creasing poverty, has of itself caused many families to forsake the public worship of God, who once regularly frequented it. In fact, we may without much doubt assume that, without some measure of a sense of duty, a very poor man (especially in a large town) will scarcely be a regular worshipper in the house of God. But whence is this sense of duty to arise? How is it to be fostered among the neglected portion of our town population? The due discharge, indeed, of the pastoral care, as prescribed by the rules of the church, would (under God's blessing) produce it; but this, as we have seen, is precluded, and what have they to supply its place? They have been born and bred amid an habitual neglect of the sacred day of rest, and its blessed offices. They are but following the example of their parents, and accompanying the mass of their friends and companions when they neglect it—and they do neglect it; and are from habit unconscious of the neglect.
And yet after all that barrier has not yet been mentioned, by which the poor of our cities are most effectually excluded from the house of prayer. For if any considerable number of them should overcome all their natural and excusable reluctance, and should throng thither (as we may say, uninvited), how are they to be received? The consecrated area is partitioned, and almost every inch appropriated. We have carried the rights of property into the very sanctuary of our
