Look back to the seventh page, and the twenty-fourth, of the Fors of January, for this year. The first tells you, what this last sign of Church desecration now confirms, that you are in the midst of men who, if there be truth in Christianity at all, must be punished for their open defiance of Heaven by the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit, and the triumph of the Evil One. And you are told in the last page that by the service of God only you can recover the presence of the Holy Ghost of Life and Health—the Comforter.
This—vaguely and imperfectly, during the last six years, proclaimed to you, as it was granted me—in this coming seventh year I trust to make more simply manifest; and to show you how every earthly good and possession will be given you, if you seek first the Kingdom of God and His Justice. If, in the assurance of Faith, you can ask and strive that such kingdom may be with you, though it is not meat and drink, but Justice, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost,—if, in the first terms I put to you for oath,[7] you will do good work, whether you live or die, and so lie down at night, whether hungry or weary, at least in peace of heart and surety of honour;—then, you shall rejoice, in your [[390]]native land, and on your nursing sea, in all fulness of temporal possession;—then, for you the earth shall bring forth her increase, and for you the floods clap their hands;—throughout your sacred pilgrimage, strangers here and sojourners with God, yet His word shall be with you,—“the land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is Mine,” and after your numbered days of happy loyalty, you shall go to rejoice in His Fatherland, and with His people. [[391]]
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE.
I. Affairs of the Company.
There is no occasion to put our small account again in print till the end of the year: we are not more than ten pounds ahead, since last month.
I certainly would not have believed, six years ago, that I had so few friends who had any trust in me; or that the British public would have entirely declined to promote such an object as the purchase of land for national freehold.
Next year I shall urge the operatives whom any words of mine may reach, to begin some organization with a view to this object among themselves. They have already combined to build co-operative mills; they would find common land a more secure investment.
I am very anxious to support, with a view to the determination of a standard of material in dress, the wool manufacture among the old-fashioned cottagers of the Isle of Man; and I shall be especially grateful to any readers of Fors who will communicate with Mr. Egbert Rydings (Laxey, Isle of Man,) on this subject. In the island itself Mr. Rydings tells me, the stuffs are now little worn by the better classes, because they ‘wear too long,’—a fault which I hope there may be yet found English housewives who will forgive. At all events, I mean the square yard of Laxey homespun of a given weight, to be one of the standards of value in St George’s currency.
The cheque of £25, sent to Mr. Rydings for the encouragement of some of the older and feebler workers, is the only expenditure, beyond those for fittings slowly proceeded with in our museum at Sheffield, to which I shall have to call attention at the year’s end. [[392]]
II. Affairs of the Master.