ate, she is a Christian whom every girl of a fair understanding and good disposition may equal, and whom, I hope and believe, many girls excel." I asked Mrs. Stanley's permission to attend the young ladies in one of their benevolent rounds. "When I have leisure to be of the party," replied she, smiling, "you shall accompany us. I am afraid to trust your warm feelings. Your good nature would perhaps lead you to commend as a merit, what in fact deserves no praise at all, the duty being so obvious, and so indispensable. I have often heard it regretted that ladies have no stated employment, no profession. It is a mistake. Charity is the calling of a lady; the care of the poor is her profession. Men have little time or taste for details. Women of fortune have abundant leisure, which can in no way be so properly or so pleasantly filled up, as in making themselves intimately acquainted with the worth and the wants of all within their reach. With their wants, because it is their bounden duty to administer to them; with their worth, because without this knowledge, they cannot administer prudently and appropriately." I expressed to Mrs. Stanley the delight with which I had heard of the admirable regulations of her family, in the management of the poor, and how much their power of doing good was said to be enlarged by the judgment and discrimination with which it was done. "We are far from thinking," replied she, "that our charity should be limited to our own immediate neighbourhood. We are of opinion, that it should not be left undone any where, but that there it should be done indispensably. We consider our own parish as our more appropriate field of action, where Providence, by fixing the bounds of our habitation,' seems to have made us peculiarly responsible for the comfort of those whom he has doubtless placed around us for that purpose. It is thus that the Almighty 6 vindicates his justice, or rather calls on us to vindicate it. It is thus he explains why he admits natural evil into the world, by making the wants of one part of the community an exercise for the compassion of the other." "Surely," added Mrs. Stanley, "the reason is particularly obvious, why the bounty of the affluent ought to be most liberally, though not exclusively, extended to the spot whence they derive their revenues. There seems indeed to be a double motive for it. The same act involves a duty both to God and to man. The largest boun ty to the necessitous on our estates, is rather jus tice than charity. 'Tis but a kind of pepper corn acknowledgment to the great Lord and pro prietor of all, from whom we hold them. And to assist their own labouring poor is a kind of natural debt, which persons who possess great landed property owe to those from the sweat of whose brow they derive their comforts, and even their riches. 'Tis a commutation, in which, as the advantage is greatly on our side, so is our duty to diminish the difference, of paramount obligation." I then repeated my request, that I might be allowed to take a practical lesson in the next periodical visit to the cottages. Mrs. Stanley replied, "As to my girls, the elder ones, I trust, are such veterans in their trade, that your approbation can do them no harm, nor do they stand in need of it as an incentive. But should the little ones find that their charity procures them praise, they might perhaps be charitable for the sake of praise; their benevolence might be set at work by their vanity, and they might be led to do that, from the love of applause, which can only please God when the principle is pure. The iniquity of our holy things, my good friend, requires much christian vigilance. Next to not giving at all, the greatest fault is to give from ostentation. The contest is only be tween two sins. The motive robs the act of the very name of virtue, while the good work that is paid in praise, is stripped of the hope of higher retribution." On my assuring Mrs. Stanley, that I thought such an introduction to their systematic schemes of charity might inform my own mind and improve my habits, she consented, and I have since been a frequent witness of their admirable method; and have been studying plans, which in volve the good both of body and soul. O! if I am ever blest with a coadjutress, a directress let me rather say, formed under such auspices, with what delight shall I transplant the principles and practices of Stanley Grove to the Priory! Nor indeed would I ever marry but with the animating hope that not only myself, but all around me, would be the better and the happier for the presiding genius I shall place there. Sir John Belfield had joined us while we were on this topic. I had observed sometimes that though he was earnest on the general principle of benevolence, which he considered as a most imperious duty, or, as he said in his warm way, as so lively a pleasure, that he was almost ready to suspect if it were a duty; yet I was sorry to find that his generous mind had not viewed this large subject under all its aspects. He had not hitherto regarded it as a matter demanding any thing but money; while time, inquiry, discrimination, system, he confessed he had not much taken into the account. He did a great deal of good, but had not allowed himself time or thought for the best way of doing it. Charity, as opposed to heard-heartedness and covetousness, he warmly exercised; but when, with a willing liberality, he had cleared himself from the suspi cion of those detestable vices, he was indolent in the proper distribution of money, and somewhat negligent of its just application. Nor had he ever considered, as every man should do, because every man's means are limited, how the greatest quantity of good could be done with any given sum. But the worst of all was, he had imbibed certain popular prejudices respecting the more religious charities; prejudices altogether unworthy of his enlightened mind. He too much limited his ideas of bounty to bodily wants. This distinction was not with him, as it is with many, invented as an argument for saving his money; which he most willingly bestowed for feeding and clothing the necessitous. But as to the propriety of affording them religious instruction, he owned he had not made up his mind. He had some doubts whether it were a duty. Whether it were a benefit, he had still stronger doubts; adding, that he should begin to consider the subject more attentively than he had yet done. Mrs. Stanley in reply said, "I am but a poor casuist, Sir John, and I must refer you to Mr. Stanley for abler arguments than I can use. I will venture however to say, that even on your own ground it appears to be a pressing duty. If sin be the cause of so large a portion of the miseries of human life, must not that be the noblest charity which cures, or lessens, or prevents sin? And are not they the truest benefac tors even to the bodies of men, who by their religious exertions to prevent the corruption of vice, prevent also, in some measure, that pover. ty and disease which are the natural concomitants of vice? If in endeavouring to make men better, by the infusion of a religious principle, which shall check idleness, drinking, and extravagance, we put them in the way to become healthier, and richer, and happier, it will furnish a practical argument which I am sure will satisfy your benevolen heart." CHAP. XXIX. MR. TYRREL and his nephew called on us in the evening, and interrupted a pleasant and useful conversation on which we were just entering. "Do you know, Stanley," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that you have absolutely corrupted my nephew, by what passed at your house the other day in favour of reading. He has ever since been ransacking the shelves for idle books." "I should be seriously concerned," replied Mr. Stanley, "if any thing I had said should have drawn Mr. Edward off from more valuable studies, or diverted him from the important pursuit of religious knowledge." "Why, to do him justice, and you too," resumed Mr. Tyrrel, "he has since that conversation begun assiduously to devote his mornings to serious reading, and it is only an hour's leisure in the evening, which he used to trifle away, that he gives to books of taste; but I had rather he would let them all alone. The best of them will only fill his heart with cold morality, and stuff his head with romance and fiction. I would not have a religious man ever look into a book of your belles lettres nonsense; and if he be really religious, he will make a general bonfire of the poets." "That is rather too sweeping a sentence," said Mr. Stanley. "It would, I grant you, have been a benefit to mankind, if the entire works of some celebrated poets, and a considerable portion of the works of many not quite so exceptionable, were to assist the conflagration of your pile "And if fuel failed," said Sir John Belfield, "we might not only rob Belinda's altar of her Twelve tomes of French romances neatly gilt, but feed the flame with countless marble-covered octavos for the modern school. But having |