furnishing their minds with those sacred truths, those rules of moral and religious conduct, which are necessary to render them "wise unto salvation."

With this view it was, that The Society for promoting Christian Knowledge was first instituted. It breathes the true spirit of Christianity, and follows at an humble distance, the example of its divine Author, by diffusing the light of the Gospel more especially among the POOR. This is its peculiar province and employment: and there are two ways in which it carries this benevolent purpose into execution.

The first is, by encouraging the erection of charity schools in every part of the kingdom, and by supplying them afterwards with proper religious instructions and wholesome rules for their direction and good govern

ment.

The fruit of these its pious labours and exhortations in this city, and its neighbourhood, you have now before your eyes. You here see near five thousand children collected together from the charity schools in and about London and Westminster. A spectacle this, which is not, perhaps, to be

paralleled in any other country in the world; which it is impossible for any man of the least sensibility to contemplate without emotions of tenderness and delight; which we may venture to say, that even our Lord himself (who always showed a remarkable affection for children) would have looked on with complacency; and which speaks more forcibly in favour of this branch of the Society's paternal care and attention, than any arguments for it that words could convey to you. I shall therefore only observe on this head, that large as the number is of the charity children now present in this place, it bears but a small proportion to the whole number in the schools of Great Britain and Ireland, which exceeds forty thousand. And when you consider that this Society was the

*

* The Trustees of the charity schools obtained permission this year, for the first time, to range the children (amounting to near five thousand) in a kind of temporary amphitheatre under the dome of St. Paul's, where the service was performed, and the sermon preached, the congregation occupying the area. The effect of so large a number of children, disposed in that form, and uniting with one voice in the responses and in the psalm-singing, was wonderfully pleasing This practice has since been continued

and affecting.

original promoter, and has been the constant patron and protector of these schools, which have subsisted now for near a century; that the children educated in them are taken from the most indigent and helpless class of people; that, consequently, without these schools, they would probably have had no education at all; and that nothing is so likely to preserve them from idleness, beggary, profligacy and misery, as impressing early and strongly on their unoccupied and uncorrupted minds sound principles of piety, industry, honesty, and sobriety; you will be sensible that the Society has adopted a plan no less beneficial to the public, than conformable to the sentiments of the great Author of our Religion, in recommending charity schools as one very effectual method of "preaching the Gospel to the poor."

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But the Society goes still further than this: It does not confine its cares merely to the childhood of the poor; it follows them, with unremitted kindness, through every subsequent period of their lives. It is the guard of their youth, the companion of their

manhood, the comfort of their old age. The principal part of its employment is to provide, at a very considerable expence, and to disperse among the lower people of all ages and occupations, a very large number of Bibles, Common Prayer-books, and small tracts on a variety of religious subjects, composed purposely for their use by men of eminent piety and ability, adapted to their capacities, and accommodated to all their various spiritual wants. In these are explained to them, in the clearest and most familiar terms, the first grounds and rudiments of their faith, the main evidences and most essential doctrines of Christianity, the several duties they owe to God, their neighbour, and themselves, and the nature and benefits of the two Christian sacraments. By these also they are assisted in the service of the church, in their private devotions, in reading, understanding, and applying the Holy Scriptures: are supported under afflictions, are guarded against temptation, are fortified more especially against those vices to which the poor are most subject, and furnished with proper cautions and cautions and arguments,

to preserve them from the artifices of popery, and the delusions of enthusiasm.

This is a short sketch of the several objects to which the governing members of our Society have directed their attention, and the provision they have made for the instruction of the ignorant and the poor. Of the little treatises here alluded to, some might undoubtedly be much improved, and some, perhaps, might be spared. But many of them are excellent, the greatest part extremely useful, and calculated to do essential service to that rank of men among whom they are distributed. Nor is the benevolence of our Society restrained within the limits of this island only. Its principal object is, indeed, as it certainly ought to be, the instruction of our own poor: but it has occasionally extended its kind assistance to other countries, both neighbouring and remote. It has established schools and missions in various parts of the East Indies, for the conversion and instruction of the Heathens; and has dispersed among them many religious tracts in the Malabar language. It has carried its regard to the Greek church