Cheap Charity.

TRAVELLER was once passing through Piedmont at a time when

chestnuts were ripe. It happened that there was a plentiful harvest that year. So abundant, indeed, was the crop, that nuts literally paved the orchard grounds, and the farmers hardly knew what to do with them. Our wayfarer, coming to a low wall skirting a garden where a farmer and his men were busy loading, stopped to look at the operation. Upon this, the farmer, plunging his hands into a large basket and bringing up a quantity of nuts, cried, "Take some, friend." Whether it was through modesty, or want of appetite, or from some other cause, our friend did not seem inclined for the nuts. Whereupon the farmer cried out, "Don't be afraid, stranger; you are quite welcome to them. There are nuts for men, nuts for women, nuts for children, and nuts for cats and dogs this year; and, if you don't take them, they'll probably be thrown to the pigs!" Now, whether our traveller was won over to partake of this freely offered feast, or whether, departing unfed, he marvelled at the wonderful benevolence of the man, he does not inform

us.

There may, however, be some reader saying, "This was in Piedmont, you see; those poor people living in popish darkness don't know any better, but of course that was no hospitality." Stop a bit, friend, let us see whether there may not be something akin to it nearer home. You are a lady, we will suppose, tolerably well-to-do. You have a good house, and lack nothing to make it comfortable. You "look well to the ways of your household, and eat not the bread of idleness." Walking around some day to see that all is going on right, you step into the kitchen. Suddenly, your olfactory nerves are assailed by a disagreeable odour. Sniffing and searching, you follow your nose, and come to the pantry; and there upon a high shelf you discover the offender in the shape of a mutton bone with a few ounces of meat upon it. You bring it to light, sniff at it again, and bah! it is odious. Mary," you call; "Mary!" But Mary is upstairs making the beds. "Mary! come down, I want you. What is this doing here, making such a smell?" Of course, Mary doesn't know. It was sweet enough when she put it there. "It's bad enough now," you reply, "but it is a pity to waste it. Here, Mary, put on your bonnet and take it to Nancy Needham down the lane." Then conscience gives a little twinge, and you smell at it once more, saying, "It is not so far gone after all; she'll be glad enough to eat it, poor woman." So, having sent off the bone, you wipe your hands with a towel, lest there might be an odour of the mutton on it, and stroke yourself down with "Blessed is he that considereth the poor;" and straightway go and sit down to a warm dinner of roast duck and green peas.

And that is your charity, is it! Away with such abominable benevolence. Call that charity? Ay, cheap and dirty charity, say I, making the poor and needy the receptacles of your refuse.

Sometimes I pass waste lands, whereon speculating builders intend to erect "ginger-bread houses" for the benefit of the working classes! These spots being full of pit-holes and used-up quarries, the owners stick up signboards, painted, "Rubbish may be shot here." So do some people

look upon the poor. They think they were made to be receptacles of all manner of "leavings;" and, moreover, expect them thankfully to accept whatsoever their "benefactors" don't want themselves. This may be a convenience to the said benefactors, but, if they put down such donations under the head of charity, may the Lord open their eyes to see that they have placed them in the wrong column, and move them not to do so any more.

Had my lady above referred to sent the duck and green peas to poor Nancy, and sat down to pick the bone "that was not so bad after all" herself (would it do her any more harm than it would Nancy ?), it might have been counted as something-an " odour of a sweet-smelling savour” perchance-but sending the bone was quite the other thing.

Once more, and to the other sex this time. You have been to your business, squared up your accounts, put all right and straight, seen that the balance at your banker's is on the right side of the book, and, having looked after your own affairs in all ways you can think of, you take the 'bus and arrive safely home to tea. After that, you have a long evening before you. You remember that friend Brown promised to come and play you a game of chess at seven; but it wants a full hour of seven yet, and being a man to whom it is misery to be idle, the getting over of that hour is now your special trouble. It will be as long as two if you don't do something. Ah! you remember now. Your wife told you this morning about a poor old man in the village who was dying, and that nobody seemed to go near him; and what a pity it was for him to die thus. Happy relief! Just the thing! You'll go. Why should you not? God has blessed and prospered you in business, and, so far as you know, you've done your duty in looking after it. Why should you not give a little of your time to his cause? Why not, indeed? especially as you do not know what else to do with it. So, off you go, and administer such consolation to the dying man as one in your frame of mind is likely to give, taking care when you meet friend Brown to say what you have done, and drawing from him that bit of soft soap, "It's very good of you." Very good, indeed! Wonderfully self-sacrificing, that killing of a troublesome hour.

Brethren and sisters, are these acts like unto his "who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor"? Who, though Lord of all, was content to be without a place whereon to lay his head? Who, though a beggar of water at the well of Samaria, was moved with compassion for the multitude, and fed them bountifully? Who, having no need to work, yet felt constrained to be about his Father's business, counting it, in fact, his meat and drink; and who walked up and down the roads of Palestine till he was well nigh worn out, that he might preach to perishing sinners the glad tidings of redemption. Oh! in the light of such a life, how poor are our best services for God: how miserably poor, then, our reluctant, time-killing services, and our services to suit our own convenience, must be.

Followers of the self-denying Christ, do something that will cost you something-make self-sacrifices-put yourselves to trouble and inconvenience spend precious hours at his work. Search for opportunities of doing it, let your works praise him: for then, and then only, will you show that you have been baptised with his Spirit, and that you are his followers in deed as well as in word. A DEACON.

Evangelism in Cow Cross.

BY EDWARD LEACH.

"COWE CROSSE " was in olden time a leafy lane, leading from

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London to the spot where, near a spring of water, the Clerks of the City were wont to exhibit their dramatic representations: hence the designation, "Clerkenwell." Old Stowe, whose pages, read in the present day, are as interesting as a romance, tells us that "on the left-hand side of St. John Street lieth a lane, called Cow Cross, of a Cross sometime standing there." It is many years ago since the last vestige of the country was removed from this central spot in the great metropolis. The old wooden, ramshackle dwellings to be found in some of the many yards of this unwholesome district reveal its antiquity. And, if modern improvements, markets, and railways have swept away many of the piggeries which were an eyesore and a disgrace to civilisation, it has left behind many of the old haunts of poverty and crime. Not that the district is wholly given up to squalor and dirt. The sensational sketches which have recently been provided for the delectation of a curious public are a little overdrawn. We have seen worse dwellings-let some portions of proud Edinburgh bear the unenviable palm-and more degraded beings are located elsewhere than you will now find in Cow Cross. Very largely has the criminal element been deleted; and the majority of the inhabitants consists of the poorest street bread-winners and the pickers-up of the by-ends of trade. Still, wretched poverty and shameless degradation are too fully represented here. The great curse of places like these, that have not been wholly improved off the face of the earth, is overcrowding. Our labouring poor have suffered severe hardships from modern improvements. Live near the scene of their toil they must; rob them of their homes, they are compelled to herd the more closely together. The family that once luxuriated in two small rooms that were barely sufficient for the preservation of decency, is now huddled into one room in a dilapidated house, crowded with families large and small. Who is to blame for this? the colony of families thus brought together, or the legalised system which has driven them into these hotbeds of fever and disease? And might not the Peabody trustees look a little lower down in the social scale for channels for the inflowing of that good man's gifts and legacies to the London poor? Might they not greatly raise the condition of many honest but deplorably poor people living now in these overcrowded dwellings, by affording them that superior accommodation which it was, as we thought, the intent of the generous donor to give the suffering poor, at a rent not exceeding that which they already pay? Our city missionaries could find scores of families of probity and untarnished honour who would thank the hand that helped them cut of the dens which they now inhabit, and for which they pay dearly in money and in loss of moral tone and physical vigour. At present, we have in Cow Cross a state of things which the Earl of Shaftesbury once described, in the House of Lords, in the following terms:-"In sixteen courts, there, I found one hundred and seventy-three houses, having five hundred and eighty-six rooms in

all, and in them five hundred and eighty-six families: the number of persons was three thousand seven hundred and fifty-four, being an average of six and a half persons to a room. The rooms were from fifteen feet by twelve, to nine by nine. They were low, dark, dismal, and dirty; so low, indeed, that it was with great difficulty I could stand upright in them, and, when I extended my arms, I could nearly touch the walls on either side with my fingers'-ends. In these rooms I found five, six, seven, eight, and even nine persons living. Depend upon it, that while they are left in their present state, and exposed to all the detestable circumstances that surround them, the efforts of the clergyman and the missionary will be in vain. You undo with one hand the work of the other. It is a Penelope's web, woven in the morning, but unravelled at night."

It is estimated that during the last seven years one-half of the district has been pulled down. It was just prior to these extensive demolitions that Mr. Catlin, then employed by the London City Mission, was appointed to work in Cow Cross. The district had at that time a most unsavoury repute. Three missionaries in succession had subjected themselves to charges which required their removal, and the low-lived denizens of Jack Ketch's Warren were, as a consequence, greatly embittered against all mission agents. Considerable difficulty had been found by the committee in finding a man who would venture into such haunts; and the experience of Mr. Catlin was certainly distressing enough to cause him speedily to shake the dust from off his shoes, and leave the place in disgust and despair. He was at once insulted by the ungenerous and cowardly Irish. He was subjected to provoking chaff, to allusions unpleasant and provoking; children mocked and women pelted ; brave navvies at work upon the Metropolitan Railway-then in progress-put down their pickaxes and spades to roar with delight over the doings of a drunken virago, who dragged the poor missionary, with almost Herculean force, in the mire and mud. 66 Such fun," the boys

and girls of Turnmill Street and its nest of courts had never had before, and all gratis. To them it was as good as a theatrical spectacle at a penny gaff. Mr. Catlin is wiry and strong, braver than his persecutors, and, as events proved, more determined and persevering. These obstacles he felt might yet be removed, and the time come when those who scouted would gladly receive him. At least, they must not be feared the inhabitants must see that he meant to succeed. Thus, when he was warned by a shopkeeper not to go into a certain gateway, which led to a slaughter-house, because "a gentleman went in the other day to offer the butcher's men a tract, and they actually poured a pail of blood over his head and shoulders," he, of course, went in at once. When Sunday came, he took his stand in Turnmill Street, and began speaking" all the words of this life" to the people. Turnmill Street at this time presented a spectacle almost unique, we should think, in London on a Sunday evening: donkey-riding, pigeon-flying, dogfighting, tossing, and betting-the two latter pursuits being, as we have observed, very common in many districts in the metropolis-attracted together large crowds of costermongers and navvies, with their uproarious and uncomely consorts. As soon as the preacher commenced his proceedings, over one hundred women and girls joined hand-in-hand,

But if the

provokingly singing, with much glee, something to this effect: "Open the gates as wide as high, and let King George and I come by." This entertainment was provided, with much satisfaction to all but the missionary, on the following Sabbath. Of course, he had to succumb. What could he do against one hundred voices-such voices, too; so loud, so shrill? He rather prided himself upon his excellent voiceand that alone ought to have won the attention of the coster fraternity, who are great connoisseurs in voices-but, as he amusingly observes, one hundred to one was a little too much. One evening, however, in desperation, he climbed up a lamp-post after it was dark," and there, hanging by one arm, held his Bible with the other, and read by the light of the lamp, to his astonished audience, the thirty-third chapter of the book of the Prophet Ezekiel." The duty of the watchman was faithfully discharged that night. The awful, admonitory words were read with feeling: "O wicked man, thou shalt surely die If he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby." And we may imagine how a loud voice, full of passion and earnestness, would cause the invitation to roll forth: "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye, from your evil wars, for why will ye die ?" This extraordinary proceeding tamed the lion-like opposition of the confederates below, and the scene is profitably remembered by many to this day. A poor man afterwards offered the use of his humble room for a week-night service, and this was accepted, and good followed. The next summer a tradesman's wife, Mr. Catlin says, "just looked in, and her heart was so touched at the crowded and heated state of the room, that, after consulting her husband, they generously fitted up a coach-house at 54, Turnmill Street, not only rent free, but gas and fire in addition, for Gospel preaching." This proved to be the tide in the affairs of the mission, which led on to a happy future. The gospel was proclaimed. converts were given, district visitors were appointed, and the courts and alleys that had scouted the idea of missionary enterprise gladly and thankfully received the men who had been moved to speak to them of Christ. The open-air preaching on Clerkenwell Green, to which reference was made in our article last month, was greatly blessed, and we read in last year's report," that most of the helpers associated together in the work of the Cow Cross Mission have been brought to the Lord in Clerkenwell Green. More than four-score letters have been received from persons who have got blessing to their souls at this particular place, and among them some who have confessed that they were amongst the vilest of the vile."

Mr. Catlin is no longer connected with the London City Mission, having thrown himself upon the generosity of the Christian public for support-a course that has not been without anxieties, which have sometimes been depressing. There is a rule of the City Mission which reads thus:-" The missionaries are most carefully to avoid the giving of temporal relief, as not their department of Christian effort, and as most materially interfering with the integrity of their special work." This rule, in its relation to a class of men who have but little organizational