is expressly stated in the Prospectus that " for
farther support to the Endowment by subscription,
and especially by annual subscription,
it is intended to appeal to the Public." If the
Public will disembarrass the question of any
little cobwebs that may be spun about it, and
will confine it to this, it will be faithful to its
ever generous and honest nature.

There is no reason for affecting to conceal
that the writer of these few remarks is active
in the project, and is impelled by a zealous
desire to advance what he knows to be a
worthy object. He would be false to the
trust placed in him by the friends with whom
he is associated, and to the secret experience
of his daily life, and of the calling to which he
belongs, if he had any dainty reserve in such
a matter. He is one of an order beyond which
he affects to be nothing, and aspires to be
nothing. He knows—- few men can know, he
thinks, with better reason—- that he does his
duty to it in taking this part; and he wishes
his personal testimony to tell for what it is
worth.

CAIN IN THE FIELDS.

IN the sweet green fields of the rural
districts of England, where the sun, and the
trees and the hedge-rows, distribute their
light and shade in regular succession of the
seasons; where the pure air gives means of pure
vitality to all creatures that inhale it; and
where all the objects of nature in the
surrounding scenery offer to man the purest
models of a simple life in harmony with the
fields and all that they inherit,—- must we
not, amidst such contemplations, stand
perplexed and distressed at beholding the
springing up of weeds, the most hideous
as well as most uncongenial to the soil—- and
dismayed at the utter futility and perversion
of those influences directly proffered by the
hand of a beneficent Creator?

The shady lane, scented with wild flowers
that remind us of our childhood; the winding
pathway over soft moss through the tangled
wood; the sweet-briar walk; the fresh and
breezy upland, that ever courts the light of
heaven; or the pleasant vale that seems to
dream in the noontide rays, and glimmer
with smiles in the changeful loveliness of the
setting sun: these woods, these dales, and
lanes, and lawny uplands, have they not
always been associated with love, with lovers'
glowing thoughts and sighing hopes, with
heartfelt vows and sweet caresses? But now,
what are we to feel or think, in beholding all
this reversed! How can we endure the frightful
outrage to all our earliest associations, our
tenderest and purest emotions? By what
new scale shall we measure the denizen of
the green fields, who, in the guise of an
accepted lover—- and one already bound by the
closest ties to the girl who had relied upon
his affection—- leads his confiding sweetheart
to a lonely spot—- seats himself beside her on
a green bank: the stock-dove and the blackbird,
perhaps, singing near them—- and, softly
placing one arm round her neck, as though
to kiss her, secretly passes the cord of a
damson-basket round her throat, and suddenly
strangles her!

This was the young, smooth-faced farmer,
the selfish and illiterate fiend of the fields,
who displayed no remorse for his crime, and
made no confession until all chance of escape
was gone, even out of his dazed mind, and
the day for his execution fixed. This was he,
who, when the cord was about to be passed
round his own throat, advanced with drooping
head, a ghastly paleness, closed eyes,
quivering in every limb and every joint, and
ejaculating in broken accents, " This is a faithful
saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that
Jesus Christ came into the world to save
sinners—- of whom / am the chief, of whom
/ am the chief! " It was, probably, worthy
of acceptation, in the mind of this most selfish
and cruel beast, because the person to be
saved was himself; nay, we may conjecture
that there was within him a vague,
blasphemous notion, that Our Saviour came into
the world, solely for the purpose of saving
such wretches as he—- and, as he was the
chief of wretches, then chiefly for his especial
salvation. It looks awfully like this, and
may be regarded as the matchless climax of
that intense " selfishness " which a writer
in the " Times " suggests as the fundamental
principle of his character, and which accounts
for the enormity of his crime, as
compared with the smallness of his motive. The
life of another was nothing when it stood
in the way of his least personal interest or
inconvenience. If he must suffer death for
taking care of himself, then he considers that,
in proportion to the greatness of his assumed
offence, so great is his claim to the benefits
derivable from the death of the Saviour.
And, at the last, he no more cares for, or
thinks of, the death of his victim, or the
mediation that shall be made for her, than he
thought of her love or of her agony, v/hen he
twisted the neck that bent itself to his
pretended embrace.

But, if the green fields, with all their innocent
and soothing influences, can yet produce
as by a monstrous growth such a ruffian
as this, we might not only be tempted, but
anxious, to regard it as an accident, of a
kind which the statistics of crime for
centuries might not again produce, did we
not unfortunately know that this revolting
wickedness has very recently been almost
paralleled by others which have also occurred
in hamlets and villages surrounded by pastoral
scenes. The feeling, or the want of it,
displayed by the peasantry and other country
people, on the occasion of the " execution ' of
this murderer, must not pass unnoticed.

For this interesting event everybody made
holiday. Not only the inhabitants of the
adjacent villages and towns, but the sight-