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14

HIS is Friday evening. It has been a gloomy November day. And now, about nine o'clock, I hear the wind moaning as if there were to be a stormy night. But the fire is

blazing, and the curtains are drawn: and here, in this little room, once the study of a wit and a poet, things are almost as quiet as if it were miles away from the great city in which it is. You might hear an occasional shout, from a street which is not far distant and I am aware of a sound which appears to originate in the beating of carpets in the lane behind this row of houses. But the door-bell, which rings perpetually in the forenoon, and very frequently in the evening, is not likely to be rung any more tonight by any one whose business is with me: and no humble parishioner, interrupting the thread of one's thoughts, is likely to come now upon his little

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leisure and oh, what a rest and relief such an hour is, to the man who has it only now and then!

Both my sermons for Sunday are ready; and they are in a drawer in this table on which I write. I have seen, I believe, every sick person in the congregation on some day during this week. As for the parish, that is by far too large and populous to be personally overtaken by any single clergyman: but I have the great comfort of being aided by a machinery of district visitation, which does not suffer one poor person in the parish to feel that he is forgotten in his parish church. I cannot, at this moment, think of any one matter of ministerial duty which demands instant attention: though of course I have the vague sense, which I suppose will never be absent, that there are many duties impending; many things which Monday morning at the latest will bring. Surely, then, if such are ever to come in a large town parish, here is one of my leisure hours.

When a country parson, leaving a little rustic cure, undertakes the charge of such a parish, if he be a man whose heart is in his work, he is quite certain greatly to over-work himself. It is indeed a total change, from the quiet of a country parish, where dwellings are dotted singly here and there, with great fields between them; to the town, where street after street of tall houses is filled with your pa

rishioners, all entitled to some measure of your care and thought. And with that change, there comes a sudden acceleration of the wheels of life. You begin. to live in a hurry. Your mind gets into a feverish state. You live under a constant feeling of pressure. You think, while you are doing anything, that something else is waiting to be done. It need not be said that such a feeling is, with most men, quite fatal to doing one's best: more particularly with the pen. And if you be of an anxious temperament, the time never comes in which you can sit down and rest, feeling that your work is done. You sit down sometimes and rest, through pure fatigue and exhaustion but all the while you are thinking of something else which demands to be done, and which you are anxious to do. You will often wish for the precious power possessed by some men, of taking things easily you may even sometimes sigh for the robust resolution of Lord Chancellor Thurlow.

:

I divide my work,' he said, 'into three parts. Part I do: part does itself: and part I leave undone.' But many men could not for their lives resolve to do this last. They go with a hearty will at their work, till body and mind break down.

There is no work so hard, to a conscientious man, as that which he may make as easy or as hard as he chooses. It is a great blessing to have one's task set; and to be able to feel, when you have done it, that your work is done; and that you may rest with

a clear conscience.

But in the Church, that can

never be. There is always something more that might be done. What clergyman can say that he has done for the good of his parish all that is possible for man to do;-that there is no new religious or benevolent agency which by energy yet more unsparing might be set in operation? It may here be said, that I do not in any degree approve the system of trying to dragoon people, whether poor or rich, into attention to their religious duties and interests, which is attempted by some good people whose zeal exceeds their discretion: and that I have no fancy for making a church, what with perpetual meetings, endless societies, and ever-recurring collections of money for this and that purpose, look like nothing so much as a great cotton-mill, with countless wheels whirring away, and dazing the brain by their ceaseless motion. It is fit to recognise the fact, that the poorest folk are responsible beings; and that intelligent artisans will not submit to be treated like children, even by people who wish to make them good children. And you know that a boy, who has learnt to swim by the aid of corks and bladders, is very apt to sink when that support is taken away. His power of swimming is not worth much. It seems to me to be even so with that form of religion, which can be kept alive only by a constant series of visits, exhortations, tracts, and week-day church-services. I venture to judge no man: but give me, say I, not

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