We pass minor stations and come to Teheraun. Weakened by anxiety, and the perpetual annoyance of the Turkomauns, Dr. Wolff arrived there with great difficulty. He forwarded from some distance the letter of Lord Ellenborough, which the Ameer had given him; and on reaching Teheraun, Colonel Sheil inquired of him the date of the execution of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly. Dr. Wolff, who had received an official communication on this subject from the King, did not abide by this statement, considering it to be incorrect; but on further reflection in this country, he has seen reason to believe that the date of their execution supplied by the Ameer was correct. Abdul Samut Khan, who first led him to doubt the King's exactness, had probably his own reasons for wishing to confuse the question.

And now, we ask, what is to be done to the Ameer?-Will the Dowlat (the Power), as we are emphatically termed by the Bokharese, content herself with her present position? If England does so, we repeat it, she seals her doom in Central Asia. Russia would not-Persia would not-we question whether even Turkey would content herself with simply refusing to receive an ambassador from Bokhara. There are many who think the noble energy of Captain Grover on the question Quixotic: we ? must confess we do not. The honour of his wife, in our opinion, ought not to be nearer to a man than his country. We are Tories of the Old School, entertaining proud notions of our country, and we know that the Sirkar of Hind is quite near enough to punish by the dispatch of an odd regiment or two the Ameer, whose whole available disciplined force is very small. We shall be told that the Lion rouses not his powers to wreak his might on that which is puny and weak. Still he might crush a scorpion without one jot of abatement from his imperial dignity. We shall say nothing of the conduct of the Foreign Officea" vexata quæstio;" one thing we may state, that the Queen wrote a letter, sealed with her own Sign Manual, to save Colonel Stoddart, but it arrived at its destination too late. If errors have been committed, if needless delay has occurred, if too much reliance on Persian statements-at all times questionable matters as we see no good by the further agitation of such points, we are willing to let the question rest. In so doing we offer no comment on it, still less do we give absolution to any person; but, though possessed of much information which we suspect has never yet reached the Government, we shall, though strongly tempted, abstain from its production.

Resuming our narrative: Dr. Wolff was, immediately on his arrival at Persia, introduced to the Shah, and thanked that Sove

reign warmly for a life twice preserved by the intervention of that friendly power. We pass the hardships encountered on the dreadful route from Teheraun to Tabreez and Constantinople. The kindness he experienced, the open hands and hearts that he met every where; for the attentions paid him, had he been a King, could scarcely have been greater, and might then have been of questionable sincerity. He is now in his Adopted Country, which received him in her Churches with joy, and listened to him with devout attention. The largest meeting possibly ever known at Exeter Hall heard him, hour after hour, detail his adventures with unwearying gratification.

After this brief review of the last and most dangerous of the Missionary Wolff's labours, we are naturally led to a few concluding remarks on the whole course of his life. Here, then, we have a man of first-rate powers, by birth a Jew, embracing the doctrines of the Protestant Church of England. From 1821 to 1824 he was a Missionary amongst the Jews, Mahometans and Heathens in Egypt, Persia, Khorassaun, the Crimea, Constantinople and Smyrna. In the year 1824 he returned to and was naturalized in England, but in the following year went through Egypt, Cyprus and Palestine. From 1830 to 1834 he travelled as Missionary in Greece, the Ionian Isles, Galatia, Persia, Khorassaun, Sarakhs, Bokhara, Balkh, Cabul, Simlah, Cashmere, Delhi, Agra, Cawnpore, Calcutta, Masulipatam and Bombay. In 1835 he visited Egypt, Abyssinia, Yemen, the Wahabites and Rechabites, Bombay, New York, Jersey and Washington.

In Khorassaun he was made a slave, and had his feet bastinadoed. At Madras he was seized with Asiatic cholera. At Aleppo he almost sunk into the very bosom of the earthquake that destroyed 60,000 Persians. In 1843-4-5, he was occupied on this mission to Bokhara, the results of which, in imminent peril of life and limb, are before our readers in his Book.

He has brought to bear in the service of the Church such attainments in Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and other languages, as are possessed by very few. His knowledge of Eastern customs, his peculiar facility for giving force and vigour to the types and strong figures of Eastern languages, his remarkably vivid phraseology, have been listened to by crowded congregations; and, if it be gratifying to him to know that he possesses the undoubted friendship and good-will of nearly every Crowned Head in Europe, of all our various ambassadors, and the whole corps diplomatique, of this we can assure him. Further, if the individual were to be selected who has carried Christianity farthest into the East-who has produced there a positive effectwho is known to be a sincere and noble-hearted being-moving

among men to bring them to the knowledge of the purest principles of the Gospel-illustrating that in his own wonderful, fluent and extraordinary style-Joseph Wolff is the man. A light, a glory, an honour and a grace to any community to which he attached himself yet the English Church, the richest of God's churches on earth, gave him for his support a living of £20 per annum, and after that a curacy of £60 a-year. Verily indeed the premium held out to conversion being thus little, it will excite small marvel if the Anglican Church is not a proselyting community. Probably he designs to make the sacrifice great to enhance its value? Is this wise?

There are, however, three quarters from which we do look for speedy promotion for Dr. Wolff. The first is, from that See that takes upon itself the especial charge of the Foreign Worldwe mean London. There we think it would be a graceful act on the part of the distinguished Diocesan to reward toil of this unwonted character unasked, and thus, as information has often doubtless been sought for from Dr. Wolff for the foreign objects of the See of London, the obligation would be repaid. The next is less probable than the last-the Missionary World. We fear, from the words that escaped one of its leaders, that here the chances are small. If Dr. Wolff were disposed to be eternally occupied on such points as tell at Missionary Meetings, if he were still-what we know he is NOT, inclined to wander on, they would support him; otherwise, we fear they will not. He is also, which excites some jealousy, of so high a calibre of acquirements that he dwarfs the cedars even of that grove, he is also a strong advocate of Apostolic Descent, and zealous for High-Church principles, which displeases others. He has taken his stand on Church principles from conviction, and the Church ought to reward him. The third quarter is—the Government. This we think the best. The government must remember that Dr. Wolff has done what they had not done-ascertained at the peril of his life the death of the English officers. He has done it also at great cost of money to a man who has nothing to depend on but his own exertions For though his lady has a small independence, this dies with her. Let the Government bethink them well that he has done a deed that has raised the character of Christendom, that he has shown that the spirit of Christianity and Peace will advance as far into danger as that of Turmoil and Battle. When we look on the struggle through which he has passed, on the victim that he is at present to a disease-the fearful Rishta of Bokhara-that has nearly and may yet terminate his life, we own that we should like to hear of the Government stepping from its lofty pedestal and requiting him with some of

those honours which sovereign after sovereign, through whose kingdom he has passed, has vied with the other in dispensing to him. The monster king of Bokhara even was struck at the boldness of a man who could walk into his very palace, and, alone and unarmed, demand the bones of his countrymen. Though the reply was fierce-" I will send your bones. Heard you ever of a King that sent bones to another King ?"-yet the effect was produced that Wolff required-the noble demonstration, we repeat, realized in Christendom, that an injury done, we say, to the meanest subject, is an insult to the whole community. Wolff was prepared to die, and he preferred that to failing in his mission or to faltering in his bold work. It is for the Government, unless they wish the East to think meanly of them, which Wolff has nobly redressed, to see that the " Khoob Ademee," the good man, as even the barbarous Usbecks called him, is not left to the cold adage of "Virtue is its own Reward." Be it so! happen what may, if here the Missionary, like the Apostle of old, be depressed, at least he has the unutterable satisfaction of knowing, that he shall be strong hereafter. "For such as are planted in the House of the Lord, shall flourish in the Courts of the House of our God."

207

ART. VIII.-Lords of the Soil, and Master Manufacturers. It is our purpose, in the following pages, after shortly establishing the proposition that England is not overpopulated, to consider seriatim some of the measures which have been pro posed to ameliorate the condition of our working people, and to state our own opinion of the duties which attach first to individuals, secondly, to the State. But in attempting this, we do not mean to write a regular essay on the "Condition of England question," but in a humble way to add our share to the great heap of facts and theories which its consideration during the last year has amassed.

Has then our population increased to such a degree, as to render the country incapable of maintaining it? There are more ways than one by which this problem can be solved. First, by comparing the population and acreage of other countries to those of England. Secondly, by ascertaining the quantity of land which might be, and is not yet, under cultivation, together with the average amount of foreign wheat annually imported. By applying the first test then, we discover that in Flanders, which in many of its agricultural features resembles England, the population amounts to 507 the square mile, in the Pays de Vaud to 658, Holland to 284, while England contains but 270. Jersey possesses but 40,000 acres of soil, with 47,546 inhabitants, and the Canton of Zurich 360,000 to 175,000 souls, about 2 acres to every individual; while Great Britain, with 77,394,433 acres, has a population of 26,000,000, or more than 3 acres to every soul. Mr. Alison may well exclaim, "Humanity would have no cause to regret an increase in the numbers of the species, which should cover the plains of the world with the husbandry of Flanders, or its mountains with the peasantry of Switzerland;"* thus clearly demonstrating, that unless the climate and soil of England be far less favourable to agricultural pursuits than those of the above-mentioned countries, which nobody ventures to assert, we have still "room and verge enough" to maintain our increasing population.

The second test produces a result equally satisfactory. It is now generally admitted that there are not less than five million acres of land uncultivated and cultivatable in England and Wales, besides immense tracts of a similar nature in Ireland and Scotland; estimating the produce of this land at two quarters and four bushels per acre, it would give twelve millions and a half of quarters of corn, but the annual average of * Alison on Population, vol. i. pp. 418, 423, 428.