WARM BREAKFAST AND WARM HEARTS.—TRUE SELF-DENIAL—PRIMITIVE
CHRISTIANITY.—A LIVING FAITH.
HEREFORD, _June 12th_.
When we came into the parlour, at half-past seven, we found a
breakfast-party met to greet us. Our host had been to an early
daylight prayer-meeting, and some business had detained him; but his
friends introduced each other to us, and we went to breakfast without
waiting for him. It was a good, warm, respectable breakfast—fit for
a Christian. English breakfasts in general are quite absurd; not
breakfasts at all, but just aggravations of fasts, and likely to put a
man in any thing but a Christian humour for his day’s work. As for the
better part of the meal, see C.’s letter, (from which I here extract):
[Sidenote: _PRIMITIVE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT._]
“I shall not soon forget those earnest, simple-hearted men. In many
circles one would be repelled by such constant use of religious
phrases, but in them it did not seem like _cant_ at all—rather the
usual expression with them of true feeling. It was a company too well
worth considering. Opposite me sat a middle-aged gentleman, who had
been a major-general in the East India service, and who belonged to
one of the first families in the kingdom. Yet he had given up his
commission and his position in society for the sake of doing good as
an humble Christian. His half-pay, too, he had refused, believing it
inconsistent for a religious man to receive money for services of such
a nature. He had been a scholar also, and had written a dictionary of
the Mahratta tongue. Besides him, there was a lieutenant in the navy,
who had thrown up his commission from similar religious scruples, and
a prominent surgeon of the city, devoted, like the rest, to Christian
efforts almost entirely. They had been to a prayer-meeting, and the
conversation, with the Bible open on the table, commenced at once on
a passage in John. It was beautiful, the simple, natural way they all
conversed of religious topics—no straining for sanctity, but easily and
earnestly, as men usually would speak of weighty political matters.
“But, free as is the plan of these brethren, I am sorry to say that in
real liberality they do not go beyond most others. The conversation
during breakfast turned on the Roman Catholics. Most of them went so
far as to doubt whether a Papist ever could be a Christian. The major
disagreed with them, and it was noble, the enthusiasm with which
he spoke of the pure and earnest Pascal. Generally, however, their
feeling toward men of different doctrinal opinions was much like that
of any sectarians. The Independent clergyman at Hereford says that
the most he has known are men of the Church of England, and that they
have just grasped a few great ideas, which the Independents have been
preaching since the time of Cromwell. And certainly, as compared with
‘the Church,’ their religious character is most simple and free. It
was curious to notice, as an illustration of English manners, that all
these men, the most spiritual of the whole community, took their beer
or wine as regularly as we would our tea.”
In addition to the evidence of the sincere character of the “Brethren”
instanced above, I may mention that another of our company had been
an apothecary, and given up his business from a conviction that
Homeopathy was a better way than the common drugging, and that we
afterwards met one, a near relative of one of the most distinguished
noblemen and statesmen of Great Britain, who had retired from a highly
honourable and lucrative official position, from a desire to live more
in accordance with his religious aspirations than his duties in it
permitted him to. I shall omit to narrate what more we saw of them, as
we proceeded further on our journey; but must say, to conclude, that
if, in letting no man judge them in meat or in drink, or in respect of
a holy day—if, in teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs—if, in bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness
of mind, meekness, self-sacrifice, and zealous readiness to every good
work—if, especially, in real genuine hospitality to strangers, there be
any thing of “primitive Christianity,” our entertainers seemed to us
to have had very great success in their purpose to return to it. They
certainly were not without their share of bigotry and self-confidence
in such matters of creed as they happened to hold in common; but this
did not seem to have the effect upon them of destroying geniality and
good fellowship, nor of cramping the spirit of practical, material, and
unromantic benevolence. They were quite different, too, in their way of
talking upon those subjects on which they conceived their minds to be
“at rest,” from the theological students at ——, whom —— describes as
studying as if they had bought tickets for the night-train to heaven,
and, having requested the conductor to call them when they got there,
were trying to get into the most comfortable position to sleep it
through.