having put down the proposition at the Parent Institution, did not anticipate its revival by one of its children, and therefore were not there in sufficient strength to stay the plague-or that the members of those unchristian services, knowing more of the spirit of bloodshed than the spirit of Christ, cared nothing for the laws but to obey them whatever might be their tenor,-certain is it, that Mr. Armstrong and bigotry were here, triumphant. The church militant thrust out the Unitarians. Unitarians are not permitted to give the Scriptures to military and naval men! There is one consolation. Example is better than precept. The testimony of the Unitarian Captain Thrush, to the peaceful and benevolent spirit of Christianity, in resigning his commission to the King on account of its antichristian nature, will do more probably to attract the attention and influence the actions of others, than the mere presentation of that Book which commands "thou shalt not kill," would effect, when given by Captains whose military ardour now evinces itself in religious intolerance and sectarian animosity.

City Missions.-WE have several times adverted to this important and benevolent mode of instruction, consolation, and reformation. We have mentioned, at various periods, the judicious and praiseworthy exertions of Dr. Tuckerman of Boston, in this hitherto almost untried field of honourable and Christian labour. We have noticed the success which has attended his indefatigable and persevering efforts, and the virtuous emulation he has excited in other minds and other denominations to follow the truly philanthropic example. We recorded also the resolution of the meeting at Manchester last year of our Unitarian brethren, in relation to the propriety and necessity of active measures being taken in Britain to aid in this laudable service. We rejoice now to be able to say, that the Committee of the British & Foreign Unitarian Association have prepared a plan for this purpose, and have issued an appeal to the Unitarian body to enable them to carry that plan into execution. Should that appeal be successful, the Committee thus sketch the duties of the Missionary:

To seek out and visit the poor and ignorant at their own habitations, and to communicate to them moral and religious instruction, avoiding theological controversy and sectarian opinions.

To select for this purpose individuals and families not connected with any congregation, nor already receiving visits for the like objects, from missionaries employed by other denominations of Christians.

To act as the almoner of the charity of individuals and congregations; and by the relief of distress, the introduction of destitute children into schools, and similar means, to alleviate wretchedness, and promote the comfort and improvement of the poor.

To keep a journal of his proceedings, which shall be from time to time submitted to the Committee, stating the names and addresses of the persons or families under his superintendence-the number of his visits to themthe subjects of the conversations, and the apparent results.

To prepare and deliver to the Committee at stated periods, a digested report of all his proceedings.

That the salary of the Domestic Missionary be paid out of the funds of the Association, but that his poor's purse be supplied by individual donations.

As motives to zealous co-operation in this labour of love, the Committee annex extracts from the Reports of Dr. Tuckerman to the American Unitarian Association, and likewise a part of a letter addressed by him to the Foreign Secretary of the British Association, in relation to this subject. With a portion of this we conclude our present notice, but with the intention of recurring more at large to this truly interesting matter, in our Number for July.

"I cannot tell you how much I was gratified by reading in the account which has come to us of the doings of your Association in Manchester, the proposition to establish a permanent Ministry for the poor in the large towns in England. To this Ministry, I look as the great agency by which, above all others, the moral redemption of cities is to be accomplished. In all times, cities have been the centres of the moral corruption of countries, and they will continue so to be, till suitable moral means shall be employed for their purification; and what, I ask, is known of poverty and crime in cities, but from the records of courts, and prisons, and alms-houses? And what has all the knowledge thus obtained, done to call forth any thing like the sympathy which our religion would excite in us for our poor and sinning fellow-beings? What have been the moral results even of your parliamentary investigations of these great subjects? I find no preventive or remedial measure proposed by your politicians and statesmen, other than the question of encouraging emigration, and an improvement of the parochial police. You will pardon me, I know, when I say, that I am shocked at once by the levity with which these subjects are often treated in your newspapers, and hardly less so at finding men in Parliament, and your authors, looking alone at the surface of society for the causes and cure of these terrible evils. Poverty and crime are fast outrunning the growth of population in your country, and what are those masses of poor and criminals? Are they not men and women, and children, moral beings, whose condition is to be improved

alone by an improvement of their characters; or, in other words, of their moral nature? We may do much by neglect or by oppression to make them, to a great extent, a very low order of thinking beings; but we cannot altogether undo what God has done in giving them the elements of a nature similar to our own; passions, appetites, propensities, which, if roused by vengeance and directed to crime, may make them instruments of a dreadful retributive justice. The poor, unhappily, are generally known only as they are seen in the streets, or in the houses in which they are collected that they may be in the charge of overseers, or as they are arraigned as culprits. But they should be sought out, and known in their miserable homes by those who will visit them, not merely once or twice, but often, very often, as their Christian friends. The beggars seen in streets, and in courts, and in poor-houses, are the most degraded of their class. But there are very large numbers in this class who shun the street, and who revolt from the thought of begging, and there are great numbers of the poor who are every day in danger of falling into the ranks of the debased, from the pressure of wants, a relief of which they know not where to seek, and who might be saved from this debasement by the intervention of Christian sympathy and kindness. A minister at large for the exclusive service of the poor, who will give himself wholly to the work of their salvation and happiness, may be the Christian friend of three or four hundred families, each of whom he may visit as often as once in three weeks, allowing for the extra visits he must make to those who, from sickness or other causes, require more frequent attentions from him; and if he shall go to them in the spirit of Christian respect and affection, aware of what he might himself have been, if he had lived under similar influences, he will find within himself the springs of a moral power, which will be efficient in unnumbered cases to which no municipal regulations can be extended. Through this ministry, schools may be established for the instruction of the children of the poor, and poor parents may assemble with their children in the most commodious rooms of some of their own class for social worship and religious instruction, and let the minister be provided with a poor's purse, to which the affluent may contribute, and from which he may supply the most pressing wants of those who, if unrelieved, must fall into sin."

CHRISTIAN PIONEER.

No. 59.

JULY, 1831.

Vol. V.

On Daily Prayer.-By Dr. Channing.

THE Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments agree in enjoining prayer. Let no man call himself a Christian, who lives without giving a part of life to this duty. We are not taught how often we must pray; but our Lord in teaching us to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," implies that we should pray daily. He has even said to us, "pray always;" an injunction to be explained indeed with that latitude which many of his precepts require, but which is not to be satisfied, we think, without regular and habitual devotion. As to the particular hours to be given to this duty, every Christian may choose them for himself. Our religion is too liberal and spiritual to bind us to any place or any hour of prayer. But there are parts of the day particularly favourable to this duty, and which, if possible, should be redeemed for it. On these we shall offer a few reflections.

The first of these periods is the morning, which even nature seems to have pointed out to men of different religions, as a fit time for offerings to the Divinity. In the morning our minds are not so much shaken by worldly cares and pleasures, as in other parts of the day. Retirement and sleep have helped to allay the violence of our feelings, to calm the feverish excitement so often produced by intercourse with men. The hour is a still one. The burry and tumults of life are not begun, and we naturally share in the tranquillity around us. Having for so many hours lost our hold on the world, we can banish it more easily from the mind, and worship with less divided attention. This then is a favourable time for approaching the invisible Author of our being, for strengthening the intimacy of our minds with him, for thinking upon a future life, and for seeking those spiritual aids which we need in the labours and temptations of every day.

In the morning there is much to feed the spirit of devotion. It offers an abundance of thoughts, friendly to pious feeling. When we look on creation, what a happy and

touching change do we witness. A few hours past, the earth was wrapped in gloom and silence. There seemed “a pause in nature." But now, a new flood of light has broken forth, and creation rises before us in fresher and brighter hues, and seems to rejoice as if it had just received birth from its Author. The sun never sheds more cheerful beams, and never proclaims more loudly God's glory and goodness, than when he returns after the coldness and dampness of night, and awakens man and inferior animals to the various purposes of their being. A spirit of joy seems breathed over the earth and through the sky. It requires little effort of imagination to read delight in the kindled clouds, or in the fields bright with dew. This is the time, when we can best feel and bless the Power which said, "let there be light;" which "set a tabernacle for the sun in the heavens," and made him the dispenser of fruitfulness and enjoyment through all regions.

If we next look at ourselves, what materials does the morning furnish for devout thought! At the close of the past day, we were exhausted by our labours, and unable to move without wearisome effort. Our minds were sluggish, and could not be held to the most interesting objects. From this state of exhaustion, we sunk gradually into entire insensibility. Our limbs became motionless; our senses were shut as in death. Our thoughts were suspended, or only wandered confusedly and without aim. Our friends, and the universe, and God himself were forgotten. And what a change does the morning bring with it! On waking, we find that sleep, the image of death, has silently infused into us a new life. The weary limbs are braced again. The dim eye has become bright and piercing. The mind is returned from the region of forgetfulness to its old possessions.. Friends are met again with a new interest. We are again capable of devout sentiment, virtuous effort, and Christian hope. With what subjects of gratitude, then, does the morning furnish us? We can hardly recall the state of insensibility from which we have just emerged, without a consciousness of our dependence, or think of the renovation of our powers and intellectual being, without feeling our obligation to God. There is something very touching in the consideration, if we will fix our minds upon it, that God thought of us when we could not think; that he watched over us, when we had no power to avert peril from ourselves; that he