Transcribed from the 1800’s Religious Tract Society pamphlet by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

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TALK ABOUT SOCIALISM
WITH AN OLD SHOPMATE.

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY, INSTITUTED 1799.
56, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD.

Thinks I to myself the other sabbath afternoon, as I sat alone with my Bible before me—thinks I to myself, that was a comforting text in God’s holy word that our minister preached from this morning; “All things work together for good to them that love God:” and a capital sermon it was, too, that he gave us; for though it cut me to the heart on account of my sins, it brought the tears into my eyes, on account of God’s mercy and grace.

Well, I read the chapter that the text was taken from all to myself; for my Nancy was gone to public worship, and I was left to take care of the house, and our little Mary, and the young one in the cradle. The house was clean and tidy, and everything was quiet, and I felt happy like. Trust me for having as many cares as my neighbours; a poor man ought not to expect to be without them, nor, for the matter of that, a rich man neither: but I felt happy, and though I said nothing, my heart thanked God.

Thinks I to myself, we are bad enough as it is; ay, the very best of us; but if places of worship were to be shut up, and we had no ministers to preach to us, and had no Bibles to read, we should be a deal worse than we are: and this set me a thinking about the blessing of the sabbath day, and the comfort of prayer, and the peace of mind there is in thinking of the salvation of Christ, and the promises of God. Not that I can always get the comfort from them as I could wish, for I am a poor ignorant creature, and the turn of a straw is enough, at times, to turn my thoughts from good things to bad. But I felt, as I said, happy like in the quietness that a God fearing man enjoys on the sabbath day, and in the peace of that religion in which my dear father and mother before me had lived and died; and I was determined, with God’s help, to stick to it, while I had any breath in my body. Thinks I, there is many of us that have sadly stood in our own light, in neglecting the sabbath and holy things. What fools we are to cheat ourselves as we do! When we run after our follies, the jack o’ lanterns that dance before us, and lead us astray, no wonder that we get into the mire; “but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint,” Isaiah xl. 31.

As I sat musing in this way over my Bible, the door-way was darkened a little, all on a sudden; so I lifted up my head, and there I saw Tom Fletcher with a lot of books in his hand.

Tom was once a shopmate of mine; and, though I never took him to be a very wise man, nor over bright in his upper story, yet, for all that, he was better than many. He had brought his books on purpose to talk to me about them. In a minute or two we were in the thick of them.

Says he, “I have not seen you for some time; and since you and I met, I have joined the Socialists.” “Joined who?” says I. “Why,” says he, “the Socialists;” and with that he told me all about it. By his account it seemed that the world had been going round the wrong way ever since it was made, but the Socialists were going to put matters to rights again. “Just shut up your Bible,” says he, “and I will show you my books.”