lished by government; he insisted on the
cruelty of employing boys of tender age as chimney-sweepers; he
attempted to procure a legislative enactment against duelling, after
the hostile meeting between Pitt and Tierney; and on the renewal of
the East India Company's charter in 1816, he gave his zealous
support to the propagation of Christianity in Hindostan, in
opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in the West
Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be
inconsistent with the preservation of the British empire. It is
encouraging to observe that, with the exception of the one levelled
against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and
unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form.

As an author, Mr. Wilberforce's claim to notice is chiefly derived
from his treatise entitled "A Practical View of the Prevailing
Religious System of Professing Christians in the Higher and Middle
Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity." The
object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted
by those classes not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with,
the doctrines of the gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work
of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it
breathes throughout a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the
joint consideration of the unpopularity of the subject and the
writer's position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory
essay, justly observes that "the author, in attempting it, risked
everything dear to a public man and a politician as such,
consideration, weight, ambition, reputation." And Scott, the divine,
one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the
same light; for he wrote: "Taken in all its probable effects, I do
sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been
made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations." Of a
work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at
large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in
Britain, since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to
have been translated into most European languages.

In the discharge of his parliamentary duties, Mr. Wilberforce was
punctual and active beyond his apparent strength; and those who
further recollect his diligent attendance on a vast variety of
public meetings and committees connected with religious and
charitable pu