We may not refuse when there is a cry for help, and we have it to bestow; we may not plead another’s liability to exempt ourselves. We may not give just what we will, when more is wanted, and we possess more, or can get it. We may not excuse ourselves from further care, where our utmost effort has failed to remove the oppressing load; we have then to add _taking_ to our _giving_, to go under the burden and help to bear it. Let these general remarks suffice to introduce and recommend the special appeal which I have to make to you to-day on behalf of your burdened brethren, the distressed operatives of Lancashire. You know their case. The blockade of the American harbours has intercepted the large supply of cotton which till lately was regularly received from thence. Consequently, the mill-owners have either suspended work and closed their mills, or have reduced the number of “hands” to a small fraction of that usually employed. Thousands and thousands of able, active, industrious men and women are thus, with their families, deprived of the means of subsistence. Theirs is not the case, remember, of men who _will_ not work, and who, therefore, according to the Apostolic rule, may justly be left to bear their own burden: “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat.” They want to work. They are compelled to be idle; the door of the factory is shut against them, and were they qualified for other kind of work, it could not be found for them. What, then, is to be done for them? And, who are to do it? There has been much talk, as you probably know, about the backwardness of the mill-owners generally to sustain the hands which built up their fortunes. An increased rate, or a loan upon the rates, has been suggested. The intervention of Government has been invoked. But while men are disputing about the agency which ought to remove the burden, it is lying sore upon those beneath it—it is crushing them to death! It is true that “private charity” has done something; according to the world’s standard, has done _much_. But, after all, the _present_ emergency has been mocked rather than met, and day by day the crowd of sufferers is increasing, and the growing severity of the season is intensifying their suffering. Surely, here is a demand for the operation of the law of CHRIST. Whoso seeth his brother in _such_ need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of GOD in him? If CHRIST, by and by, will reject with indignation those who have left the _least_ of his brethren unfed, unclad, unvisited, how will He treat those who have neglected these sufferers? For, assuredly, _they_ are not the “least” of His brethren. It is no vicious or imprudent course that has brought them to this pass. It is the deliberate policy of our nation which has forced upon them, all helpless, their grievous burden. It is what _we_ have done in self-love which has made _them_ miserable! And how nobly, how heroically, how