CHARITY (WRITTEN FOR A SPECIAL OCCASION.) “ HARITY," says one of the inspired writers, suffereth long, and is kind; Charity envieth not, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil:" and Cowper says "Did Charity prevail, the Press would prove A vehicle of virtue, peace, and love." But, alas! it does not prevail, as is seen not only in the field of battle, where the pride of a nation is sometimes cut off even in a single day, but also in every part of the habitable globe wherever has been imprinted the foot of man. And is there not even less of that brotherly love and affection now than in days gone by? "Has not the all-absorbing love of gain The dove-winged seraph of affection slain ?" Some seventy years ago, in the days of that heavenlyminded man the late Rev. Bartimas Goodman, vicar of Fairford, a kindly feeling pervaded the breasts of the inhabitants; the rich and the poor met together, knowing that the LORD was the maker of them all; and the holy and beautiful house, the old Parish Church, was then held in the highest veneration every Sabbath day its hallowed : walls resounded with the prayers and the praises of the inhabitants, and "Oft have I thought if there were aught below Of yonder bright and beatific sphere, That never yet was watered with a tear, It was the beauty of that House of Prayer, When high and low met undistinguished there; The glorious incense of unfeigned love The humble adorations of the poor, Devoutly met their SAVIOUR to adore." And, oh! what pleasure there is in contemplating the life of some noble-hearted, charitable man!-of such a one as, even at this moment, in imagination, bursts upon my view, and of whom it may be truly said, that a being with a nobler heart never existed—that one more beloved by his workpeople could nowhere be found. In their hours of sickness he watched over them with a parental tenderness; and when, through old age and infirmities, they could no longer perform their daily task, a weekly allowance was granted them, thus making a permanent provision for their declining years; and though upwards of a quarter of a century has elapsed since that gentleman retired from the busy haunts of trade and commerce into the quiet haven of private life, numbers of his old servants are still enjoying the weekly allowance so generously bestowed upon them. Perhaps there is not a man living who has done more for the once greatly-to-be-pitied factory child. It was he who first, with the Holy Bible before him (opened, no doubt, to that beautiful passage which saith" Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven") exposed the unheard-of horrors of the factory system in the town and neighbourhood of Fairford. It was he who first made known how the children of the poor were torn from their beds by five or six o'clock in the morning |