PRACTICAL WORKING.
Numerous, however, as the visits indicated by these figures must necessarily be, they afford but a very moderate criterion for estimating those actually paid. It is to the habitual intercourse established between the Visitor and the Visited, an intercourse honourable and useful to both parties, that all the higher results of the system are to be traced. This enables either to judge more truly of the other; disabuses the poor of the prejudice that those above them in station are universally proud, unfeeling, and isolated from their hopes, wants and sympathies; and the rich of the impression that their humbler brethren are envious, discontented, and ungrateful. Mistakes are indeed committed by inexperience, but gradually become rectified by longer acquaintance and better knowledge. Mutual understandings are established. The Christian Visitor is soon distinguished from the patronizing almoner, or the salaried official. His friendly interest ceases to be confounded with intrusive curiosity—his proffers of amity with intentions to insult. Only let a District lose, for a season, the services of its Visitor, and the expression of regret is speedily made known. It is not in human nature to resist for a continuance the silent pleadings of an unvarying kindness, manifested, not simply in encouraging what is good by advice and approbation, but in discouraging what is evil by warning and discountenance. Influence follows, as a matter of course, and is used, in most instances, under a solemn sense of responsibility for the temporal and eternal welfare of those submitting to its sway. House by house, and room by room, the inmates of the cellar and the garret, are brought into contact, and joined in bands of unity with their fellow-Christians. None but the vicious are held as outcasts, and for the worst of these the means and place of repentance are religiously kept open. Liberty of Conscience is respected—Creed is no bar to aid; not that the Christian Visitor is insensible to the dangers of rending, by schisms, the Mystical Body of his Lord, but that he judgeth no man, leaving him to his own master to stand or fall. Conscious of his own infirmities, he will be careful to enter on his ministrations in a devout and lowly spirit; he will pray night and morning for a blessing on his labours, and lay before the throne of Grace his special difficulties and imperfections. His aim is a high and spiritual mark; and though he may not reach his standard fully, he keeps it in his view. It is to illustrate, in his own conduct, the beauty of holiness, and so to bring to bear upon his charge the mute but telling teaching of example. Courteous with the rude; consistent with the fickle; patient with the perverse, meek with the passionate, forbearing censure with the censorious; silent with the gossip; reverent with the scoffer; just and impartial towards all;—ready with advice when sought; attentive to the oft-told tale; kindling in sympathy with woe;—the fosterer of virtue; the uplifter from vice; the promoter of repentance; the refuge of poverty—he strives to show to others, in the mirror of his deeds, the character themselves should be. And when, in voluntary confidence, they seek his further guidance, he leads them onward in the pathway of the Church. By his instrumentality the babe is brought to Holy Baptism when its mother returns her thanks for safe delivery; the child is rescued from the streets, and sent to school; elder boys and girls, induced to renew, in Confirmation, their Baptismal vows; Prayer Books and Bibles provided for those who require them, at reduced prices. Public Worship and the Sabbath rest, pressed home on the consciences of all, and the necessity of the Lord’s Supper inculcated on the serious but timid believer, in every case requiring further counsel and advice, he commends them to the ministration of the Clergy, who are thus enabled to exercise a supervision over the masses of their population that would be impossible without some such intermediate agency. Now informed in due order of each occurrence of sickness, remorse, doubt, difficulty, and penitence, they are able to bring to bear on the sufferers exhortation, argument, and consolation, according as their circumstances demand. Thus one by one their flock are brought under their hand, not merely by a casual visitation, but in their hours of need, when they might otherwise refrain from sending for their pastor, however thankful to be tended by his unrequested care. Nor are such results of rare occurrence. They are the ordinary issues of systematic visiting. In a well-regulated District, no event of spiritual interest should escape notice; for without any attempt at unseasonable intrusion, the rounds may be so arranged as to be both regular and expected. The Books and Tracts of the Lending Library should be enquired after at least once a week, not necessarily to change them, but to hear that all is well with those who read them. Visitors who have pursued this plan, and adopted its facilities for profitable conversation, are not likely to let it fall into abeyance. There can be no doubt that their word in season, following directly upon the impression produced by some pious work, may oftentimes have been the Holy Spirit’s means of turning souls to God. For this is the supreme end of the Society; and if it fails in this, all its other successes are but light in the balance, leaves not fruit, husks devoid of heart or kernel.