It is but feebly that I have tried to show how such means could be used to teach spirituality to the lowest classes. It is not necessary to speak of school-lessons, lending libraries, mothers’ meetings, night-schools, temperance societies, and clubs; agencies for the good of the people which are at work in every well-organised parish; neither has mention been made of the communicants’ meetings, prayer assemblies, church services, which are food to feed and build up many of those who already recognise their true life, and strive bravely, amid adverse circumstances, to live it. We can all work at these in gladness and thanksgiving. They are not so hard to persevere with, for some result attends them. In meetings and classes there is encouragement in the regularity and the appreciation of the attendants. In services and prayer-meetings there is the knowledge that they help and strengthen the faint-hearted; but in the indirect means of helping the degraded there is little encouragement, for there can be no results. The highest work is often apparently resultless, bringing no personal thanks, no world’s applause; a failure, worthless labour, if judged by the world’s standard of work; a success, worth doing, if it open to a few, whom the usual means have failed to reach, the great secret of true being, their spiritual life; a buried life, buried but not dead. HENRIETTA O. BARNETT. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IV. _TOWN COUNCILS AND SOCIAL REFORM._[1] [1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _Nineteenth Century_ of November 1883. Mr. Bright has stated that in Glasgow 41,000 families occupy single rooms. The statement caused no surprise to those familiar with the poor quarters of our great towns; their surprise has been that the statement should cause surprise in any section of the community. It is, indeed, surprising that people should think so little about what they daily see, and should go on talking as if 20_s._ or 30_s._ a week were enough to satisfy the needs of a family’s life, and should be surprised that many persons still occupy one room, endure hardship and die, killed by the struggle to exist. It is surprising that reflection on such subjects is not more common because, when facts are stated, no defence is made for the present condition of the people. Alongside of the growth of wealth during this age there has been growth of the belief in the powers of human nature, of the belief that in all men, independent of rank and birth, there exist great powers of being. ‘Nothing can breed such awe and fear as fall upon us when we look into our minds, into the mind of man,’ expresses the experience of many who do not use the poet’s words.