iformity, and to build up round the church a rampart of good sense:
and so, Heaven bless your labours! A word more: if it be possible, take
no fees at a baptism, and let it not be thought, by either rich or poor,
that an entrance into Christ's fold must be paid for; no, nor at a
burial; but let the service for the Christian dead be accorded freely,
without money and without price. To a wedding, the same ideas are not
perhaps so closely applicable; therefore we will generously suffer that
you keep your customs there; but on the introduction of a little one to
the bosom of the church, or restoring the body of a saint to Him who
made it of the dust, nothing can be more repulsive to right religious
feelings than to be bothered by a fee-seeking clerk, thrusting in your
face an itching palm: to the poor, these things are more than a mere
annoyance; they amount to a hardship and a hindrance; for such demands
at such seasons are often nothing less than a bitter extortion upon the
self-denial of conscientious duty.

More might be added; but enough, too much has been alluded to. Nothing
would strengthen the bulwarks of our Zion more than such easy reforms as
these: recent happy revivals in our church would thus be more
solidified; and where, as now, many have been lulled to slumber, many
grieved, many become disgusted or Dissenters, our sons and our daughters
would grow up as the polished corners of the temple, and crowds would
throng the courts of our holy and beautiful House.

Suffer thus far, clerical and lay, these crude hints: in all things have
I studied brevity, throughout this little bookful; therefore are you
spared a perusal of my reasons, and so be indulgent for their absence. I
"touch your ears" but lightly; be you for charity, as in old Rome, my
favourable witnesses.

* * * * *

My before-mentioned Censor of the press had a very considerable mind to
dock all mention of the following intended _brochure_. But I answered,
Really, Mr. Judgment, (better or worse, as occasion may register your
Agnomen,) you must not weigh trifles in gold-assaying scales; be not so
particular as to the polish of a thumb-nail; endure a little incoherent
pastime; count not the several stems of hay, straw, stubble--but suffer
them to be pitch-forked _en masse_, and unconsidered: it is their
privilege, in common with that of certain others--lightnesses that froth
upon the surface of society. Moreover, let me re