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Untitled Article
these subjects are often treated in your Newspapers , and hardly less so at finding men in Parliament , and your " authors , looking alone at the sur / ace ^ of society for the causes and cure of these terrible evils . Poverty and crime are fast outrunning the growth of population in your country , and what are those masses of poor and criminals ? Are they not men and women , and chiidntt , moral beings , whose condition is to be improved alone by an improvement of their characters ; or , in other words , of their moral nature ? We may do much by neglect or by oppression to make them , to a great extent , a very
low order of thinking beings ; but we cannot altogether undo' what God has done in giving them the elements of a nature similar to our own ; pas&ions , appetites , propensities , which , if roused by vengeance and directed to Crime , may make them instruments of a dreadful retributive justice . The poor , unhappily , are generally known only as they are seen in the streets , or in the
houses in which they are collected that they may be in the charge of overseers , or as they are arraigned as culprits . But they should be sought out , and known in their miserable homes by those who will visit them , not merely once or twice , but often , very often , as their Christian friends . The beggars seen in streets , and in courts , and in poor-houses , are the most degraded of their class . But there are very large numbers in this class who shun the
street , and- who revolt from the thought of begging , and there are great numbers of the poor who are every day in danger of falling into the ranks of the debased , from the pressure of wants , a relief of which they know not where to seek , and who might be saved from this debasement by the intervention of Qiristian sympathy and kindness . A Minister at large for the exclusive service of the poor , ^ vho will ' ^ ive himself wholly to the work of ^ t heir salvation and happ ^ ess , 1 hay"titt tlie Christian friend of three or four ^ J ^ iffdfedVfetmlies , eaen ofyvhoin fleMfeay-visit as often as once in three weeks , allowing for the extra visits hesmust make to those who , from sickness
or other causes , require more frequent attentions from him ; and if he shall go to them in the spirit of Christian rea }> ect and affection , aware of what he might himself have been if he had lived under similar influences , he will find witflin himself the springs of a moral power , which will be efficient in' unnumbered cases to which no municipal regulations can be extended . Through this ministry , schools may be established for the instruction of the children of
the poor , and poor parents may assemble with their children in the most commodious rooms of some of their own class for social worship and religious instruction , amd let the Minister be provided with a poor * 8 purse to which the affluent may contribute , and from which he may supply the most pressing wants of those , who , if unrelieved , must fall into sin . These Ministers should
make semi-annual reports to those who patronise and support them ; and these reports should embody those facts and observations which will throw light upon the questions of the causes of pauperism and crime , and the means of their prevention and remedy . In this way I think you may obtain new light on these subjects . How , indeed , are the poor to be blessed by the gospel , except b y its influence on those in the more favoured conditions of life ? Are not all our blessings , responsibilities ? I am sick of a nominal and party Christianity ; I want to see in our class of Christians a great example of the humble , pure , generous , self-sacrificing spirit of our Master , a zeal
for the neglected , the oppressed , the suffering , and even the debased of our fellow-creatures . It is easy enough to find Ministers for the rich and powerful . Let us endeavour to send out wise and judicious , earnest , but calm , and self-denying and devoted men , who will feel what should be felt for the poor and the criminal . Those whom we call Criminal , are often very far less guilty in the sight of God than are many who were never arraigned at a human tribunal . Every thing , 1 am ready to say , depends on the character of the men to be employed in this ministry . Do not commit this office to the raw and undisci p lined , nor to the worn-out and broken Clergyman . A man who engages in this service should know human nature as well as Christianity , should know how to find his way to a rough heart without irii-
Untitled Article
320 City Mission * .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 320, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/32/
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