66 "BEGGING your pardon, Reverend Sir," said the white-smith, "I should wish to make a remark that may give you some offence.' You are welcome," said the aged minister, "to make your remark, but I have no intention of allowing myself to take offence from any remark you may make." And as he spoke there was a calm and gentle dignity about his manner which made the man feel, in spite of himself, that it was impossible to take a liberty with his minister, for he coloured deeply, and hesitated as he said, "what I wished to say, Reverend Sir, was this, that it is quite against the interests of you gentlemen, who are parsons, to hold the opinions of the Socialists; for what will become of you and your church, when our opinions come to be generally adopted? Your opinions will be laid on the shelf." "Yes," said the old man, " I suppose such will be the case, but much depends on that word— when. However, you always talk of opinions, and you seem to suppose that I am anxious to change your opinions." "Why, yes, Sir," said the man, you must want to change my opinions, or I do not see why you should take the trouble of wishing to see me and talk to me." "It is as well," said the minister, "that you should understand me. You seem to suppose that I claim power which no man possesses, the power of changing the inward man; and you speak of a change of opinions as such a change. Now, I wish you to bear in mind, that if a man is a single-minded, honest enquirer, then it may be well to seek a change in his opinions, for a change of opinions, may lead to a change of heart and life. A man must be convinced in his nind, if he is to be reformed in his heart; but, if the man is not single-minded, if he is not honest, earnest, anxious to do what is right, I would not care to enter into any argument with him. I would decline every kind of discussion. Now, my friend, I have always considered you to be honest and single-minded, and therefore it was that I have sent for you. I should be glad to see your opinions changed, but that change which can alone influence your life, must be God's work in the heart. However, facts are RECTOR OF ST. PETER'S, CHESTER. [PRICE 3d. often more valuable than many arguments, and now I think of it, I will give you a narrative of facts which occurred within a few miles of the parish where I was residing for a time, some fifteen or sixteen years ago. "I will tell you a sad story of a man, who was, like yourself, a married man, and a father, and it is odd enough, one of the same trade, a whitesmith. The man of whom I speak was a respectable tradesman, in the city of Norwich; and considered one of the ablest working mechanics in the whole city. When the Mechanic's Institution was formed there, he became a mem ber of it, and followed his calling on scientific principles.' He was an honest man, a faithful husband, and a kind father. We are not told how, but the fact was mentioned as coming from his own lips, that one of the works of a famous, or, I should say, infamous infidel writer, was put into his hands. He studied it, and adopted its principles, and laid aside the Holy Bible, persuading himself, that it was nothing more than a cunningly devised fable, and that he was not a responsible creature." To use his own expressions. I gave up my faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.' It was about this time that a temptation assailed him. Satan, it seems, had watched his opportunity. He knew his time, and he improved it; and, alas, he succeeded, not, we hope, in destroying the wretched man both in body and soul in hell, for repentance and faith in a dying Redeemer were at the last hour mercifully vouchsafed to him: but he made the man miserable in this life, and brought him, through his sin, to a disgraceful death; proving the truth of that scripture, that 'where the fear of God is not before men's eyes, destruction and unhappiness are in their ways, and the way of peace is known no longer.' This man was, I think, one of the overseers or guardians who visited the city poor-house, and there he formed a criminal attachment with a wretched woman, whose husband was dying in the hospital-ward of an incurable disease. As he saw that from the situation of the woman, their mutual guilt would soon be discovered, and as G he feared the complaints of the dying husband, he determined to hasten his end, to get him out of the way as soon as possible; and pretending to feel a kind commiseration for the sick man, he brought him as a present, a small bag of fine wheaten flour, with which he had mixed a large quantity of arsenic, planning, and ordering that it should be kept exclusively for the sick man. As it happened, the nurse of that ward was a dishonest woman, and in the habit of purloining, and she stole a portion of the flour for her own use. The secret was discovered by the sudden and agonizing death of this wretched creature, before the intended victim had even tasted it. You may suppose what followed. Happily for us, we live in a country where, however the laws of society may be violated by the treachery and the wickedness of a man, there is a point beyond which no man can go, without finding a stop put to his offences against his neighbour by the strong arm of the law of the land. The crime was soon discovered. It was but too evident to every one that the nurse had died from poison. The whole train of evidence was so clear against the man, that he was taken up, and committed for trial, tried, found guilty, and condemned to be hanged. "In prison, and under sentence of death, the God whom he had forgotten and forsaken, was recalled to the mind of the miserable man. The disciples of our Blessed Redeemer, in the spirit of their master, visited him. And there in the agony of his spirit he openly declared, that to infidel and blasphemous publications he could trace back the guilt and disgrace to which he had been brought." "They were such works," said the aged minister, as those which you are now accustomed to read. The views of the Socialists, putting out of the question, their plans for establishing settlements, their land-buying, and house-building, &c. are, as you ought to know, and as I do know, much the same as those of 'Tom Paine,' and of the monsters of the French Revolution. You have already forsaken your God," he said with a mournful gravity, "young man, your next step will be to desert your wife." He paused; he found that he had touched a chord which had sent a sudden thrill through the heart of his companion, the man evidently quailed beneath the steadfast eye which had met his. He had not heard them, but rumours were already abroad, that the wife of the man to whom he was speaking had suffered much from the neglect and the ill-treatment of her husband, and now the old Minister remembered that he had lately seen the wife, and had been struck at the time by the expression of her pale anxious face. "You may answer my question, or not, as you please," said the Pastor, but having united you in Holy Wedlock with your wife, who was then one of the most pleasing and modest young women I ever saw, having heard you promise as in the presense of God to be true to her, and to love her, and to take her for better and for worse, and indeed that nothing but death should part you, I have a right before God, and one which I will never consent to give up, to ask such a question, Have you not a clear recollection of a certain passage in Mr. Owen's work?" The old man took up a book which lay on his table, and opening it at one of the places where a mark had been put, he read aloud, "Men and women, by the laws of many countries, are made solemnly to promise that they will love each other to the termination of their lives, and yet neither the one nor the other can know that it will be in their power to perform the promise for one day. Where is now the man or woman, who has committed this moral perjury, who knew certainly at the time of making the vow whether they would be able to love each other for an hour? And how much misery has this error produced? How much happiness has it destroyed?" "You remember this passage, do you not?" said the Pastor, looking up from the book, and looking the man full in the face. Why, yes, sir, I certainly do." "Has it ever occupied your thoughts with respect to your own own marriage state?" "I do not ask for any reply in words," said the Pastor, "your look at this moment answers me." tent. "Hear the end of my story. John Stratford, the man of whom I was speaking, became, so far as man can judge, a sincere peni He owned the justice of his sentence, and prepared to die. He was a man of great bodily nerve and courage, and he did not appear to fear the death of the body, but was at times in deep agony of spirit about his soul. I know that there is but one hope for me,' he said, and that is through the blood of Christ.' I would have you consider the story of this man," said the aged Minister, "he was an adulterer and a murderer, and he himself traced back his crimes to his having given up the word of God, the house of God, and the day of God. The new opinions which he had taken up allowed him to break through all the wise and good restraints of decency and morals. He lived among the gamblers and drunkards, and other bad company. But in the chapel he addressed the other prisoners, and entreated them never to give up the Bible. He made the Chaplain promise him that he would go to his house, and burn an infidel work, which was concealed in a drawer there, that it never might fall into his children's hands, and produce the same effects on their minds which it had done on his own. Now, my friend, up, the case of this man is one of great importance, as a case in point. He was a man of superior intelligence, and of superior education, and I repeat it, he traced back the crimes of murder and adultery, which he confessed, to the false views which he had taken when, to use his own expression, he gave up the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a fact, which makes his story peculiarly affecting, that, being a very clever and scientific workman, he had invented an improvement in the new drop, at Norwich, and he was the first man who made the trial of that improved drop. In the full vigour of life and manhood he was laid low. 'Here am I,' he said to a kind and Christian friend who visited him the day before his execu tion, he was lifting up a very large heavy Bible, to lay it upon the table, here am I, a man capable of any effort, and to-morrow, before this time, I shall be cut up.' Yes, before that hour, on the following day, that body, so lately full of the glow and the vigour of manly life, had been given over to the dissecting-room." is "But surely, reverend sir," said the man, "it very unfair to bring forward such a narrative as this, and apply it to the socialists. The books on which John Stratford laid the blame were not the works of Mr. Owen, or any of our party, but those of Paine and Carlisle." "Young man," said the Pastor, almost sternly, "who ever told you that Tom Paine or Carlisle commanded their followers to commit murder. They declare themselves, and describe themselves, as Mr. Owen and your party do, as the benefactors of mankind, as Philanthropists of the first order. The time will perhaps come when murder and adultery will be traced back by some dying felon to the wretched system of Robert Owen and the Socialists. There is the same character about the writings of the sneering Tom Paine, and the mild Robert Owen; they would remove the social edifice from the rock on which the gospel of Jesus Christ has planted it, and place it upon the shifting quicksand. As for marriage, which is declared in the Holy Bible to be honourable among all men, you know, as well as I do, that it is called, in the marriage system of the new moral world, a satanic institution. Holy wedlock, according to your creed, is an accursed thing. I have heard it stated that poor Rowland Detrosier died broken-hearted upon his return from America; finding that the wife of his youth, and the mother of his children whom he had left true in faith and full of tender and honest affection for her husband had become an adulteress, her principles having been unsettled by the notions of the socialists. There is one faculty in the organization of man which has been strangely forgotten by the visionaries of he new moral world, the old moral check of conscience, the witness for God in the bosom of every man. I know by your look at this moment, however you may seek to disguise your real feelings, I know that conscience has not yet been silenced or scared within you; but listen to the warning voice of your true friend, your appointed pastor. What is the sum and substance of your creed but this, There can be no happiness on earth till the Gospel of Jesus Christ is done away with, till holy-wedlock is got rid of, and till all private property is handed over from its righful owners to be managed by the Socialists. The strong declaration of the Apostle is not too strong to be applied to the mis-named Socialists-may God preserve you from perishing among them. "They speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves." Stanzas written after a time of Spiritual perplexity. Then downward dash'd, and while we thought to scan Thy truth divine, in dread perplexity We reel'd and stagger'd like a drunken man. Speak to us, we implore Thee, in a voice For holy calm is on us from above, Mine idle thoughts, and ill-spent pow'rs, FILIUS. E. DISTRICT VISITING. To the Editor of the Christian Beacon. SIR,-When I last addressed you on the subject of District Visiting, I took the liberty of mentioning some of the advantages which District Visitors might derive from the employment; and I endeavoured to shew that beyond the gratification of benevolence and the consciousness of being occupied in God's service, they had opportunities for acquiring knowledge, most beneficial to themselves and to their own moral character, in the discharge of their official duties. There are yet a few suggestions, which I wish to make on the subject; and the value I attach to the office, the good which I conceive may be thus conferred on society at large, must excuse my entering into details which may to some appear needlessly minute. I have spoken before of the advantages which a Visitor, a serious reflecting Visitor, may derive from the acquaintance thus formed with the realities of life. I wish now to speak of the duties of the Visitor; of the way in which the visits should be conducted, and offence or injury may be avoided. I am the more desirous to do this, from feeling that the employment in its very nature is a very delicate employment, and must be discharged with discretion in order to be discharged effectually. A District Visitor, it is true, comes commissioned by the Parochial Minister, and probably, introduced by him, and, therefore, seems to share in some degree in the privileges which belong to his situation. They are by this very appointment his accredited agents, employed to do what he has not time to do, and to take that share in his burden, which they may be capable of bearing. As such they do not come as strangers. They have an authority imparted, if not inherent; and if they seem to take a liberty in intruding on the privacy of a home, they are justified in what they do, for they only do that, which he, as the Minister, has a right to do; and they do it under the sanction of his appointment. If they venture, therefore, to lift the latch and to enter the dwelling of one who is a stranger, they have a character which justifies them in doing so, and takes off the awkwardness of the proceeding. But though they have this advantage of appearing officially, and may meet the objections of others, or their own doubts, by saying that they are only doing that which they are sent to do; the delicacy of their position is not ended with the first introduction. They are for a time strangers to those whom they are visiting; and a stranger's approach, and a stranger's remarks, and a stranger's observation, are open to suspicion, to jealousy, to misappre hension. I need not say that it is most important to overcome these feelings, and to substitute for them full entire confidence; the confidence felt in the discretion and kindness of a Christian friend, and which opens the heart to receive the suggestions offered, without prejudice or misgiving. With this view the Visitor should avoid every thing that approaches to a dictatorial tone. It should be felt that they come, not to reprove, not to find fault; though reproof may be sometimes needed, and sometimes may be given; and though fault must be found where there is any thing obviously wrong. But this should not be the apparent object of the visit. If it does happen, it should appear to be forced on the Visitor by circumstances, and to be as unwelcome to the person who bestows reproof as it can be to the person who receives it; and to be administered therefore with a gentleness and reserve which proves that it is done unwillingly and reluctantly. It is necessary, likewise, that Visitors should always bear in mind the real difficulties of the condition of the poor; and make allowances for much that offends the eye, and for much that offends the judgment. Coming from a different station in life, exposed perhaps to few or none of the hindrances inseparable from a life of indigence, they do not know the struggle which must be made by the inhabitant of the cottage, in order to accomplish in any degree that cleanliness of person, that air of order and decency which seem natural to themselves. They know not likewise the depression of spirit, the languor of mind, the weariness of body, which belong to poverty, nor the difficulties which are thus opposed to demestic order, and tidiness of appearance. must come, therefore, prepared to make allowances, and large allowances for much that may appear offensive. They must not expect to see, what they daily see at home, nor what they may have read described in books; but they should recollect, that a great and peculiar combination of circumstances must take place, that there must be health, and strength, and diligence, and sobriety, and economy, and good order, to give to a cottage that air of decency and comfort, which an eye accustomed to different scenes considers as a thing of course. They Beyond this it is important that Visitors should bear in mind, that they are, and must be ignorant of many of the things concerning which they are giving their opinion. The rich may know what is desirable, but the poor know what is practicable; and Visitors might do harm, might incur ridicule, and cause offence, if while young and inexperienced, they censure strongly, what the poor know to be inevitable; or command absolutely what the poor feel to be impossible. In all questions of economy much deference is due to experimental knowledge. None know the value of a penny, but those who have had nothing more than a penny; and it would be idle as well as unreasonable, if Visitors, either old or young, were to dictate in matters where they are, and must be ignorant. There is a story told, that when, during the early part of the last century, France was desolated by a famine; one of the young Princesses hearing that people were found dead, who had perished from actual want of food, exclaimed in perfect simplicity, "How strange! Why rather than die of hunger I would eat pie crust." This young lady, from the circumstances of her birth, was so ignorant of the state of the common people, that she did not think it possible that any could be in want of necessary food. She had seen the table daily covered, and the crust of the raised pies untouched; and judging of the state of others from her own, she inferred that it was nothing but perverseness, some strange obstinacy of taste which could refuse to eat crust, when crust was the only means of preserving life. But all of us are in some degree exposed to the same chance of error. We are partially, imperfectly acquainted with the circumstances of those we visit; and the remembrance of this, should render every Visitor cautious as to the degree in which advice is given, and as to the manner in which it is inforced. Generally speaking, the poor manage their own matters best. They who know the value of things from experience, know best how to get them, and how to use them when obtained. The Visitor may supply the principle, but in most cases the practice must be added by the visited, and only directed or modified by the opinion of the other. At all events the young should remember that the respect due to age is not cancelled by difference in situation, and that the feelings of those who are advised, should be considered and respected, even when they are themselves manifestly in error. I know not, in fact, where a more touching exhibition of the mode in which a District Visitor's duties are to be discharged, can be met with, than in the directions which the Apostle addresses to his son Timothy, as to the way in which his exhortations were to be adapted to the several persons in his charge. 1 Tim. v. 1, 2. "Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father, and the younger men as brethren. The elder women as mothers, the younger as sisters, with all purity." Another point which I feel it necessary to name is the expediency of avoiding everything like a gossiping spirit in these visits. The poor are ready enough to see Visitors, if the Visitors bring amusement; and high and low still draw a large portion of their amusement from this, which in default of a better name, we must call gossiping. If a Visitor, therefore, yields to this general tendency, enters with apparent interest into the tittle tattle of the neighbourhood, and encourages the garrulity of the visited by listening to all the idle stories that may be told; there can be no doubt that the visits may be welcome, but it is equally certain that they will not be beneficial, and the spirit of the system will be sacrificed to the means of rendering it acceptable. It will be far better, for the Visitor to endure for months the manifest dislike of those who are overlooked, and to open the way by the gentle influence of persevering kindness, than to merge the sacredness of the office in such frivolity and folly. folly. They come into their districts as the messengers of the officiating Clergyman. They come, as his representatives, as his agents; and the recollection of his high and holy calling should remind them of the tone to be preserved in their intercourse, and of the objects which it is to be intended to promote. There must be condescension, therefore, or rather there must be that kindness, which supersedes condescension; there must be gentleness, patience, forbearance, but there must be no levity. The spiritual good of the persons visited is the object of the visit, and that must be sought by every reasonable measure; but that will most unquestionably be lost, and lost for ever, if the intercourse degenerates into idle and unprofitable conversation. Another remark that I would add on this head, is reserve as to the way in which the objects of our care are spoken of. Our District Visitors claim acceptance in right of their delegated office, of the office delegated to them by the Parochial Clergy-by whom they are appointed. As such they are admitted into the interior of families. Circumstances are laid open to them, which are concealed from others; and they become, in virtue of their office, the confidential friends of the visited. I need hardly add, that confidence is reciprocal-that domestic circumstances, in every rank of life, are sacred; and that what is seen or heard in one house is not to be repeated in another. The poor are far more sensitive on this head than is usually supposed. They may not be able to express their sense of the indelicacy which betrays their secrets, but they feel it; and a District Visitor can hardly hope to |