"My dear

To a Clergyman.

"Cromer Hall, August 22. 1826.

"I very much wish you would come into Norfolk, for I really want to have a conversation with you; and, it is odd enough, that it is upon a business entirely yours, with which I have no kind of concern. I remember two observations of yours, which little as I might appear to heed them at the time, made a deep impression on me. The one was, I should very much like to be a country gentleman. I would not have the best horses, or dogs, or farms, in the county; but I would exert myself to improve the people who were under my influence. A country gentleman, thus employed, totis viribus, might accomplish a vast range of good.' The other was, when you said to one of your parishioners who was fond of music, I, too, love music; I hope to enjoy a great deal of it, but I will wait till I get to heaven.' Now, having had the use of these observations for some years, I feel bound to return them to you for your use and benefit, for it strikes me you want them just at this time. I hear you are going to build a house; no doubt you will do it with excellent taste: then it will require to be suitably furnished; then the grounds must be improved about it, and, by that time, your heart will be in it. I am sure that house will lead to your secularization. It will melt you down towards an ordinary country parson; not the parson who loves his dinner and his claret, but rather towards that refined class of triflers, who exquisitely embellish houses and gardens, and who leave the minds and souls of their flocks to take care of themselves. You see I have scratched out into' and inserted towards,' because I am bound in truth to confess, that I am sure you will, under any circumstances, and, in spite of all seductions, be an exemplary clergyman. You will have your schools, and your weekday services, and your sound, lively, evangelical doctrine in the pulpit; but what I mean to say is, that just so much of your affections as you give to your house, exactly so much will you withdraw from your parish.

1826.

ON HIS NEW HOUSE.

179

"After all, the discharge of a man's duty, and, à fortiori, of a clergyman's duty, requires all the strength we can give it. The world, and the spirit of the world, are very insidious, and the older we grow, the more inclined we are to think as others think, and act as others act; and more than once I have seen a person, who, as a youth, was single-eyed and single-hearted, and who, to any one who supposed he might glide into laxity of zeal, would have said, Am I a dog?' in maturer age become, if not a lover of the vices of the world, at least a tolerator of its vanities. I speak here feelingly, for the world has worn away much of the little zeal I ever had. "What is the harm,' you will say, of a convenient house: what is the harm of a convenient house being elegant; of an elegant house being suitably furnished?' The same personage who insinuates this to you, said to me, Where is the harm of having a few dogs,—those few very good; you preserve game - do it well-do it better than other people: ' and so he stole away my heart from better things. I have more game, and better horses and dogs than other people, but the same energy, disposed of in a different way, might have spread Bible and Missionary Societies over the hundred of North Erpingham.

"All this applies to you, more than to any person I know. You have, by a singular dispensation of Providence, obtained a station of influence; you have a vigour and alacrity of mind, with which few are gifted; upon no man's heart is the vanity of this life' more strongly stamped. You have a great, and, as far as my experience goes, an unequalled influence over those around you. These together constitute great power of doing good. The question is, shall you give it wholly to God, walking through life as one who really despises the indulgences on which others set their hearts; acting fully up to your own creed, and the convictions of your better moments, or will you give two-thirds of that power to God, and one-third of it to the world? Will you have your music here, or will you wait a few years for it? Old Wesley said, when called upon, according to the Act of Parliament, to give an account of his service of plate, in

order to be taxed, I have five silver spoons; these are all I have, and all I mean to have, while my poor neighbours want bread.' That is the spirit, which becomes a minister. Will you say, twenty years hence, to death, when he pays you a visit, I built this house,-by the confession of all men, a parsonage in the purest taste; I selected these pictures: observe the luxuriance of the trees I planted; just do me the favour to notice the convenience of this library, and the beauty of the prospect from that window?' or will you say, 'I have spent my days in this homely habitation, where there is nothing for luxury to enjoy or taste to admire; but there is my parish, not a child there but can read the Bible, and loves it too: in every house there is prayer, in every heart there is an acknowledgment of Christ, and that he came into the world to save sinners?' I do not mean to say, even if you build your house, that when that epoch arrives you will not be able to show a very good parish, as well as a very good parsonage; I only mean to say, that the house and the parish will be the inverse of each other, the better the house, the worse the parish. The less you surround yourself with accommodations, the less you conform yourself to the taste of the multitude; the more exclusively, and the more powerfully, you will do your own work.

"No man has a surplus of power: meaning by power-time talents, money, influence. There is room for the exercise of all, and more than all, which the most affluent possesses. Perhaps one parish is enough for the full employment of this power; if not, the neighbourhood will take off the redundance; if not, there is three quarters of the world: which is heathen, and wants his aid.

There, at least, is full occu

mind, and his purse. It is,

pation for the wealth of his therefore, arithmetically true, that so much as he devotes to the secular object he withdraws from the spiritual. It is not more clear, that a man having a large hungry farm for his livelihood, and a garden for his recreation, that as much manure as he spreads on his garden, of so much he deprives his fields. He grows more flowers and less bread. But this is not all it is not merely the quantum of his force which

1826.

ON HIS NEW HOUSE.

181

he thus wastes, that is the least part of his loss. He touches the world at one point, and the infection reaches him by the contact. If he resembles others in his house, why not in his table? why not in his society? why not in anything, which is not positively wrong?

"Now every word of this sermon is inconsistent with my own practice; but never mind that, truth is truth, whoever speaks it.

"Out of this wreck to rise in,

A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.'

"But why do I write all this to you? solely because I have the highest opinion of you and your powers. I have watched your course now for many years with interest; and I am very desirous that the Rector of A should equal the Curate of B. The objects of vulgar care, and the pursuits of vulgar ambition, are not for you. I hope to see in your parish, an example of what may be done by a clergyman having talents, income, influence, out of the common order. It just occurs to me that all this may be misapplied, that your house has not, and is not likely to have, a tittle of your affections. Be it so then give this letter to your housemaid to light your fire with. But if you suspect that you want the friendly freedom of this hint, in the midst of your present prosperity, keep this as a memorial of the attachment of

"Yours, very truly,

"T. F. BUXTON."

CHAPTER XI.

1826, 1827.

THE MAURITIUS SLAVE TRADE.

MR. BYAM AND GENERAL HALL. MR. BUXTON STUDIES AND UNDERTAKES THE QUESTION. TOUCHING INCIDENT. DEBATE. COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY. STORMY ELECTION AT WEYMOUTH.

LABORIOUS

LETTERS.

THE year of trial granted by the Government to the colonial legislatures, suspended during that time all anti-slavery proceedings. This interval was not thrown away- Mr. Buxton at once turned his whole mind to a new, though kindred question.

A few months previously he had received a visit from a gentleman of the name of Byam, who had been Commissary General of the police at the Mauritius, and had come home full of indignation at the abuses he had there witnessed. He asserted that the slavetrade was still prevailing in that island to a frightful extent; that the inhabitants and the authorities were alike implicated, and that the labouring slaves were treated with atrocious cruelty; the greater, because their loss could be so easily supplied.

The Mauritius* had not been ceded to England by

* The Mauritius was discovered in 1505, by Mascaregnas, a Portuguese. It received its name from that of the ship of Van Neck, a Dutchman, who first settled on it in 1595. The story of Paul and Virginia throws a romantic interest over this rich and beautiful island.