One of Lord Shaftesbury’s greatest works was the promotion of ragged schools.

To these schools, established in the poorest neighbourhoods of the metropolis, came the street arabs, the poor and abandoned, and received kindness and teaching, which comforted and civilised them.  The outcasts who slept in doorways, under arches, and in all kinds of horrible and unhealthy places, were the objects of this good man’s care; and ways were found of benefiting and starting afresh hundreds of lads who would otherwise have become thieves or vagabonds in the great city.

When he was over eighty years old he was still striving for the good of others.  So much was his heart in the work that he remarked on one occasion:  “When I feel age creeping on me, and know I must soon die—­I hope it is not wrong to say it—­but I cannot bear to leave the world with all the misery in it”.

The dawn came for him in October, 1885, when in his eighty-fifth year this veteran leader was called to his rest.

For convenience I have spoken of him throughout as Lord Shaftesbury; but it may be well to mention that till he was fifty years old he was known as Lord Ashley.  Through the death of his father he became Earl of Shaftesbury in 1851.

A STATESMAN WHO HAD NO ENEMIES.

THE STORY OF W.H.  SMITH.

It is always well to remember that the man who serves his country as a good citizen, as a soldier, as a statesman, or in any other walk of life, deserves our admiration as much as the missionary or the minister of the Gospel—­each and all such are servants of the great King.

By far the greater portion of our lives is spent at the desk or the counter, in the office, shop, or field; so that it is of the first importance we should keep the strictest watch on our actions in our work as well as in our leisure moments.

One of the most successful men in commerce and politics of the century was Mr. W.H.  Smith.  Strange to say, the desires of his early days were entirely opposed to business life.  At the age of sixteen he greatly desired to proceed to one of the universities, and prepare for becoming a clergyman, but his parents being opposed to such a step he gave up the idea in deference to their wishes.

It was a great disappointment to him to do this—­yet he was able to write, “It is my duty to acknowledge an overruling and directing Providence in all the very minutest things, by being in whatever state I am therewith content.  My conclusion is, then, that I am at present pursuing the path of duty, however imperfectly; wherever it may lead, or what it may become, I know not.”

Thus did William Henry Smith see the door of the Church closed upon him with no vain regrets, but in a spirit of submission to his father’s wishes.  Writing of these days many years later, when as a Minister of the Crown he was in attendance upon her Majesty at Balmoral, he says:  “I thought my life was aimless, purposeless, and I wanted something else to do; but events compelled me to what promised to be a dull life and a useless one:  the result is that few men have had more interesting work to do”.