Lord, neither shall it come to mind." "For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." The true ark, then, is on high: "There was seen in his temple the ark of his testament," not an object of terror there, for it contains not the broken law, but it is the ark of his faithfulness to the covenant of his Son. May we worship in that temple, and behold that vision with joy!

THE

Peter Bedford,

THE SPITALFIELDS PHILANTHROPIST.

BY DAVID GRACEY.

HE benevolent labours of the humane and the good spend not their whole vitality in the immediate benefits which they confer upon the erring and the suffering. They live when he that performed them and they that were blessed by them sleep together in the dust; and by the purity and grandeur of character which they reveal, continually recruit the ranks of those who devote themselves to the holy enterprise of saving him that is ready to perish. It were wholly contrary to the nature of such actions to limit their influence by the period of their performance. For as the seed sown in the spring time contains not merely the germs of a single harvest, but virtually the seed of every harvest that shall ripen to the end of time, so the loving and self sacrificing deeds of those who seek to mitigate human woe, transmit their influence from age to age by melting other hearts to pity and arousing other minds to energy in the cause of philanthropy. The mantle of an Elijah falls upon an Elisha, and the spirit of a John Howard reappears in a Peter Bedford.

Peter Bedford was born in July, 1780, at Old Sampford, in Essex. From his parents, who were members of the Society of Friends, he received the advantage of a careful and strict religious training. The truths of the gospel seem to have made an early and lasting impression upon his heart. Of a lively disposition, tempered with thoughtfulness, and tinged with occasional irritability, from his very childhood he gave indications of great decision of character. When under deep conviction of sin, whilst sitting alone by the fireside, so intense were his feelings and fears, that stooping down he deliberately placed his finger on the hot coals, in order to realise for himself a vivid conception of the future condition of the wicked in hell. At Plaistow, whither his family removed, he spent his school-boy days of shady memories. His comrades, unable to appreciate his conscientious scruples and peculiarities, made them the subjects of inextinguishable merriment. After leaving school he was placed for a while with his half-brother, a grocer, in Tooley-street, Southwark, but was eventually apprenticed to a worthy Quaker draper at Kelvedon, in his native county. Here he remained for some years beyond the term of his apprenticeship. His amiability, activity, and steadiness attracted the notice of a Mr. Joseph Allen, a silk manufacturer, of Spitalfields, who frequently visited the neighbour

hood of Kelvedon, with a view to secure the hand of a fair Quakeress. Thinking that a rustic village did not afford sufficient scope for the abilities of the young man. Mr. Allen invited him to the metropolis, and permitted him to make his house his home while looking out for some suitable opening in business.

Bedford came to London. He stayed with Mr. Allen as an assistant, and by means of this connection laid the foundation for his subsequent prosperity, and acquired the facilities for his future philanthropy. His moral worth, and his indefatigable energy in business, gained for him at first the high esteem, and afterwards the firm friendship of his employer. Of this he in a few years had a tangible proof; for Mr. Allen, having resolved to retire from active life, gave up the business to Peter Bedford and Robert Christmas, a fellow-assistant, who, however, soon afterwards withdrew, leaving Mr. Bedford the sole proprietor of the concern. In the wide circle of Mr. Allen's friends to whom he was introduced, he found many of those excellent men with whom it was his privilege in after life to co-operate in the various schemes of benevolence throughout the metropolis. Coming into daily contact with the Spitalfields weavers whom he employed to work for him at their own homes, Mr. Bedford obtained a thorough acquaintance with their mode of life, their frequent privations, their lamentable ignorance, and their glaring immorality. His heart sympathized with the needy wretches around, his lips counselled them, and his hands carried them substantial aid, till he found that his single and unassisted exertions were far from sufficient to cope with the abounding destitution. Before referring, however, to the beneficent machinery which our philanthropist set or kept or accelerated in motion, it will be necessary to glance at the evils against which it was directed.

During the closing years of Napoleon's public career the mind of the nation had been beguiled from the consideration of domestic affairs, either by the excitement of Continental wars, or by the dazzling glory of Continental victories. But when the flames of war were quenched, a fearful reaction ensued. The burdens unheeded before now fell with crushing weight. Commerce rent before by the hostilities of war, now languished through its desolations. Thousands were thrown out of employment. And upon no class whatever did these calamities inflict so much suffering as upon the weavers of Spitalfields. Of the 10,000 looms then in that district and its neighbourhood, 2,852 were unemployed, leaving the 9,700 persons dependent upon them destitute of their daily bread. Three thousand looms were only half employed, thus diminishing by one-half the subsistence of 10,000 other individuals. The tradesmen, the winders, quillers, dyers, and warpers, who mainly gained their livelihood by the weavers, were dragged to the brink of starvation by the common distress. Besides, the constant influx into the parish of the workpeople who could find no lodging elsewhere, contributed to swell the tide of misery. The scene in all its harrowing details may be imagined from the glowing words of an eyewitness:

"From these rough minutes which I hold in my hand, taken on the spot, in the very houses of the poor, drawn not from the fictions of a warm imagination, but from scenes of actual life, from the sad realities before us, I could

disclose to you a faithful though a faint picture of such desperate calamity and unutterable ruin, that the heart must be strong indeed that did not sicken at the sight. First, I would lead you to the roof of a house hardly deserving the name of a garret; there sat three human beings, each seventy years of ageeach with the ghastly lineaments of famine; a few bricks were their only chair and their only table; a little sour soup their only provision; a little straw and some shreds of an old coat their only bed! Next, I would show you a family of nine, the father disabled, the mother sickly; their furniture, their bed, their looms-every article of present use, the very implements of future labour-had been surrendered to the demands of hunger! . . . . I wish I could prevail upon you to see it with your own eyes. Come when you please, select almost your own house in that street, your own room in that house, and I will undertake that in that room you will find a proof that our picture is faint and feeble. Come amongst us, and we will show you the father of a large family whom we found in the act of pulling down his stove to exchange it for food. The dread of future cold was less violent than the cravings of immediate hunger. Come by day, and we will lead you to a widow in the last stage of illness, yet the only blanket of the dying wretch has been sent to procure bread! Come by night, and we will show you the baskets and the sheds of our markets filled with these wretched creatures. There they find their nightly lodging, and there, amongst its scraps and refuse, they pick out their daily food."

The cry of distress that rung through the metropolis from these abodes of wretchedness startled inany, who had not before been troubled with "the disease of giving," into a fit of princely liberality. Earnest men were already at work. The Spitalfields Soup Society had been for some years in existence. To extend and render efficient the relief which it afforded, Mr. Bedford threw his energies into its operations. Daily, on the average, 3,100 quarts were distributed to about 1,000 applicants on behalf of families numbering in the aggregate 7,000 individuals. A penny per quart was paid with cheerfulness, by which half the expenditure of the society was defrayed and the spirit of independence preserved in the recipients.

But it was evident to the friends of the poor that this one sort of relief could by no means reach and reduce the variety of wretchedness that prevailed. And as long as aid was not carried to the homes, cases of the direst want would entirely escape observation through inability, by infirmity, illness, or want of necessary clothing, to come to the place of relief. From a consideration of these facts, the Spitalfields Association for the Relief of Special cases of Distress was formed, embodying in its rules the main principles of true charity-that no assistance should be given without personal enquiry. Spitalfields was divided into seventeen districts, each under the special care of two or more members of the committee-ladies and gentlemen-for the purpose of regular visitation. In this way they who gave and they who received were brought face to face with each other; on the one hand, to learn a deeper sympathy; on the other, to feel a truer gratitude. Frequent opportunities were afforded of soothing sorrows which food and clothing could never alleviate, and of enkindling hopes of a glorious immortality through faith in a Redeemer's blood, which want could never destroy. In the deliberations of the committee of this society, and in the duties of its agents, Mr. Bedford took a very prominent part. Often did he visit the Refuge for the Destitute established at Hoxton in connection with it, and his kind word won its way into many a heart. He was accus

tomed to relate an instance in which his conversations were followed with marked success. A lad named Smith had baffled all the attempts of another visitor to touch his conscience. Mr. Bedford was asked to speak to him. He did so; and the lad was soon observed to seek to be alone and read his Bible. His health began to fail fast, and consumption set in. "At length, one day," says Mr. Bedford, "whilst I was surrounded by friends at my dinner table, I received a note, as follows: -My dear Sir,-If you want to see Smith you must come quickly.' I left my company and went. There I found him in the infirmary, confined to his bed and greatly emaciated. I took my seat by him and had some serious conversation with him. I enquired into the state of his mind, and said I hoped his mind was brought into that state that he knew whom to look to, and was seeking for mercy and forgiveness where they may be found. And I told the dear lad that I hoped he was in that condition that he was not afraid to die. He looked at me, and his answer was, 'No, sir; when I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou, Lord, art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.' His cough came on, and he could not finish the passage. It was very touching. At length the

time came for taking leave of him. He looked at me again and said, 'Good-bye, sir; good-bye;' threw his arms around me and added, 'We shall meet again. We shall meet in heaven.' Two days afterwards he died. His case shows what may be done with poor lost characters if proper care be exercised."

About this time another tract of moral desert was spread before the view of Mr. Bedford, and in order fully to appreciate his benevolent exertions to fertilise it, we must translate ourselves fifty years behind our present criminal code, our present reformatories, our present ragged schools, and view the virgin soil which these moral ploughshares have since turned into fields of future promise. It is no longer necessary to spend a wealth of argument and persuasion to induce the belief that the Arabs of the street and the youthful criminals in the cell may be reclaimed and educated into useful members of society. The case was different with the pioneers of these humane agencies. They had to deal, if not to reason, with men whose blood seemed "very snowbroth;" who on the weight of their own infallible authority affirmed that

"To mend the people's an absurdity,

A jargon, a mere philanthropic din.”

Simply because it had never been tried. Even to the compassionate friends of the criminal class, insurmountable difficulties appeared; and the extreme deeps of poverty, ignorance, immorality and crime, concealed all hope of success from the eyes of any but the most sanguine Whole streets there were where the children knew of no other trade or occupation in life but thieving. Their parents were thieves; their model hero was the most accomplished thief. No ray of instruction, religious or secular, ever wandered into their abodes of infamy, to put to shame the men and women who gloried in their wickedness. Here it was fully seen that—

"The mind untaught

Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl." Growing, or rather withering, under the training of men whose lives

were scandals, whose acts were curses on humanity, the young knew no language but oaths, no prayers but blasphemy, their greatest pride being to imitate the manly vices around them. Many, before they had passed beyond the years of childhood, had crowded into the narrow space of their existence the crimes that endanger, and the sentences of the severest penalties of law

"Had gathered in that drop of time,

A life of pain, an age of crime."

Mr. Bedford knew, amongst others, of the case of one who, at the age of thirteen, had had sentence of death twice passed upon him; of another who, at the age of ten, was undergoing a sentence of seven years' imprisonment; of another who at eight years of age, had been brought up at the police-offices upon eighteen separate charges, had been twice confined in the House of Correction, and three times in Bridewell. Instead of coming from the prison branded with disgrace, they came to be regaled and magnified by their associates into heroes. Instead of forgetting some of their evil habits during the months or years of their confinement, it was considered that experience of prison life lent the last polish to the accomplished villain. The extreme severity of the criminal code which awarded death as a penalty in thirty-one cases, administered by inflexible judges with an unseemly haste, kept the hangman's hands constantly at work. He that stole five shillings from the person was due to the gibbet. It is not difficult for any one to conceive how a class of men reared in ignorance, hardened in wickedness, should fall like grass before the fearful sweep of such a law. Accordingly it was no uncommon thing to witness at Newgate, on a Monday morning, a score of executions. Like wolves, indeed, they prowled around the frontiers of society, and like wolves they were kept at bay by judicial terror and judicial cruelty. None had ventured near to try to overcome by kindness those who would not be subdued by punishment.

These, in brief, were the sad circumstances of complicated evil which touched and moved men of feeling heart and public spirit to set on foot some counteracting measures. The case of a lad named Knight, who was executed for a theft proved to have been committed by another, brought matters to a crisis. Mr. Bedford, Dr. Lushington, Mr. W. Crawford, and T. F. Buxton, put forth every endeavour to save his life, but in vain. When they found that he had been executed notwithstanding their remonstrances and intercessions at the Home Office, they determined to hold a meeting of juvenile delinquents in the neighbourhood where Knight had been known, with a view to impress some lessons upon their minds drawn from the affecting death of their companion. The meeting was fixed for the evening of the day on which the remains of Knight were buried. Dr. Lushington and Mr. Bedford were to go together to it. The following is the account given by the latter:

"Dr. Lushington called at my house shortly before the time appointed; but before starting with me, he took out his pocket-book, gold watch, and gold snuff-box, all of which I locked up in my desk, and we then walked on arm-inarm, threading our way through the dirty, narrow streets. As we were going along, the doctor said, 'Well, I don't feel quite as I should like.' 'Indeed, doctor,' said I, 'how is it? What is the cause?' On asking him further if he