Page:Speech of the Rev. T. Spencer, of Bath, delivered at the meeting of the Anti-Corn-Law League.pdf/14

6 in the place of justice, all kinds of blunders are sure to be the result. (Cheers.) All I can say is, that the Bible does not sanction the putting of charity for justice. It says: "Do justly," and then "love mercy." Let everything be based on right principles, let everything be honest, let everything be fair, let everything be equitable, pay your dues, and do what is right, and then, if you have the opportunity and the means, show your generosity. But even then the charity of the Bible is not modern charity not charity at the expense of the state—or of the poor-rates—not charity at the expense of the church-rates—not the charity which says, "Be ye warmed and be ye clothed," and then adds, "go to the parish for it;" but it is the charity which comes out of a man's own pocket. (Cheers.) I will tell you a case of true charity which came to my knowledge yesterday. An excellent gentleman whom I know was travelling with me from Bristol (he may be here—if so I hope he will forgive me for mentioning the circumstance): he stated that thirty years ago a gentleman was travelling inside the coach on a terribly stormy winter night. Outside the coach was a soldier's wife with her child, enduring the misery of the pelting rain and the chilling and boisterous wind. This gentleman, though the journey was long, when he heard the circumstances of the case, resigned his place within the coach, and changed seats with the poor soldier's wife and child, whom he placed in the comfortable interior, whilst he himself for hours bore all the pelting of the pitiless storm. (Cheers.) That gentleman was a noble Free-Trader, whose name is. (Immense cheering, the audience rising en masse.) I said to the gentleman who informed me of this, "I wonder if Lord Radnor would remember that if he were told of it."—"Oh," he said, "I know scores of similar occurrences, but whenever I have told him of them lately, he said he had quite forgotten them"—another mark of a truly noble, generous mind! (Great cheers.)

Mow, the principle which I wish to lay before you is this—that if there be distress in the country you should not take the modern system of patching, mending, and tinkering, but should go to the fountain head of the mischief and the misery, and try to remove the cause of that misery. (Cheers.) It is better to spend £5 in removing the cause of misery, destitution, and vice, than to spend £500 in striving to keep people comfortable in their wretchedness. (Cheers.) Now, the plan to which I allude is a scriptural plan: the other is too much the fashion in the present day. I will just state to you a few ideas which the business of last Sunday led me to entertain; and if I go wrong it is the Church which sets me to do this work. (A laugh.) In the Psalms of the afternoon. service I read about misery and distress:—"How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. "Here, then, it appears that our conduct to the afflicted and needy is to obtain justice for them. It is not the mere giving them charity that is the doing justice to the afflicted and needy. Then the next verse is, "Deliver the poor and needy; rid them, out of the hands of the wicked." This is what the Free-trade movement is intended to do. (Loud cheers.) Then I find another recommendation, which we who live in an age in which religion is very much in fashion, when there are so many ladies and gentlemen who think themselves more religious than others, who almost feel themselves defiled if they meddle with any movement, or interfere in the affairs of the world, or come within the influence of ordinary matters—still I find that religion which is recommended to us to be this—"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen?" Let us know the religion that God hath chosen:—"To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh." It is,