ideal for those
whose circumstances put them out of reach of anxiety over daily bread;
it is a difficult gospel to preach to those who are living in
destitution and misery.

The character of his work soon won confidence even in the most unlikely
quarters. In June 1848 he received a round-robin signed by forty of the
most notorious thieves in London, asking him to come and meet them in
person at a place appointed; and on his going there he found a mob of
nearly four hundred men, all living by dishonesty and crime, who
listened readily and even eagerly to his brotherly words.

Several of them came forward in turn and made candid avowal of their
respective difficulties and vices, and of the conditions of their lives.
He found that they were tired of their own way of life, and were ready
to make a fresh start; and in the course of the next few months he was
able, thanks to the generosity of a rich friend, to arrange for the
majority of them to emigrate to another country or to find new openings
away from their old haunts.

But, apart from such special occasions, the work of the schools went
steadily forward. In seven years, more than a hundred such schools were
opened, and Lord Shaftesbury was unfailing in his attendance whenever he
could help forward the cause. His advice to the managers to 'keep the
schools in the mire and the gutter' sounds curious; but he was afraid
that, as they throve, boys of more prosperous classes would come in and
drive out those for whom they were specially founded. 'So long', he
said, 'as the mire and gutter exist, so long as this class exists, you
must keep the school adapted to their wants, their feelings, their
tastes and their level.' And any of us familiar with the novels of
Charles Dickens and Walter Besant will know that such boys still existed
unprovided for in large numbers in 1850 and for many years after.

Thus the years went by. He succeeded to the earldom on his father's
death in 1851. His heart was wrung by the early deaths of two of his
children and by the loss of his wife in 1872. In his home he had his
full share of the joys and sorrows of life, but his interest in his work
never failed. If new tasks were taken up, it was not at the expense of
the old; the fresh demand on his unwearied energies was met with the
same spirit. At an advanced age he opened a new and attractive chapter
in his life by his friendly meetings with the London costermongers. He
gave prizes for the bes