In proportion to the savings effected in the subsistence-fund by a rigid administration of the legal charity, the surplus labour of our parishes will be absorbed; and if, by a wise scheme of emigration, the disproportion between our capital and labour can be still further reduced, a way will be open for the total abolition of a legal charity,—the most demoralizing agency, perhaps, which can be introduced into any state,—a curse beneath which no society can prosper. We shall then be at liberty to apply our charity wholly to that object which should now be uppermost with all the truly benevolent,—to prevent indigence instead of providing for it, in the full confidence that “accidental cases will be relieved by accidental succour.” There are many who believe that an immediate abolition of our legal charity would cause less misery than its long continuance: but there is happily no occasion to contemplate the alternative. There is a strong hope afforded by various instances of partial reformation that a way remains for us out of our difficulties,—toilsome and painful, no doubt, but practicable and safe;—a way of so rectifying the administration of our poor-laws as to give us the power of at length abolishing them. Honoured be the rulers who shall set us forward on this path; and blessed be every one who bestirs himself to remove obstructions by the substitution of a true for a spurious charity![D] ----- Footnote D: If a rebuke were needed for despondency respecting the prospects of society, it might be found in the experience of the change which a few months have wrought in the popular convictions as to the true direction of charity. Fifteen months ago, it required some resolution to give so much pain to kind hearts as was occasioned by such exposures as those contained in “Cousin Marshall,” and yet more to protest against poor-laws for Ireland. The publications of the Poor-Law Commissioners have since wrought powerfully in the right direction. Conviction has flashed from mind to mind; and now we hear from all quarters of Provident and Friendly Societies, of Emigration, of parish struggles for the rectification of abuses, of the regulation of workhouses, the shutting up of soup and blanket charities, and the revision of charitable constitutions, with a view to promote the employment of labour rather than the giving of alms. The extent of the change of opinion in the same time with regard to poor-laws for Ireland is scarcely less remarkable. On no subject has mistake been more prevalent, and never has it more rapidly given way before the statement of principles and facts. The noblest charity, after all, would be a provision for the regular statement, in a popular form, of principles and facts of like importance. When shall we have a Minister of Public Instruction who will be the angel of this new dispensation? It is for the people to say when. -----