Ragged homes and how to mend themBayly, Mrs. (Mary)
History
Ragged homes and how to mend them
Bayly, Mrs. (Mary)
Charities -- Great Britain; Poor -- England -- London
“You know, when Jesus came from heaven, He did not settle Himself in
a grand house, and have a number of people to wait upon Him; but He,
as the reputed son of a carpenter, worked as you do for the supply of
His own wants, and spent a great deal of time, besides, in helping
those who wanted help. However poor or neglected you may be, you
cannot be more so than Jesus was. I do not know of anything so
likely to cheer you in your daily toil, as to remember that God cares
for you; that He is watching you, and inviting you to come to Him,
weary and heavy laden as you are, and He will give you rest. I wish
you would come to this kind Friend every day, and ask Him to make you
wise to know how to manage your worldly affairs aright; and ask Him
to make you holy, that your worst enemy, sin, may not triumph over
you. Ask Him to make you fit for that ‘beautiful world He has gone
to prepare;’ so that when you have accomplished, as an hireling, your
day, and finished the work He has given you to do, you may find an
entrance into that kingdom, which is not meat and drink, ‘but
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.’
“I hope to meet many of you at the Infant Schoolroom, Princes’ Place,
on Saturday, the 1st of May. I intend to be there about a quarter
before eight o’clock; and if I can help you in this or in any other
way, it will give me much pleasure.
“I am,
“Your sincere friend.”
It did not surprise me at all, that for some weeks this letter seemed to
be taken no notice of. I went regularly to the place appointed, but no
one came. Among other reasons, no doubt the calamities of the past
winter had involved in debt nearly all of those to whom I had written,
and the money for the first few months after they obtained work went to
pay off old scores. But the principal obstacle was, that where people
have been so little accustomed to think and reason, any new proposition
would, in the first place, take some time to be comprehended; and then,
as the safety of their money was involved in the plan, it would require
to be received with great caution. When a month had passed, a few began
to bring me small sums. I had no large depositors during the summer, and
the whole of my receipts did not amount to more than £25. This, however,
was a beginning; and as the men received their money back again in the
winter, several of them remarked that it was “all as if it was given
them; the bits of money would all have been gone, if they had not been
saved up in this way.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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