XXXIV Christmas Guests-Doing Good in One's Own Lifetime. In "Hints to the Rich on Christmas Visiting," Mr. Livesey comments severely, but not too severely, upon the fashionable system of Christmas festivities and visiting, contending that the "consistent celebration of the birth of Jesus ought to recognise the great object of His coming into the world." He calls to remembrance the command of Christ to invite as guests "the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind," and he seriously asks his rich reader,— "How often have you complied with this injunction? Strange as it may sound to fashionable ears, it is in perfect accordance with all the precepts of Jesus, and with His own example. When he saw the multitude who had come from a distance without victuals, He had compassion on them, and supplied them with food in the desert. And you may also be reminded, that in directing the observance of His disciples, it was not the reward of men, but of their Father who is in heaven, that he requested them to seek. Now, my friends, bring this subject home to yourselves; calculate how many parties you have held, how many feasts you have celebrated, and let conscience for once tell the truth, as to the number of times you have complied with your Saviour's words, 'Call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.' The poor, you learn, are not merely to be fed with the crumbs which fall from the rich man's table, but are to be made welcome guests, and treated as liberally as if they were your brethren and kindred and friends.' Never mind the carpets and the chairs; if not so fine in outward attire, with these poor you will have hearts equally as honest as when the presence of Lord John and Lady Jane graced your table."* · He continually pleads with the rich and well-to-do classes to display sympathy and discharge their duties to the poor. Here is an instance: "If anything will open our hearts, and induce us to give alms, surely it is the aged widow of threescore and ten, as with careworn cheek and feeble gait she makes her humble curtsey at our door. Bereft of the partner of her cares, and even of the children of her hope, she wanders to seek the sympathy of unknown friends. How glad such are to be spoken kindly to, to be encouraged on their way, and to receive, even in small gifts, marks of attention and respect. Let children honour the aged, and let the benevolent show them peculiar respect. What an interesting employment it would be for young ladies to visit their aged sisters, to get them warm and comfortable clothing, to see that they have suitable food, and to free them from care and anxiety."+ POSTHUMOUS LIBERALITY NOT CHRISTIAN CHARITY. Doing good by proxy, and dispensing charity by delegation, Mr. Livesey detested. He was equally severe upon that very common form of Christian liberality, the posthumous. He says: "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out; so that however we hug the idol of our wealth, however regular our devotions at this altar, we are compelled at last to leave it all. What the feelings of the miser are, when assured that he must die and leave his all, it is difficult to describe. He makes his will, and he who was always too poor to give when solicited, and too selfish to seek out cases of distress when he had an opportunity, is now dictating to his attorney to convey the several sums composing his property to some individuals who need it not, and to others who are likely to spend it in profligacy and excess. He leaves the world, after toiling and scraping for threescore years, never tasting that greatest of all pleasures, the pleasure of doing good. He parts with his money at last, because he is compelled to do so. That which, if distributed by the owner with discretion, would have done immense good, either passes into other hands like his own, or probably to those who, having never laboured for it, will Livesey's Moral Reformer, 1838-9, p. 25. t The Struggle, No. 89, p. 3. Posthumous Liberality. XXXV squander it away upon their lusts. A great deal is said about "faith," but while men are intent only upon laying up treasures upon earth, do they seem to have any faith in the promises of Him who said, 'I will never leave thee nor forsake thee'? That God who feeds the fowls, and clothes the fields with grass, it is said, ' will much more clothe you, oh ye of little faith!' If my observations be correct, many who assume a religious garb are too often the most covetous. They are delivered from the sensual and expensive vices which others indulge in; and being often favoured with advantageous opportunities in business, they begin to save money, and are consequently overcome by the love of it." * Mr. Livesey's ideas regarding the poor were eminently humane and Christian. His deeds were in harmony with his teachings; and if a recital of some of the methods he adopted and suggested for relieving the distressed, leads only a few persons to emulate his example, nothing but good can result. Reader! if you admire Mr. Livesey's practical philanthropy, go and do likewise. * Livesey's Moral Reformer, 1838-9, p. 196. 1 CHAPTER III. EDUCATION, HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT, AND THRIFT. The friend of man, the friend of truth, If there's another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this.-BURNS. The reforming of Education is one of the greatest and noblest designs that can be thought of.-MILTON. Much forethought and discretion is necessary in the education of children. Let them be conducted into the best course of life, and habit will render it pleasant.-PYTHAGORAS. Of all the men we meet with, nine parts in ten are what they are, good or evil, useful or not, by their education.-LOCKE. He who would bless his fellows must not ask Sublime occasions for that gentle task.-Wade ROBINSON. WITH Mr. Livesey the question of education was of all others the most important: but with him education implied something more than the acquisition of the rudiments of knowledge, or even academic attainments. It was limited to no mere book learning, but embraced all those influences which affect the development of the physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual natures of man. Above all, it included "That mental, moral, and physical training of youth, which is calculated to lead to the performance of those duties on which their personal and social happiness depends.' And the comprehensive meaning which he attached to the word Education may be further gathered from the following: "Educate! Educate! cry all the journalists of the day, who seem disposed to attribute all the evils complained of to the want of education. Now to this I have no objection, provided by Education be meant the training of all the faculties of youth, and applying all the motives which sound religion affords.”+ Education, from this point of view, therefore, begins in infancy and ends only with life. True, the absence of ordinary educational advantages in his own case, led him to offer facilities to lads suffering a similar privation; and his night and Sunday-schools were amongst his earliest efforts of systematic benevolence. MR. LIVESEY'S FREE SUNDAY AND NIGHT SCHOOLS. In Chapter viii. of his "Autobiography," he tells us a little, but only a little, about this important work. It is worthy of note that this first attempt of himself and young wife-who appears to have co-operated with him in all his public labours -was made very shortly after their marriage, and at a time when in a worldly sense he was anything but prosperous. The school books in common use at the time ↑ Livesey's Moral Reformer, 1838-9, p. 20. Moral Reformer, vol. i. (1831), p. 65. A First Book Elementary Teaching-Influence on Scholars. xxxvii were found by Mr. Livesey to be ill adapted for the purposes they were intended, and he compiled a "First Book," which he tells us "had some merit." It was designed to help beginners, and proved to be very useful. It would be interesting to examine this First Book in these School Board days, but all inquiries for a copy of it have hitherto been fruitless; it is hoped, however, that one may yet be found. A stray leaf from a small memorandum book, evidently written about the time the Sunday school was started, contains entries which indicate some of Mr. Livesey's methods, and illustrate the care he exercised in adapting the means he employed to the end he had in view. "A leaf in every teacher's book to mark where the scholars should commence. Get sheets for teaching first class easy words, instead of books. Sing some good and useful piece at the commencement, and exhibit something interesting at the close. Everything that affords useful information to be sought after. Make the head class easier, and advance a number in order to increase it. Every new scholar to be seated in a certain place, previous to his going into any class." The youths and young men who came under Mr. Livesey's guidance and care, in connexion with his free schools and Sunday meetings for religious investigation, drank in not only instruction, but the spirit of their teacher and friend, and in many cases their lives were largely influenced for good by his teachings and example. Some of the most conspicuous of the famous and heroic band of Preston Temperance advocates of the first period, were trained and fitted for their work in his Sunday-school, or in the Academy which he subsequently established in connexion with the Temperance Society at the Cock-pit. These young men were his disciples; they were animated by the same spirit which led him to his persistent labours for others. Under his guidance they were taught to prize, Above all grandeur, a pure life uncrossed By cares in which simplicity is lost.* EARLY DIFFICULTIES MADE CONTRIBUTORY TO PROGRESS. Mr. Livesey regarded his own early struggles as having exerted a valuable influence on his character, and he never lost a fit opportunity of urging others who had been similarly circumstanced, to rise superior to their surroundings. He takes this line in a very suggestive and well-reasoned address to the working classes, published in the Moral Reformer of July, 1831. In that address he refers to his early struggles, and to the influences which moulded his own character. The following extract furnishes points and reflections which we do not get in the "Autobiography;" and the citation is also noteworthy as containing an indication of the writer's consciousness of his own originality and power. He says: "Free from the curses of wealth, if you can also escape the privations of poverty, your state is by far the best; and your minds are left much more free for reflection and meditation, than those who are exposed to the peculiar temptations of poverty or riches. To these advantages I am much indebted myself. Left an orphan at the age of seven, I was obliged to labour for my bread, and for about nine years I toiled at the loom in a dark cellar. With about as much education as * Wordsworth. xxxviii Early Difficulties made Helpful-Home Influence. is attained in our national schools, and without the means of purchasing books, in a literary sense I laboured under many disadvantages. But I thought the more; my mind was always at liberty: whilst my hands and my feet were driving on at full speed, I could summon the world before me, and criticise its character and pretensions. So busy and active was my youthful mind, that in the absence of every other object of attraction, I would sometimes engage to ascertain whether there were more males or females passed my window in an hour. It is from these circumstances, principally, instead of being the slave of education and custom, I lay claim to some degree of originality of thought; having never submitted to the trammels of authority, I have always ventured to think for myself, and to shape my course by the convictions of my own mind. It is from hence I learned the important duty of caring for, and sympathising with the poor, and of anxiously supporting any plan calculated to better their condition. To that very spot, and to these circumstances, under the direction of kind Providence, I attribute the commencement of a course of self-examination, which I shall never regret. Here I had an opportunity of viewing the world, before I was much entangled in its snares. On the weaver's breast-beam I learned the English grammar; and having never had an instructor, if you meet with anything which is more than commonplace in any of my productions, attribute it principally to that practice which I am now so anxious to enjoin upon you. I remember with greater pride my early studies and my midnight toils in the cellar at Walton, than I should any honour that the greatest monarch could have conferred upon me. It is generally acknowledged that wealth and ease are unfavourable to mental improvement; and I can say to you from experience, in this respect, that your employments afford opportunities for thinking, which you can never sufficiently prize. All businesses which consist in a repetition of the same operations are favourable to study, and I doubt not among these are many men of bright genius, correct discernment, enlarged minds, and ennobled feelings, and who are better qualified for useful situations, than those whom fortune and caprice have forced upon us.' HOME TRAINING, RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION, AND CHOICE OF SCHOOLMASTER. In an able and exhaustive article upon Education, Mr. Livesey unfolds a plan for the education of children, admirably designed to effect the greatest good. He holds that education of some kind begins as soon as a child is capable of imitation : and hence the importance of every act witnessed by a child being one which he may safely and profitably imitate. And all that is most vital in the education of a child rests with the parents, and cannot be delegated by them to others. In "I know," he says, "that by far the greatest number of parents have neither time nor ability to superintend the literary part of their children's education. such cases, reading, writing, accounts, etc., may be safely entrusted to others, who are properly qualified; but the moral, social, and religious instruction of children, ought to proceed from their parents, and cannot be expected to take root without a father's teaching, a mother's care, and the good example of both."+ Justice, sincerity, truthfulness, kindness, compassion, benevolence, order and cleanliness are principles which should be inculcated early, both by precept and by example; but "Amidst all these," says he, "you must make the teaching of religion and piety pre-eminent. As soon as a child has any idea of existence, it should be informed of the Being of God; that He made us and everything we see, and that it is our duty to honour and serve Him. Creation is a grand seminary for pious instruction to children; the green lawn, the flowery garden, the corn-fields, the warbling brook, the shady wood, the collected vapours, the ethereal blue, the heavenly Moral Reformer, vol. i. (1831), pp. 199-200. + Ibid., vol. i. (1831), p. 67. |