Of fellowship I speak fit to participate On a winter's evening, by the fireside, we have all heard tales of wild romantic love. How queens have shared the lot of low-born peasants, and how kings have elevated village maidens to a throne. Matches of this kind are mere dreams of the imagination. Let not such legends exercise a deleterious influence upon you. If you aim at things beyond your reach, you only build castles in the air, and you will spend your life in reverie. If you follow every phantom of hope that glides before your fancy, you will try to touch the stars, and waste your days without accomplishing any thing. Generally speaking, the one whose circumstances in life are similar to your own, is the one most fit to be your bride. You will frequently find your best wife in your own sphere of life. We do not say that it is impossible for unequals to be happy in married life. But instances in which unequal marriages have turned out well are rare indeed, and the odds are decidedly against their doing so. There are no rules without exceptions, but your safety will generally consist in the avoidance of both extremes. IX. While we would not have you attach yourself to deformity, we would, at the same time, caution you against marrying only for beauty. "He that loves a rosy cheek, Or from star-like eyes doth seek Gentle thoughts and pure desires, A beautiful creature is a display of the Creator's wisdom; a manifestation seldom given, but when it is made, it is a source of delight to all who behold it, and it is also a feeble intimation of what all humanity shall be when raised from the tomb and glorified by the mighty power of God. The affection of the youth enamoured of beauty must be very short lived, because its object is transient. If you intend to love only beauty, what will you do when old age comes on? "When the light of beauty is fading away, When the bright enchantment of youth is gone, And the tints that glow'd, and the eye that shone, And darted around its glance of power; When all that was bright and fair is fled," your affections will be a complete wreck if these were the only things you loved. There are not many greater follies than that of marrying a female whose beauty is her sole recommendation. What will a bright eye do for you in affliction and adversity? Will a ruddy lip and raven tresses afford you any ease when your heart is filled with thorns? Will a pretty hand or a fine bust stand in the place of an amiable disposition? Will a symmetrical and graceful figure compensate for the want of common sense? Do not be so silly as to marry a wife for the same reason that a child buys a pretty doll, or an amateur purchases a fine painting, or a splendid statue. You must seek sterling worth rather than beauty. The latter is a mere accident so far as its possessor is concerned, neither is it any guarantee for the absence of domestic vices; but the former is a heavenly endowment, an acquired gem. Beauty is a rare thing on earth, but beauty allied to sterling worth is rarer still, and therefore you cannot all of you have models of beauty for your wives. The majority of you must either marry females of average appearance or remain unmarried. X. Let there be no great disparity of years. Our ideal of the thing would be, that your own ages should be much the same, that you should serve God in company to life's close, and then go to heaven together. But it is seldom we can realize our ideal. Ages have differed widely, and yet the union has never caused a pang. Still, under any circumstances, it is a more graceful thing that your ages should be nearly equal. Under some circumstances great difference of years is most unjustifiable. For an old man to marry a young girl is most incongruous and very reprehensible. cares of a rising family, to which he is not equal, their claims upon his resources, which he cannot meet, are such as positively to prohibit his marriage. We have always considered it a very unfair conundrum that any gentleman should walk about the streets, puzzling every passenger, in guessing, whether the lady hanging on his arm, is his grandmother, his grandaughter, or his wife. The XI. Never begin a courtship which you are not prepared to terminate at the hymeneal altar. It too frequently happens that young men pay a series of special attentions to some members of the fair sex, without at all considering to what such attentions may lead. They do not intend courtship, they have no thoughts of marriage, they know not at what they are aiming. This sort of thing is continued until they find themselves in the dilemma of one who has gone too far, and they must either continue to advance or be guilty of flirtation. Many a youth has earned an evil name by this same thoughtless conduct. They meant no harm at first, but passing from one thing to another, without an evil purpose, they stigmatized themselves at last. Others have continued their thoughtless conduct still further, and entangled themselves in the toils of matrimony before they were aware. In such cases the knowledge of their folly comes too late. The dread of action for damages, dreams of all their love-letters and valentines figuring in the newspapers, have driven them to a marriage they never sought but could not honourably avoid. To enter on a courtship without the intention of marriage is as unjust to the female as it is disgraceful to you. It is to raise hopes that are never to be realized, to excite expectations that are sure to be disappointed. On both sides it prepares material for most painful retrospect; sometimes hurries to a 66 premature grave. The man that breaks a woman's heart dries up the fountains of his own peace, and carries perdition in his breast. His spirit may escape in the day of the Lord,' but if there is a Righteous Power above us, judgment will surely "come down upon his body." Young men sometimes commence courtship with the most honest intention of marriage, but when they come to be further acquainted with the lady, they find just cause to withdraw; or, in other words, they court first and afterwards find out that they never ought to have paid their addresses. Young men ought to know whether the lady is suitable before they pay her any such special attentions. Knowledge of this kind may be fairly and honourably obtained, and would frequently prevent a world of trouble and disappointment. CONCLUSION. Some married people may read these ad vices, but we do not fear that their expe rience will falsify anything we have said. It might have been well for many of them if they had acted on the advices here given. Married reader, do you secretly wish you had? Remember it is too late now. Your choosing day is over, and your only path of wisdom consists in making the best of your circumstances. We may some day or other try to say a few things, for your welfare, on the happiness of the married state. It is not unlikely that some females may read these counsels in order to ascertain what it is young men require in a wife. May we respectfully suggest that you must BE these things, not SEEM them. And now to those for whom this little book was written, we must affectionately say farewell. May Heaven, in mercy, spare you that bitterest of calamities on earth-a disastrous marriage. Statistics. OUR thinking friends, we have reason to believe, are always much pleased with our Statistical communications. Statistics are the essence of knowledge, and the basis of all sound doctrine. A sense of their importance is the first step in the march of true philosophy. Aversion to Statistics is a sure indication of intellectual childhood—a state in which imagination predominates over judgment. As manhood rises, flowers and fancies give way to solid fact and substantial reality. Like the busy bee, for some months past we have been making honey; and now that our cup is full, we have great pleasure in handing it around the circle of our friends. THE CENSUS, 1851. The equality of the sex is one of those great facts of which Christian philosophy has always made much, in its war with the votaries of Atheism; but while this fact, as indicative of plan and purpose, has served them in good stead in their endeavours to confound the infidel, the variations in Great Britain are calculated to perplex themselves. An illustration is supplied in the last Census, from which it appears that the birth of boys considerably exceeds that of girls, while the aggregate population, at any given period, is always in favour of the other sex. us examine the Return: Let The number of the male population of Great Britain was 10,386,048; of the female population, 10,735,919. The female, therefore, exceeded the males by 349,871, and the males at home were 10,223,558; consequently then, the females exceeded the males in Great Britain by 512,361. To every 100,000 females, the males were 96,741, including 1,538 males abroad, the exclusion of whom leaves 95,203 males at home. The excess of females over males was nearly the same proportionably, in 1801 and 1851: thus, in 1801, to every 100,000 males there were 103,353 females; in 1851 the females were 103,369 to the same number of males. The proportion in both periods was nearly 30 males to 31 females. This continuous excess of females is very remarkable. It is shown by the Registration Returns that, during the last thirteen years, ending 1851, 3,634,235 males, and 3,465,629 females have been born, showing an excess of males over females of 168,606; consequently, 104,865 boys were born to every 100,000 girls, and yet, on the 31st of March, 1851, there were only 96,741 males to 100,000 females, or together a difference of about seven per cent. Various reasons have been assigned for this seeming paradox. By some it is attributed to emigration; by others, to the variety of dangers and diseases to which the male population is exposed, and which the female escapes; to the more temperate habits of the females as compared to the males; to the mental anxiety which the man has to undergo beyond that of the woman. It is, perhaps, fair to assume that to some if not to all of these causes, this curious result may be attributed, in conjunction with the well-established fact, that it is more difficult to rear a male than a female child. Let us now proceed to look at the moral aspect of things in our great Metropolis, as compared with the Empire City of the United States. The National Temperance Chronicle has the following statistics of vice in London : CRIME IN LONDON. Showing a greater amount of crime and dissipation in New York, in proportion to its population, than in London. There is always difficulty attendant on this species of Statistics, and it is possible that some of the foregoing figures, if not the whole of them, are in excess; but still the approximation to truth is such as to give them a substantial value. What is more particularly to be noted is, the advantage on the side of London, notwithstanding its age, its vastness, and other circumstances which militate against morality. We know not how it is, but the people of the United States, like the people of the British Colonies generally, seem to have an inordinate appetite for intoxicating drinks. An important Article will be found in another page, from the Rev. D. T. Tyng, which will serve to illumine the dreadful theme. We shall now step abroad from the Metropolis, and look at the moral aspects of the country at large, comprising Great Britain and Ireland: CRIME IN IRELAND AND ENGLAND. A Parliamentary paper recently published contains returns of the number of committals for crime in Ireland, and in England and Wales, during each of the years from 1841 to 1852 inclusive. In Ireland there were, in 1841, 20,796 committals for crime, and of the persons committed 7,155 were unable to read and to write. This series of years up to 1851 (the return for 1852 not being yet completed) show the following numbers: 1842, persons committed, 21,186; unable to read, 7,005. 1843-committals, 20,126; unable to read, 6,096. 1844-committals, 19,448; unable to read, 5,885. 1845-committals, 16,696; unable to read, 5,297. 1846-committals, 18,492; unable to read, 6,243. 1847-committals, 31,209; unable to read, 13,598. 1848-committals, 38,522; unable to read, 16,275. 1849-committals, 41,989; unable to read, 18,034. 1850-committals, 31,326; unable to read, 14,273. And 1851-committals, 24,684; unable to read, 12,018. The centesimal proportion of those unable to read and to write to the whole was, in 1841, 34.41; and in 1851 it was 48.68. So that education in Ireland has not progressed in the last ten years. Within the same period the number of committals in England and Wales are as follows: 1841-committals, 27,760; unable to read, 9,220. 1842-committals, 31,309; unable to read, 10,128. 1843-committals, 29,591; unable to read, 9,173. 1844-committals, 26,842; unable to read, 7,901. 1845 -committals, 34,303; unable to read, 7,438. 1846-committals, 25,107; unable to read, 7,698. 1847-committals, 28,883; unable to read, 9,050. 1848-committals, 30,349; unable to read, 9,691. Ever since 1848 the state of instruction of the prisoners has been omitted in the Home Office Tables. The following years show, therefore, only the number of committals, which were-in 1849, 27,816; in 1850, 26,183; in 1851, 27,960; and in 1852, 27,510. This is a state of things anything but satisfactory. It is proper, nevertheless, to take the Table with some allowance. Criminals have not seldom pretended ignorance, with a view to mitigate their sentence. But when all due allowance has been made for this, the amount amongst us is still very great. From mere education, moreover, that is, the ability to read and write,—we expect but little in the way of morality. Till the fear of God is implanted in the human heart, nothing is done in that direction. An Empire presents an object far too large to be successfully dealt with in the way of moral analysis. The proper way is to fix upon an average locality, and to examine thoroughly into its social interior; since the results may be taken as a fair sample of the whole. We cannot do better than select the great and prosperous town of Liverpool; and the following are the reported facts: CRIME IN LIVERPOOL. The total number of offences committed in 1852 was 19,026:-murder, 6; manslaughter, 7; cutting and maiming, 23; bigamy, 3; deserting children, 4; concealing births, 3; rape, 2; indecent assaults, 9; the number of assaults on police-officers was 557. We do not appear to have attained the same eminence in the calendar of drunkenness as our sister country, Scotland, in whose metropolis 1 in every 15 of the population is said to be apprehended by the police in a state of inebriation, which renders a short period of imprisonment absolutely requisite. In Liverpool, during 1852, 3,211 "drunk and incapables' were apprehended, which is hardly as as bad as "1 in 15." 59 persons were apprehended for wilful exposure of the person, 3 for being keepers of houses of illfame, 43 for bastardy, 102 for gambling, and 30 for deserting their families. 529 robberies had been committed by pickpockets, 554 by girls of loose character, and 402 by other means. 541 robberies were committed from vessels in the docks, 359 from the dock quays, and 627 of goods from the streets. Of the number taken into custody, 11,809 were males and 7,217 females; summarily punished, 10,296; committed for trial, 522; bills ignored, 7; acquitted, 99; imprisoned, 517; transported, 93. The value of the property stolen was £14,042 12s. 8d., and of that recovered, £4,846 10s. 10d. Of the persons taken into custody on charges of felony, 3,366 males had been previously in custody and 2,211 females-425 of this total number of "old offenders" being under the age of 12. The number of prostitutes taken into custody and summarily punished for being disorderly in the streets was 937, of whom 842 were committed. The informations laid by the police were, in the town, 4,208; of these, 120 were withdrawn, 235 wrongly laid, or summonses not served, 625 acquitted, and 3,288 fined-the amount of fines being £1,663 8s. The dock informations numbered 2,809, and 2,298 offenders were fined-the fines amounting to £728 12s. It appears that there are 484 lodging-houses registered in the town, 2,999 empty houses within the borough, 33 houses in which stolen property is received, 162 old clothes shops, and 191 marine stores. The number of public-houses doing business was 1,406, of which 83 were irregular, 22 of them having music saloons. The number at present closed is 18. There is an increase in the north end of the town of 19, and a decrease in the other division of the borough of 8. 918 beerhouses do business, and of these 95 are irregular, and 59 have been added to the list since 1851. Of the 96 coffee-houses in existence 15 are irregular. Although no fresh licenses have been granted during the year the increase has been occasioned by transfers and removals, particularly from the neighbourhood of Wapping. The brothels kept by men number 113, by women 461. The total number of prostitutes is 1,706; of men residing in brothels, 262; of other houses of bad repute, 49; of houses where prostitutes lodge, 69. 44 disreputable houses have been removed by the police, but there is still an increase over the previous year of 16 houses, although the number of prostitutes has only increased from 1,703 in the previous year to 1,706. The number of professional thieves at work in Liverpool, male and female, is 384, 62 belonging to the fair sex; the occasional thieves, 106; and the suspicious characters, 90. This is one view of the subject; but there is happily another. If corruption and darkness abound, morality and light are also contending for the mastery. By way of illustration, we shall select for this purpose a town not large in numbers, but so large as to constitute no insignificant community. Let us, then, ponder the STATISTICS OF EDUCATION AT The population of Carlisle is a trifle less than 30,000. It has fourteen public literary institutions-libraries, news-rooms, and both combined-of which three are for the midIdle and wealthier classes, at a charge of a guinea a year or more to each member; and eleven for the humbler classes, of which two are at the rate of twopence, and nine at a penny a week. Of those at twopence, the Mechanics' Instituto (chiefly frequented by clerks, assistants, & ad apprentices to shopkeepers) has the lion's share of public support, is of many years' longer standing than its humbler colleagues, numbers 630 members, and has a library of 3,500 volumes, with a news-room containing 3 daily and 14 weekly papers, 6 quarterly and monthly, and 12 weekly periodicals. The Temperance News-room, at the same charge of twopence a week, is of six years' standing, has 98 members, 87 volumes, 4 daily and 10 weekly papers, and 4 magazines. Of the 9 rooms at a penny a week, 5 present a feature of peculiar interest, being entirely under the management of working men; these 5 genuine working men's reading-rooms give a total of 609 members, averaging 122 to each institution; have 2,067 volumes among them, at an average of 413 to each; have 6 daily papers, or more than one a-piece; have 43 weekly papers among them, or 9 a-piece; and 14 monthly and 41 weekly periodicals among them, or 3 and 8 respectively to each. Of the remaining 4 rooms at a penny a week, the superintendence rests with others than working men; these include 429 members and average 107; with 1,709 volumes in all, averaging 427 each; 5 daily and 21 weekly papers, being respectively 1 and 5 to each; with 8 monthly and 17 weekly periodicals, giving 2 and 4 to each. The penny rooms, taken first alone, and then with the twopenny rooms, give the following totals:-Members, 1,038 and 1,766; volumes, 3,766 and 7,363; daily papers, 11 and 18; bi-weekly and weekly papers, 69 and 93; quarterly and monthly magazines, 22 and 32; and weekly periodicals, 58 and 70. The members of these 11 cheap rooms run 6 per cent. to the entire population, and if it be supposed that some, by enrolling in more rooms than one, may be reckoned twice or oftener, it must be remembered that the other 3 of the 14 institutions have not been analysed at all. There are in Carlisle 9 public day-schools for the humbler classes, entry to which is either gratuitous or at a merely nominal charge. In these there are at this time (June, 1853), 1,853 scholars, averaging about 206 to each, and being above 6 per cent. of the entire population. There are, besides, eight public Sunday-schools, numbering in all 1,190 scholars, and averaging about 149 to each. It is not known how many of the children are counted both in the week-day and Sunday-schools; but neither are all the latter given, nor yet the grammar school, nor of course any of the numerous private or proprietary schools, some of which are very numerously attended. It is impossible to look at the foregoing facts with other than high hope. They suffice to gratify every benevolent and patriotic heart. The only drawback is, there is reason to fear that the state of things in Carlisle, so far from presenting an average, exhibits the maximum. But what has been achieved there may, and ultimately will, be achieved else. where. The pattern here presented deserves and will ultimately command imitation. All eyes at this moment are directed to Turkey, and men are eager to descry in the distance omens which may guide them in deciphering the future. Whatever darkness may still rest upon the prospects of the Turkish Empire, there can be no doubt that it presents a fabric of ill-assorted materials, which nothing can long keep together. The only chance of amalgamation and cement is the establishment of liberty, and the spread of sound Christian instruction. It is not Russian ultimatums which the Ottoman Porte has most to fear, but the numbers, and progress, and dispositions of the Christians and distinct races in European Turkey. The following statistics are deemed the most authentic: 400,000 POPULATION OF TURKEY. The number of Turks at Constantinople is Turks in European Turkey and the islands 2,600,000 Churches. 250,000 Baptist 8,791 Aggregate dations. 3,130,878 Dollars. 10,931,382 Christian 812 296,050 345,810 Congregational . 1,674 795,177 7,973,662 Dutch Reformed Armenians (Christians) at Constantinople There are also at Constantinople about 10,000 other Christians of all nations, and 20,000 Israelites, who, from hatred to the Christians, always side with the Turks against them. Among the 2,600,000 Turks of the provinces, 800,000 in Bosnia are renegade Slavonians, and almost all the Turks of Epirus are renegade Albanians. While Popery is so much in the ascendant in most kingdoms, and, we regret to say, everywhere upon the increase, it is important to know something of Protestantism. The following facts may be We find taken as substantially correct. on page 17 of Professor Eichelberger's Inaugural Address an interesting note, in which probable estimates are given of the number of Lutherans in the world. The estimates usually given are much below the actual number. The following estimates are based upon information furnished at Professor Eichelberger's request, by Dr. L. Hazelius; and from his intimate and familiar acquaintance with the Lutheran Church in Europe, as well as in this country, they may be assumed to be correct. Accord Methodist Moravian Roman Catholic Tunker Union Unitarian Universalists Minor Sects |