that would never nave otherwise been made. And we know of nothing that leads more directly and more surely to this state of things, than a great regular provision for indigence, obtruded, with all the characters of legality and certainty and abundance, upon the notice of the people. But wherever the securities which nature hath established for the relief and mitigation of extreme distress are not so tampered with-where the economy of individuals, and the sympathy of neighbours, and a sense of the relative duties among kinsfolk, are left, without disturbance, to their own silent and simple operation;-it will be found that there is nothing so formidable in the work of traversing a whole mass of congregated human beings, and of encountering all the clamours, whether of real or of fictitious necessity, that may be raised by our appearance amongst them. So soon as it is understood that all which is given by such an adventurous philanthropist is given by himself; and so soon as acquaintanceship is formed between him and the families; and so soon as the conviction of his good-will has been settled in their hearts, by the repeated observation they have made of his kindness and personal trouble, for their sakes;-then the sordid appetite which would have been maintained, in full vigour, so long as there was the imagination of a fund, of which he was merely an agent of conveyance, will be shamed, and that nearly into extinction, the moment that this imagination is dissolved. Such an individual will meet with a limit to his sacrifices, in the very delicacy of the poor themselves; and it will be possible for him to expatiate among hundreds of his fellows, and to give a Christian reception to every proposal he meets with; and yet, after all, with the humble fraction of a humble revenue, to earn the credit of liberality amongst them. We know not, indeed, how one can be made more effectually to see, with his own eyes, the superfluousness of all public and legalised charity, than just to assume a district; and become the familiar friend of the people who live in it; and to do for them the thousand nameles offices of Christian regard; and to encourage, in every judicious and inoffensive way, their dependence upon themselves, and their fellow-feeling one for another. Such a process of daily observation as this will do more than all political theory can do, to convince him with what safety the subsistence of a people may be left to their own capabilities; and how the modern pauperism of our days is a superstructure altogether raised on the basis of imposture and worthlessness-a basis which the very weight of the superstructure is fitted to consolidate and to extend.

There is one style of companionship with the poor, that is fitted to call forth a rapacity, which all the ministrations of opulence cannot appease. There is another style of it, that is

fitted to call forth delicacies of a far softer and more sensitive

The

character than they often get credit for. The agent of a society for the relief of indigence, who carries a visible commission along with him, is sure to be assailed, in full and open cry, at every corner, with the importunities of alleged want. bearer of a moral and spiritual dispensation will not, in the long run, be the less welcome of the two, nor will his kindness be less appreciated, nor will the courtesy of his oft-repeated attentions fail of sending the charm of a still gladder sensation into the heart. The truth is, that it is in the absence of every temptation, either to cunning or sordidness, when the intercourse between the rich and the poor is in the end most gratifying, as well as most beneficial, to both; and these are the occasions upon which the unction of a finer influence is felt, with each of the parties, than ever can have place in the dispensations of common charity. When one goes ostensibly forth among the people as an almoner, the recoil that is felt by them, from the exposure of their necessities, is overborne, at the very first interview; and the barrier of delicacy is forced, and forced irrecoverably: so as that deceit and selfishness shall henceforth become perpetual elements in every future act of fellowship between them. When one goes forth among them on a spiritual enterprise, and introduces himself on a topic that reduces to a general level the accidental distinctions of humanity, and addresses a poor man as a sharer in the common hopes and common interests of the species, he is relieved, for the time, from all sense of inferiority, nor will he be the first to revive it in his own breast, by descending to the language of complaint or supplication. It is thus that the acquaintanceship between the rich and the poor, which is sustained by converse with them on all other topics save that of their necessities, is sure to increase the reluctance of the poor to obtrude this last topic on the attentions of the wealthy. It is thus that a mere Sabbath teacher comes speedily into contact with such delicacies, among the lower orders, as are not suspected even to exist by the administrators of a city hospital. And it is thus, that under a right Christian economy, there would arise, in the hearts, and among the habitations of the poor themselves, a most effectual barrier against all that importunate and insatiable urgency of demand, which has been so fostered among the people by debasing pauperism.—Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation.

V. SECTION II. § 11.-Strength of Popular Sympathy.

There is a statement, made by Mr. Buxton, in his valuable work upon Prisons, which is strongly illustrative of the force

of human sympathy. In the gaol of Bristol, the allowance of bread to the criminals is beneath the fair rate of human subsistence; and, to the debtors, there is no allowance at all, leaving these last to be provided by their own proper resources, or by the random charity of the town. It has occasionally happened that both these securities have failed them: and that some of their number would inevitably have perished of hunger, had not the criminals, rather than endure the spectacle of so much agony, given a part of their own scanty allowance, and so shared in the suffering along with them. It is delightful to remark, from this, that the sympathy of humble life, instead of the frail and imaginative child of poetry, is a plant of such sturdy endurance as to survive even the roughest of those processes by which a human being is conducted to the last stages of depravity. Now, if the working of this good principle may thus be detected among the veriest outcasts of human society, shall we confide nothing to its operation among the people and the families of ordinary life? If such an intense and unbroken fellow feeling be still found to exist, even after the career of profligacy is run, are we to count upon none of its developments before the career of profligacy is entered on? In other words, if in prisons there be the guarantee of natural sympathy against the starvation of the destitute, is it too sanguine an affirmation of our species, that there is the same and a stronger guarantee in parishes? The truth is, such is the recoil of one human being from the contemplation of extreme hunger in another, that the report of a perishing household, in some deepest recess of a city lane, would inflict a discomfort upon the whole neighbourhood, and call out succour, in frequent and timely forthgoings, from the contiguous families. We are aware that pauperism lays an interdict upon this beautiful process. Pauperism relaxes the mutual care and keepership which, but for it, would have been in more strenuous operation; and has deadened that certain feeling of responsibility which would have urged and guided to many acts of beneficence. There can be little doubt, that the opening up of this great artificial fountain has reduced that natural fountain, the waters of which are so deeply seated, and so diffusively spread, throughout the whole mass and interior of a population. But, in countries where pauperism is unknown, and popular sympathy is allowed to have its course, it sends forth supplies upon human want which are altogether incalculable; and still, in our own country, is it ready to break forth in streams of rich and refreshing compensation, so soon as pauperism is done away.-Christian and Economic Polity of a Nation.

VI. SECTION II. § 13.-Distinction between the two cases of Disease and Indigence as objects of Public Charity.

Laying out of sight the objections you have stated to any general principle of compulsory assessment, do you not conceive that there are certain classes of misery and distress for which relief may be safely afforded, and which, if safely to be afforded, ought to be afforded?—I think there is a very great distinction between cases of general indigence and certain other cases of distress, which may be relieved with all safety.

What would be the distinction in general principle that you would lay down between the two classes of cases?—I would say that all those cases of hopeless and irrecoverable disease, or even those cases of disease which are better managed in public institutions than in private families, ought to be provided for with the utmost liberality.

Do you not conceive that all cases of misery, the relief of which has no tendency to increase the number of cases requiring relief, may be safely provided for ?—I think they may be provided for with all safety.

Would not cases of insanity, and cases of loss of sight and loss of limb, come under the latter description?-Decidedly. Deaf and dumb asylums, lunatic asylums, institutions for the blind, infirmaries, and even fever hospitals might be supported to the uttermost on public funds. It is the more desirable a right direction should be given to public charity, and in particular to the charities of the rich; that, generally speaking, the upper classes have a great desire to do good if they knew but how to do it. There is one way in which ostensible relief, whether through the medium of an assessment or from the hands of the wealthy, might scatter on every side the elements of moral deterioration, and that is when the object is general indigence. There is another way in which public and visible charity might prove of permanent benefit to society, both for the relief of suffering and the increase of virtue among men ; such as the support of institutions for the cure or alleviation of disease, and for education.

Do you not conceive that provision might be made at the public expense for all those cases of calamity which are so entirely contingent that no foresight or previous calculation could be made to prevent their occurrence, or to provide for them when they do occur ?—I think that institutions ought to be provided for all those cases.

Do you see any objection to an enlarged liberal provision for the relief of the sick poor, in the way of distribution of medi

cines and dispensaries ?—I would object to any legal relief of the poor in their own houses. I would not object to dispensaries, the object of which is medicine; but all that kind of household distress which falls in the way of the ordinary experience of families, I think should be left to be provided for by the families themselves, or by private charity.—Evidence before the Commons' Committee.

VII. SECTION III. § 2. The Gradations and Inequalities of Humble Life.

The delusion of blending all the grades and varieties of common people into one general object of contemplation, has misled or bewildered the public mind on two great questions. In the question of pauperism, the apprehension is, that if the supplies of the existing system were done away, there would be nothing to replace them; and, in particular, that destitute families in the deep recesses of a city population, surrounded on all hands by others about as destitute as themselves, and placed beyond the observation and effective sympathy of those who had the power to relieve them, would inevitably perish. This is a very natural fear; but it proceeds on the imagination, that every plebeian district of a town is a dead level, of equal unmixed unalleviated, want and wretchedness. It is not recollected, how much can be done in every little neighbourhood by an internal operation of charity; and how much would be done, were it not that, by the attempt of law to supplement and supersede humanity, this operation has been paralyzed. We have to record it as our experience, after the close and personal observation of years, that never did a case of distress occur in the midst of a large and congregated mass of operatives, which was not followed up by the timely outbreakings of sympathy from the contiguous families; and, therefore, as our persuasion, that were human want confided to human benevolence alone, it would experience a far more copious, as well as kindly, circulation of relief, than is poured upon it from without, by the ministrations of a legal ized charity. The Supreme Importance of a right Moral to a right Economical state of the Community.

VIII. SECTION III. § 13.-Importance of devolving the Temporal Ministrations of a Church on a separate order of Office-bearers.

Conceive an individual to be associated with a district in the