We further congratulate the Boston Society on its position in regard to the colporteur system. In countries where the people generally have no access to religious books, men may properly be employed by tract and Bible societies to travel, and give or sell their books. But in this country there is a better way. We have for many years watched the operations of this system; at first with much sympathy and hope, then with distrust. Our first objection is, that the publication and circulation of books are a sufficient occupation for one institution; while the missionary work is distinct and peculiar, and, to be thoroughly done, requires the superintendence of officers devoted to that work alone. The colporteur system is also very costly. Let it, then, be regarded in either of these lights. If it is purely a missionary work, we object to it as being under the direction of a publishing and book-distributing institution. But if it is regarded as purely a book-distributing agency, it requires, first, money to make the books cheap, then money to give them away. There are two methods employed by the Boston Society, free from the objection of costliness. One is the employment of simple book-venders, without cost to the Society, who support themselves from the profits of their sales, like any other merchants, leaving some profit for the Society at the same time. Besides these, there are more than two thousand Home Missionaries; that is, a band of men organized and supported by the Eastern churches to labor in the frontier States; a band of two thousand tract-distributors, to whom a regular supply of books would be one of the most welcome aids in their difficult work; men selected by the churches for their learning and religious experience, instead of a body of men of inferior religious knowledge; men set apart by the churches to the guardianship of spiritual interests, instead of strangers; men who thoroughly know their field; men who can follow up the book by other pastoral ministrations, and make the book aid these ministrations. It is true, these laborers cannot be found in every place where our people are scattered. If, then, the colporteur had been sent only where the Home Missionary cannot go, that feature of the system would have been less objectionable. But when we hear of one colporteur for the

Bible Society, and another for the Tract Society, and another for the Sunday-School Society, even in the same county, or in the county where a faithful missionary is found, we must regard it as an unwise expenditure of benevolent funds. It is not to us a satisfactory answer to the objection of costliness, that the colporteur system combines book-vending and preaching; for even in that light, experience has shown that the temptation to the colporteur to sell the largest possible number of books takes him away from the track of the "sheep wandering upon the mountains," to labor near the denser neighborhoods where purchasers are to be found. Moreover, in order to equalize the expenditure of money on this mixed agency, there should be a division of every colporteur's expenses and salary; setting to the account of business and of missionary work their respective shares of the expenses, as determined by the time spent in each. Truly, the policy of asking a poor man to pay an agent to travel and sell a book to another poor man, still more to a rich man, cannot be defended. Just so far, then, as the colporteurs are engaged in the vending of books, there is both an unfair competition with other book-venders and an unfair use of charitable money. We mean by unfairness here, not to impeach motives, but simply to exhibit the objections to a particular system, of Christian labor.

If these views are sound, they should be held up to the notice of benevolent men, that they may, as they must ultimately, modify the policy of every institution so far as it may be seen to be unwise. And every fair-minded person must welcome a candid examination of matters of so great public interest. Sudden changes in old usages are scarcely to be looked for. But no benevolent institution is so sacred that its donors may not state their objections to some features of its policy.

To pass to the more agreeable aspects of our subject, what a spectacle does this country prospectively exhibit! The rebels have appealed to God by the arbitrament of the sword to annihilate the Federal government and the unity of these States. We look confidently to God's ultimate response to the appeal. We fully anticipate his exorcising of the demons of insurrection, State sovereignty, sectional pride, and contempt for the

Puritan race. Then, what a field will open to the eye and heart and head and hand of Christian philanthropy! Here will be three and a half million of Americo-Africans; an annual influx of perhaps one million foreigners; and thirty millions of American citizens to begin the new era of American history. Passing by all other agencies, see what the press alone must do. Newspapers, school-books, and other secular works, will be multiplied under the stimulus of self-interest. But who is to look after the spiritual welfare of these millions, doubling in numbers every twenty-five years? How are they to receive the moulding of Christianity, by which alone they can be really fitted for the privileges and responsibilities of a free republic? The increase of preachers and teachers has never yet kept pace with these marching myriads; perhaps it never will. The Christian press has, therefore, a great part to act in the shaping of this people. As already remarked, no one institution, no institution directed by men of any special type of Christianity, can do the whole work. But there is room for each; and more, it may be feared, to be done, than all combined will accomplish. What endeavor can possess more profound interest to a Christian heart than that of educating the six million children now in our land, the sixty million to be here within less than a century! We must again express the deep satisfaction with which we contemplate the plans and policy of this virtually young institution. To open to the young mind the religious teachings of Nature's volume, to show it how to read God in history, to cultivate taste in connection with the religious faculties and sensibilities, is to our view a most sublime work. The managers of this Society have started well; may their career be prosperous; and may all others who can, outstrip them in the generous rivalry of benevolence.

ART. IX. The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George the Third. 1760-1860. By THOMAS ERSKINE MAY, C. B. Boston: Crosby and Nichols. 1862 -63. 2 vols. Small 8vo.

MR. MAY'S volumes cover one of the most important and suggestive periods of English history, and satisfactorily trace. the progress of the English Constitution from the death of George II. down to our own day. In the discharge of his difficult task as the historian of events still fresh in the memory of many persons, he has made abundant use of the immense mass of printed materials relating to the earlier part of this period; and of many of the later Parliamentary struggles, his position as an officer of the House of Commons must have made him a constant and attentive witness. In respect to the fulness, accuracy, and freshness of his information on every branch of his subject, he must therefore be classed with the best historians of our age. At the same time, no well-founded exception can be taken to the fairness and impartiality with which he has treated the numerous important questions discussed in his pages. His diction, beside, has a clearness and force, and an occasional animation, which ought not to be overlooked in any statement of the merits of his work. As regards thorough acquaintance with his subject, great candor in judgment, and ease and dignity of style, Mr. May's History leaves nothing to be desired; and his labors are the necessary complement to those which have given Mr. Hallam the first place in this department of literature. In one respect, however, he is perhaps justly open to criticism. Instead of following the chronological plan adopted by Mr. Hallam, he has treated his general subject under fourteen different heads, each of which refers to some specific topic, such as the "Influence of the Crown," "The House of Lords and the Peerage," House of Commons," "The Press and Liberty of Opinion,' "Liberty of the Subject." To such an arrangement there are certain obvious and valid objections, inasmuch as events which were closely connected with one another are separately considered, unless they happen to fall under the same division of

217 the History, and in some instances, as in the case of Wilkes and the North Briton, a single topic must be considered in several different chapters, and under various aspects. The difficulty of determining the exact condition of the country, and the relative amount of freedom enjoyed by the subject at any given period, is consequently much increased. On the other hand, it is certainly an advantage to be able to trace the development of the constitution and the growth of liberty in a single direction, without the necessity of traversing the whole of the broad field covered by our author's inquiries, in order to gather up all the detached notices relating to a single department of it. But waiving any further discussion of this subject, it is sufficient now to say, that for our present purpose the method and the order of topics adopted by Mr. May are the most convenient; and we gladly avail ourselves of the oppor tunity afforded by the completion of his History to take a general survey of the progress of English liberty during the last hundred years. In the execution of this design it will occasionally be necessary to refer to topics which have already been discussed at sufficient length in this journal; but for the most part our remarks will be confined to those branches of the inquiry which have not heretofore been considered in our pages.

The first four chapters of Mr. May's work are devoted to the monarchical element in the government, as considered in its relations to Parliament and to the people. In these he traces with much fulness of detail the history of the various public transactions which have enlarged or diminished the influence of the crown, and describes the legislative enactments which have limited the exercise of its prerogatives during the minority or incapacity of the sovereign, or have determined the sources and amount of the crown revenues. In considering this part of our subject, it can scarcely be necessary to remind any intelligent reader that it was the constant endeavor of George III., throughout the greater part of his long and eventful reign, to govern as far as was possible without the aid of his constitutional advisers, and to gather around himself a body of supporters who should look to the king rather than to

*See North American Review, No. 177, Art. VI.; No. 182, Art. III.; No. 184, Art. IV.; and No. 186, Art. V.