Outward tests of soundness in the one thing needful, must be mainly
sought in reverence for the Lord’s Day, in appreciation of His appointed
ordinances, and attendance at Public Worship. With some of the smaller
tradespeople, who formerly were accustomed to keep open their shops, and
drive their usual trade on Sunday, the persuasions of the Visitors have
been effectual in procuring an entire cessation of business; and others,
who have not strength of principle wholly to forego their profits,
trusting to the blessing of the Lord, have yet been influenced, by the
prevailing sense of decorum, to intermit their sale during the hours of
Divine Service. So, too, as the Church accommodation has been enlarged,
Church-goers have increased. Within a comparatively short period, it was
mockery to reprove a poor man for not attending the House of Prayer;
there was no room for him. Of late years a change has taken place: three
new churches have been built; they are all filled; another is required.
The free seats, extended as they have been at St. Mary’s, are crowded;
Christ Church, consecrated but eighteen months ago, has in the morning
scarcely a vacant bench. Its opening must have provided for several
hundred Churchmen, formerly wanderers from Church to Church. The
Register of Baptisms presents rather an increased than a diminished
average; but there must be a progressive augmentation in its entrances,
before it can be considered as a satisfactory record. There exists a
tendency amongst the ignorant to confound Registration with Baptism, and
many believe that the civil supersedes the religions ceremony. After all
the exertions of the Visitors to diffuse information on this subject, and
to awaken the Christian sensibilities of the parents to the importance of
the Sacrament, their returns exhibit a catalogue of nearly one hundred
children unbaptized. And though many of these are infants, and some the
offspring of Baptists, enough remain to demonstrate what would soon
become the spiritual condition of the people, were their vigilance to
sleep, or their admonitions to be withdrawn. The candidates for
Confirmation at the last celebration of the Rite, were more numerous than
usual; and drew forth the commendation of the Bishop for their devotional
propriety of demeanour. To the greater proportion of those admitted to
the Sacred Ordinance, it has been the door and vestibule of the Holy
Communion of the Body and Blood of their Redeemer. Hence, amongst other
causes, there has accrued an accession to the Communicants of the
District, the approximate estimate founded on the Easter Administrations,
being in 1851, 614, in 1852, 670. The total attendances at both Churches
was 5423. Nor must it be supposed that these are furnished solely from
the pew-holders in the Congregations; the humblest ranks are represented,
and form, though a minority, one that is both respectable and slowly
increasing. No habitual receiver of the Blessed Sacrament can fail to
have been struck with the gratifying sight afforded by the regular
presence and devout behaviour of a class of young men, who commonly
furnish a fifth of the Communicants at St. Mary Abbott’s, on the third
Sunday in the month; a class which, however independent of the actual
working of the Society, owes both its formation and guidance to the zeal
and perseverance of not the least active or efficient Member of its
Committee.
Here then the Committee close their Review, under a conviction that they
have established a claim upon the generous consideration of their fellow
Parishioners. The facts enumerated speak for themselves. No force of
eloquence, no appeals to sentiment are required to enhance their value.
They satisfy the head—they ought to influence the heart; for if it be a
duty at once acknowledged and indisputable to exercise charity by
clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, raising the fallen, helping the
weak, educating the young, and visiting the sick, the widow, and the
fatherless in affliction, there must abide an awful responsibility on
those, who not only decline to do so personally, but refuse to strengthen
the hands of others dedicating time and energy to these works of love.
To all such, if such there be, the Committee may reasonably say, You are
living surrounded by a large and necessitous population, the
representatives in their poverty and suffering of the Saviour Who died
for your Redemption—He, in the wisdom of His Providential ordering, made
you to differ from the meanest of that multitude, granted you ability,
wealth, industry, position, character, for the express purpose of
enabling you, as followers of Him, to bear their burdens. Occupation,
business, pleasure, health, or feeling, may preclude you from taking
direct part in the discharge of this your trust. By habits and
temperament you may be unfitted for personal ministration. Let, then,
this Association be your almoner. It acts under the Presidency of your
Vicar, and the superintendence of a Committee of Laymen like yourselves.
It is pledged to investigate the fact and cause of each alleged distress,
to turn your bounty to its best account, to apply it with a cautious
tenderness, a discreet forbearance. Chosen from the gently nurtured and
the educated, its dispensers bear it to hearths and beds of real
privation, and unsimulated disease. Witnessing the extremes of pain, and
woe, and want; entering abodes whence less unselfish pity might turn away
disgusted; carrying the message of peace and hope to the broken-hearted
and despairing; it is _theirs_ to imitate the Divine Example, and go
about doing good—should it not be _yours_ to emulate their labours,
sustain their efforts, and extend their power in well-doing? Can it be
right, or wise, or just, or patriotic, or Christian, to allow them,
whatever be their earnestness, self-denial, or single-mindedness, to
visit and relieve the Lazarus of your own door, uncheered by your
sympathies, unaccompanied by your prayers, unprovided with your alms?
Let each one answer for himself.
In conclusion, the Committee would humbly commend the future proceedings
of the Society to the compassionate care of that Lord, who being rich
unto all, has blessed its operations to the present date, beseeching Him
to overrule its plans and works to His own everlasting glory and the
final salvation of those who now and hereafter shall regulate, subserve
or benefit by, the ministrations of that abounding charity, which it is
its especial object to stimulate, develope, and control.