The rest of Mr. Wilberforce’s parliamentary conduct was consistent with his behaviour on this question. In debates chiefly political he rarely took a forward part: but where religion and morals were directly concerned, points on which few cared to interfere, and where a leader was wanted, he never shrunk from the advocacy of his opinions. He was a supporter of Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform; he condemned the encouragement of gambling, in the shape of lotteries established by Government; he insisted on the cruelty of employing boys of tender age as chimney sweepers; he attempted to procure a legislative enactment against duelling, after the hostile meeting between Pitt and Tierney; and on the renewal of the East India Company’s charter in 1816, he gave his zealous support to the propagation of Christianity in Hindostan, in opposition to those who, as has been more recently done in the West Indies, represented the employment of missionaries to be inconsistent with the preservation of our empire. It is encouraging to observe, that with the exception of the one levelled against duelling, all these measures, however violently opposed and unfairly censured, have been carried in a more or less perfect form. As an author, Mr. Wilberforce’s claim to notice is chiefly derived from his treatise entitled A Practical View of the prevailing religious system of professing Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country, contrasted with Real Christianity. The object of it was to show that the standard of life generally adopted by those classes, not only fell short of, but was inconsistent with, the doctrines of the Gospel. It has justly been applauded as a work of no common courage, not from the asperity of its censures, for it breathes throughout a spirit of gentleness and love, but on the joint consideration of the unpopularity of the subject and the writer’s position. The Bishop of Calcutta, in his introductory essay, justly observes, that “the author in attempting it risked every thing dear to a public man and a politician, as such—consideration, weight, ambition, reputation.” And Scott, the divine, one of the most fearless and ardent of men, viewed the matter in the same light, for he wrote, “Taken in all its probable effects, I do sincerely think such a stand for vital Christianity has not been made in my memory. He has come out beyond my expectations.” Of a work so generally known we shall not describe the tendency more at large. It is said to have gone through about twenty editions in Britain, since the publication in 1797, and more in America; and to have been translated into most European languages.