THE CHARITY-CIRCULAR NUISANCE.
Sea—In the hoe that a statement of the following facts may be the means of sparing to many an anxious heart some moments of terror and anguish, I venture to beg you to give them publicity. was lately on a visit to a family, mourning for the recent death of a son, and awaiting with the extremest anxiety tidings of the confinement of an absent daughter, under circumstances peculiarly calculated to excite alarm.
Returning one day with the father and mother from a drive, we went into the sitting-room. The father walked to the fireplaoe, took a letter off the chimney-piece, and reedlike low voice- jsf.m.
"URGENT and IMPORTANT."
Without a word, of remark he handed itto his wife, who took it in silence and walked to the window. I sat down, not daring to raise my eyes. I leave any parent to guess what passed through our minds during that ter- rible pause.
Will you, Sir, believe that this letter was a begging circular, sent on behalf of some so-called charity, and signed by a clergyman of the Church of England! Have such men no consideration, no heart, and no conscience ? Cannot they understand that there is hardly a family which has not some absent member for whom its fears may be awakened, that there are many whose fears may be excited to torture by the sight of such an address at this ?
An address, too, which is a lie ; for it is impossible to pretend that the matter is either "urgent" or "important" to the receiver.
I entreat you, Sir, to tell such pretended philanthropists, that by thus sporting with the most sacred and tender feelings of our nature—by making such appeals to our deepest anxieties under false pretences—they are vio- lating alike every law of honour and of the Christianity-they affect to serve.
[It certainly dishonours the Church when her pastors place themselves, by proceedings like these. on a level with the linendraper who is about to sell at an "alarming sacrifice," and the medical quack who pun his nos- trums. The plan of making the Post-office a medium of such communica- tions should in every instance be discouraged.—ED.1
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