Note 21 — THE PEOPLE’S PALACE, &c. &c.

This statement may be set down as an exaggeration of the facts. It was, however suggested to the mind of the writer, by the perusal of a striking speech of the Rev. Dr. Campbell’s, at a recent meeting in Manchester, in aid of a Jubilee Fund for the Sunday School Union. In the course of his address, he adverted to “the terrible fact” that if the clergy of all denominations, and the city missionaries, with all their converts and adherents, were removed from the great metropolis, “the blank thereby created would not be very great.” He went on to say that “adult conversions” in London and England were “a rare thing,” and to describe the class as “sealed, unapproachable, unimpressible.” He proceeded in the following strain:—“Were you to multiply your ministers, both Church and Dissent, with real evangelical men, and to build edifices so that each thousand of our adult population should command for its service—if it choose to avail itself of it—such clergymen, or minister, it would very slightly alter the case . . . I have no hesitation in saying, that, unless some other agency than the public ministration of the Word is brought actively into operation, even if we had such an assemblage of gifts and talents concentred in our preachers as the world never saw, we could not do much.” His hope lay only in the influence of Sunday Schools upon the minds of the young.