He is rich, who hath enough to be charitable; and it is hard to be so poor that a noble mind may not find a way to this piece of goodness. He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord; there is more Rhetorick in that one sentence, than in a Library of Sermons; and indeed if those Sentences were understood by the Reader, with the same Emphasis as they are delivered by the Author, we needed not those Volumes of instructions, but might be honest by an Epitome. Upon this motive only I cannot behold a Beggar without relieving his Necessities with my Purse, or his Soul with my Prayers; those scenical and accidental differences between us, cannot make me forget that common and untoucht part of us both; there is under these Cantoes and miserable outsides, these mutilate and semi-bodies, a soul of the same alloy with our own, whose Genealogy is God as well as ours, and in as fair a way to Salvation as our selves.
"PLEASE TO RING THE BELLE"
[Sidenote: Hood]
I'll tell you a story that's not in Tom Moore:—
Young Love likes to knock at a pretty girl's door:
So he call'd upon Lucy—'twas just ten o'clock—
Like a spruce single man, with a smart double knock.
Now, a handmaid, whatever her fingers be at,
Will run like a puss when she hears a rat-tat:
So Lucy ran up—and in two seconds more
Had questioned the stranger and answered the door.
The meeting was bliss; but the parting was woe;
For the moment will come when such comers must go:
So she kissed him, and whispered—poor innocent thing!—
"The next time you come, love, pray come with a ring."
THE HAPPY DEAN
[Sidenote: Dean Hole]
My dear Hall,—I don't like the writing of this letter. I feel as I felt in childhood when they were measuring out the castor-oil in a spoon; or when, in boyhood, it was suggested "that kind Mr. Crackjaw should just look at my teeth."
But the gulp and the "scrawnsh" must come.
My Master, the Archbishop, wishes me to speak at the Annual Meeting of the Church Defence Society in London, on the 9th of July, and as this is his first invitation to duty since I became his Chaplain, I cannot plead pleasure as an excuse.
Regarding the Fete des Roses at Larchwood, as the most joyful holiday of my year, from my first entrance into that pleasant home until you chaperon me to the Omnibus at the gate of the Show-ground, I need not enlarge on my disappointment. The less said the better.