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the age of 65, and of £5. on death, and yet how few there are in comparison, who embrace the opportunity of preventing their being stigmatised as paupers, by joining this excellent Institution, and such will not be their disposition, nor will their Parents advise them to this course, as long as the present system of encouraging pauperism exists, aud therefore I again congratulate the Mildenhall Guardians on the excellent example they have set to other Boards, and to the country generally.

I am afraid of trespassing too much on your columns, and I therefore conclude by expressing a hope that the Guardians, whilst carrying into effect their resolution for the discouragment of pauperism, will unite their influence to aid the exertions of those who try to earn an honest and independent livelihood, by promoting an extension of the Allottment System, by increasing wages in proportion to the price of provisions, by facilitating the enrollment of Members of Benefit Societies, by a liberal expenditure in employment of the sums which they may save in the decreased payment of poor's rates, and by inculcating on every occasion which may offer, lessons of morality and economy, and if these necessary accompaniments of their resolution be faithfully adhered too, I do not yet despair of living to see a sturdy, honest, temperate, and independent race of Labourers, in the place of the intemperate, unthrifty, lazy, and pauperized set of men, whom we too often meet with at the present day. I am,

June, 1847.

Your obedient Servant,

AGRICOLA.

POETRY.

In Original Poetry, the Name, real or assumed, of the Author, is printed in small Capitals under the title; in Selections it is printed in Italics at the end.]

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MISCELLANY AND EXTRACTS.

THE Pagoda of Sumnaut was one of the most splendid objects of Indian superstition. Two thousand Brahmins, and numerous bands of music were devoted to its service. The lofty roof of this temple was supported by fifty-six pillars, overlaid with plates of gold, and incrusted at intervals with rubies, emeralds and other precious stones. One pendent lamp alone illumined the spacious fabric, whose light, reflected from innumerable jewels, spread a strong and refulgent lustre throughout the temple. In the midst stood Sumnaut himself, an idol composed of one entire stone, fifty cubits in height, forty-seven of which were buried in the ground, and on that spot, according to Brahminical tradition, he had been adored between four and

five thousand years. His image was washed every morning and evening with fresh water brought from the Ganges, at a distance of twelve hundred miles.

THE rays of light are small particles of matter emitted from the sun, or any luminous body, with a velocity so immense, as to enable them to move at the inconceivable rate of eleven millions of miles in a minute. Eight of these particles following each other in a second of time, or at the rate of 480 in a minute, render any point visible to the eye; yet such is the velocity of light, that those particles, notwithstanding the rapidity of their succession, will be 24,000 miles asunder.

THE atmosphere of the earth is thought to extend to about 45 miles from the surface, and its gravity is such, that a man of middling stature is computed to sustain, when the air is heaviest, a weight, pressing equally over his body, of about 14 tons, without, in the slightest degree, perceiving it.

An inhabitant of London, or the same longitude, is continually being whirled in a huge circle, equal to the circumference of the earth, at the rate of about eleven miles every minute, and in another vastly larger circle, equal to the orbit of the earth, round the sun, at the rate of about a thousand miles, in the same period of time.

"MOCKERY and ridicule," says Paley, "when exercised upon the scriptures, or even upon the places, persons and forms set apart for the ministration of religion, are inconsistent with a religious frame of mind; for as no one ever feels himself disposed to pleasantry, or capable of being diverted with the pleasantry of others, upon matters in which he is deeply interested, so a mind, intent on the acquisition of heaven, rejects with indignation every attempt to entertain it with jests, calculated to degrade or deride subjects which it never recollects but with seriousness and anxiety. Nothing but stupidity, or the most frivolous dissipation of thought, can make even the inconsiderate forget the supreme importance of everything which relates to the expectation of a future existence.

MONTHLY NOTICES.

JULY.

Middle Fen Tax payable (see advertisements in newspapers). 5th.-Dividends on several species of Stock become due. 8th.-Insurances, due at Midsummer, must be paid on or before this day.

14th.-Meeting of the County Court, at the Crown Inn, Soham. 20th. Last day for sending in claims for voting in Counties. 31st. Overseers to make out Lists of County and Borough Electors.

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INCE there is, at the present time, a strong and increasing hostility manifested in many quarters towards the Church of England, we wish to lay before our readers one or two facts in her favour which ought to be universally known. No one of her adversaries who possesses a spark of honourable or christian feeling would desire to oppose her on any other than equitable grounds, nor to raise an outcry to her disadvantage that was not founded on truth. Without, therefore, attempting to discuss the question of the lawfulness of ecclesiastical establishments, or the divine origin and apostolic order of that branch of the catholic church existing in this realm, let us simply adduce a few arguments in support of the utility of such establishments for the purposes of affording the means of grace to a nation at large. We are ready to allow, that, without an established Church, particular spots might enjoy the advantages of . Christian cultivation. But, at the same time, we believe that instead of that uniform and equally diffused ministration of the word and ordinances which is now amongst the greatest blessings of this favoured land, we should, under such circumstances, behold long and dreary tracts, where the sound of a Sabbath-bell had never been heard; and where not only no religious instruction had ever penetrated, but where the occasional Missionary would not find so much as even the desire for it, on the part of an uninformed and half-heathen population. The opponents of an established Church No. 8. Vol. I.

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frequently refer to America as a country where the knowledge of Christianity is preserved without one. But the point of fact which is the whole subject in question is,-what is the actual state of religion in America under the system which she has adopted? No one pretends that Christianity cannot exist, except where there is an established Church: the doubt is as to the state in which it will be actually found among the people at large, under a different arrangement.

Let us hear, then, the language in which their own writers express themselves on this subject; as they may be supposed to reason with better knowledge of the facts, than those of our own country are likely to possess.

Mr. Bristed, the author of the work called "America and her Resources."-a writer of unimpeachable credit, and warmly attached to the country of his birth, says,-" Full three millions of our people (that is, more than one-third of the then population of the United States) are altogether destitute of Christian ordinances; and as the population of this country increases with a rapidity hitherto unexampled in the history of nations, unless some effectual means be adopted to spread the light of the Gospel over those sections of the Union which now lie prostrate in all the darkness of unregenerated depravity, before half a century shall have elapsed, our federative republic will number within its bosom more than twenty millions of unbaptized infidels."

The other American writer from whose work we will make a brief extract is Dr. Mason, who, in speaking of the western portion of the Union observes ;-"Sanctuary they have none; they lose by degrees their anxiety for the institutions of Christ; their feeble substitutes, the small social meetings, without the minister of grace, soon die away; their Sabbaths are Pagan; their children grow up in ignorance, vice, and unbelief; their land, which smiles around them like a garden of Eden, presents one unbroken scene of spiritual desolation. In the course of one or two generations the knowledge of God is almost obliterated. We have already a population of some millions of our own colour, flesh and blood, nearly as destitute of evangelical mercies, as the savage who yells on the banks of the Missouri !"

It is a notorious fact that, with the exception of that large and rapidly increasing body in America who have retained the doctrines

and the liturgy of the English Episcopal Church, the number of orthodox Christians is becoming every day less. But speaking of the established Church simply as that, without which the knowledge of religion, if preserved at all, can only be diffused partially among the people, the extracts given above are sufficient, we think, to show that the actual condition of America affords an irresestible argument in its favour.

But it may perhaps be said that the opinion of those who desire to suppress the existence of an established Church altogether, is confined to a few persons; but that which is the subject of general complaint is the unnecessary wealth of the clergy, and the enormous expenses of the present establishment. A modern writer, whose language is as intemperate as untrue, asserts that "the revenues of the Church amount to more than eight millions a year; and that the average salaries of those of the clergy who do nearly all the ministerial work of the Church, is considerably under 150%." Now according to public documents, which may be readily examined and the laborious investigations of men, who have devoted their time to the inquiry, it appears that the revenues of the Church do not reach one third of the above sum, that the average amount of income enjoyed by the parochial clergy of England and Wales is about 1817.; and that the average annual income received by the five thousand Curates,-those of the clergy alluded to as " doing nearly all the ministerial work of the Church, "-is not more than 817. per annum. In the year 1823 there were 3,067 benefices in England not exceeding 987. per aunum, of which 422 were from 10l. to 30%.; 1207 from 30l. to 60l.; 645 from 60l. to 75l.; and 793 from 751. to 987.

But even supposing that the expenses of the present establishment were as great as its enemies desire to represent it,—on whom do these expenses fall? "Not on the poor ;-that can hardly be pretended. Not on the householders in our large towns; for they contribute nothing towards the support of the clergy, except in the shape of fees for services actually performed. Not on the farmer; for he is quite aware that what he pays to the Church is subtracted from his rent, and would be added to it were there no Church to be maintained. Not on the landowner; for if the rent charge were done away tomorrow, he cannot be so ignorant as to suppose that it would be made a present of to him. Not on the state; for

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