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 benefactors even to the bodies of men, who by their religious exertions to prevent the corruption of vice, prevent also in some measure that poverty and disease which are the natural concomitants of vice? If in endeavoring 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 benevolent heart."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Mr. Tyrrel and his nephew called on us this evening, and interrupted a pleasant and useful conversation on which we were just entering. "Do you know, Stanley," said Mr. Tyrrel, "that you absolutely corrupted my nephew, by what passed at your house the other day in favor 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,