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tion that precedes the belief-not the proof, but the means for the conveyance of it.

12. Hitherto we have not enough availed ourselves of those strong affinities which bind one man to another, and extend the brotherhood of our nature, far beyond the limits of kindred or previous acquaintanceship. It may be experienced on the moment of our entrance within the threshold of a family which we never before saw. The character of the reception is almost invariable-that of genuine and entire cordiality. The errand on which we go, announces itself to be one of kindness; and, in almost every instance, it calls forth the sense and the spirit of kindness back again. By the very act of coming under the roof of one of the common people, we in a manner throw ourselves upon his kindness; and scarcely ever, in one instance, does this confidence deceive us. Insomuch that we have often felt, as if, to enter the house of a poor man or a labourer, was the readiest method of finding our way into his heart. Certain it is that nothing can be more companionable, and if not courtly at least courteous which is far better-nothing can be more polite in the best sense of the term, for it is nature's politeness under the spontaneous impulse of nature's honesty, than that which is habitually experienced in these rounds of pastoral or missionary visitation. If we want to taste the amenities of human intercourse, let us go, not in the capacity of an almoner but in the higher capacity of a christian philanthropist, either to the country hamlet or to the city lane-let us

carry our proffers of beneficence, either to the peasant in the one situation or to the man of handicraft and hard labour in the other let it be the prospect of a christian benefit to themselves, or of an educational benefit to their children—we do not say that the consent will be gotten all at once to the practical arrangement, whatever it may be; but, from the very first, both the visit and the object of it will be well taken; and, such is the charm of these household attentions, that a great and effectual door is opened by them, to all those results, which the manifested friendship and the moral suasion of one man, have power to effectuate in the purposes and the doings of another.

13. We can well imagine here a certain suspicion or incredulity, as if our picture was overcoloured or as if there was more of the imaginative than of the experimental in our representation. But our shrewd and sceptical antagonists do truly confound the things which differ, when they liken these every-day findings with which we now deal to the visions of Arcadia. Those cordialities of human intercourse, and the results which come out of them, have nought in them whatever of the romance or the extravagance of poetry. What Howard on the walk of general benevolence realized in prisons, any other, if he is but a man of heart and genuine piety, will realize in parishes. Those triumphs of kindness which the one achieved in the malefactor's cell, the other will with still greater facility achieve in the ploughman's cabin. and the workman's lowliest tenement. If the

moral desperadoes of a jail can be made to own the omnipotence of charity, it surely will not be more difficult to earn the same ascendancy over the commonplace men and women of our general population. It is true, that, even among these, individuals are to be found, who, though not yet convicted of crime, have all the hardihood and all that aspect of stout and resolute defiance which belong to criminals-whose hearts are hearts of steel-whose houses are houses of riot, intemperance, and shame. Yet even they, it is often found, might be melted into a sort of grateful reverence, and that, on the first apostolic entry ever made within their doors; and, what might be deemed singular yet is really not so, though sheathed in hopeless obduracy themselves so that their own reformation is by all despaired of, yet there is enough of remaining conscience and human affection within them, to make them seize on the proposal of meetings and sermons and Sabbath schools for their children. But more, though at

the outset house and heart should both be barricadoed against the approaches of christian benevolence, neither yet must all prospect of good, even in these cases of rare and monstrous exception to the general law of our nature, be given up as conclusively at an end. The determined agent of this benevolence is on the highest of all vantageground. He has only to keep his post and to watch his opportunity. Events will work for Providence will at length open a door for Calamity or sickness or death will in the course of months or years break in upon the house

him.

him.

hold of this family of aliens-when our resolved visitant of mercy will be no longer scowled upon, and the sound of his footsteps will be welcome to their ears. His presence will solemnize them. His prayers will soften them. His sympathies and well-timed services will awaken the humanity, that has long been dormant but not extinguished within them. Even their gratitude, all ungainly as they are, will be found not beyond the power and the perseverance of charity like his; and, if theirs, he may be sure of a general if not a universal conquest over the affections of his whole territory. We do not say that he will convert all; but, nearly, he will humanize all. We do not say that, even at the end of a period of years, he will have gotten all or even many to believe. But he will have gotten very many to attend. not have lodged in the heart of each the truth which is unto salvation; but he will, at least, have congregated a goodly number within reach of the hearing of it. And, even at this early stage of his proceedings, though he may have only established the footsteps of a few in the way of life-he may have raised the standard of civility and morals throughout the general multitude. Though preparing the way for it, he may yet be far short of having consummated the object of the Christian. Yet already, in the service of having formed a humanized and orderly population, he may have fulfilled the great object of the statesman and the patriot.

He may

14. So important is this process, that one cannot be at too great pains in explaining the essen

tial steps of it. And the most essential, for recalling a population who have degenerated, is a system of week-day attentions within the limits of a district, small enough to ensure their sufficient frequency, and to make an acquaintance possible with one and all of the families. A church, not so related to a given territory, but meets the demand which already exists for the lessons of the Gospel-drawing within its precincts the attendance of those who have lost the habits and observations of a christian land, and amongst whom the sense of religion is in a great measure extinguished. It is not by any spontaneous movement of theirs, that the wished for condition will be accomplished. The movement must begin at the opposite quarter, with the dispensers of Christianity and not with its recipients not on the part of men seeking after the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but on the part of men who go forth charged with its overtures and press them on the attention and acceptance of others. Had the world been left to itself, it would have settled or sunk still farther in the midst of its own degeneracy, and made no aspirations after God; and so a movement had to be made, not from earth to heaven, but from heaven to earth when Christianity made its first ingress among men. Even after it was made known to a few in Judea, had the surrounding nations been left to themselves, they would still have persisted for ever, in the darkness and the depths of their idolatry; and so a movement was called for, not from the nations to Jerusalem-but, the other way, from Jerusalem to the nations; and the order

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