the affirmative (if he can), and generally to
ponder upon this article, and the moral that
it points.

THE VOICE OF CHEER.

FROM Heaven there conies a voice of cheer,
In sunshine and in shade;
Though oft its tones we will not hear,
When most we need their aid.
Did we but listen, we should feel
Our heavy hearts grow light;
And gather strength, in woe or weal,
To tread the path of right.

It whispers o'er the cradled child,
Fast lock'd in peaceful sleep,
Ere its pure soul is sin-beguiled,
Ere sorrow bids it weep.
It soothes the mother's ear with hope,
Like sweet bells' silver chime.
And bodies forth the unknown scope
Of dark mysterious Time.

'Tis heard in manhood's risen day,
And nerves the soul to might,
When life shines forth with fullest ray,
Forewarning least of night.
It speaks of noble ends to gain,
A world to mend by love,
That tempers strength of hand and brain
With softness of the dove.

It falls upon the aged ear,
Though deaf to human voice;
And when man's evening closes drear,
It bids him still rejoice.
It tells of bliss beyond the grave,
The parted soul to thrill;
The guerdon of the truly brave,
Who fought the powers of ill.

LITTLE RED WORKING-COAT.

LITTLE RED WORKING-COAT, saved from the
wolf that fattens in our London alleys, is now
regularly set up in business in our London streets.

The story of the little fellow is extremely
interesting when put into statistics, the form
for telling stories most popular at present.
The good fairy who has been his protector
would have been, a thousand years ago, a
lovely damsel with a gilt stick, but she
appears in the year 1851 under a character
more suited to the current taste, as the Ragged
School Shoeblack Society. In that form she
has already saved from the wolf, not simply
one Little Red Working-Coat, but more than
sixty; and she is ready and able, happily, to
befriend hundreds more.

Be acquainted with the little fellows, if you
please, under their names of Shoe-black and
Broomer. The shoe-black brushes the mud
from our boots, and makes our feet to shine;
the broomer cleans the pavement and desires
to keep the London streets unsullied, like so
many paths of honour. Broomerism is,
however, in its infancy, and the poor little
broomers, many of them, are not far from the
same stage of life; they are babies that have
fallen off the mother's lap into a gaol, and have
been, some of them, in gaol a dozen times before
their milk teeth have been shed. But chance
has brought them to the feet of the good fairy;
and the children who would struggle to be
honest are assisted prudently, and restored to
their old scene of corruption, the streets, to
invite the custom of a kindly public, each
with his red coat and blacking bottle, or his
red coat and broom. Mercuries and brassers
are to follow—quite new trades, you see; for
Little Red Working-Coat competes with
nobody, and elbows nobody out of a living. He
starts his own trade as a handy little boy, and
trusts that he shall merit patronage from a
discerning public.

There are in London more than a hundred
Ragged Schools, and the superintendent of
each school recommends to the good fairy, or
the Ragged School Shoe-black Society, those
boys who are most ready and worthy to be
trained and employed. Of more than sixty
little red coats who have been entrusted with the
blacking bottles of office, twelve have retired
from the streets into situations, seven have
emirated to Australia, nine have been dismissed
for misconduct. Their earnings during the last
summer amounted to more than five hundred
pounds; being an average for each boy of about
two shillings a day. Nearly a hundred pounds
of the whole sum was earned in Hyde Park;
where each boy might have been fully occupied
had he possessed five pots, five sets of
brushes, and five pair of red arms. As a
consequence of this good patronage, it follows
that many of the boys have hived a little
honey for the winter. One West-end capitalist
has already more than seven pounds sterling
invested in the Savings Bank.

The Little Red Working-Coats of London
are an organised brigade. They assemble for
prayers every morning, at seven o'clock, in a
house not far from Charing-cross; and to the
same place they bring their earnings every
night. During the day two inspectors are
engaged in visiting the several stations at
which the little fellows ply their trade, and
there is carried out among them the best
practicable system of education and discipline.
They have a library of pleasant books; they
attend school in the evening and every Sunday.
They are a self-supporting red republic;
and a happy red republic, very much satisfied
with the existing order of things. With old
experience of a gaol, and new experience of
human kindness, their hearts are full enough
of the child to warm under the experience of
active sympathy, and to look up to the good
fairy generally with an earnest gratitude.

The fairy, in the meantime, retains a potent
wand—a golden wand—which, in the modern
form which it assumes, we have to define as a.
round surplus of one hundred and sixty pounds.

On Lord Mayor's day, a troop of red
republicans attacked the pavement of Regent
Street with brooms, and in a short time
triumphantly swept away those enemies of
shopkeepers and foot-passengers—the dust
and mud. The enemy's flags were taken by