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Untitled Article
" Here permit me . to remark , that the hope of rescuing a fellow-creature from sin and misery is never to be given up while God shall continue tp spare him . The most depraved and debased Being in society , who has apparently cast off all fear alike of God and of man , is to be an object of strong compassion and interest . Nor is the repeated failure of endeavours for his recovery to j ustify discouragement . I have seen cases of apparent total depravity ,
a more intimate acquaintance with which has brought to my knowledge some spring of feeling , or of desire in the soul , which , with God's blessing on the labour of cleansing it from its defilements , has sent forth the sweet waters of virtue and peace . I have even seen him who was habitually profane and intemperate , a most wicked and cruel child , husband , and father , and early broken down , and apparently brought near the grave , by his irregular ana * abandoned life , restored to health through the means by which he was restored to virtue : restored to his mother , his wife , and his children , to whom
he had been lost , as far as respects all that is interesting and happy io these relations ; and , by penitence and prayer , as I believe , recovered to God and to the hopes of the life to come . Let the Minister at large , then , feel , that in every family in his department which is unprovided with a Christian pastor and teacher , and which will accept his services , he is to be a pastor and a teacher . He will have families in his charge , the parents of which were religiously educated , and began their married life with an intention to maintain domestic order and a due observance of the Lord ' s-day . But they began life
with little or no preparation for any emergence which would call for any extraordinar y expense . The necessity of extraordinary expense was , however , soon occasioned by sickness ; and in this time of difficulty one small debt was contracted , and then another ; and then the harassed mind sought a refuge from its troubles in intemperance , and in vicious company ; ana then came the necessity of frequent removals from one place to another . He will find some who , under the pressure of great embarrassments , have struggled hard to maintain their principles as Men and Christians ; and others , who are but just beginning to feel strongly the perplexities and exposures which have
brought many to ruin , and who , by affectionate advice and a little timely and judicious assistance , may be saved from falling . He will find that , in some of the families in which there is an intemperate husband , there is a wellprincipled and virtuous wife and mother , who is silently enduring and patiently striving in the care and for the education of her children . And he will find widows with young children whom they cannot leave on Sunday ; and aged and feeble families , to which , if the Gospel is to be preached , it must be in the apartments in which they live , and from house to house . In taking
upon himself the charge of these classes of the poor , it should be a primary object of a Minister at large to bring as many as is possible of them into a connexion with the religious societies of the city . And happy will it be if he can go forth among them for this object without any of the spirit of seetarisra . Strongly as I am attached to what / think to be the great doctrines of Christianity , —and they are the life-spring of my soul , —I do not hesitate , when I find a decided preference for a church of other sentiments than those which I receive , to recommend a connexion ^ with that church to all who
express this preference , as a very important means of their improvement and happiness . I find my own views of our religion , indeed , to be very acceptable among the intelligent and serious of the poor . But I feel that a great good has been obtained by every instance in which a family is linked with almost any of our religious societies —The Minister at large should
consecrate to the Poor his strength and his life Nor do I doubt whether he will find enough of ignorance , and vice , and suffering , to task all his faculties , and to require all his time Let him , from day to day , and , if he have strength for it , from morning till night of every day , be passing from house to house Let him make his presence welcome by the affectionate interest which he feels and manifests for the welfare and happiness of those whom he visits . And let them find . in him a religious teacher and pastor who is willing to listen
Untitled Article
City Missions . 3 ) 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 317, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/29/
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