The services being over, the musical portion of the Magdalenes sang once more, the benediction was pronounced, and the congregation retired, in the exact order of a military company, to their wards, each section being under the devoted and faithful woman in charge of the several divisions.

This Institution is supported partly by the munificence of the Queen and other voluntary contributions, and partly by the work of the females themselves. None are received whose cases are not supposed to be hopeful. They are kept in the Asylum two years, are taught to work and to read, and every pains is taken to encourage them into the exercise of self-respect and a virtuous ambition. At the end of the two years, places are provided for them as domestics in good families; they are fitted out with good clothes, some money, and the present of a beautiful Bible; and if the matron, at the end of a year, hears that the graduate has behaved well and maintained her virtue, she sends her a guinea ($5,) as an encouragement for her well-doing. She informed us, however, with grief, that very many of them return to their old habits of sin. None once discharged can be received a second time.

The matron, Mrs. Cooper, informed us that there were then about one hundred in the Penitentiary, and that within the year the sales of their work had amounted to £1,049,- or about $5,200. This sum, with receipts from the crown, the nobility, &c., amounted to £2,453, or about $12,000. This sustains the establishment.

It is much to the credit of England that the rich nobility do so much as they do in charity. It is a positive truth— however the world has not generally known it, — that there is not a single want in London that is not provided for,

either by the laws, or by the institutions of charity. Why, soon after leaving this Penitentiary, we passed a very long and high building, that I should think would accommodate a thousand patients, on the walls of which were inscribed -I do not recollect the words, but am sure of the idea, -it was, "If any stranger in the city falls sick, or is in distress, and has no friend to call upon who is competent to relieve him, let him pull at this bell, (a bell pointed at upon the entrance gate,) and he will be taken care of without cost to himself." There are many such institutions all over London. The charity of London is all organized, and in this way is the safest administered. Mendicity is unnecessary and is forbidden. A policeman's hand would be upon a beggar in a moment, to lead him or her off to some place where he or she could be provided for or set at work. I have hardly seen a beggar in London. I have not seen a drunken man in London. Is not this strange? It is even so. Drunkenness there may be, but it has to keep out of sight of decent people. You are in no danger of being insulted or injured by a drunkard in the streets, by night or day. I wish as much could be said of all our republican cities and villages.

As yet I have given the reader but our forenoon's experience, on the first Sabbath in London. The afternoon was spent in Field Lane Ragged School. I must give an account of that in the next letter.

LETTER XV.

FIRST SABBATH IN LONDON

- EVENING.

Field Lane Ragged School-Lord Ashley-Gehenna of London-A Rich Church in a poor locality-Den of Thieves, the Ruins-Arches-School Room-Mottoes-Visitors from the United States-Conversation with the Pupils-A hideous Female-Disposition for the night-Miss Portal, the Benefactress-Conclusion.

LONDON, AUGUST 4, 1851.

In the last Letter some account was given of the manner and place in which the forenoon of our first Sabbath in London was passed. In this, the scenes of the evening will be related. Generally, in London the churches are not open for worship in the afternoon, but the second service for the day takes place in the evening.

Towards the close of the day, near nightfall, I started from my lodgings in Swinton street, in company with Br. Spear and daughter and Br. Preston, to go in the direction of Smithfield, in pursuit of the first Ragged School ever established in the city. It is called "The Field Lane Ragged School and Night Refuge for the Destitute," and was projected by the philanthropic Lord Ashley, M. P., nine years ago, who, passing that part of the city and witnessing the great number of haggard wretches that had no other homes than the subterranean burrows or arches that were left after the ruins of Jack Sheppard's Den of Thieves, was moved to rent a building in the neighborhood, and get as many of the miserable

children and others as possible into a school where they might receive some education and moral discipline. The world has heard the story of his Christian philanthropy. There are now 16,000 thieves and beggars collected into these Ragged Schools in London. I saw Lord Ashley in the House of Peers one day when Parliament was in session; he sat by the side of the Duke of Wellington who was the conqueror of Napoleon; but really I preferred the looks of Lord Ashley, and felt to do a readier homage to his character. He has led no armies to victory

his hands are stained with no brother's blood; but he lives to fulfil the spirit of that great Captain whose mission it was to bring "Peace on earth to men of good will."

As I have said, it was near night-fall when we set out for Field Lane Ragged School. We proceeded in an easterly direction some distance, towards a valley that lies between Holborn Hill and an eminence on the other side, on which are Smithfield, Newgate Prison and the Old Bailey. This valley is the lowest part of the city; and the great sewer under it conducts all the waste water and filth of London that are brought into it by lateral underdrains, into the Thames. This is the valley of Hinnom the Gehenna of London, as I shall show, by and by. On our way thither, as we approached this miserable locality, signs of poverty, vice and crime became rife, and we began to feel unpleasantly. It was the close of the Sabbath, working people were at leisure, the weather was clear and warm, and the inmates of the filthy dens that lined the streets, were poured out upon the sidewalks and pavements, embracing reckless men, abandoned women, and dirty, naked children of all sizes and both sexes. In the midst of this population, a splendid church arose;

These were in all hardly knowing

and as it was in time of service, we halted and entered. It was an Episcopal establishment. Three pulpits arose, one above the other, from the broad aisle to the great window, in the lowest of which sat the Clerk to say "Amen;" in the next was the Priest in his robes, to read the prayers, and in the highest sat the Bishop with his mitre, perhaps to preach perhaps to show his dignity.. Gilded canopies covered the pews of the gentry, and all around gave evidence of pride and extravagance. Publicans and sinners were not there. the streets around the rich edifice, whether there is a God or not. The religion of " the Church" could not reach them; it would be too condescending, humiliating and disreputable to go into the highways and hedges and compel such people to come in and desecrate the rich carpetings, the splendid drapery, the stained glass and the gilded stalls of this Christian temple. We stopped long enough to satisfy ourselves that if the Son of Man were now on earth, and should enter that place, he would "take a scourge of small cords and drive them all out of the temple." I do believe that pride and fashion in the church, have done more to make Infidels than all which was ever done by sceptics out of it.

We were now within a short distance of the Ruins the Gehenna of London. We passed on through a most miserable and dangerous mass of beings that filled the narrow streets, till.we came out to the open space, which is made by the demolition of all the buildings on what were once two parallel streets that run the whole length of the Valley. This constitutes an area of several acres. Here is where Jack Sheppard had his head quarters — it