We have great faith in these holidays of the poor; for whatsoever contributes to their happiness removes a portion of what is evil, and supplies the place with what is good. To make a poor weary heart happy and contented for only a few hours, is to lessen the evils of life--it is a rest in the desert, a spring throwing its "loosened silver" through the arid sand, at which they drink, and taking heart, go on their way again more cheerfully. A more selfish and depraved class live not, than those who only think of their own pleasure; who never dream of the delight there is to be found in making others happy. How grateful the generality of the poor are for favours! They return the donor thanks, sincere thanks--they can offer God no more. We pay our poor-rates because we are forced; but is a parochial board to be the limits of our charity, is there nothing required beyond food, raiment, and household shelter, for the poor? Ask Joseph Brown, and he will point with a proud finger towards Bethnal-green, to those whom he led forth like a second Moses, out of a wilderness of bricks, mortar, and ruins, to a land where summer reigns, where he smote the rock, and sent the gushing waters bubbling and sparkling among a thousand brick-dried and dusty hearts. At his bidding the little doubled-up old woman left off roasting chestnuts at the corner of the street, and went out to see them grow; the pale-faced girl for one day ceased her cry of water-cresses, and saw the clear brook in which they stood; while the pretty flower-girl gazed with wonderment over the gardens of Havering Bower, and thought how fresh and beautiful the flowers looked there compared with those she sold in the streets of London. The old man, bent with age, left his box of lucifer-matches (the beggar's last shield) at home, and went to see the butterfly once more alight on the blossoms. And Joseph Brown walked at the head of these immortal souls, these poor outcasts of earth--many of them we trust angels on their march to heaven, whose folded wings may in another state touch our own, when we kneel with bowed head and clasped hands on the star-paved floor of heaven, blushing to think how many tribulations they waded through without a murmur, while we looked on nor extended a helping hand. The last trumpet, when it awakes the dead, will have no soft and silvery sound for the silken sons and daughters of luxury, but send out the same earth-rending peal, and startle all from their long deep slumber.