ed for them,
whom they do not, and are not even expected to pay; their spiritual
wants are ministered to, faithfully and zealously, as we see by the
instruction of that little child. Here is a friend upon whom they can
rely in their hour of trouble, as the bereaved mother did on Elisha.
'And she went up and laid her child that was dead on the bed of the man
of God, and shut the door on him, and went out.' And when a long train
of agitation, mis-government, and ill-digested changes have deranged
this happy country, as has recently been the case, here is an indulgent
landlord, disposed to lower his rent or give further time for payment,
or if sickness invades any of these cottages, to seek out the sufferer,
to afford the remedies, and by his countenance, his kindness, and
advice, to alleviate their trouble. Here it is, a positive duty arising
from their relative situations of landlord and tenant. The tenants
support the owner, the landlord protects the tenants: the duties are
reciprocal.
"With _us_ the duties, as far as Christian duties can be said to be
optional, are voluntary; and the voluntary discharge of duties, like
the voluntary support of religion, we know, from sad experience, to be
sometimes imperfectly performed, at others intermitted, and often wholly
neglected. Oh! it is a happy country this, a great and a good country;
and how base, how wicked, how diabolical it is to try to set such
a family as this against their best friends, their pastor and their
landlord; to instil dissatisfaction and distrust into their simple
minds, and to teach them to loathe the hand, that proffers nothing but
regard or relief. It is shocking, isn't it?"
"That's what I often say, Sir," said Mrs. Hodgins, "to my old man, to
keep away from them Chartists."
"Chartists! dear, who are they? I never heard of them."
"Why, Sir, they are the men that want the five pints."
"Five pints! why you don't say so; oh! they are bad men, have nothing to
do with them. Five pints! why that is two quarts and a half; that is
too much to drink if it was water; and if any thing else, it is beastly
drunkenness. Have nothing to do with them."
"Oh! no, Sir, it is five points of law."
"Tut--tut--tut! what have you got to do with law, my dear?"
"By gosh, Aunty," said Mr. Slick, "you had better not cut that pie: you
will find it rather sour in the apple sarce, and tough in the paste, I
tell _you_."
"Yes, Sir," she replied, "but they are a unse
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