CURRENT LITERATURE.
.The Sixth Work, or the Charity of Moral Effort. By S. Meredith. (Jackson, Walford, and Hodder.)—Mrs. Meredith .finds six duties pre- .The Sixth Work, or the Charity of Moral Effort. By S. Meredith. (Jackson, Walford, and Hodder.)—Mrs. Meredith .finds six duties pre-
scribed in the Sermon on the Yount, and the sixth of them is that of visiting the prisoner, and making an effort towards bringing about his or her reformation. Society is beginning to recognize the obligation of bringing its Intellect as well as its parse to bear upon the discharge of this and kindred duties ; our authoress, having had considerable ex- perience in dealing with female criminals, has written the little volume
before ns to assist in the development of intelligent action in that par- ticular direction. We think that she goes much too far in looking upon a prison as simply "ordained for the purpose of affording an opportunity for the performance of an act of charity," in other words, as a place where morally sick persons are to inhale morality at the expense of the State, but we quite agree with her as to the interest and importance of the question of prison discipline, admit the indecision that pre- vails at the present day, and recognize the value of the facts that she has accumulated in the course of her experience and calls attention to in the present volume. She has written it principally in the hope of attracting the sympathy and assistance of her own sex, believing, as she does, that the only way to affect women's minds is by the action of individual sympathy. She wants more prison visitors ; their efforts, she says, sire eminently productive of good amongst the female prisoners. We know how helpless men ere in dealing with this class, and can only hope that Mrs. Meredith may enlist many recruits who, like herself, unite Christian kindliness with much prac- tical good sense.
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