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 CIrristmas i^all t0 %ciici\i 
 
 By ELLEN BARLEE, 
 
 AUTHORESS OF "OUR HOMELESS POOR, ETC.. ETC- 
 
 MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WOKK.' 
 
 LONDOX: 
 
 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY EMILY FAITHFULL & CO., 
 
 Victoria ^xtss, (for tijc ^mplogmmt of ffiSHomm,) 
 
 GREAT CORAM STREET, W.C. 
 ]86I.
 
 " Nor did he wait till to his door the voice 
 Of supplication came ; but went abroad, 
 With foot as silent as the stany dews, 
 In search of misery that pined unseen. 
 And would not ask. 
 
 " Oh, who can tell what sights he saw 
 Of wretchedness, or who describe what smiles 
 Of gratitude illumed the face of woe. 
 While fi-om his hand he gave the bounty forth." 
 
 POLLOK.
 
 INDIVIDUAL EXERTION, 
 
 Not long since there appeared in a new leading magazine 
 a well-written article of deep interest, entitled, "What 
 the Rich are doing for the Poor." * 
 
 Marvellously numerous are the institutions, societies, and 
 associations of every description that the writer proved are 
 at work for the benefit of the needy, and almost incredible 
 the sums of money yearly subscribed by private individuals 
 towards their support. In fact, so munificent appears the 
 generosity of "the rich," that one would almost imagine 
 the poor must either soon cease from the land, or that at 
 least, with such a network of asylums, all misery would 
 rapidly find alleviation. 
 
 " Happy England," as a reader of the magazine exclaimed, 
 "^with a little management' one might be born, educated, 
 housed, sick, cured, live, die, and be buried by public 
 charity ! " 
 
 Nor was the observation unfounded ; for if the list of these 
 public charities be closely scanned, there is scarcely an ill 
 to which flesh is heir, or a want of humanity, physical, 
 educational, or intellectual, that has not its remedial aid in 
 some charitable institution. England's liberality in this 
 respect can never be questioned ; and not only at home, but 
 
 * The *S^. James's Magazine, May, 1861. 
 A 2
 
 4 
 
 abroad, far and near, wherever misfortune is found to visit 
 tne globe, there the philanthropy and benevolence of 
 England's sons and daughters are recognised with surprise 
 and admiration. Thank God that such is the case, that 
 the power and the will to give bountifully go hand in hand. 
 This is, doubtless, good. 
 
 We would not for a moment depreciate a nationality of 
 which we may be justly proud, but is there not another 
 side, however, to the picture — another view which may 
 be taken of the public institutions we raise to provide for 
 our people's need? 
 
 The sum of money yearly expended on the charities of 
 liOndon, including those on the foundations and public bene- 
 factions, amount to above two millions of pounds. Deducing 
 from the above such charities as have been established to 
 meet the improvement of life, morals, and disease, we find — 
 
 Medical Charities £266,925 
 
 Morals 35,717 
 
 Reclaiming the Fallen 18,387 
 
 Miscellaneous Charities .... 10,000 
 
 Provident Ditto 9,000 
 
 Blind, Deaf, and Dumb 87,063 
 
 Orphans 88,228 
 
 Pension Societies 23,667 
 
 Spent yearly on Poor Rates . . . 614,000 
 
 Might not this question then arise, "If England be the 
 happy, flourishing, prosperous country we boast of, why have 
 
 si > 
 
 \, uiuc .
 
 we such an amount of wretchedness, disease, and crime, to 
 provide for ? " 
 
 In our physical organization, for the enjoyment of life and 
 happiness it is necessary that an even flow of health should 
 pervade the entire system, for "if one member suffer, all the 
 members suffer with it." Does not the same rule hold good 
 in the constitution of a country ? and if so, is there not some 
 defect in an organization which reduces so large a portion 
 of its members to depend on public charity for support and 
 protection? 
 
 The problem involved is a difficult one, requiring thought, 
 experience, and courage, to propound. 
 
 We trust we shall not be accused of presumption if, in all 
 humility, we venture to offer one or two suggestions, gathered 
 from a practical acquaintance with the class whose miseries 
 help to fill our public institutions. 
 
 We would not, however, at the outset be mistaken, or 
 lead the public to imagine that we think there is at pre- 
 sent one charity or one association that can be spared from 
 our land. On the contrary, we believe, under the present 
 state of society, not only is there an imperative call for such 
 a machinery, but, as years roll on, institutions will have to 
 be doubled, in order to keep pace with the necessities that 
 disease and poverty create. 
 
 We would confine our remarks especially to the metro- 
 polis, .where in almost every street some finger-post of public 
 benevolence is to be found. 
 
 Does the amount of subscribed charity, we ask, bear
 
 a proportionate benefit on tlie social improvement of the poor ? 
 or, large as the amount seems, is it not a fair tithe of what 
 God requires from us? 
 
 Let those philanthropists reply who, not content solely 
 with " giving, ^^ are spending time and strength in their 
 endeavours to ameliorate the condition of the lower classes. 
 They tell us " that, notwithstanding all the rich do for 
 the poor," there is yet such a fearful amount of unaided 
 destitution that the heart sickens in the attempt to provide 
 any permanent relief. 
 
 The practical experience of one and all thus engaged 
 varies little in its result — viz., that the moral atmosphere 
 of the poor is one that breeds the maladies, mental and phy- 
 sical, that we open our asylums to cure. Is it not, then, 
 possible that Benevolence may be working in a one-sided 
 direction ? Would it not, at any rate, be wiser to spend a 
 larger portion of her capital in modest prevention than 
 allow neglect, first, to undermine the building and then seek 
 to repair by public subscription the ruins she has made. 
 
 The legitimate asylums for age, sickness, and infirmities, 
 &c., Christians will never allow to fail for want of support. 
 The institutions also opened to meet the spiritual, intellectual, 
 and educational requirements of the age, must and will 
 increase with the advance of civilization. It is the societies 
 we are necessitated to erect in behalf of our destitute, our 
 incurables, our criminals, that we hold to be an anomaly on 
 England's national prosperity. These are the institutions, 
 then, we would attack, and that, not by diminishing their
 
 numbers, but. by bringing other influences to bear in under- 
 mining tbe need of their existence. 
 
 We believe the great mistake made in the distribution of 
 Charity is, that we have grown apathetic and indolent ; we 
 trust too much to our gold to do the work of reformation, 
 ignoring in our luxurious ease the weightier question of 
 individual exertion. 
 
 As long as liberality is confined to the purse, and a few 
 individuals are made the almoners of a charitable public, so 
 long destitution will increase, and that from the utter in- 
 ability to detect deception or exercise personal influence. A 
 stronger power than gold requires to be at work to stem 
 the torrent of misery around us, and every recruit who joins 
 the ranks, already engaged in individual exertion, does more 
 for the cause 9f humanity than money can purchase. 
 
 To this want of individual exertion we attribute more 
 than half of the physical misery we open our hospital doors 
 to assuage. 
 
 To want of individual exertion we trace the downfall into 
 crime of by far the larger portion of those who fill our 
 reformatories and penitentiaries. 
 
 From want of individual exertion our unions are crowded 
 to overflowing ; our poor exist by thousands in misery, and 
 die unnatural and lingering deaths. Y/e put forth this 
 statement from a conviction of its truth. "VYe do not hesi- 
 tate to assert, that among the hundreds of aggravated cases 
 of distress that come beneath our notice, we believe that 
 the greater portion of them might have been averted, had
 
 there been a connecting link of protection between the rich 
 and the poor. 
 
 Human nature in its happiest state requires encouraging 
 and uplifting, or its natural tendency is to fall into apathy 
 and carelessness. Let educated minds be seen to mix 
 among ignorant ones, and marvellous is it to observe how 
 the weaker will gather round the strong, and their evil 
 tendencies be kept in abeyance by love, approbation, 
 interest, or fear. 
 
 Inaction and luxury have, however, established such a 
 barrier between the two classes, that influence lies dormant 
 till neglect has done its work, and its victims knock at the 
 doors of our institutions for admittance; we then make a 
 virtue of necessity, and while we deprecate, preach, and con- 
 demn, extend tardily, under the name of charity, the protec- 
 tion that should have previously been theirs by the rights of 
 Christianity. 
 
 It is the first shadow of misfortune that, unaided, unassisted, 
 and unadvised, beckons misery forward and pauperizes our 
 poor. Unknowing and unknown, with none to uphold them, 
 numberless are the human beings who find it easier to 
 droAvn want in vice and plenty than to fight alone the 
 battle of need with unrecognised honesty as their only 
 weapon. 
 
 The great drawback, we are, however, continually told, 
 between a more intimate relation of the two classes consists 
 in the distance they live from one another, the w^ant of 
 time for supervision and inquiry, and the depressing effects
 
 9 
 
 of contact with want or, again, the fear of infection. Are these 
 difficulties, however, insuperable ? and can they be weighed 
 against the calls of humanity or the individual responsibilities 
 to which God has called us all? 
 
 Let Christians but take a perspective glance at the quick 
 descent from misery to crime, with its consequences here 
 and hereafter^ and will there not be many who will set aside 
 these inconveniences and haste to the rescue? 
 
 To ladies we especially address ourselves, because the 
 undue proportion of destitution that falls on the female sex, 
 from their surplus of numbers, calls especially for their inter- 
 vention. We are convinced that many ladles who are living 
 in the enjoyment of wealth, health, and happiness, would not 
 restrain their efforts in the cause had they the faintest con- 
 ception of the wretched condition of the working women 
 of London. 
 
 No words can express their need of protection; no lan- 
 guage we hold can be too strong to call forth exertion in 
 their behalf. 
 
 What moral atmosphere can that be in which existence is 
 a misfortune? what the civilization which condemns a large 
 portion of women to live on three or four shillings a week, 
 under an artificial price of provisions, and a forced rental of 
 at least two shillings of that sum for the roof that covers 
 them ? Truly, we are told continually " they have the alter- 
 native of the union." But if our aim be to raise the moral and 
 social condition of the poor, do we carry it out by compelling 
 them to enlist in the ranks of joauperism a remedy which
 
 10 
 
 divests them of every external means of independence 
 and makes no distinction between honest misfortune and the 
 destitution engendered by intemperance and vice? 
 
 The writer labours among the most respectable of these 
 needy ones, yet she can tell of widows with young children 
 struggling w^ith gaunt famine (dividing, as she has known 
 too often, a penny roll among four children for their entire 
 day's food) — Of emaciation and pain unchecked, preparing their 
 victims for our hospitals — Of women lying on bare boards 
 during frost and snow, without covering or fire — Of children 
 born to deserted wives, without any means to provide for their 
 advent — Of individuals of all ages in every stage of misery 
 and despair : yet such is the innate sense these people have 
 of the injustice that makes no classification for respectable 
 poverty, no provision for willing industry, that they will 
 endure to the last extremity of want sooner than subject 
 themselves to the associations and debasing companionship 
 of union protection. When every power is crushed, and hope 
 is extinct, then only the respectable poor seek that asylum, 
 and, alas ! put on the garment of pauperism, seldom to put 
 it off again. God knows how much of this distress might be 
 spared if the rich were but cognizant of their previous 
 struggles for independence. At any rate, the appreciation of 
 an evil ought to be suggestive of some steps towards its reform, 
 and we hold that the great object of personal exertion should 
 be " to prevent our poor becoming paupers.''^ Self-respect 
 is the life of independence, and the knell which rings out 
 its existence is the jarring sound of the union door. Now,
 
 11 
 
 if every family in easy circumstances in London would but 
 make it a matter of conscience to extend their personal 
 influence over but one family from the industrial classes, 
 -would not one half or more of the unnatural state of destitu- 
 tion we lament be swept away? In every house there are 
 scraps and crumbs to give which would otherwise be wasted 
 by servants ; there is work or charing to be done ; and these, 
 added to the usual means of industrial subsistence, would 
 help to balance the scale of independence. Such benefits 
 could be conferred without loss, yet a wholesome restraint 
 would be exercised. The recipient, conscious of the benefit 
 of such protection, would, from motives, (first of policy,) regu- 
 late her own and her family's conduct to meet the lady's 
 approval. 
 
 We know of many ladies who would willingly enrol some 
 such family under their patronage, and find thereby a new 
 interest in life, " but they don't know where to seek them." 
 Yet there are more than a million of poor in London! 
 
 The outcry of all ^vho are at work in the cause is unani- 
 mous — " We want visitors." " We want personal exertion." 
 "We would rather have your help than your money." 
 
 Three Sundays since, a clergyman at the West-end of 
 London gave out from his pulpit, " I have 12,000 souls in my 
 parish, and I cannot get twelve district visitors from that 
 number to aid my efibrts among them." 
 
 Another testifies : " I have a population of 6000 people, 
 amongst whom not even fifty families are in a position to keep 
 even one servant, yet I can get no efficient district visitors."
 
 12 
 
 Do not these facts speak for themselves of the inert state 
 into which benevolence has fallen? 
 
 Now and then, the truth of this want strikes so vividly 
 upon some thinking minds that efforts are made to meet the 
 need. City missionaries. Scripture readers, and Bible women 
 being appointed to aid the over-worked clergy. These, how- 
 ever good, are, nevertheless, but paid agents, and established 
 more to provide for spiritual than temporal destitution. We 
 want help from those with influence and means to plough up 
 the fallow ground of hard poverty. We require them to 
 prepare the way for religious impression by substantial deeds 
 of kindness. We need to preface our tracts by example, and 
 to lead tlie way to a loving Saviour by practical obedience to 
 His command — " Love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 Last winter a step was made in the right direction. A 
 band of gentlemen volunteers formed themselves into an 
 association for the relief of distress, their object being 
 personally to visit the poor and relieve deserving cases more 
 in kind than money. They soon found the work they had 
 engaged in was no sinecure, and were startled at the destitu- 
 tion they met with at every turn. Their experience agreed 
 with that of other contemporary workers. The most deserving 
 were overlooked, and the strongest and ablest were those who 
 pushed forward and secured parish relief.* Wherever they 
 
 * In the relief given at the police courts last year, but comparatively few 
 women received aid, being wanting in the physical strength required to push 
 their way through the crowds of applicants, or to stand for hours waiting^ 
 their turn to receive the weekly loaf.
 
 13 
 
 forced their way, icomeii were the principal sufferers. So 
 convinced, however, were they that nothing but supervisional 
 charity can diminish the increasing destitution around us, that 
 they are more than ever anxious to extend their operations. A 
 scheme has been therefore devised by one of the members of 
 their society — the Rev. W. Mayd — viz., to map out London 
 into districts ; in each district, in connexion with the clergy, 
 to establish a provisional or relief committee ; and to organize 
 their plan so that every street shall be under the supervision 
 of district visitors. Such a system is precisely what is most 
 needed to strike at the root of the evil. While it would 
 curtail the rates, it would not keep those out of the union who 
 by vice or idleness deserved to be treated as paupers, but it 
 would discriminate between honest misfortune and wilful im- 
 providence. By its administrative agency none need, how- 
 ever, become paupers because they were temporarily sick — 
 none need become destitute outcasts, their homes laid bare 
 and their landlord's key turned upon them, because of their 
 employers failing to supply them with labour. 
 
 Such a society would at once be the test of industry and 
 the patron of self-respect. Why cannot it, then, be established ? 
 Not from want of money — that is always forthcoming — but 
 simply from the practical cause, that the labourers are 
 wanting, — volunteers for private exertion are not to be found. 
 Our rich population numbers hundreds of thousands, and 
 the income of the metropolis, taking it at five times its 
 rental, is estimated at £70,000,000. We have considerably 
 more than a million of poor, and the parochial maintenance
 
 14 
 
 levied for them amounts to £614,000, — not one-hundredth 
 part of the income that represents our wealth. Compare 
 this with the tenth set aside by the Levitical law for Church 
 and poor. 
 
 Our night refuges receive during the year 20,000 homeless 
 outcasts. 
 
 A small percentage of the number of those gifted with 
 independence and leisure would be sufficient for the work 
 of inquiry and supervision. What proportion at the present 
 time are thus employed ? 
 
 '^Many hands make light work." Would that we could 
 impress this aphorism upon the public as regards its applica- 
 tion to our poor. Our willing workers are over-worked: 
 let any man or woman, actuated by Christian love, seek to 
 relieve the burthen of the oppressed, even in his own circle, 
 are they not instantly inundated with "cases?" — each neigh- 
 bour being ready to slip the noose of personal exertion from 
 his own shoulders, and leave the poor relations at his door. 
 
 Our London parishes swarm with poor, and our rich retire 
 to the suburbs to clear themselves from the atmosphere of 
 poverty. Do they leave their responsibilities behind them ? 
 Why cannot a staff among them be found to drive down as 
 a matter of conscience once a week to visit the poor and link 
 their efforts with whatever organization is deemed best? 
 
 Is any lady wishing to respond to the call, yet fearing an 
 untrodden path, anxious to learn how best she can help? 
 
 She need not fear — her work will develop itself; but we 
 would entreat her earnestly to endeavour first to prevent our
 
 15 
 
 poor becoming paupers. Our own experience makes us urge 
 this point, because we believe that if once this term, which 
 the poor look on as a taint, be affixed to them, they rarely 
 care to recover a position of independence. We have known 
 respectable women often shut themselves up in bare walls, 
 with honest pride and starvation as their companions, until 
 work should again be met with, returning to it truly with 
 diminished strength but an innate feeling of self-respect 
 elevating them still ; but we have rarely, if ever, seen them 
 put off the union dress to work again with the same deter- 
 mination of self-support as before. 
 
 Take a few examples of how district visitors can prevent 
 pauperism by intervention. How many widows, if looked 
 for, will be found supporting themselves and their children 
 by such talents as they are gifted with. Sickness, however, 
 comes, and arrears of rent and debts are incurred by forced 
 idleness. Weakened from her illness, the poor woman rises 
 from her bed, and sees ruin before her. It is a moral impos- 
 sibility she can retrieve past time, and yet provide for the 
 future. Her children are crying around her for more bread 
 than the parish out-relief fund will procure them. There 
 is no friend to whom to apply to set her forward again — 
 no district visitor to recognise her sinking position ; therefore 
 one by one her modest household goods, next her clothes, go 
 to pay pressing claims. Wretched without the few comforts 
 she has always before maintained around her, she at last, for 
 her children's sake, succumbs to necessity, separates herself 
 from them, and seeks the parish union. Pauperized by
 
 16 
 
 misfortune, she never comes out, morally, what she went in ; 
 or if, perchance, she escapes contamination, how again can 
 she start in that external decency of life which self-respect 
 demands? Contrast what she and her children cost hence- 
 forth with the small sum that would have been at first needed 
 to enable her to have maintained her industrial position. 
 This preservation of station could have been procured for 
 her alone by individual exertion. 
 
 Again, how many servant girls, especially in lodging- 
 houses, &c., are unreasonably discharged from service without 
 a character, with none to advise or demand for them justice 
 from employers ; — what is in nine out of ten cases the result ? 
 With strong temptation on one side, starvation on the 
 other, their fate is almost a certainty. Then, hunted up from 
 the depths by benevolent Christians, they are brought, blighted 
 and sick, to our penitentiaries for protection. Individual 
 exertion could have warded off their despair, and yet, oh! 
 how many have reproached the rich with their misery. 
 *^No one cared for them when they were honest.'''' 
 
 Is there no need of encouragement and relief to those who 
 are working themselves into consumption from a determination 
 to be independent ? Often have we sent poor isolated women 
 to doctors for advice ; the medical verdict they have returned 
 has been this or a similar one : " She has not had food enough 
 to support a dumb animal; we fear it is too late; but give 
 her generous diet.'''' Generous diet, indeed. What a farce 
 seems such a prescription unless she can be placed under pro- 
 visional care. I
 
 17 
 
 To multiply facts, however, is not our object ; visitors will 
 not lack our aid to learn " where the shoe pinches and how 
 to ease it." Ladies will probably be warned before they 
 begin, as a damper to exertion, that intemperance is the cause 
 of pauperism, and that no intervention will avail to reform its 
 victims. We do not deny that intemperance is the last and 
 great crowning cause, and the barrier to reform. We hold, how- 
 ever, that at least half its victims are led to seek its influence 
 by the downward steps of neglect, sickness, incapacity, and 
 forced idleness, and that at these various steps its progress 
 may be continually arrested by prevention. Let this be 
 attempted more than it has ; let us seek to find employment 
 for the willing, provide for the sick, teach the ignorant, and 
 encourage the neglected; and we shall visibly diminish the 
 number of self-destroying and self-destroyed victims to drink. 
 
 During a time of distress, in a sea-port town in Sussex, a 
 large portion of the labouring classes were thrown out of 
 employment. A benevolent lady, the late Mrs. Gilbert, of 
 Eastbourne, devised the following practical scheme for their 
 relief: — God had given her wealth, and she did not grudge 
 it in the cause before her; but she recognised that money 
 alone would never obviate the effects of idleness and its train 
 of temptation and opportunities for evil. " We must make 
 work for them," she said ; so, instead of handing over her gold 
 to. others to distribute, she made it known among the sufferers 
 that whoever would learn straw-plaiting should be taught, 
 and receive one penny per yard for every piece they brought 
 to her house. The current of industry thus excited soon
 
 18 
 
 spread, and men, women, and children vied with each other 
 in learning the art. Mrs. Gilbert's house was beset with 
 Btraw-plaiters and straw plaits. She, however, kept her 
 word, and paid the penny for every yard that was brought to 
 her door. Many smiled at her zeal, and thought she was 
 eccentric beyond measure, but it hindered her not. Her 
 own judgment approved the course she had taken. Without 
 her intervention there would doubtless have been exciting 
 tales of destitution, thefts, and delinquencies. Nothing, how- 
 ever, of this kind occurred ; and why ? Simply because 
 she had prevented it. There was no trumpet tongue of 
 earthly praise to record the cases she had relieved ; her motive 
 and its result were known alone to God. Shortly after- 
 wards Mrs. Gilbert died, the crisis of distress passed away, 
 and the straw-plaiters returned to their usual occupations ; 
 but the good done had a deeper root than even the temporal 
 relief of the hour. Knowledge gained, whatever it be, is a 
 link in the chain of independence, and the straw-plaiters 
 gained an art which in sickness or in age they could turn to 
 account for daily bread. One result from this lady's fore- 
 thought furnished a striking proof of the value of prevention. 
 Among those who as a boy had joined the straw-plaiting 
 community was a man employed on the railway at Eastbourne. 
 This man lost both his legs from a fearful railway accident, and 
 was brought home to his wife crippled for life. To use the 
 woman's own words : the first day he was very dull, the 
 second less so, and the third he said to her, " Mary, bring me 
 some straw." It was brought to him, and after twisting it
 
 19 
 
 about in his fingers for a time, he said, as if relieved from a 
 weight of trouble, " I've got it ! " and then he told her they 
 need not fear now, for he could take up his old trade again 
 for support. And he did so, and lived by it for years. The 
 writer visited this man a few days since in his cottage ; from 
 straw-plaiting he has become so nimble with his fingers, that 
 he now takes in work and can rival at his needle the finest 
 workers in England. Verily, of good Mrs. Gilbert may 
 be said, " Her works do follow her." Is not her example 
 worthy of imitation? There are many and various ways 
 whereby knowledge may be imparted to the poor besides that of 
 straw-plaiting. How far more useful to spend a little money 
 in materials to provide labour, even if we have no immediate 
 use for the articles, than to give the same sum away in mere 
 impulsive charity. 
 
 Another incalculable benefit would undoubtedly arise 
 from a closer association between rich and poor — viz., the 
 personal knowledge that the rich would acquire of the true 
 value of time and labour. 
 
 A large portion of the underpaid labour which reduces wages 
 to the minimum of starvation-point arises from the utter 
 ignorance of ladies as to the value of the time required for 
 execution of orders for work. Elaborate patterns are given to 
 be copied, and the same price tendered for their execution as 
 for the same garments simply made, though the time required to 
 be spent over them be perhaps more than double. The same 
 want of thought occurs with laundry and other work. An 
 habitual contact with industry would open their eyes to the
 
 20 
 
 prolonged efforts of labour, and increase the remuneration to 
 more just hire. If the rich also were personally interested in 
 their poorer neighbours, the ready-made shop articles would 
 be less purchased, and the work oftener placed direct in 
 the hands of the industrious. 
 
 Either of these supervisional benefits would help to stave 
 off pauperism. As a proof that union relief is not palatable 
 to the poor, few are found in summer, or when work is 
 plentiful, to seek its shelter. Only as winter advances, 
 and according to its severity, do we find the applications 
 increase. 
 
 We have, we trust, given sufficient proof of the need there 
 is that individuals should " Up, and be doing, ^^ Work, albeit 
 we recognise it not, is the portion of all. Idleness has no 
 part in creation, and rest or pleasure to be enjoyed must be 
 purchased by work. To depute to others our duties, or to 
 ignore them, will never lighten their burthen. Our sins of 
 commission, God knows, are great, but do not our sins of 
 omission sometimes outweigh them ? Works, we are aware, 
 will never gain the crown which can be reached by faith alone ; 
 but works, though they have no life in themselves, are the 
 scaffold to the building — a mean towards an end. Done in 
 Christ and for Christ they have power, and must be per- 
 formed, though not trusted in, else is our faith void. "I was 
 hungry, and ye fed Me ; thirsty, and ye gave Me drink ; sick, 
 and ye visited Me ; in prison, and ye came to Me," are words 
 which our Saviour will address from His tribunal to active 
 Christians. Ye came, not ye sent, are the characters inscribed.
 
 21 
 
 There is no mention made of deputy work in that solemn 
 judgment scene. 
 
 Friends, then, there is work for all. To our men of busi- 
 ness, who have not the responsibility of leisure, let us leave 
 the burthen of giving ivork only. 
 
 Let active work, sympathizing work, preventing work, 
 and curing work, be no longer delegated to the few; but let 
 " each strive to bear his own burthen, and so fulfil the law 
 of Christ." 
 
 We have chosen this season to send forth this humble call 
 to action, because Christmas is at hand, and we would fain 
 see poor as well as rich rejoice in its advent. 
 
 There are thousands of respectable poor in our vast metro- 
 polis who, hidden from sight, will never come in for a share 
 of the usual Christmas festivities, unless individual exertion 
 seeks them out — thousands to whom Christmas will be but 
 an empty name, bringing no joy, spiritual or temporal, — no 
 hope either of happiness here or of the Redemption opened 
 to them hereafter by our Saviour's birth. If we ourselves 
 value that gift, let us seek personally to carry the good news 
 into the dark and comfortless habitations of our London poor. 
 Let us reflect the joy of our own hearts, not only upon 
 those who accidentally come beneath our notice, but assist 
 those who silently and patiently are suffering from oppression 
 and want. 
 
 At Christmas time the heart is more than usually open to 
 the calls of benevolence. Ocular demonstration will not 
 diminish either the power or the will to give, but the sym-
 
 22 
 
 pathy it leaves in its train will infuse new energy into many 
 a despairing breast. " I thought there were no kind ladies 
 left in the world/' said a poor widow, with a burst of tears, 
 when spoken kindly to. She had been ferreted out from a 
 garret where she had hidden herself, and was trying to 
 support three children by her unaided efforts at needlework. 
 Illness had, however, just driven her to absolute despair, and 
 she would have been classed among our pauper poor by this 
 time had not timely relief been tendered her. 
 
 Ere the pen that has traced the foregoing lines is dry, 
 the Christmas season of rejoicing, to which allusion was made, 
 has been clouded in its birth ; and in the sudden and early 
 death of the Prince Consort England is called on to bear 
 one of the greatest losses her people can sustain. 
 
 For twenty-one years Prince Albert has lived among ns, 
 honoured, admired, and beloved, setting an example of 
 Christian steadfastness and manly virtue. His life was one 
 of action, combining public utility with private benevolence. 
 Raised to the highest position in the land, yet no man, 
 perhaps, ever fulfilled life's various responsibilities and duties 
 more practically or more unostentatiously. 
 
 While science and art engaged his attention, he yet devoted 
 a large portion of his time and talents toward the social 
 improvement of the people among whom he was placed. 
 The movement for bettering the condition of the dwellings 
 of the poor especially met with his sympathy and co-opera-
 
 23 
 
 tion, and the model lodgings he erected are monuments 
 of his practical interest in behalf of the labouring classes. 
 The individual loss of such a man to the nation would be 
 in itself a sufficient cause to banish for a time festivity from 
 our homes and mirth from our hearts; but beyond this 
 we have a deeper cause for sorrow, for in the life thus 
 extinguished the domestic happiness of our beloved Queen 
 was inseparably bound up. That Queen is now a widow, and 
 desolate. Alas ! what heart does not bleed for her anguish ? 
 Who can make merry while she is thus crushed under the 
 first weight of her irreparable loss ? Henceforth her sorrow 
 must be her subjects', to share and alleviate as best they can. 
 Even in the first hour of her bereavement, Queen Victoria 
 found thoughts and words to express, that whatever her 
 own burthen of grief might be, her people's prosperity was 
 and should be still her acknowledged responsibility. Can 
 we do nothing, then, at this crisis to aid so high and noble 
 a resolve ? Our individual sympathy cannot reach her 
 directly, but surely we can prove its depth by lessening the 
 misery of those whose grievances, when cognizant of, both 
 the Queen and her late Royal Partner were ever the first 
 to mourn over and alleviate. 
 
 Once more, then, through the press, we call on Christian 
 friends not to spare their exertions to abate the increasing 
 destitution of our land. The Times newspaper of December 
 10th, in a statement it makes, puts the increase of pauperism 
 at about 6 per cent* over and above what it was in I860, 
 Can we not do something in 1862 to arrest its progress?
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The writer of the foregoing pages will thankfully accept 
 any offer of " individual aid " towards the work which she is 
 directing under the name of " The Needlewomen's Institute," 
 2, Hinde Street, Manchester Square, where any communica- 
 tions on the subject can be addressed. 
 
 The Society for the Eelief of Distress, 38, King Street, 
 St. James's, also authorize her to state, that any volunteers 
 for district visiting, or personal work, among the poor of 
 London, will be gratefully met. Kelief will be afforded from 
 their Society's funds to such cases of distress as their own 
 district visitors certify to be deserving. 
 
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 €.'.m 
 
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