degree encouraging. We find from the last Report, which bears every mark of truthfulness, that of the number who have left their house, one-third relapse, one-third become respectable, and the remaining third positively religious. Surely such a harvest more than recompenses all their pious care. Expecting, as we must, that only a portion of professing penitents will persevere in the strait and narrow way, how thankfully, how hopefully should we gaze at this fruit of godly zeal in foreign lands, if we see two-thirds of these women reclaimed from an abandoned and profligate life, even though they may not all rise to the higher stages of strict religiousness.

As regards the constitution of this Protestant Sisterhood, it appears to be under the control of a Council of Direction, consisting of two Protestant Pastors, as president and vice-president, the Sister Directress, and from four to six ladies. There is also a Committee of Surveillance. One Pastor seems to act as a sort of Chaplain, and does not reside in the house, and one of the Sisters is as it were at the head of the family, with the title of Sister Directress. The Sisters are divided into three classes; first, the new comer is called, 'Soeur aspirante,' and remains, as it were, on trial for six months; then she is advanced to the post of Sœur adjointe,' where she remains a year, and then she is qualified to become a Deaconess. Thus there is a sort of noviciate of eighteen months. Vows are of course dispensed with, and though they are exhorted not hastily to retire, yet if they find on trial a disinclination to the work, or undertook it in a moment of enthusiasm which is not afterwards sustained, they are free to depart while they are 'aspirantes' and 'adjointes; they pay 400 francs per annum for board; afterwards board is found them, but no stipend. In short, it is wisely designed, that women of at least some private means should be received, who undertake the work solely upon spiritual grounds, without any prospect of temporal reward.

Nor is the Church of France without a similar institution. Though the frightful hurricane of the first Revolution swept away most of the Penitential Institutions of Paris, which the Church has not yet had the life or vigour to restore, it supports one effective Penitentiary, 'La Maison du Bon-Pasteur.' Of this house, Duchatelet gives a detailed account in his valuable work. From 1821 to 1833, it has received two hundred and forty-five women. We cannot exactly make out the number reclaimed. The deaths have been fearfully large, owing, as Duchatelet remarks, to its situation in the heart of Paris, and to the fact, that it is the receptacle of a class of persons whose frames have been previously shattered by the wear and tear of a

vicious life. As the observations of this humane surgeon bear upon opinions which we are about to express, we cannot forbear repeating them at once. 'Je considère comme un point impor'tant pour la santé des filles reçues dans la Maison du Refuge d'y 'introduire plus de variété dans les travaux, et surtout des occupations qui exigent du mouvement et un certain développement 'de forces; c'est ce qui me fait regretter que l'établissement de Paris ne soit pas à la campagne; qu'un vaste jardin n'y soit pas annexé, et que la culture des herbes potagères, dont la proximité de la ville assurerait le début, n'y soit pratiquée en 'grand. Je verrais dans ces travaux horticoles des éléments de santé, et par suite de la distraction qu'ils procurent, la garantie 'd'une persévérance plus générale et plus constante que celle 'qu'on observe aujourd'hui.'-Tom. ii. 575.

This Penitentiary is also conducted by a Sisterhood, and has lately thrown out a Branch institution, of which report speaks highly, at Hammersmith.

With these examples we are encouraged in desiring a holy Sisterhood to work with the Clergy, to live with the penitents, to study individual character more closely than the Clergy could possibly do, giving hints to them as to the character of the inmates, and receiving counsel from them in turn as to the mode of treatment, the degree of tenderness or severity which individual cases seem to call for.

But if such a Sisterhood should be obtained and such a House of Mercy should be set on foot, we must fly in other respects from the ways of existing Penitentiaries; we must avoid their principal mode of employing the women. We must at once discard all idea of depending on the women's work as the main support of the house; industrial operations must not be a source of anxiety; the inmates must see and feel that the chief thing in the minds of all with whom they deal is the salvation of the soul. The idea that they are in a Religious House should stand out before them in strong relief, in letters too plain and deep to be misread. Now the chief employment of the existing hospitals is washing, an employment particularly unsuited to the spiritual advancement of the inmates, but pursued, we suppose, because it pays the best. It is for this reason that the houses are commonly placed at the outskirts of large towns, the worst possible situation. If a Penitentiary becomes a large washing establishment, no wonder that it is defective as an hospital of souls. The inmates must work, we conclude, in large gangs or groups, and we thus have all the mischief of a crowd. Conversation can be carried on without much hope of controlling it, or even hearing what it is; it is of necessity a business of much noise, quite preventing any process of instruction, however

indirect. Far better is needlework, which is a quiet occupation; and did the women in little companies thus spend a portion of the day, the Sisters might be present in the several rooms, and during the work might read aloud such books as would both interest and instruct, the women themselves taking their turn when the Sister's' voice failed. The day should of course be interleaved, as it were, with more active labours; and washing might well take its turn; but still, we repeat, let it not be the principal, the engrossing, employment of the house. Indeed, such a business seems to imply the admission of none but the lower ranks of abandoned women, who are accustomed to considerable bodily labour; it is somewhat owing to this very fact that those of a higher grade have a prejudice against Penitentiaries, and regard them rather as places of contamination than reformation. We are not respecting worldly grade in such remarks; we are not speaking of an aristocracy of sinners; on the contrary, we are alluding to an unwillingness of the less sinful to be thrown with the more sinful. Original worldly rank happens in this case to be often the thermometer of the moral state; and though in one sin they all equally offend, yet we shall find in the lower walks an accumulation of sin from which the higher are mostly freed. Thus, thieving, the most coarse and gross language, oaths and blasphemies at every word, blacken the lives of the women of the lower grades. Those of the higher ranks are not so deeply or widely dyed with these additional sins; probably they have been better nurtured, have lived in a purer atmosphere before their fall, and have had educational advantages which were out of the reach of the others. Even the mode of life after their ruin makes the morals of the one descend into a lower depth; those of higher birth and bearing live more apart, are not thrown so much into crowds of like sinners, have their own apartments or abodes, and are not thus tainted by a loaded atmosphere of sin all the hours of every day; the others, alas! are forced into those crowded hives and dens of guilt, where the unceasing friction of many guilty minds quickly sinks the whole to a lower level, to a darker state of general pollution.

It seems, then, a matter of no small importance to consider the state of those who now think the door of a Penitentiary leads them into a coarse and promiscuous herd of women worse than themselves, and to adapt the employment to the physical powers of the more hopeful class who are not equal to the harder or rougher work. It is, we believe, among the higher classes of these women that the most hopeful material is to be found; and if they seek shelter in a Penitential Hospital we may be sure that the feeling of penitence drives them thither, while with the others temporary want, something approaching starvation, is often the real motive of their application.

But while we are throwing out these hints as regards the labour of the penitents, we must not forget their relaxations. More likely are we to carry on and to mature the great spiritual work, if we let the soul at times unbend and allow some relaxation to vary and cheer the penitents' day. The spirit cannot be always on the stretch; we must sometimes loosen the string for the very sake of winding it afterwards to a higher pitch; and hence we should say that among in-door recreations music might well be cultivated. Not only would it raise the spirits of those who are subject to fits of extreme depression, and quicken the sinking pulse, but it would be rendered available as a helpmate to devotion, as an aid to prayer, being an instrument of great and mysterious power in raising, in warming, in sustaining the spirit of devotion; it would enable the penitents in due time both to take a more active part in divine service, and also more truly to relish it.

The question of relaxation leads us on to the whole great question of health,-a matter worthy of deep consideration in any Penitential Institution, as viewed in its action and influence on the spiritual frame. For the soul's sake the body must not be despised. On the contrary, great pains should be used to right the outward frame, if we desire to act successfully on the inward parts; great pains must be used to restore a healthful tone to the bodily system, to strengthen and brace the nerves, and to lessen that bodily excitement and languor which are apt alternately to take possession of those who have sinned against the body, and are thus punished in the body. A life of dissipation prostrates and exhausts the bodily powers; these being weakened and disordered, act upon the mind; the mysterious sympathy between the two is painfully developed in excessive irritability and passionateness; in corresponding despair and gloom. We believe that a day of one of these persons is passed between riot and tears. All the experienced writers on the subject bear witness to the thorough derangement of the nervous system, and hence the fitful and fluctuating character of the mind. The soul in such a case has not only its own burden to bear; it is not a diseased mind in a sound body; but in addition to its own weight, it is oppressed by the disorder and wretchedness of the outward frame.

In vain, then, shall we try to bring the spirit into health, unless at the same time we seek to secure an even and healthful pulse. Anyhow we must be prepared for great and sudden changes of feeling; one day, all will be passionate sorrow; another, all coldness and unconcern; one day, hope rushing to presumption; another, desperation equally extreme. We must therefore prevent the body, as far as possible, from aiding and abetting these violent fluctuations; else animal excitement or depression,

heightening and lowering the depressed or excited mind, will make the work of true effectual repentance doubly difficult. Hence, out-of-door exercise, fresh air, bodily relaxation, good nourishing diet, must all be administered in Penitentiaries as medicines to pave the way for the proper treatment of the soul. For this purpose a Penitentiary should be removed even from the suburbs of a large town; far should we fly from London, for the sake of air and space. Mere space is a great element of success. The sense of restraint, of being under rule, must be enforced, but the sense of being cooped up in a house of bondage and captivity must be removed. Ask ourselves how we should like to be confined to a walk round the largest square of London? What would be the effect upon our spirits, if we never took a wider range all the year? There should be room to move, and grounds of some extent with varied walks, that both mind and body might be refreshed. It must be remembered that we deal with those who have known no bounds, who have been used to a restless life, and who place themselves voluntarily under control. If we wish to keep them when the first burst of penitence is over, it is only prudent, it is only right, to consider the force of habit; too strict a confinement would hardly be brooked by such spirits-nay, physically, it hardly could be borne. To invigorate the nervous system, shattered and agitated by dissolute ways, we must give, without stint, God's medicine of fresh air.

Supposing, however, that we have seen these our airy dreams and hopes fashioned in due time into a great reality, and a true Penitentiary of the Church fairly launched, what, it may be asked, is to become of the penitents who leave the house when the term of their penitential discipline is at an end? First of all, then, let us say that we must not be hasty in letting them leave. No testimonial should be given till after a stay of three years, as a general rule. It is too much the habit of existing Penitentiaries to hurry off the inmates after a few glimpses of improvement, that they may be able to satisfy a greater number of the crowd of applicants who press for admission. It is a well-meant endeavour to give as many as possible some benefit, some space for repentance; but for ourselves, we would rather admit fewer and keep them longer, in order to build them up securely on a strong foundation. Let us have fewer women and a deeper work. And we conceive that such a system is best for the penitents themselves. It is now difficult to get good places for those who leave Penitentiaries; and this difficulty is increased by want of confidence in the testimonials of the existing institutions. Testimonials furnished after too short a knowledge of the women, and too short a discipline, carry but little weight. Simply to get any place for a penitent, when her penitence is in