellen would be under his terrible privation. He anxiously asked if her father was really was highly educated, and his mind was enblind? riched with the best stores of ancient and "It would be cruel in me to deceive modern literature. I rarely enjoyed an you," was the reply of the benevolent hour's chat more than I did with this good physician; "I am afraid there is little hope old man. The paralysis had spent its efforts of cure." in depriving him of his sight, and his mind (6 Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Do not seemed clearer and calmer than ever. Our say that, sir. It is so sudden, it would conversation was generally of a varied debreak my heart. Oh, merciful father! scription. He was deeply read in the Holy strengthen me to bear this great trial." Scriptures, and he would delight in clothing biblical stories of blind men, in his own terse and eloquent words. He made out to me, clearer than I ever heard before, the infinite tenderness and compassion of God to blind men. He was never tired of recurring to the old Tobias, who had an angel sent from heaven to cure his blindness.

My heart melted within me as I witnessed the grief of this poor afflicted girl. bruised reed was indeed broken.

CHAPTER III.-THE DEATH BED.

The

I took particular interest in Mr. Danby's "I do not, my dear sir," he cheerfully case, and as his residence was near the said, "I do not myself expect, or even chapel, I managed to see him almost daily. hope, for this high privilege. It's God's It was indeed a touching and a melancholy will I should be blind: Thy will be done, sight to witness this blind and aged man so my heavenly Father!" He would then suddenly deprived of one of God's greatest touchingly dilate on the advantages of blessings, a gift rarely sufficiently appre-blindness in our last moments: the more ciated while this important organ is in a perfect concentration of mind upon God and sound and healthy state, but when endan- eternity that necessarily results from the

let me

absence of all distractions of sight. He" my dear, darling child, let me die in your thought it an unhappy thing in a person arms. You have ever been the kindest, about to die to have his sight gradually ob- most dutiful of daughters to me; scured by the film of death, and to have his have this last happiness upon earth." longings after immortality disturbed by the Almost fainting, tear upon tear flowing dimly-seen agonies of weeping relatives down her pale and convulsed cheek, her around his dying bed. He had one sacri- heart throbbing with unutterable anguish, fice less to make the last, longing, lingering yet keeping down, by a strong effort, every look at his child He spoke firmly upon this audible expression of grief, the dear child trying point. He had no misgivings in God's arose quickly from her knees in which reall-protecting Providence. "He, who suf- verent posture she had joined in the prayfereth not a sparrow to fall to the ground ers for the dying, leaned over the pillow of without His divine permission, would not assuredly permit his much-loved Ellen to suffer overmuch, without grace to support it, when he was taken from her."

her father, laid his poor dying head upon her bosom, clasped him tenderly round the neck, kissed again and again his pale brow and lips, and whispered tremulously words of He seemed never wearied in talking of heavenly peace and hope to his dying ear. the joys of heaven; he had a rapturous, In a few minutes he faintly said, "Ellen, though humbly tempered, wish to be there my darling child, God eternally bless you; and to see God face to face, and in the may we meet in heaven. Reverend father, clear vision of His celestial glory, for ever God Almighty bless you too for all your to be inebriated with the plenty of His kindness to me; look to my poor child when house. And then, at times, he would I am gone

יי!

break out into a murmured and ecstatic His right hand was slightly agitated. thankfulness on the goodness of God, who His daughter quickly divined the cause; had thus chastened him before receiving she reverently raised it, kissed it and placed him into His heavenly kingdom The in- it on her own head. The old man's lips finite, all-atoning love of his Savior was were tremulous with unuttered words; a dwelt upon with rapture; and in his fre- tear rolled down his cheek; a smile proquent communion his soul was more and phetic of his heavenly heritage lit up his more purified-more nearly united to the every feature; and with that look of hapmartyred Lamb of God. piness he expired.

His daughter read to him morning and night, and frequently during the day, those beautiful prayers of the Garden of the Soul, which have prepared and fitted so many souls for heaven. She never seemed so happy, and tranquil, and resigned, as when THE QUEEN AND THE PARROT.-The following she was assisting her father to die the death" A noted bird fancier, living in the neighborhood morsel of gossip appears in the Bristol Mercury :— of the just. There was a fervor and spiri- of the Great Western terminus, in Bristol, lately tuality about every tone of her low and musi- reared a parrot of uncommon beauty, and moreover cal voice, that vibrated tenderly through and as will be seen in the sequel, in time more than of a disposition to talk. Poll was duly instructed, every chord and fibre of the heart. Her repaid her tutor for the pains he had taken. Her father felt it; for his countenance would teacher was so much pleased with Poll's progress glow, and his sightless eyes would be raised that he determined to present her at Court, and she towards heaven with a reverential appearance her arrival, was somewhat abashed at the new was accordingly started upon the journey. Poll upon that showed that, though corporeal sight scenes of splendor in which she found herself, and was wanting, the eye of faith steadily con- exhibited an unwonted uncouthness, and would not templated the ineffable glories of that eter- speak to any one. At length, however, she was innal kingdom to which he was now rapidly ful plumage and fine symmetry of the newly-arrived troduced to the Queen, who, struck with the beautihastening.

guest, entered with great condescension into converAnd his death-bed was most beautiful sation with her. Poll's shyness wore off, and before and consolatory. His heavenly Father the Queen left her she said, If you don't send 201. wonderfully consoled him in his last mo- was indebted for this new acquisition to her aviary, I'll go back.' The Queen inquired to whom she ments. They were moments of joy and of ascertained the circumstances connected with the afoverflowing tenderness. A little space be- fair, and gave orders for the transmission of 201. to fore he died, he desired the nurse to raise the rearer of Poll, who accordingly was paid that sum a few days since at the West of England Bank in him up in bed. this city-an inducement to all teachers to impart "Ellen, my child," he feebly whispered, profitable instruction to their pupils.'

From Fraser's Magazine.

THE STATE OF MORALS AND EDUCATION IN WALES.

THE attention of the Government was first inquiry to the Committee of Council of directed to the state of popular education | Education. A commission was speedily in Wales in the year 1840. The inquiries appointed, consisting of three gentlemen, which were set on foot on that occasion ori- well qualified for the duties they were reginated in the Chartist outbreak under the quired to discharge, and the result is the leadership of Frost, when some thousands production of the three able and compreof the mining population were impressed hensive Reports which have been recently with an idea that they were to " march to presented to both Houses of Parliament. London, fight a great battle, and conquer a We believe that few were prepared for great kingdom." The ministry of the day the revelations made by these important was aroused to a state of vigilance in a documents. They exhibit a state of society quarter to which its attention had been utterly and, but for a few redeeming feapreviously very little directed. An inves-tures, we should say, hopelessly corrupt, and tigation was made into the condition of the disclose an amount of popular ignorance population. It was found to be in the enjoyment of more than an average share of material comforts, but very low in the scale of morals and education.

Her majesty's inspector of schools under the Committee of the Council of Education, which had been then recently established, was commissioned to make the necessary inquiries into the state of the workingclasses, and his Report disclosed the causes of the demoralized condition of the country, which was stated to have its origin in deficient education and an insensibility and culpable indiference on the part of the superior classes to the moral interests of the population by which they were surrounded.

Some praiseworthy efforts have doubtless since been made to improve the state of this district. Schools have been established in some spots, of which the moral features were formerly as repulsive as the physical aspect is cheerless, and in many places a deciled improvement has been effected. Much, however, yet remains to be done to rescue this much-neglected locality from the dominion of lawlessness and vice.

and moral degradation no less painful to contemplate than disgraceful to the country which harbors it, the State which has permitted it, and to the nation within whose confines it exists.

The information contained in these Reports is so minute and multifarious that it will be impossible, we fear, to give, within our necessary limits even a faint representation of the educational condition of Wales; but, by a selection of such facts as are most calculated to fix attention, we hope to present a correct outline of the moral features of the principality.

The Welsh undoubtedly labor under a very serious impediment to any considerable intellectual progress The language presents an impassable barrier to the reception of new ideas. It shuts them out from all communication with the world of thought beyond them. Neighbors to the most enlightened and enterprising nation on the face of the globe, it dooms them to a state of comparative ignorance and mental torpor. It is the language of the Cymri, and anterior to that of the ancient Britons, and adapted only to express the wants of a simWhile the portion of South Wales to ple people engaged in the pursuits of rural which we have adverted has been undergo-, life and the feelings of religious devotion. ing a gradual and, we trust, a permanent It appears to be not ill adapted for reliimprovement, the remainder of the princi-gious controversy. The profoundest conpality has continued almost a terra incog- ceptions of theology may, it is said, be exnita in reference to the state of popular edu- pressed in it with metaphysical accuracy. cation. The attention of Government was A taste for religious discussion forms a at length directed to it by an intelligent marked feature of the Welsh character. member of parliament, who, a Welshman. Their Sunday-schools are described as a himself, was the first to call the public at- mixture of worship, discussion, and eletention to the condition of his country. mentary instruction; and a fifth of the enUrged to the necessary duty by Mr. Wil- tire population is returned as attending liams, Government delegated the office of them. It is not pretended that these

schools, too often the only substitute for ployment more discouraging than that of the schodaily education, can supply its deficiency.lars, compelled as they are to employ six hours daily reading and reciting chapters and formula"The popular Sunday-schools are (Mr. Lingen ries in a tongue which they cannot understand, says) maintained at little or no expense. Almost and which neither their books nor their teachers every adult scholar possesses his own Bible. The can explain." elementary books are little stitched pamphlets of

the commonest kind. These are purchased by Many schools, indeed, as Mr. Symons subscription. Commentaries are usually the pro-states, are not for the purpose of mental perty of individuals. They are possessed and instruction, or of education in any single read to a considerable extent. The rabbinical sense of the word, but for that of accustomsort of learning, or exalted doctrine often con- ing the eyes to certain signs and the mouth tained in them, suits the popular taste. I have heard the most minute accounts given of such to utter corresponding sounds." customs as expulsion from the synagogue and the constitution of the Jewish councils; and it will be seen by reference to the Report of my assistant, Mr. Morris, that a familiar acquaintance with formulæ, embodying the more abstruse parts of the Divinity, is far from being uncom

mon."

What can be expected from attempts at education thus hopelessly defective but an amount of general ignorance unexampled, we believe, in any civilized nation? The ideas, no less of the adult laboring population than of children, under this system, must for ever remain exclusively local. So much doctrin 1 controversy has arisen The progressive intelligence of a thousand of late years in Wales, that the catechizing years has not yet extended to them. Scarceof these schools is now chiefly confined to ly a ray of the general illumination which polemics. The connexion between Church the full light of knowledge has shed over and State-whether confirmation is contra- other lands has entered their darkened ry to Scripture-whether baptism ought to minds. They cannot even understand a be by immersion or the reverse-the rival word which expresses a relation beyond systems of Presbyterianism and Indepen- their daily life. Their only literature is dency-original sin-these are some of the exclusively religious, and that replete with subjects in which children are instructed, the bitterness of sectarian bigotry. All atand which engage in earnest discussion the tempts to introduce a periodical literature adult members of the Sunday-schools. in their own language devoted to the diffuMuch immorality is also said to be the con- sion of general information have hitherto sequence of the evening meetings of these failed for want of encouragement, and been societies; and it will be apparent, that abandoned with loss by the projectors. among the Welsh generally a taste for theological discussion and religious excitement may be perfectly well combined with a total disregard of moral purity.

They were rejected as much from want of interest in the subjects as from a positive inability to grasp unfamiliar ideas. A people thus isolated and cut off from all comThe means hitherto adopted for removing munion with a higher intelligence than their the great obstacle to intellectual progress own naturally falls under the dominion of namely, ignorance of the English language, a degrading superstition. The belief in have been found perfectly inadequate. In charms, supernatural appearances, ghosts, fact, in no class of schools has even an at- and witchcraft, is common. A book was tempt been made to remove the first diffi- published at Newport, in the year 1813, culty which occurs to a Welsh child at the by a clergyman, designed, as expressed in very commencement of his course of instruc- the title-page, "to confute and to prevent tion. the infidelity of denying the being and apEvery book in the school (according to Mr. parition of spirits, which tends to irreligion Vaughan Johnsonf) is written in English; every and atheism." And a subscription was word he speaks is to be spoken in English; every lately made by his fellow-townsmen in order subject of instruction must be studied in English; to enable a carpenter to travel fifty miles, and every addition to his stock of knowledge in from Monmouth to Lampeter, to consult a grammar, history, or arithmetic, must be communi-"wise man" how to recover some tools he cated in English words. And yet no class of had lost.* schools has been furnished with dictionaries or

grammars in Welsh and English. The promoters

It is painful to reveal the moral condition

of the schools appear unconscious of the difficulty, of the Welsh people and to bring to light and the teachers of the possibility of its removal. the illustrations with which these Reports In the meantime, it is difficult to conceive an em- are full. The evidence presented in corro

a

• Report. p. 5.

+ Ibid. p. 11.

Mr. Symons's Report, p. 64.

boration of the opinions expressed is uniform, 'to employ persons to tamper with the jury explicit, uncontradicted, and abundant. before a trial comes on, and to infuse views There is a total want of cleanliness in their of the case into their minds. A Bristol houses and of decency in their domestic merchant is reported to have declared that arrangements; a common herding of the his efforts to continue a commerce with the Bexes together in a sleeping apartment is, Welsh people, which would be mutually general. In many places, squalid huts ap- profitable, were they commonly trustworthy, pear to be the deliberate choice of people had been wholly frustrated by their invetewho are not more poor than the peasantry rate faithlessness to their bargains the moof England. Drunkenness and dishonesty ment they see the possibility of gaining a extensively prevail. The sanctity of places penny by breaking them.

is sometimes as little regarded as the de- But the predominant sin of Wales is the cencies of life. In one district a church- almost total absence of chastity on the part yard is used as a drying-ground, and in of both sexes, which prevails rather from another is resorted to as the common privy the want of a sense of moral obligation than of the parish. The houses are in general from a forgetfulness or violation of recogdevoid of the accommodations which health nised duties. The number of illegitimate and propriety require. The cottages are children in proportion to the population is generally described as wretched in the ex- astounding. The vice is not confined to treme, formed in many places of loose frag- the poor. Farmers' daughters are in the ments of rock and shale piled together, constant habit of being "courted in bed,” without mortar or whitewash. Never hav- and in the case of domestic servants, the ing seen a higher order of civilization, offence is said to be universal. Pregnancy although they have the means to live re- before marriage is the natural order of spectably, they deliberately prefer, from things, and neither creates shame nor affixes ignorance, their degraded social condition. disgrace. The custom of Wales is said to Nor is this state of feeling confined to the justify the practice, and the system of laboring population. The farmers, who "bundling," or courting in beds, is an might raise the standard of comfort and ancient and recognised preliminary to marcivilization around them, are content to inhabit huts scarcely less dark, dirty, and comfortless. The testimony of a gentleman well acquainted with the state of society in Welsh towns, is very strong on the social degradation of the people.

riage; if pregnancy ensues, the union generally, but by no means always, takes place. An attempt having been made at a Union board to persuade the guardians to build a workhouse, with the belief that it would check the increase of bastardy, they scouted the notion of its being any disgrace, and "The poor (he says) seem ignorant on most sub-maintained that the custom of Wales justijects except how to cheat and speak evil of each fied the thing. In short, to use the emphatic other. They appear not to have an idea what the language of the chaplain to the Lord Bishop comforts of life are. There are at least 2000 persons in this town living in a state of the greatest of Bangor,filth, and, to all appearances, they enjoy their filth and idleness, for they make no effort to get rid of it. From my experience of Ireland, I think there is a very great similarity between the lower orders of Welsh and Irish-both are dirty, indolent, bigoted, and contented."*

Petty thefts, lying, cozening, every species of chicanery, drunkenness, and idleness, prevail to a great extent among the least educated part of the community, who are said scarcely to regard them in the light of sins. An acknowledged thief is almost as well thought of, and as much employed, as better characters by the lower orders.†

Perjury is common in courts of justice. It is a regular custom for parties to a cause

• Evidence of Archdeacon Venables.

+ Evidence of the Rev. J. Denning, Mr. Symons's Report, p. 58.

"It is an undeniable fact, that incontinence is not regarded as a vice, scarcely as a frailty, by the common people in Wales. It is considered as a matter of course, as the regular conventional process towards marriage. It is avowed, defended, and laughed at, without scruple, or shame, or concealment, by both sexes alike. ** The minds of the common people are become thoroughly and universally depraved and brutalized; and to meet this appalling evil the present system of education in Wales is utterly powerless."

We will now, having dwelt longer than we could desire on these revolting details, endeavor to show what that education really is; and to point out its utter insufficiency to eradicate or check the moral pestilence with which a whole country is infected.

In the three counties of Brecknock, Cardigan, and Radnor, it appears that the