great laws of social life can no more be tampered with, with impunity, than those of nature herself. The retribution may not be perceptible at first; but year by year housewifely virtues in the humble walks of life grow more scant, and year by year domestic crime in creases. "Oh, Utopia!" I hear some one exclaim, "and would these things be amended by wives and mothers forsaking the factories to attend to the home and the family?" And I answer, out of my heart of hearts, a great yea! for by so much of care and tenderness and womanly supervision taken out of the nest wherein humanity is reared, by so much is the brood impoverished, starved, and deteriorated. Will anyone argue that the germ of human affection, which has its primal nurture in the warmth and softness of the mother's breast, can be fed, strengthened, and maintained on a diet of milk-and-water, "sugar-rag," "wabble," and what not? Yet these are the substitutes for mothers' milk, mothers' love, and mothers' nursing, that the children of factory-workwomen are too frequently put off with. Look at the statistics of children's deaths in manufacturing districts; count the proportions of infanticide to the seemingly more natural deficits; regard the large heads and weakly limbs, and uncombed hair and unwashed faces (except by tears) of the threadbare, ill-conditioned children in the purlieus of this Wolverhampton Merridale, and other streets and alleys in the neighbourhood of the great local factories; and then wait about the gates, and see the "hands" turn out, at meal times or after work-hours, and you will feelthankful that Brown-hills and Channock Chase are facts, and that local rifle corps are in fashion. The drill, the practice, and the weekly march may in some sort patch up the want of healthful, hearty, natural rearing; but out of the hardy iron "works," the craftsmen of this ancient town do not strike one as vigorous specimens of the " British Workmen." I should wonder how they could, seeing that "sleeping stuff" and rickets had been provided for many of them, in lieu of good nursing and nature's nourishment. Drink, too, has its fosterers in anvil-fires and furnaces; and these hot, dry metalliferous occupations which are the very staple of the town's trade-it holds that place in the estimation of the people, that vails do in that of servants on the stage, and off it-the man who gives the largest allowance of beer is your proper gentleman; and we were told of a certain manufacturer, whose efforts to improve his work-people were well known to us, that "Yes, he was a very good master, but not nearly so nice a gentleman as his predecessor, who hadn't a bit of pride in him, he hadn't-who, if he met any of the men in the vicinity of a public-house, thought nothing of sitting down a-drinking with them, and treating them all round, He was a gentleman of the right sort, he was-free comes a better." So we found the public spirit of the present proprietor, his encouragement of art-education in the town, his practical help in all local undertakings for improving the condition of the working people, held by some of them in less estimation than the potations and "hey fellow, well met!" of the "ancient régime." But then the appreciative capabilities of the jurymen were of the shallowest, and farther thickened and be-muddled with the sediment of much Staffordshire beer. And one does not look for the wine of wisdom in the vats. Inside the factory, where the keen eye and comprehensive grasp of the master's mind overlooked all-directed, ordered, and governed all-there were sufficient evidences that the less taste for beer or other liquors a man brought in with him to the premises the better. Every department exhibited an orderliness and almost neatness in its arrangements, that showed, if clean hands were out of question, clear heads were demanded in working hours, and a rigid and attentive industry. Without impressing us, as the sight of gigantic operations and machinery do, by the simple force of size and power, we found sufficient of interest and suggestiveness in the various processes of tin-plate-working, japanning, and the manufacture of papier maché, to ennoble henceforth such ordinary household wares as shine on kitchen shelves, and ornament our tables, and which, as a rule, are generally accepted by housewives as matters of coursemere exchanges for money, and not as representing so much brain and muscle. To realize this, one must be admitted within the doors of or some other great manufactory, and be informed of details. It is something to learn the amount of practical science and knowledge of chemistry requisite to the production of a perfect-well, let me call it by its English name-coffee-pot! one that shall extract the greatest amount of caffine, with the least expenditure of the berry. It is surprising how many M.D's and Doctors of Divinity have taken the matter in hand, and, if we remember aright, one of the latter has succeeded best, and has a vested interest in a patent cafetière. Here one learns to comprehend the progressive improvements in things so common-place as culinary appliances; how economy of time, cleanliness in use, and efficiency to their various purposes, are studied for the purchaser in the designing of them; and how this race for utility and excellence, in each after its kind, constitutes the main impetus to invention in rival factories. One likes to trace the how, and by what means the rugged metals, tried and softened in fiery furnaces, are made susceptible of the most varied forms, and capable of the most varied ornamentation. Here are original pennyworths of tinnediron, assuming Etruscan shapes, and simulating malachite in appearance, till now they are worth pounds. The designs, the pigments with which the colouring (so closely allied to the mineral) is and generous, and not over hard upon the men. composed-the imitative skill that so artificially But he died early, more the pity; and as the follows the lights and shadows and intricate saying is, 'When the old one goes, there seldom | veinings, and rich dark blobs of sullen green, into which its verdant ripples and windings | converse of all of which is seen in the labours seem to have consolidated-all these are the operations of thinkers; men who bring brains to the labour-market, and lift up by their application the sordidness of tin, or any other ware, into relationship with the arts. These and a thousand other first-class specimens of the manufacture are promoted to the show-room, or are packed in stock, or ready for departure, east, west, north, south, wherever England has colonies or commercial relations, for so far do those of the house extend. Down below, out of sight, at the rear of the great block of building, we had witnessed the manual labour of moulding, tinning, and plenishing a variety of articles coming under the generic name of tin-ware; had seen the dull iron pots and pans pass through their nominal transmutation in silvery baths of liquid tin, into which name they are thenceforth baptized. Here too, or close at hand, women were busy moulding, and baking papier maché trays and other objects of this beautiful manufacture, the primary materials of which are the very orts and refuse of the cheffonnier's sack. But it is pleasant to trace them out of the dust and decadence of rags, and chaos of pulp, through the various processes by which they are converted into forms of elegant utility or ornament; to know that the flabby layers of grey paper we have seen the workmen pasting one upon another over moulds of the objects intended to be formed, will, when dry, become one with this compact water-proof substance, hard as a board, and like that, capable of having its surfaces planed smooth, which we are shown as papier maché in its simple state. Subsequently, like some human souls in the furnace of affliction, it will have its golden virtues burnt into it, and farther be lacquered and inlaid with mother-o'pearl, or burnished with gilding, or perchance make the background for a copy of some fair picture by a modern master, and lastly receive its exquisite polish and soft deep lustre from the cool palms of women's hands. Pictorially speaking, the last process is a really pretty one, if witnessed with the advantage of a little distance, and without reference to costume pretty, from the unpremeditated attitudes and actions of the women, who, sometimes holding up the tray or waiter, or what-not with one hand, where the light may best fall upon its surface, and rubbing softly in a circle with the other, recall some classic service to the gods-a troupe of tambouring bacchantes, or of Hebrew maidens clashing cymbals in religious riot. Only if we go close, there is an end of it. We miss the vine-wreathed tresses of the first, and the fine linen and needlework of the scriptural virgins of the king's daughter, and there is only left a group of Staffordshire factory women with blue eyes and a bright colour in their clear cheeks, striving in the easiest posture for their labours to produce the rich smooth surface so characteristic of the material. But this last service, though the poetry only exists in the mind of the spectator, is clean and womanlike, and not over-difficult we should imagine. The kground of the women whose business it is to feed and stir, and tend the furnace fires that heat the ovens in which the fabric is baked. To pass by these with closed doors is an ordeal for any unaccustomed person; but to keep up and manage the fires, a salamandrine task, requiring an amount of physical strength and muscular labour that appeared to us at least equal, if it did not surpass, any masculine employment we had witnessed on the premises; but when we expressed this, we were lightly answered that "the women liked it," and that "they bore the heat better than men." One thing is certain: the women, like the pit-men, or puddlers in the iron works, are forced to compensate by drink the evaporation of the body, a fact that visits the home with a two-fold curse-the vice of the mother, and its transmission to her children. The wages of women so employed in factories, or on the pit's banks, or in furnace yards, seldom rise beyond 1s. 6d. or 1s. 8d. per day; and for this sum, the sanctity, the comfort, and economy of home are bartered, and all the higher and better instincts of womanhood suppressed and crushed. Improvidence, slatternliness, a riotous love of coarse pleasure, and of meat and drink, characterise both sexes of the working community in the Black Country. And though the spread of schools throughout the various districts may, and will doubtless, help to bring about a better order of things, all the while the girl is deprived of the influence and teaching of home, the knowledge of thrifty household ways, the kindly tending of children, and all that breeds true womanhood in her breast, so long will the men remain coarse, and rough, and under the influence of drink, brutalized, and the darksome courts and alleys of mining towns retain their evil notoriety for drunkenness, violence, oaths, and ill language, for the women are the mothers of the community, and home the birth-place and conservatory of morals. MORNING AT POMPEII.-The dead city wakes not at dawn like the living, and, though it has now half divested itself of the ashy robe that has clothed it for ages, the retreating night leaves it yet slumbering on its funeral couch. Tired to death, the tourists who saw it yesterday yet linger in their beds, and the morn that illumes the mummy city shines there upon no human face. Strange is it to see by her rosy and azure light this carcass of a city death-stricken in the midst of its pleasures, its labours, and its civilization, and which has not undergone the tardy dissolution of an ordinary ruin. You stand expecting that the masters of these perfect houses will come forth in their Greek or Roman dress; you listen for the roll of the chariot whose track is still upon the pavement; you look for the reveller to re-enter the tavern where his cup has marked a ring upon the counter. We walk in the past as though we were dreaming of it; we glance at the corners of the streets, and there an inscription in red letters announces the spectacle of the day. Only the day has gone by more than 1,700 years since! - Gautiler. THE MONKS AND THEIR DA Y S.* BY LEMOΙΝΕ. It is well, occasionally, to turn from the splendid, materialism of the present age, to the contemplation of those times which, though less brilliant than our own, have nevertheless exercised an extraordinary and permanent influence over the world's history and civilization. Perhaps there is no period which affords so interesting a study as that embraced within the ten centuries which immediately followed the fall of the Roman Empire. It was a period rich in grand memorials and noble deeds, and full of illustrious men. The pages of its history are bright with the glorious achievements of a Charlemagne, worthy successor of a Constantine and a Theodosius--with the virtues of the royal Louis, with the heroism of Alfred, and the chivalric gallantry of Richard the Lion-Hearted. These were the ages which produced a Venerable Bede, an Alcuin, a St. Bernard, an Anselm, a Thomas of Aquin, and other saintly men, whose genius, learning, and eloquence illuminated Europe. These were the times which beheld a Giotto, a Michael Angelo, a Raffaelo, a Leonardo da Vinci, and a Domenichino, whose master-pieces of painting and sculpture have been the delight of admiring millions. These were the ages of poetry, which listened to a Patrarch, a Dante, a Chaucer. These were the happy days, when the sweet monastery-bell called the contented peasants to their morning and evening devotions, and the noon-day repast; when poor-houses were unnecessary and unknown. These were the days of chivalry, when the gay and gallant knights fought in the splendid tournament to win the love of their chosen fair ones. In those warlike days, when every man who lived in the world was a soldier, the monks formed an immense army of the soldiers of peace. Buried in the narrow cells of their monasteries, their days were passed in study and in works of mercy; their nights in prayer and heavenly contemplation. A life devoted to retirement and meditation, which to many seems opposed to the natural desires of man, has its origin in the human heart. All men have felt, at some period of their lives, a powerful attraction towards solitude; and this has been particularly observed of many of those great and gifted minds who - "Have left their lofty name As lights and landmarks on the cliffs of fame." " The ancient philosophers and moralists vied with each other in praising a life of solitude. The divine Plato, in his Republic," and Epictetus, in his "Picture of Cebes," and many others, have recommended it as the last state of wisdom. The Christian religion, with its usual lovingkindness, has offered a divine sanction and an eternal reward to this natural desire which all recognize. In the primitive ages of the Church, the vast deserts of Egypt and other countries of the East were peopled with holy hermits, who fled from the frightful corruptions of luxurious cities, or from the cruel persecutions of the Roman tyrants, to lead a life of heavenly innocence and peace. The first of those illustrious solitaries was Paul of Thebais, who, despising the seductions of wealth and pleasure, retired to the desert in the bloom of early manhood. His dwelling was a grotto shaded by a palm-tree which supplied him with food, and cooled by a small rivulet which supplied him with drink. His couch was the bare rock, where he enjoyed that sweet repose which was denied to the sybarite on his bed of roses. In this deep solitude Paul lived ninety-two years, and died at the age of one hundred and thirteen. The descendants of those noble Romans who had led in their proud triumphs the vanquished princes of Asia and Africa, penetrated by the divine spirit of Christianity, abandoned a life of voluptuous indulgence; their vast and sumptuous palaces and villas became the happy retreats of distressed humanity, where the sons of the Scipios, the Fabians, and other historical families of old Rome, attended with enchanting benevolence to the wants of their poor brethren. During those centuries when the world was enslaved by imperial monsters-by a Nero, a Domitian, a Heliogabalus, and a Diocletianthe only true independence was enjoyed by the monks, whose life of dignified labour recalled to the world those glorious days of the Republic, when Cincinnatus was taken from the plough to save his country. When the magnificent Roman Empire was overrun by the countless hordes of barbarians from Northern Europe and Central Asia, the dissolution of society seemed imminent; passion, corruption, and despair filled the world; manners, laws, the arts and sciences, religion itself appeared to be on the point of irretrievable ruin. Against these formidable dangers, what could AA Christianity oppose? A few feeble monks and religious men. Full of heavenly zeal and enthusiasm, they undertook the glorious work. They taught faith and peace, liberty and charity; they spread the arts and sciences; they declared to the world the wondrous truths of the Holy Scriptures; they taught the rude barbarians the refining arts of civilized lite; and, finally, they introduced them to the matchless literature of Greece and Rome. They conquered the conquerors of Rome. The fiery Franks aud savage Goths yielded to the sweet influence of religion; the world was saved, and a new empire founded, more glorious and more extensive than the empire of the Cæsars. Then began to rise those celebrated monaste ries, filled with holy men, whose zealous labours have changed the face of Europe. Almost all the grants made to the monasteries, in the early ages of the Church, consisted of wild, waste lands, which the monks brought under cultivation. They penetrated the vast forests of France and Germany, which, by their unceasing industry, were changed into fields of golden grain and vineyards of purple fruit. The deserts of Poland and the sterile valleys of Switzerland were converted into smiling gardens. In Spain, the monks displayed the same activity. They purchased waste lands on the banks of the Tagus, near Toledo, which they covered with luxuriant vines and fragrant orange-groves. Benedict, of the illustrious house of Anicius, was the most celebrated of the early European monks. At the youthful age of fourteen he fled from the dangerous delights of Rome, and hid himself in the mountains of Italy. The saintly piety and extraordinary austerities of the young hermit in a few years drew around him a number of disciples, who formed themselves into a community and chose Benedict for their superior. In the year 540 he laid the foundation of the celebrated order of the Benedictines, at Monte Cassino in Italy. At the foot of the mount there was an amphitheatre, of the times of the Cæsars, in the midst of the ruins of the city of Casinum, so extolled by the learned Varro for the incomparable majesty of its situation. Monte Cassino commanded a magnificent view of the surrounding country. In one direction lay Arpinum, the birthplace of Cicero and Marius; in another direction the eye beheld the city of Aquinum, where Juvenal first saw the light, and which has since become more celebrated as the native place of St. Thomas. It was in this classic spot that the patriarch of the Western monks founded the seat of the monastic order. When he took possession of the place, he found some remains of paganism still lingering there. In the centre of Christianity, two hundred years after the triumph of Constantine, there was an ancient temple of Apollo, and a consecrated grove, where many of the neighbouring peasants came to sacrifice to the false deities of pagan Rome. Benedict preached the Christian religion to these be nighted people, and persuaded them to cut down the grove and to overthrow the idol. Monte Cassino was a perfect wilderness when Benedict and his companions took possession of it; but they soon made it bloom like the rose. The monks were the guardian-angels of the neighbouring poor. They fed the hungry, visited them with tender solicitude when sick, and administered the last consolations of religion to the dying. The holy Abbot was often called upon to protect them against the rude violence of the savage masters of Italy, and never were their appeals made in vain. As the rules which St. Benedict laid down for the government of his order were generally adopted by succeeding monastic institutions, it may not be amiss to give a brief resumé of them in this place. The two fundamental principles were labour and obedience. He did not con fine his religion to interior labour-meditation and prayer; but he imposed a strict obligation to engage in exterior labour-manual and literary. Each hour of the day had its particular assigned duty. Seven hours were employed in singing the praises of God, another seven in manual labour, two in study, six in sleep, and the remaining two in the necessary reflection and recreation. The diet of the monks was extremely simple. Their daily allowance consisted of twelve ounces of bread, a small portion of wine, and two dishes of vegetables-flesh meat was never eaten. Every superfluity was banished from the table. Everything in the monastery was possessed in common; individually they owned nothing-not even the writing implements which they used or the clothes which they wore. Before entering the monastery, they were obliged solemnly and irrevocably to renounce all their possessions, either to their family, to the poor, or to the monastery itself. The government established in the monasteries was purely democratic. It consisted of an abbot and a council, elected by the votes of the monks, the only recommendation being the merits of the different candidates. The abbot had the privilege, with the advice of his brethren, to designate a prior to serve as his assistant. The abbot and council conducted the ordinary affairs of the monastery; but on extraordinary occasions the whole community were called together. A monk chosen from the most worthy was especially charged with the administration of the goods of the monastery, with the distribution of food, with the care of the sick and infirm, and, in a word, with all the details of material life. The most generous and delicate hospitality was bestowed upon the poor and all strangers who visited the monastery. It was a singular sight, often witnessed in the monasteries, to see the sons of the proud patricians of Rome, and the sons of their barbarous conquerors, clothed in the humble garb of monks, mingling their devotions in the chapel, and working side by side in the field. Amid the ruins of mighty empires, the convulsions of society, and the shock of contending armies, Here was realized that happy Republic of which Plato had fondly dreamed in the academic grove. From Monte Cassino, the Benedictine order spread itself over Europe, carrying the twofold blessings of Christianity and civilization. The apostles of England and Germany were Benedictine monks. When Augustine came to Britain, the inhabitants of the country were in a state of barbarism. They acknowledged no sin but cowardice; they revered no virtue but courage. Their bravery was disgraced by its brutality. Prisoners taken in war were generally murdered, and, if spared, they became slaves for life. They appeased their horrid deities with the blood of human victims. Their notions of a future state were extremely faint and wavering; and, if the soul was destined to an immortal life, to quaff ale out of the skulls of their enemies was the reward of the virtuous; to lead a life of hunger and inactivity, the dreadful doom of the wicked. Such were the pagan Saxons. But their ferocity soon yielded to the mild entreaties of the missionaries, and their savage natures became gradually softened by the divine influence of the Gospel. In the rage of victory they learned to respect the rights of humanity; death or slavery was no longer the fate of the conquered. The new converts were distinguished for their zeal and piety. A conviction of a future state beyond the grave elevated their minds and expanded their ideas. To prepare their souls for the rapturous bliss of paradise became to many the only object of life, and every duty of religion was practised with edifying devotion. The progress of civilization kept pace with the progress of religion; both the useful and the agreeable arts were introduced; they sought every opportunity of instruction; every attainable species of knowledge was eagerly studied; so that in a few years England could boast some of the most profound and enlightened scholars of the age. Monasteries were multiplied in Great Britain. Many of the lands occupied by the monks were originally wild and uncultivated, surrounded by marshes and covered with forests. But every obstacle of nature and soil was subdued by the unwearied industry of the monks. The forests were cleared, marshes drained, roads opened, bridges built, and the waste lands reclaimed. Bountiful harvests waved on the coasts of Northumbria, luxuriant meadows started from the fens of the Girvii. Noblemen, and even kings and princes, "descended from their high estate" to assume the cowl of the monk. The wealth which they brought into the monasteries was expended in erecting splendid churches, in procuring the glorious treasures of literature, in purchasing paintings, statues, gems, and other rich ornaments, to deck the interior of the churches. The ancient civilization, which attained its most splendid development in imperial Rome, was confined exclusively to the large cities. The hundred nations, over which waved the victorious banners of the Cæsars, were taught none of the refining arts of civilized life. The Britons continued their horrid rites to Woden; the Gauls were as rude and unpolished as their ancestors were who had followed Brennus to Rome; the Scythians were not induced to abandon their wandering life; the savage spirit of the Germans was not tamed; the barbarous manners of the Dacians were not softened; and even in Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and other populous cities of the empire which boasted of their superior wealth, refinement, and civilization, it was more showy than real, more glittering than sound. Like the fruit which grows on the borders of the Dead Sea, it was fair and beautiful to the sight. but turned to ashes on the lips. The beautiful Christian virtue of charity was unknown; abominable vices were the objects of religious worship; gorgeous temples were raised in honour of the voluptuous Venus, drunken Bacchus, and other gods and goddesses of their idolatry, The superb palaces of the Roman patricians swarmed with innumerable slaves, who were ground to the dust by their imperious masters; a blow was often the return for a kindness, death often the punishment of disobedience. And yet we read of no Roman voice raised in their defence, no Roman tear of pity shed over their wretchedness. Why was the golden tongue of Cicero silent, and the polished pen of Pliny never employed in their behalf? The divine spirit of humanity was not there. Mercy, which, says the great Christian poet, "Falleth as the gentle rain from heaven, And blesseth him that gives, and him that takes," was seldom practised by the haughty masters of the ancient world. Christianity introduced a bright, beautiful, and benign civilization into the world. It taught charity, chastity, and mercy. It preached penance and mortification in the shade of the gilded palace of the sensual Nero. It asserted the divine and human rights of the downtrodden slaves, and by persevering efforts softened their hard lot, until, in the middle ages, they became the vassals or retainers of the proprietors of the feudal domains-an extremely mild type of servitude when compared with that which existed in pagan Rome. In carrying out the benevolent designs of Christianity, the monks were of immense assistance. Prompted by a generous love of mankind, they descended from their beloved monasteries to instruct the rude barbarians in the manners and customs of |