witnessed such a
sight of squalid wretchedness--the neighbourhood literally swarming with
children--every window of the houses around full of heads--all
indicating that lowest degradation, but many of the children had good
features and bright eyes sparkling through the encrustation of dirt. We
have no such class in Canada, and I hope we never may.

Lord Shaftesbury's remarks were of the highest type of Scriptural and
experimental truth--eminently practical and suggestive. His address to
the poor creatures, at the laying of the corner-stone of the edifice,
was full of kindness and affection--adopting even the very style of
address common among the class whom he addressed. As a specimen, his
Lordship said:--"I just heard a boy say behind me, 'which is him?' Now,
I am him; you want to see him; and I want to see you, and to talk to
you, and to do you good. We have all come here to do you good, because
we love you, and the poorer you are, and the more you suffer, the more
we wish to help you, and to do you good." He reminded me of the Saviour
going about doing good, and of the words of Job (chap. 29), "When the
ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the eye saw me it gave
witness to me, because I delivered the poor that cried, and the
fatherless, and him that had none to help him," etc. (verses 11, 13, 15,
and 16). It was to me an impressive, affecting, and, I trust, a useful
lesson.

_London, 1st May._--We attended to-day the annual meeting of the British
and Foreign Bible Society. The Report was admirably read, and was most
gratifying and encouraging. The speeches were excellent, and some parts
of them produced a wonderful effect. The Lord Bishop of Carlisle spoke
nobly and scripturally; the Dean of Carlisle spoke fervently and
affectingly; the Rev. Dr. Miller spoke very ably and effectively; but
Mr. Calvert (of Fiji mission), spoke irresistibly to the heart; and Dr.
Phillips spoke with surpassing beauty, and charming power. The latter
two are both Welshmen, and Methodists--the former a Wesleyan, and the
latter a Whitfield Welsh Methodist. The Rev. Mr. Nolan spoke with great
excellence; Lord Shaftesbury speaks as a matter of business, naturally,
simply, but with dignity, and great force.

But the speeches of clergymen to-day, as well as yesterday, painfully
impressed me with the divided, and deplorable state of the Church of
England. Indeed, I thought to-day that it was hardly in good taste, or
even politic, for cl