"neat things in opinions" are to be had. So they will always do. The moral, of course, is that those who do think, and who, by aspiration or by circumstance, are "leaders of opinion," should know whither, as well as whom, they are leading. The peculiar form which Town life is more and more assuming is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the age. We are becoming an urban nation. Our employments and interests draw us more and more into masses. The picture of a kingdom of towns, varied only by parks, hills, or commons, is indeed one as unnecessary as it is painful to contemplate. Our literature must have been burned, our most truly national pictures defaced, our music silenced, and our character despoiled of some of its best elements, before we could bear to see such an England. Brook and copse, lane and meadow, farm and spire, are words we dare not let die. But the area they adorn is becoming less, and the denizens fewer. More of the poor live in towns, and more of rich and poor work in them. But parallel with this fact is the other, that the rich as a body will work only there. The town of old time was a microcosm. The king- if it was a capital- was much there. Nobles dotted the banks of the river with their palaces, and were familiar in the streets. Retainers and apprentices fraternised, courtiers and merchants, lawyers and divines, philosophers and scholars met in Paule's or Chepe, chambers or coffee-houses, worshipped on Sunday in the same church, slept on week-days within sound of the same bells. The symposia are no more. Goldsmith would ring for Bradshaw, and Reynolds stalk off loftily to catch the 9.30. The scattered group would dot themselves down in sloppy townlets, each unit the sun of a system of sparks and glow-worms, enjoying the advantages neither of town nor country. And since, as facilities multiply without, and rents increase within, the tendency to emigrate will become enlarged, the field of speculation becomes wide. and tempting. If a large town is to become a mere nucleus of marts and stores, with a dense border of those who can get no farther, and an irregular fringe of those who can, either the march of town improvement must be stayed, or the impressive and refined influences of great human works, which to the citizen make up for the absence of nature, will be the monopoly of the humble, and we shall have to found schools of science and art for the improvement of those above them. For the greater architectural works, and whatsoever they imply, must still be in the town; churches, museums, theatres, exchanges, halls, "artibus, legibus, consiliis." But the problem grows in exigency-and whoso contributes to its solution is a true philanthropist-how may the new relations of classes thus created be best adjusted, that evil may be prevented and good accrue. The breaches of intercourse made by the conditions of modern commerce and manufactures are being widened by isolated homes; and although the humbler may find means to follow the richer, these again will flee farther still. "Out of sight, out of mind." The warehouse and noonday are not the place or the time for fraternity. Democracy itself is more accessible to Carlylean influences. The morning and evening nod, the friendly inquiry, the frank and mutually respectful interchange of ideas, the delicacy which teaches delicacy, the co-operation of the good and strong of all ranks for the benefit of the bad or weak, are theirs who meet "out of business hours," whose garden walls are not too far apart, who know the same doctors and parsons, whose voices mingle in the same churches, whose graves, alike in neighbourhood and difference, are the silent echoes of their homes. How would all this be supplied? The tendency to think less where the contact is less, or where it is under less sympathetic conditions, is one it is vain simply to deprecate or If condemn. It is natural and inevitable; we must see and hear, touch and feel, in some way, if we are to do. Nor is it to be supposed that any degree of amelioration and elevation of the humbler classes, which can for long be rationally looked for, will of itself be a remedy; for not only is it inconceivable that the elevation should be accomplished, if those who must at all events aid, are isolated; but as, under any circumstances, there will always be ranks and classes, so there will be always ends to serve by contact of great importance to humanity. If it is too much to hope that with the amelioration of the condition of the working classes, with the growth of temperance, providence, and education, may come a time when they shall not be thought undesirable neighbours, and when "cottage property" may not make "eligible villas" less so, we must look to other points of contact. the relation of neighbourhood is impracticable, what other relations remain ? That of givers and receivers of alms applies but within certain limits, and the narrower of course the better. That of visiting and visited, useful as in wise hands it is, must be expected to grow more limited in area as the homes multiply in which only the minister of religion could be an unbidden guest. And as the denizens of these should in their turn be ministrants of deeds of kindness to the less fortunate, the need of sound bonds betweeen them and the more favoured still would be the greater. The fact is, that the relation of patron and patronised, in some form or other, inevitable as it has been, and still is, is incompatible with the more brotherly relations we seek to establish, and which the altered conditions of town life may assist to prejudice. Once make it possible for gentleman and artizan to meet without an uneasy sense of there being something to get or something to guard, and though the thing will still remain to be done, a cardinal difficulty in the way of the doing will be removed. Then, or in view of it, it may may be considered whether common ground and common occasions may not be found. Our libraries and museums, our galleries and schools of art, seem to afford the means and the occasion in many ways if we are willing to address ourselves to the task. More frequent and more friendly intercourse is what we want. Already tentative things have been done. The meetings in connection with the Church Congresses, and that in London on the subject of the working classes and religious institutions, have been, very faint indeed, but perhaps real, shadows of things coming. Such movements as the United Kingdom Alliance, setting aside our opinions of the policy advocated, are valuable, for accustoming people widely separated in society to act together. And perhaps one of the best gatherings of this kind has been the recent Conference on Co-operation in Manchester, both because of its composition, and because of its topic. To keep all ground common that is already properly so- as for instance church ground; to enlarge such as admits of enlargement, and to devise new ways of common intercourse, and new paths of common action in view of new conditions; these seem to be in brief the tasks of the time which the isolating influence of town changes suggest to us. The isolation of classes is not the only effect of modern town conditions. Those whose tastes and objects are already common, meet and act only with increasing difficulty. Voices we should be glad frequently to hear, grown hoarse with busy care by day, are lost among suburban echoes at night. As the radius enlarges, and the scattering grows, the centre is more and more distant. are to come to a circumference of city-villages, each with its small life and its coteries, let us hope the time is distant. The centripetal force has not yet lost its potency. In the converse of congenial minds, the contemplation of ennobling objects, the discourse of profound or graceful If we themes, those who will may yet find both luxury and strength; in united conflict with things evil, learn skill to meet them alone; in the independent yet modest exercise of thought, nourish that desire to learn which best qualifies to teach; in the diligent use of social conditions as they are, prepare to meet well and wisely any new conditions which may arise. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man the countenance of his friend." Thus may we aid the race as it is, and assist to forge "a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race On knowledge; under whose command |