Mr. Pearce College Buildings. Statement of Receipts from May 20th to June 19th, 1873. ... 0 10 0 100 0 5 0 0 10 0 100 0 0 ... Mr. T. Hamshaw, per Mr. Greenwood... 10 0 0 £ s. d 100 0 10 0 300 050 Mrs. Cracknell Mrs. E. Clark Miss K. Turnbull 3 14 6 500 010 100 200 0 10 0 50 0 0 110 200 050 020 110 020 300 1 50 10 0 0 0.13 0 050 500 020 £252 16 6 £ s. d. 4 2 10 050 013 050 010 026 050 £27 11 7 Received by H. Rylands Brown, 16, The Avenue, Blackheath, towards THE SWORD AND THE TROWEL. AUGUST, 1873. Foolish Dick: an Example for the Men of one Talent. BY C. H. SPURGEON. N our Lord's parable it is the man of one talent who is represented as hiding his Lord's money in the earth. This does not teach us that persons of larger ability are always free from this sin, but we may safely infer from it that those of lowest degree in gift are peculiarly in danger of it. The temptation to think themselves too unimportant to be responsible has great influence over some minds; they cannot shine as stars, and therefore they excuse themselves from shining at all; they cannot hope to achieve a giant's marvels, and therefore they will not contribute an ounce of power. Under the convenient mask of modesty, idleness often conceals itself. They would not be too forward, they say, and therefore they avoid all service. If they were to try their hands at any Christian work, they fear they should blunder in it, and so they think it wise to save their own reputations, and spare themselves by doing nothing; thus providing for two evil propensities at one time, pandering both to pride and sloth. This kind of talk is wicked, very wicked, and is an aggravation of the sins which it tries to cover. The man of slender gift is as much bound to serve his Master as his neighbour with ten talents; his responsibility may not be so great, but it is just as real; the burial of the one talent in the earth ruined the slothful servant quite as effectually and as deservedly as if he had buried five. None of us will be called to account for abilities which we did not possess, but we shall surely have to answer for all we have. In the important business of publishing abroad the gospel, the ignorant, the poor, and the obscure often think themselves excused. They cannot see that anything is in their power or can be required of them; and yet, if they judged aright, and were full of zeal for God's glory, they would soon find something to do, and would by-and-by achieve great things for the Lord's cause. Nobody knows what he can do till he has tried. Dormant faculties are in most men, and only an earnest attempt to do good will ever awaken their whole nature. As in the village churchyard there lie in the neglected graves "Hands which the rod of empire might have swayed, so in the vaults of timorous lukewarmness and despairing inactivity there may be found mouldering in their shrouds singular capacities and rare originalities, which only need quickening, and they will stir the world. Men quite simple in matters of common life have, nevertheless, been made by God wise to win souls; they have been ranked among fools, and yet have been taught of God to bless their fellow men. Doing all that came in their way to do, they have been honoured of the great Master, and though last in ability while here, they will at the last day be first in reward, because they were faithful in their stewardship. Such persons, it must be confessed, labour under great disadvantages at this period; for the church is now far too fine and grand to encourage their labours if they become at all public. Taste is now in the ascendant, grammar is essential, and gentlemanly deportment as needful as grace itself in fact, there are many professors who will tolerate false theology and unspiritual preaching, but will be altogether savage if the preacher offend against Lindley Murray. If the original fishermen of the Galilean lake should come among us again, they would be hard put to it to find a pulpit which would lower itself by allowing such uncultivated persons to preach in it; they were never at college, and were quite countrified in their dialect: the poor men might be sent out as evangelists among the poor, and they might be useful as city missionaries, but they would never do for the splendid new chapel with its sky-piercing spire, its delightful stained glass, and magnificent organ. In many quarters vulgarity is the sin of sins, and gentility the queen of virtues. Whether souls are lost or saved matters little to some people, so long as the service is attractively conducted, and is suitable for persons of cultivated taste. Hence the idea of employing the rough and uneducated in preaching the gospel may scarcely be mentioned, unless it be with the assurance that they shall not come nearer to our gentility than the East of London, or the slums of our great cities. Great talent is worshipped, and little ability is so despised as to be thrust aside with contempt. In all such cases the sin of burying the one talent is not confined to the individual, but is shared in by those who surround him, and drive him into a corner. The cold contempt which chills a man's soul is as guilty a thing as the weakness which allows itself to be so chilled; perhaps it is far more evil in the sight of God. Thoughts like these, and many of like tenor, have passed through our mind while reading a queer little book by Mr. Christophers, entitled "Foolish Dick: an autobiography of Richard Hampton, the Cornish Pilgrim Preacher." Foolish Dick was certainly well named from the ordinary point of view, for in many matters he was scarcely halfwitted. One of his masters conceived that he might be capable of orderly thought in manual labour, so far, at least, as to distribute manure over the surface of the field. He was put to work in the morning, and fairly instructed how to wheel out the manure from the heap in the corner of the field, and drop the several barrowfuls in smaller heaps at certain distances, so that when the whole was thus laid out, the manure might be scattered from the smaller heaps over the entire space. Dick was left to his work. But in the evening, the manure was found still in a large heap in the corner, as it had been in the morning. "Why, Dick,' said the master, 'you have done nothing all the day.' Iss I have, master,' was the prompt reply, with a look of mingled humour and self-content; 'iss I have; I ded aall you towld me, and feneshed by denner time; but I thoft it wud'n do to taake a whoal day's waages for a haaf-day's work, so, arter denner, I wheeled ut aal back agen!' "He had been put to weeding-work in the garden, too, and particularly shown how to distinguish the young leeks, or onions, or radishes, from the weeds. The result was the dismay of the employer, when Dick, with a kind of triumphant light in his squinting eye, pointed to the entirely tenantless beds, emptied alike of weeds and crops, and said, 'Theere now, I've done un butaful, and weeded un clain!' 66 The portrait of Dick, which is placed as a frontispiece to Mr. Christophers' book, leads the observer to put him down among those poor naturals, or half-daft persons, of whom a specimen may generally be found in every village; his dress and form being grotesque to the last degree. Dick's account of his education is quaint enough. My paarents sent me to a raiding school, keept by a poor owld man caaled Stephen Martin. My schoolin' cost three a'pence a-week. I was keept theere for seven months, and so my edication was wurth no less than three shillin' and sex-pence-theere's for ee! When my edication was feneshed, as they do say, I was took hum, seven months' larnin bein' aal that my poor parents cud affoord for me. But I shall have to bless God to aal eternaty for that edication. At that deear ould man's school I larnt to raid a book they caaled a Psalter; an', havin' larnt so fur, when I got hum I gove myself to raidin, and keept on keepin' on tell I cud raid a chaapter in the Testament or Bible. Aw, my deear! what a blessin' thes heere larning a' ben to the poor idyat!" Despite his natural deficiencies and want of education, Richard Hampton showed great shrewdness and originality, especially in any matter which concerned religion. His Bible and hymn book were all his library, but these he studied so well, and worked them so thoroughly into his nature, that they were a part of his being, and for him to * Published by Haughton and Co., 10, Paternoster Row. answer a scoffer with an appropriate and scriptural text was as natural as for a bird to sing. "He was one day waiting in the office of an influential firm, having been sent on a business errand by his friend and employer. "Richard,' said one of the gentlemen, they say you know a good deal about the Bible; go home and look, and you will find in the fourth chapter of Habakkuk a passage that will do for a text for you: the words are: 6.66 Rise, Jupiter, and snuff the moon! 666 'No, maaster, I don't believe that they words are in the Bible,' he replied, and theere es no moare than three chapters in Habakkuk, nuther; but I d'knaw that in the eighteenth verse of the twentysecond chapter of Revelation you will find thaise words: If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book!"" His mode of quieting a person who wished to pry into his master's business was also as clever as it was effectual. We have it in his own words: "When I cum into the count-house the aagent was setting to brekfast, an' he begun to ax me 'bout a mine that I knawed was poor at that time, and gove but malancholly prospic. I knawed what he wanted to find out, so says I to he, 'Do'ee knaw what the apostle says?' 'No,' says he; what es ut?' 'Why,' says I, 'whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no questions for conscience sake.' That was 'nough for he; he went on faaster than ever swallowing hes brekfast, and ded'n stop to ax me any moore questins 'pon that head." 6 Being early converted among the Methodists, Dick was always most devout and enthusiastic, regular at the class meeting, and zealous for all the ordinances of his church. His remarkable gifts in prayer were not allowed to rust, but few thought that he had any degree of adaptation for the pulpit. His call to the ministry is one of the oddest things we ever remember to have read, and we enjoyed a hearty laugh at the Cornish orator pelted into fame, and finding a tongue amid the jests of his persecutors. His own words are more telling than ours can possibly be. 6 My "Now, the way I was fust drawve out es like thes heere. cap'n sent me weth a letter to Redruth poast-offis; the letter had a bill in un with a hunderd poun's. Cap'n towld me to be sure I gove un in aall saafe, an' then to car' a noate to Maaster Joseph Andrew. I ded so, but while I was stannin' at hes door tell I had hes aanswer, a young wumman, as she was washin' the wenders (windows), glazed at me, an' says she, That theere young man can look ninety-nine ways at waance. Says I to she, What man having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost, until he find it? and when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance.' "Some boavs stannin' near, got in 'round me, an' at laast a mob gethered, and they foached (pushed) me down the strait. In the por |