all our expenditure,* and I would not have it thought that I am urging measures which would increase its burden. I believe that, for the same sum now expended, all the indulgences I yearn to see granted might be allowed. Nor do I quarrel with the outdoor relief afforded, 2s. 6d. or 2s. 9d. per week, as a public pension, allowed to those whose characters are good, and are now past work, being a creditable allowance, private charity stepping in to aid. Nor do I think the New Poor Law necessarily a harsh law, butI do think it is often harshly carried out by the indifference of Guardians, by the want of kindness in the officers of many Unions, by the determination of English rate-payers to look on all in the house as so many living burdens on them, thus seeming to forget. that our Great All-Father says to us: "If thy brother be waxen poor, and his hand faileth, then thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a stranger or sojourner, that he may live with thee;" and also, "Thou shalt

* The excellent authoress of "Metropolitan Workhouses and their Inmates," says, in that valuable little work-" The word 'pauper' has become an unfortunate one, bearing a signification quite different from its literal sense, that of a 'poor person, or one who receives alms.' We have attached to it a meaning of reproach and scorn, from which we cannot divest it, and which to many persons is a justification of the treatment which the so-called paupers receive. The generality of persons pay their poor-rates, not with a feeling that they are contributing part of their substance to the just support of the distressed, the sick, and afflicted, but to the maintenance of a class who, somehow or other, ought not to exist, ought not to be a burden upon the industrious and working part of the community."-Page 24.

rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy GOD: I am the LORD."

Then I turn to Mrs Jameson's "Communion of Labour,” (all honour to an Englishwoman who can so write,) and read words that none gainsay in their truthful portraiture:-"Never did I visit any dungeon, any abode of crime and misery in any country, which left the same crushing sense of sorrow, indignation, and compassion, almost despair, as some of the English Workhouses." The melancholy dulness in the wards for the old and sick is dreadful." "The epithet, charitable, could never be applied to any parish Workhouse I have seen." No. We are not, as a Christian nation, doing our loving duty towards those of our beloved land, who are in the Union Houses for no fault of their own; those who, from having no near and dear ones left to them to shelter their declining years, have no other home.

Have we ever realised the number of those who are in our Workhouses of England and Wales. On 1st January 1857 there were 624 Unions; in them were found 843,430 persons of all classes, including children; out of these, 139,130 are returned as adult ablebodied persons, leaving 704,300 aged, incapable, idiotic, and youthful inmates of the same; for these, not for the able-bodied, I here plead.

Seven hundred thousand for England to pity, and extend a loving hand to!

And my object now is to prove that, as a general thing, (there are exceptions to every rule,) we forget

the charity in the necessity of giving food and shelter to those whom we dare not leave to starve.

Let me here recapitulate my first impressions of Workhouse Visiting.

I forget now what led me to think of going there, but I never can forget my first sensation when I sat down among them in the Hospital Wards, where the old and infirm were located; the listless look-the dull vacuity-the lack of all interest, except for the petty details of tea versus gruel-potatoes versus rice! the only object from their windows of moving interest being the parish hearse preparing to take away some of their former companions. There were several old women, all between 70 and 90-crouching around the fire, full of complainings of rheumatism, and aches, and that friends outside had forgotten them, and never came to see them, &c. I let them have their grumble out, then asked them if they knew me, upon which came many a long story of how they used to come up to my house "to sell peppermints to the servants;" and how "one Christmas," I had given her a shilling; and inquiries as to whether such an old woman in our village was alive; and if the bad son of another was living with her still; and ending with, "There, it do seem so good to hear of our old friends again."

They admired my dress, smoothed down my velvet cloak, saying they had not seen anything so pretty for a long while; held my hand tight till I promised to come back and see them again very soon. In a bed in the corner lay a poor crippled old woman, who had been

born and brought up in the country, had been in the House for three years, and who wept over a bunch of common hedgerow flowers I had gathered on my way up, a dandelion, a bit of ground ivy, a buttercup. She grasped them, and all but kissed them. In the next bed lay a lovely young girl, only 17, in the agonies of rheumatic fever, having been brought there from her small place of service, for she was friendless and homeless; for her parched and fevered lips I fortunately had an orange; oh, so acceptable!

I name these individual cases, because they all became especially interesting to me in after-visits. I returned home that bright, sunny afternoon, feeling there was indeed a work of love to do for my loving Master in heaven, both to "testify of JESUS," and to "soothe creation's groans."

The extreme cordiality, the earnest pleasure at seeing me, the intense desire to see me again, were so different from the welcome one gets, even in the cottages of those one ordinarily visits. I used to go up once a week, sometimes much oftener when health permitted. I asked them if they would like to make me some patchwork-they gladly assented. I bought some pieces of print at our draper's-gave them cotton and needles, and they made several large and beautifullydevised counterpanes, now on some of my servants' beds. Even the Matron entered into it, and would supply a light or dark patch, as the effect demanded. I used to find them on their knees, planning how to manage the said "effect," having called in several from

other wards. I always encouraged them to talk to me when I first sat down among them, anything they wanted to tell me of. Then I would make signs for perfect quiet, and the stone-deaf pauper nurse (alas! that such should be allowed to minister to the sick and aged!) would bring me the Bible, and I would read to them some short, simple passage in GOD's Word, such as "Blind Bartimeus," or "the Prodigal Son," &c.; reverently kneeling afterwards for the simplest prayer I could frame, naming them individually, "poor old Bridget," the "crippled Sally," &c. It was very touching to see the old knees bowing as in their childhood at the foot of the bed: the withered hands clasped together, and the earnest "Amens," with which all concluded.

Now and then, if able to go often to them, I would read them such a book as "Uncle Tom," and then I had a large audience. I lent them books of that stamp -"Robinson Crusoe," "The True Briton," "Pilgrim's Progress," &c. This served to amuse the weary day.

Sometimes we tried to sing a hymn together, and I never shall forget beginning "There is a Happy Land," when a poor idiot girl, who used to come in, though unconscious of what was doing, burst into an agony of tears, with "O mother, mother, come to poor Mary!"

I gave them a dozen or two of the penny hymnbooks, and some Common Prayer-books, so that on Sundays, when the incapable ones did not go to Chapel, they might have a little service among themselves.