ficulty of finding a tutor in all respects free from objection: the youths are neither instructed nor guarded with the patient watchful solicitude conformable to the obligation which the tutor has contracted, and to the stipend which he requires.

Such is occasionally the result of the combination of offices before us. But it is not the prevailing effect. The ordinary consequence is the diminution of ministerial usefulness; the preference, voluntary or involuntary, of the pupils to the parish. The diminution of ministerial use fulness, even when it is the decided purpose of the clergyman not to prefer his pupils to his parish, can scarcely fail to ensue, in most cases, if the clergyman be not a man of extraordinary zeal, strength, and determination. Attendance on the school room necessarily requires from the tutor a considerable proportion of the useable hours, if I may be allowed the term, in every day, Sundays excepted. His parish must be very small, or peculiarly circumstanced, if the daily defalcation of these hours from its minister will not be considerably disadvantageous to its spiritual interests; or if the application of a material part of the alienated time to those interests would not have been likely to produce, under the Divine blessing, extensive benefit. But the curtailment of time by no means constitutes the amount of the loss. The minister has not merely expended the hours, but has laboured in them. He has employed them in the work of tuition. They have been making unceasing demands on his faculties and on his spirits; and now dismiss bim comparatively jaded and vapid, and needing relaxation and rest, to new business and new cares, the Composition of his sermons, and the visiting of his people.

But unhappily there are two general causes, which have an inherent tendency to lead the tutor practically, however unintentionally, to give a preference to his pupils rather

than to his flock in the distribution of his attention between the two parties; a tendency so powerful, that its operation, unless it be combated with conscientious and unabating vigilance, will produce habitual and increasing evil. In the first place, the occupations of the school-room come regularly at their stated periods of the morning and of the afternoon. They do not admit of change or of procrastination. The lesson must be heard, and the exercises inspected, at the wonted hours, or the whole system of tuition is deranged, and the day is completely put out of its course and thrown into irrecoverable disorder. Hence these occupations are seldom interrupted or delayed. If any incidental business suddenly exacts a little time, that time is generally taken from the portion which tuition leaves vacant. If a visit is to be paid, if a stranger is to be received, if the pecuniary accounts of the pupils are to be drawn up, if letters are to be written to their parents, all is to be transacted in the hours not appropriated to the business of teaching. The schoolroom cannot furnish any quota.-On the other hand, the occurring act of the ministerial function (1 speak not of stated services to be performed within the walls of the church) will very frequently bear a little postponement. The sick man, whom it was intended to visit to-day, is not in danger, and may be visited to-morrow. The sermon which was to have been begun this afternoon may be commenced in the morning; and if fresh obstacles should arise, an old one may be preached. That which will bear postponement is eventually postponed. In many cases the postponement is not followed by any visible evil, and may in itself be a matter of indifference. in the mean time a habit of postponement is forming; a habit of postponing the parishioner to the pupil; a habit sliding forward from small things to greater; a habit continually recurring; a habit in

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corporating itself with the character, and ultimately perhaps eating away the substance of its ministerial usefulness, of its ministerial fidelity.

In the next place, the influence of private interest, in whatever degree it may affect the individual tutor, will commonly act upon him to the detriment of the parish. Aug. mented exertions in his clerical labours promise no particular benefit to his finances. His ecclesiastical salary is fixed; and whether he be lukewarm or strenuous in his functions, he is legally entitled to it, and receives it. But to distinguish himself by diligence and ability in the capacity of tutor, holds forth the prospect of speedy, important, and durable recompense. His reputation is elevated. Applications for admission crowd upon him. He now thinks that he can contrive to manage an additional and another additional youth. He feels himself authorised to make additions, perhaps large additions, to his terms. He forms connections with wealthy or noble patrons, through whose favour, conciliated by his successful skill and activity as the preceptor of their

children, he looks with confidence for preferment in the church.

The two occupations, then, of minister and tutor may run on together, like the two sides of a bowl, in parallel lines: but there is a bias always lodged on the same side. If the effect of that perpetual bias is to be withstood, it can only be by sted fast watchfulness and prayer. Let not the tutor deceive himself into a persuasion, that he shall deliver himself from it by employing an assistant. He may lesson his difficulties and his temptations: but a formidable amount will remain. He will constantly be in danger of devolving on that assistant the principal part, if not the whole, of the weekly and private duties of the parish, that he may give more of his own attention to his pupils. And he will uniformly know and feel that his own credit, and all the consequent benefits which he expects from its continuance and from its increase, must ultimately depend, not on the estimation in which his assistants may be held, but on the qualifications of which he shall prove himself, as a preceptor, to be perso nally possessed.

X. Y.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In the winter of 1801, died Henry G-, Esq. formerly connected with a great commercial house in the city: his name, however, never appeared in the firm. The gross amount of his property, was 200,000l. By his will, dated January, 1795, he devised 100,000l. and his house at Wimbledon, to Henry his eldest son; and to each of his four younger sons, and of his six daughters (except to his two married daughters) to each of whom was bequeathed only one half of the succeeding sum), 10,0001. each. The rest went in various legacies to indigent relations. He left no widow.

When the will was signed, the circumstances of the family, accurately known to the testator, were these. Henry, brought up to no profession, had been absent two years, on a tour through the United States. William, the second son, was junior partner, in the same house with which his father had been connected; and the affairs of which were in a most flourishing condition. George, the next, held a small office under government, but with no prospect of rising. The fourth son, Alexander, was in the navy, and had realized 6,000l. prizemoney. Alfred, the youngest, was in the church, but with no prefer

At the father's death, in 1801, Henry bad returned from America, and was living on an estate in Berkshire, which came into his possession on his marriage with an heiress. William estimated his capital at 20,0001., while his annual returns were progressively increasing. George continued in statu quo. Alexander had doubled his prize-money. Alfredremained on a curacy,and had married a young woman with a very slender fortune. Elizabeth was, in every worldly respect, happy. Caroline was left a widow, with three children. Louisa's health was rather declining; Jane, Maria, and Emily (the last having finished her education) were living at home.

In the present year, 1811, Henry and William are still borne along on the full tide of prosperity: George is yet at the desk. Alexander, by the treachery of a messmate, and by his own vices, has not only lost half of the prize-money gained in 1801; but, notwithstanding an immense capture three years since, his sum total is reduced to 7,000l. This young man lost 3,0001, at a gaming-house in one night; but endeavoured to persuade his family, that this deduction from his capital was the consequence of an unfortunate affair at Portsmouth, referring to a pecuniary transaction with the admiral of a certain fleet. Alfred has been rather embarrassed; but is on the point of succeeding to some valuable preferment. Elizabeth is dead. Caroline, by the testamentary kindness of her late husband's brother, is in circumstances

Mr. G's testamentary disposition of his property is not brought forward by me with a design to throw an atom of blame upon the individual; but to illustrate the practical injustice, which long custom, and causes far more unworthy, have made to result from the general character and operation of Wills. When a husband and father is finally determining what is to become of his possessions, when he shall have no farther use for them himself; his obvious duty seems to be, to ascertain how he may righteously divide them, so as to suit his gifts to the receivers; or, in other words, give most where most is wanted. Yet, in direct opposition to this self-evident maxim-surely self-evident to any man who conducts affairs with a serious mind it is the accredited practice of mankind, to leave behind them a certain mass of wealth, which their executors are to portion out, not in correspondence to the claims of nature and naked justice; but because inconsideration, indolence, and a dread of posthumous blame, have vanquished such claims by the overpowering authority of precedent.

I shall not attempt to enter upon the question of primogeniture farther than to observe, that where birth, rank, or a consideration equivalent to these (if such there be), really exist in a family; then I will by no means dispute the propriety, and even moral duty, of giving to the first-born all the appendages of greatness. But where no such apology does exist, a novus homo should most conscientiously weigh against his ambition, or vanity, or the blandishments of other new men, and of the dependants of both, the claims of relative and social connections,