who had abandoned their homes to live in habits of profligacy were restored to their respective families, and have since afforded the most satisfactory proofs of reformation. In turning to Scotland, the Committee quote a remark of Howard, that the prisons are "old buildings, dirty and offensive, without courts, and also generally without water." Since that period but little alteration has taken place in the condition of these gaols; and there is no part of the United Kingdom in which prison discipline is so neglected as in Scotland. It is somewhat surprising, when the magistracy in other parts of the kingdom are actively engaged in the amendment of their gaols, that the discharge of these important duties should generally have escaped the attention of the authorities in Scotland. It surely cannot be said that the defective condition of the gaols in that country is unknown: the well-known work of Mr. Gurney renders ignorance on such a subject impossible. The second annual Report of the inspectors-general of Ireland is framed on very enlightened views, and replete with interesting facts. Siuce the former Report, important improvements have taken place in the Irish prisons. In many counties, either new gaols are in progress, or are about to be erected, or such additions will be made to those already in use, as are best calculated to provide a suitable remedy for the great evils which the want of sufficient prisons has occasioned. The valuable aid which the regulation of prisons has received from the superintendence of the parochial clergy cannot be too highly estimated. The law has imposed upon them a duty, in the local inspection of bridewells situated in their respective parishes, without any remuneration whatever: and the wishes of the Legislature have been realized by the discharge of this office with benevolent and disinterested zeal. Prison schools have made great progress within the last year: a male and female school are now established in almost every prison. The valuable influence of "Ladies' Associations" is also felt throughout many counties, in visiting and instructing female prisoners. In calling the attention of the public to the consideration of the second leading object of the institution-the reformation of juvenile offenders-the Committee advert, with peculiar pleasure, to the establishment of infant schools. The Committee dwell with much earnestness on the merits of these institutions, because they are in an especial manner applicable to the most indigent classes, and to a vast proportion of those whose welfare and reformation form one of the leading objects of the Society. But great as is the importance that attaches to the education of the poor, and to measures calculated to insure the prevention of crime, they do not supersede the necessity of other exertions to arrest the course of juvenile delinquency. The Committee therefore recommend the establishment of a large Penitentiary to which, upon conviction for repeated offences, boys might be sentenced for long periods, and in which punishment could be inflicted on the refractory, and habits of restraint imposed. But there are others whose slight offences would not warrant such a punishment, and whose destitute condition gives them strong claims on public sympathy. Many hundreds of these lads have either lost their parents, or have been deserted by them. Thus abandoned, they live from day to day by preying on the property of others: at night they usually sleep in the open air. Their minds are in a state of the darkest ignorance, and the grossest vice. They are very frequently brought up before the magistrates for petty offences. They are committed for short periods, and when liberated are very soon again in prison. One boy, but nine years of age, who has been under the notice of the Committee, had been eighteen times committed to the different prisons in the metropolis. On their discharge, they have other resource than the work-house: they continue pilfering, increasing in guilt as they advance in years, until their career is terminated by transportation or death. In the application of their funds on behalf of distressed boys, the Committee state that their object has not been personal relief, but moral reformation; and they have the pleasure to state that the lads admitted into the Temporary Refuge, whose cases were formerly reported, continue to give the most satisfactory proofs of amendment. Several are now filling respectable situations with great credit and usefulness, and afford unquestionable evidence of the benefit that has resulted from the establishment of the institution. During the past year a further number of distressed boys discharged from prison have been admitted. Many of these cases are of a most affecting kind. We quote a single specimen. His W. F.-aged seventeen. father and mother are dead. He was five years engaged in the commission of crime, and has been in all the prisons of the metropolis and its neighbourhood. He formed one of a gang of the most desperate juvenile thieves who infest London. He was severely flogged in Newgate, and discharged on the same day. After remaining three months in the Temporary Refuge, he was admitted into. the perma nent establishment, where he is now learning to be a shoemaker. It is hardly possible to conceive a human being more degraded in a moral point of view than this lad appeared to be on his admission. He has now been in the Refuge upwards of twelve months, and has made considerable progress in his trade. He evinces much good feeling, and has been a monitor for more than two months, discharging the duty of that office very much to the satisfaction of the superintendant. To enable the Committee to extend the plans upon which they are now acting, for the prevention of juvenile delinquency, they strongly and most justly appeal to the public liberality. The Committee, at the conclusion of another year's labour, indulge in those gratifying reflections which the further amendment of prisons is calculated to excite. The recent provisions of the Legislature are now in a course of gradual operation; and although there are exceptions to the zeal that is generally manifested-although a great proportion of the borough gaols are yet in a condition that constitutes them at once a public grievance and a national disgrace-yet improvements are visibly advancing; and there is reason to hope that further remedial measures will, if necessary, be adopted by Parliament. If indeed we may anticipate the progress of the future by the retrospect of the last few years, there is ample ground for encouragement; and we most warmly recommend the object to the best wishes, prayers, and liberality of our readers. CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. IN reporting the proceedings of its twenty-fifth year, the Committee acknowledge with gratitude to God, that, amidst partial discouragements, they have abundant ground for thanksgiving and praise. They can discover, in various parts of the earth, evident proofs, that the cause of "pure and undefiled religion" is, notwithstanding the opposition which it encounters in various ways, steadily advancing.. The leading general statements of the Report respecting the Society's funds and proceedings, have already appeared in our Number for November, p. 714: we there fore proceed to a few particulars connected with each particular mission. The Committee commence the account of their proceedings with the West-Africa Mission. In reporting the death of Sir Charles MacCarthy, the Committee notice the address of the acting Chief Justice of the colony, which, while it bears testimony to the exertions of that individual, on behalf of the temporal and spiritual welfare of those entrusted to his charge, demonstrates, by an appeal to witnesses on the spot, that these exertions were rewarded by abundant success. "Gratitude," he remarks, "is due to Sir Charles, and will always be paid to his memory; but the appeal is to facts. Look at the state of the colony when he arrived, and look at it now. Look at the difference in Freetown-in the inhabitants, in the resources, in the importance of the colony: but, above all, look at the liberated Africans and their villages. Could the gentlemen present, who have themselves seen it, have otherwise believed the change which has taken place? To say nothing of the churches, the houses, the cultivated fields, which are every where occupying what was previously a dark and impenetrable forest; look at the change in the man. Is the man who is now worshipping his God as a Christian, who daily performs all the duties of civilized and social life as a duty for which he knows him self answerable, and many of whom are now in this room as constables and as jurymen-are these the debased, degraded, ignorant beings, scarcely equal to the brute, whom British philanthropy rescued from destruction-from the hold of a slave-ship-from slavery both of body and mind? The change has been miraculous! The finger of God is here!" The arrangement between his Ma-jesty's Government and the Society, for the supply of Christian teachers for the colony of Sierra Leone, has been finally adjusted. By this arrangement, the preparation and maintenance of all the clergy employed in the colony, whether stationed at Freetown or in the country parishes, will devolve on the Society. The colonial school at Freetown, and the Christian Institution at Regent, will be supported at the pecuniary charge of the Society; while the expenses incurred by the instruction of the children in the country parishes, and by the erection of habitations for the teachers and of suitable buildings for education and religious worship, will be defrayed by Government. In order to meet, more effectually, the pressing demand for labourers in this mission, it has been deemed expedient to invite clergymen of piety and zeal to offer their services to the Society for a limited period; and the Committee trust that this appeal, for immediate aid in the important and interesting stations at Sierra Leone, will not be made in vain. Our readers are already acquainted with the many bereavements which have left several important stations in this mission in a state of comparative destitution: and which had been attended with their natural consequence, in impeding for a time the progress so auspiciously commenced, of the liberated Africans, in civilization and Christian piety and morality. Preaching and the administration of the sacraments have been necessarily very irregular, and far from commensurate to the spiritual wants of the people. It is therefore a source of thanksgiving to God, that, amidst a population recently extricated from the very depths of heathen pollution and superstition, the evils which have crept in have not been more serious. The Committee feel anxious to do all in their power to supply the wants of this mission. They are sensible that to maintain what is actually possessed is as important as to enter on new conquests. They contemplate with gratitude the conquests already achieved by the Gospel over the superstitions of a part of the native population; they feel that a promising commencement has been made in the work of evangelizing Africa. They are impressed by the conviction, that the discouragements which have lately arisen in the African Mission are chiefly and naturally to be referred to the loss of missionaries; and they confidently anticipate the removal of those discouragements, under the Divine blessing, when these losses shall be adequately supplied. Mediterranean Mission. We are particularly anxious to invite the attention of our readers to this mission, because we are not sure that its importance is in general sufficiently understood or appreciated; and from the circumstance of its operations being hitherto chiefly preparatory and prospective, they do not force themselves upon public observation so conspicuously as the Society's labours in some other quarters. For a general view of the momentous objects contemplated by means of this interesting mission, we must refer our readers to the varions notices of it in our volume, and especially to Mr. Jowett's last volume of Christian Researches, recently reviewed in our pages. On the arrival of the Rev. John Hartley at Malta, it was determined that he should proceed to Corfu, and spend some time in that and the neighbouring islands, and that his subsequent measures should be regulated according to circumstances. His report of his visit is highly encouraging. He finds the greatest readiness among the Greeks, both to promote the circulation of the Scriptures and to attend to addresses from the pulpit. He says, "It was a spectacle highly gratifying to observe an archbishop, a bishop, and a considerable number of laymen, listening to an English minister, addressing them in the language of Greece. I have heard of no sermon addressed to them, to which they have not resorted with eagerness, And it is not a few obscure individuals, who have been present on these occasions; but the heads of their church and the heads of their nation." He Mr. Jowett, after his return from Syria, had been fully and most usefully occupied in the superin tendance of the press, and in the preparation of the second volume of "Christian Researches." had also several tracts, both in Italian and in Arabic, ready for the press; and he was preparing to commence a small periodical publication, in Modern Greek, which would probably have considerable circulation; but some unavoidable circumstances had retarded the execution of his measures.. The table of contents of Mr. Jowett's Researches, which is extracted in the Report before us, contains a wide and interesting notice of the field of Christian exertion contemplated by the Mediterranean mission. It may be said to comprise the Papal States, with the nations in relation with them - Modern Greece-Turkey in Europe and Asia-Armenia, and the neighbouring regions-Persia-Syria and Palestine-Arabia-Egypt and Nubia-Abyssinia--and the Barbary States. The attention of the Committee has been of late directed to two portions, more particularly, of this wide field-Greece and Abyssinia. For the benefit of the latter the British and Foreign Bible Society has prepared the Scrip tures both in the Ethiopic, as the ecclesiastical language of country, and in the Amharic, as the chief vernacular dialect. The Four Gospels in Amharic, from the translation of Abu Rumi, procured for the Society by Mr. Jowett in Egypt, have been printed, and forwarded to Abyssinia. The Ethiopic the Scriptures are under preparation: and in aid of this work, the Church Missionary Committee have presented to the Bible Society some Ethiopic Manuscripts, purchased by Mr. Jowett at Jerusalem; among which was a valuable copy of the entire New Testament. The Committee had also made preparations for a mission, at the earliest practicable period, to Abyssinia. On the arrival from Båsle of the five Lutheran clergymen before mentioned, three of them were destined to this service; and the other two to such stations in the Mediterra nean as might appear most eligible, in reference to a connexion with Abyssinia. The great questions at issue between Christians and Mohammedans have been fully exhibited in a volume of "Controversial Tracts" recently published by professor Lee; containing a translation of Mirza Ibrahim's Arabic Tract in defence of Islamism, the three Tracts of Mr. Martyn in reply, the Rejoinder of Mohammed Ruza, with much valuable matter from the pen of the editor. This volume, it is hoped, will be of great service to Oriental missionaries. EAST-INDIA MISSIONS. The Society's proceedings in India are too numerous and miscellaneous for us to detail them at length; and many of them, especially those which respect the commencement and rapid extension of female education, have already been noticed in our pages. We shall therefore content ourselves with a few cursory extracts from the Report before us. The Calcutta Committee congratulate the Society on the accession to their numbers of the Right Reverend the Bishop of Calcutta. The personal attention paid by his Lordship to the interests of the Society, not only adds greater efficiency to its operations, but also affords additional security that their measures will be pursued in strict conformity with the principles which CHRIST. OBSERV. APP. the Church Missionary Society has always maintained. The Society's missionaries episcopally ordained bear a relation to their diocese similar to that of the clergy to their respective bishops at home. A The Society's missionaries at Calcutta are diligently pursuing their labours, and, in some branches of their work, under circumstances of great encouragement. They are fully convinced that there is no obstacle in the way of general education, but the want of agents and of increased funds. With a view to meet the feelings of the respectable natives of India, and to improve more extensively the opportunities opening for female education, a Society had been formed, as our readers are apprised, entitled, the Ladies' Society for Native Female Education in Calcutta and its vicinity, of which Lady Amherst is patroness. most interesting examination took place of the Society's Native Female Schools. Many of the women and children, it is stated, evinced a proficiency truly astonishing, considering the obstacles which they had to surmount. The first classes read the New Testament, not only with facility, but with an evident understanding of its meaning; and answered several questions put to them with a degree of intelligence and pertinence little to be expected. Mrs. Wilson had introduced the New Testament into her schools. When we bear in mind, that the project of communicating instruction to the Native Females of the East, which till recently was regarded as hopeless, is now in active operation and daily extending its range, we cannot but consider the facilities afforded for this important purpose, by the rapid diminution of prejudice as opening a most cheering prospect. The Society express their grateful acknowledg ments to God, that an entrance on this interesting path of missionary labour has been so unexpectedly 5 P |