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 A see:mon, 
 
 PREACHED AT ST. MAEY'S, BEDFOED, 
 ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 1858, 
 I THE VISITATION OF THE LORD BISHOP OF ELY, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. HARRIES THOMAS, M.A., 
 
 EECTOE OF MILLBKOOK, AND PB,IEST IN OKDINiLfiY TO 
 HEfi MAJESTY. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REaUEST. 
 
 TO WHICH IS ADDED A PASTOKAL LETTER. 
 
 Honbou: 
 
 JOHN HENEY and JAMES PAEKEE, 
 
 377, STRAND. 
 
 BEDFORD: TIMCEUS. 
 
 1858.
 
 PRINTED BY ME8SKS. FABSEB, COENMARKET, OXFORD.
 
 A SEEMON, &c. 
 
 St. Luke xii. 35—38. 
 
 Let your loins he girded ahovf, and your lights burning; and ye 
 yourselves like nnto men that loait for their Lord, xchen He will 
 return from the tcedding ; that, when He cometh and knocketh, 
 they may open unto Him immediately. Blessed are those servants, 
 whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching : verily I say 
 unto you, that He shall gird Himself, and make them to sit down 
 to meat, and will come forth and serine them. And if He shall 
 come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find 
 them so, blessed are those so'vants. 
 
 Reverexd brethren, — No Christian man could 
 listen to such words as these without feeling tlieir 
 solemn warning to prepare for the advent of the 
 Lord to judgment. And to us, '^ messengers, watch- 
 men, and stewards of the Lord,^' they come with a 
 special meaning. It may be, that when we heard 
 them as the appointed Gospel at our ordination, 
 many of us shrank from tlie fearful responsibility 
 implied ; that like St. Peter, we would fain have 
 answered, *' Lord, speakest Thou this parable unto 
 us, or unto all?^' that like that apostle, we would 
 willingly have hidden ourselves among such an " in- 
 numerable multitude^" as then surrounded Christ, 
 and so have thrown off" from ourselves any marked 
 
 ' St. Luke xii. 1.
 
 4 A Visitation Sermon, i 
 
 and individual application of thera. And there is, 
 perhaps, not one who in hours of trial and despond- 
 ency, on realizing the awfulness of his commission, 
 and the unceasing watchfulness supposed by it, and 
 placing side by side with these his mournful failures 
 and broken resolutions; on viewing the sin around 
 which he seemed powerless to check, and the sin 
 within which intruded into the very holiest minis- 
 trations; there is, perhaps, not one but has asked 
 liimself, " Why did I not choose some easier course 
 than this ? why did I not follow a secular calling 
 instead of receiving the burden of other souls? why 
 am I placed so that if I fall it is not I alone, but 
 others perish with me ?" 
 
 But it is too late now. Our Lord tells us, "No 
 man having put his hand to the plough and look- 
 ing back, is fit for the kingdom of God/^ The vows 
 once taken are past recal. '^Ihey encircle us so that 
 it were better not to have been born, than to be- 
 come false to them. We are pledged in the sight of 
 God, and angels, and men, never to cease our labour 
 while work remains to be done and power remains 
 to do it. We must give ourselves "to reading, to 
 exhortation, to doctrine/' as those who know that 
 " the time is short •" we must bend all our energy 
 to the great work of saving souls for Christ ; we 
 must be " instant in season and out of season," as 
 those wlio believe that (in the words of Chrysostora) 
 "then only will it be no time to reprove when our 
 reproof shall have taken effect." a»»^ 
 
 ft > 
 
 UIUC 
 
 ^"•c^-^
 
 ) 
 
 How shall the Parish Feast he dealt tvith ? 5 
 
 And when once we realize the urgent necessity of 
 being ever on the watch for Christ, of ever taking 
 heed tliat our lamps burn brightly, we shall think 
 every matter of detail of consequence. The sum of 
 our work is made of details, for each of which we 
 must be prepared. Therefore it is that I venture to 
 ask your attention, not to any large circle of our 
 duties, which could only hastily be glanced at in the 
 time allotted me, but to a single item of them, — our 
 mode of dealing luitJi the Annual Parish Feast. It is 
 a more important subject than at first sight appears. 
 If the Feast now gathers up, and brings to a centre, 
 much of the evil going on in our parishes through 
 the rest of the year ; and if it be possible, God help- 
 ing us, to find means of lessening this evil, and even 
 of drawing out good ; then it must be a vital ques- 
 tion with us how we may use such a time to " main- 
 tain and set forward, as much as lieth in us, quiet- 
 ness, peace, and love, among them that are com- 
 mitted to our charge/' One consideration, espe- 
 cially, must make the Feast of great interest to 
 ourselves, — the interest it creates in our people. We 
 cannot safely neglect a day which is looked forward 
 to, and dated from, in our village annals; a day 
 when the usually sluggish current of rural life is 
 stirred into activity. AVherever men's minds are 
 opened to more than wonted feeling, there surely is 
 needed our sympathy with it, if good ; our rebuke 
 of it, if evil; our direction of it, if good and evil 
 combined. In the terrors of soul caused by sudden
 
 6 A Visitation Sermon* 
 
 illness or sorrow, in the joy of unloolvcd-for pros- 
 perity, in the various events of family life, — the birth, 
 marriage, or death, — we see occasions which aflPord 
 point for a word in season. And the Feast-time, with 
 its excitement, is in some degree to the whole parish 
 what such events are to the individual families of it : 
 its heart is aroused, and we must seize the oppor- 
 tunity of reachins: it. 
 
 With no farther apology, then, for the subject 
 itself, (although much might be offered for the way 
 of tre;iting it,) let us enquire what was the intention 
 of our Feasts ? One authority may serve. Mr. Soames 
 says^, ^^The Anglo-Saxon churches were separated 
 regularly from profane uses by the imposing cere- 
 mony of episcopal consecration Nor was its 
 
 memory allowed to fall into oblivion, but annual 
 solemnities taught the surrounding population to 
 hail the happy day which had opened a House of 
 God within easy distance. Of this ancient religious 
 holiday traces linger yet in our country villages. 
 The petty feast or fair, now merely a provocative to 
 rustic revelry, commonly originated in the day when 
 episcopal benediction hallowed that venerable pile 
 which has trained so many geneiations for immor- 
 tality/^ The leading thought, then, was essentially 
 religious. The parish priest Avas in his place at the 
 head of his parishioners; and together they kept 
 *' the dedication with gladness.^^ Families and 
 
 ^ Anglo-Saxon Church, p. 281.
 
 IIo7c shall the Parish Feast he dealt with ? 7 
 
 friends mixed upon a day wliicli was then, as now, 
 one of the greatest in the year. After service, they 
 naturally desired to spend the rest of the day in 
 social festivity. The heathen, who had become 
 Christians, were also persuaded to exchange their 
 idol-sacrifices for Feasts in honour of the true God ^ ; 
 and so was introduced the secular element, which 
 has at last overridden the religious. The family- 
 gathering has degenerated into the low revel, and 
 the Church-service has, for the most part, been given 
 up. But it is instructive to find that it was very 
 long before the entire reversion of the original idea 
 took place. Even so lately as the year 1631, there 
 is record of a scrutiny in the diocese of Bath and 
 Wells as to the manner in which Feast-days were 
 celebrated ; from which we learn, that on the bishop 
 ^^ advising with seventy-two of the most orthodox 
 and able of his clergy, they certified, — that on these 
 Feast-days, which usually fell on a Sunday, the ser- 
 vice of God was more solemnly performed, and the 
 Church better frequented, both forenoon and after- 
 noon, than on any other Sunday in the year; that 
 the people very much desired the continuance of 
 them ; that the ministers in most places did the like, 
 for these reasons, viz. for preserving the memorial 
 of the dedication of their several churches, for civi- 
 lizing the people, for composing differences by the 
 mediation and meeting of friends, for increase of 
 
 ' Bede, Hist., lib. i. cap.xxx.
 
 8 A Visitati07i Sermoti. 
 
 love and unity by these means of charity, and for 
 relief and comfort of the poor ^." 
 
 Now, after making some allowance for the spirit 
 which may have influenced a scrutiny undertaken 
 at the instance of Archbishop Laud, it seems clear 
 that the Somersetshire Feasts of that day must have 
 produced much good, religious and social : yet these 
 were at least not better than those in other districts, 
 since they were chosen by the Puritans as objects of 
 special attack. We have, therefore, not only the 
 design of institution, but the fact of their right ob- 
 servance only a few generations back, to serve as our 
 guide. So far as any religious idea now remains, 
 it is shewn, in some parishes, by larger congrega- 
 tions on the Sunday before, by children being then 
 brought to baptism, relations and friends coming in 
 and acting as sponsors. But there is sad evil be- 
 hind : numbers of those who are at church in the 
 afternoon will be found drinking at the public- 
 houses in the evening; and on the Feast night itself, 
 often on other nights also, there are the riot, drunk- 
 enness, and quarrels of the dancing-booth, so that 
 many are carried into the grossest sin of body and 
 soul. 
 
 What course, then, should we take about our 
 Feasts? Is it enough to shew silent disapproval, 
 or to be content with a few warning words in the 
 pulpit or the school? Are we justified in keeping 
 clear of them altogether, and leaving the more vio- 
 
 •« See Steer's Parish Law, pp. 24, 25.
 
 Hoir shall the Parish Feast be dealt with ? 9 
 
 lent outbreaks to be dealt with by tbe police ? Many 
 of my brethren, I know, after anxiously considering 
 the matter, have come to the conclusion that it is 
 better for the clergy to avoid all interference with 
 them, and to leave the responsibility to the law. 
 Let us therefore enquire how far it can help us. 
 
 It appears that there is no special law applicable 
 to the closing or regulation of public-houses at the 
 Feast, The booths then usually attached to them are 
 not allowed to obstruct the street beyond a certain 
 fixed period, but the publicans may have them upon 
 their own premises, and keep their houses open all 
 night except Saturday and Sunday. There is even less 
 check upon them than at other times, because, al- 
 though the annual publican's licence is granted to 
 each -with the proviso that he " do not wilfully or 
 knowingly permit drunkenness or other disorderly 
 
 conduct in his house or premises, and do not 
 
 knowingly permit or suffer persons of notoriously 
 bad character to assemble and meet together there- 
 in,'' yet this is practically a dead letter at the Feast, 
 the police being unwilling to inform, and the magis- 
 trates to adhere to the strict reading of the law, at a 
 time when its transgression is considered more or 
 less a matter of course. 
 
 The law cannot be of much service to us, and if 
 it could, I thiuk we ought to be ashamed to ask it. 
 It is not given us in order to bear the burden of 
 a spiritual reformation, which is what is really 
 needed here. The more riotous outbreaks might
 
 10 A Visitation Sermon. 
 
 possibly be checked by it, but the better nature 
 of the people would be untouched the while. It 
 would be as if a surgeon were to content himself 
 with driving in a bad sore by a burning ointment, 
 and, satisfied with the healed skin, forgot that an 
 ulcer would now rage beneath, and reach the vitals. 
 We must be prepared to use the law as our resource 
 in extremity, never to abuse it by clinging to it as 
 our mainstay in spiritual work. To make it our 
 dependence would be sadly to underrate our voca- 
 tion as priests in the dispensation of the Holy 
 Ghost. It would be to substitute outward decency 
 for the changed heart of our flocks. It would be 
 to declare that He who has ever breathed forth such 
 gifts of His blessed Spirit as were necessary for the 
 varying wants of His Church, could not grant us 
 strength in this our age to meet and conquer the 
 difficulties about us. 
 
 And again, our chief anxiety must be, not for the 
 hardened who have been given over to serve their 
 owQ lusts greedily, but for those who may be drawn 
 for the first time into evils which result in such a 
 death of body and soul. It is of little consequence, 
 comparatively, whether the habitual drunkard or 
 adulterer adds one more to his long list of sins; 
 but if the boy, led on the Feast night to take his 
 first cup too much, is one whom you prepared with 
 deep anxiety for Confirmation, one for whom you 
 pleaded on your knees before God that he might 
 find mercy in the Day of Judgment; if he passes
 
 IIow shall the Parish Feast he dealt lolth ? 11 
 
 you by after the Feast without a look of recognition, 
 (simply because the sight of you reminds him of God, 
 whom he is trying to forget,) aud so declares plainly 
 the line he intends to take for the future ; then you 
 have indeed a spiritual grief, and yet the law can- 
 not touch it. Or if you hear that on the Feast 
 night some girl, whose worst faults were weakness 
 and love of dress, and who had become of late more 
 open to a word of kind warning; if you hear that 
 she was led into sin which has brought shame upon 
 her parents and sorrow into her home, it is a case a 
 thousandfold more distressing than that of the poor 
 sinworn woman led off by the police for an outbreak 
 more violent than common. It is one seeming well- 
 nigh irreparable, and yet no law could have pre- 
 vented it. 
 
 The real remedy seems to lie in the restoration of 
 the Feast to its old jmrpose. The religious element 
 is dying out, if not dead ; let us seek to pour fresh 
 life into it. The social element is degraded, let us 
 seek to raise it. The leverage is providentially given 
 us, we have but to use it in faith, and it will become 
 strong. Religiously, our method of action will differ 
 with the differing circumstances of our parishes ; 
 but, speaking generally, it seems that if the minds 
 of the people are full of the sul)ject for weeks before, 
 then the teaching for those weeks should bear upon 
 it, directly or indirectly. If the hearts of the con- 
 gregation are occupied with a thought, it is the 
 simplest rule of effective nrcaching that our words
 
 12 A Visitation Sermon. 
 
 should speak to it, instead of " beating the air/' 
 A pastoral letter, very plainly written, dealing in 
 local allusions and the actual condition of the parish, 
 would be read and talked about ^ The better mind 
 of the people should be appealed to, the young 
 warned, the earnest encouraged, the communicants 
 exhorted to give special prayer for a better observ- 
 ance of the Feast; and upon the Sunday before, 
 and at a special service upon the day itself, there 
 might be pointed, telling sermons, to shew the bless- 
 ings or evils which must result from its being well 
 or badly kept. 
 
 As to the social or secular element, it would 
 clearly be unwise and wrong merely to abolish low 
 pleasures, (even were this possible,) without sanc- 
 tioning or providing better. Here, as upon higher 
 ground, *' it is seldom of much use to shew one who 
 worships idols the folly of idolatry, without giving 
 something else as an object of adoration instead s." 
 Our learned Hooker says, *' He that will take away 
 extreme heat by setting the body in extremity of 
 cold, shall undoubtedly remove the disease, but toge- 
 ther with it the diseased too^." There is a natural 
 desire for the recreation of body and mind which it 
 is our work to try and keep healthy. We protest 
 against the coarseness and riot of the dancing-booth, 
 
 ' At the request of some of the clergy, puhlicly made, a letter ad- 
 dressed last year to my own parishioners has been subjoined to the 
 present sermon. 
 
 s Livingstone, p. 287. 
 
 ^ Book IV. ch. viii. 1.
 
 Holo shall the Parish Feast he dealt with ? 13 
 
 then we must afford a substitute, something purer 
 and better. We must rejoice to see our people em- 
 ployed in innocent amusements of any kind. On 
 one night of the Feast, some simple schoolroom en- 
 tertainment would present an attraction which would 
 keep many from the public-houses. And by our 
 interest in the family gatherings, of which some of 
 our own old school-children would form part, by an 
 evident desire for the real happiness of our people, 
 and by earnest sympathy with them, we might shew 
 in time that we were only anxious that they should 
 thoroughly enjoy themselves. 
 
 We must, however, expect difficulties at the out- 
 set ; and these from two opposite parties : one con- 
 sisting of the idle and riotous, who will represent us 
 as enemies for interfering with their own mode of 
 enjoyment; the other of religionists who put a ban 
 upon every recreation of soul and body not directly 
 devotional. With the first we can have neither 
 parley nor compromise ; but with the second we 
 must deal wisely and cautiously, or we may find 
 ourselves unawares hopelessly separated from some 
 who ought to be our best friends. They are now 
 indisposed to tolerate any middle way of dealing 
 with evil, and look upon a game at cricket, or a 
 Sunday walk after church, as positive sin. Some of 
 them we can only think of with extreme respect; 
 they are exceedingly earnest, and must be dealt 
 with considerately. It is easy to see how their 
 views have been formed. Their notion of pleasure
 
 14 A Visitation Sermon. 
 
 is that of coarse, animal enjoyment : they cannot 
 hide from themselves the debasing effect of this; 
 they have not had the opportunity of seeing how 
 the word recreation may express the making anew 
 powers which God has given, or how relaxation 
 (as Dean Trench explains) is " the slackening of the 
 bow, drawn tight by earnest toiP." And therefore, 
 upon grasping the truths of eternity, they are jealous 
 of any attempt to introduce objects bearing the name 
 of pleasures, as if it were a subtle device of Satan to 
 open a byeway to destruction. And their scruples 
 should be treated tenderly, but at the same time 
 manfully. They, as well as others, must be shewn 
 that this so-called spirituality is in itself most un- 
 spiritual ; that those who cherish it, well-meaning 
 as they often are, and leading lives which maj^ put 
 many of ours to shame, are yet in this respect " see- 
 ing as in a glass, darkly," the joy which God has 
 given us here ; that those who look with displeasure 
 upon the very sports of children, as if they were 
 " signs of the unregenerate heart," have no true 
 feeling of " the liberty wherewith Christ hath made 
 us free," and of the mind of Him who has, perhaps, 
 set before us the example of little children for this 
 amongst other reasons, — that with a frank, loving 
 spirit they enjoy without suspicion the good spring- 
 ing around them. 
 
 And further, when we come to the results of the 
 unnatural banishment of recreation, we cannot but 
 
 * Study of Words, p. 201.
 
 How shall the Parish Feast he dealt with ? 15 
 
 see that sons and daughters become intolerant of 
 the bondage in which their parents placed them. 
 Eeligion was represented as something so hard, so 
 separate from themselves ; they were taught to fear 
 God because far from Him, not to love Him as their 
 Father ; they learnt that all crimes were equal in the 
 sight of God, so that there was no medium between 
 thorough conversion and gross sinfulness \ and they 
 have made the comment in their own sad fashion. 
 Mournful cases, indeed, are those in which such a 
 one-sided view of Christian doctrine has been given, 
 it may be in all sincerity, by religious parents, that 
 it became hateful to their children, who have, there- 
 fore, plunged into the depths of sin. 
 
 For the sake, then, both of parents" and children, 
 it should be shewn how God has so wonderfully knit 
 together '^ body, soul, and spirit/^ that the highest 
 destiny of all is promoted by a cheerful, happy frame 
 of mind. When innocent recreations are denied, 
 this harmony is impaired, and strange is it if no 
 monstrous form of crime results, becoming an 
 avenger of the perverted teaching which made God 
 a hard taskmaster instead of a loving Father. 
 
 But if these and other difficulties are against us in 
 any attempt to restore the Feast to its primitive idea, 
 I would remind you, reverend brethren, (as most of 
 all I would remind myself,) that there is one course 
 more difficult, more impossible than any other, name- 
 ly, to pass over evil without even trying to check 
 it. It seems one of the necessities of our position
 
 16 A Visitatio7i Sermon, 
 
 as parish priests, that we cannot allow a time when 
 it may be considered a venial offence to sin; that 
 we cannot keep silence where words of affectionate 
 warning or sharp rebuke are most needed ; that we 
 cannot connive at rioting and drunkenness, whether 
 it be at harvest-homes or parish Feasts. "When such 
 seasons are at hand, surely then if ever is a time 
 when we must not be shut up in our studies, but 
 abroad in our parishes; a time when *'our loins 
 must be girded about, and our lights burning, and 
 we ourselves like men that wait for their Lord/' 
 We may, perhaps, fail and be driven back again and 
 again in seeking to grapple with the evil; we must 
 expect this ; but if we feel that it were nobler to be 
 defeated a thousand times than to gain inglorious 
 victory by letting things alone, it is a great comfort 
 to know that the better minds of the people will 
 second all we do. The Feast is a scandal to the 
 right thinking; and many even of those who go 
 take with them sad and doubtful hearts, led away, 
 as they themselves own, by the power of the temp- 
 tation. 
 
 And if the possibility of reformation is doubted, 
 I would point to the present state of the Norfolk 
 harvest festivals as a proof that we need not de- 
 spair. What could have appeared more unmanage- 
 able than harvest-homes, especially when kept at 
 public-houses ? How often had they been scenes of 
 riot, blasphemy, and hard drinking ! Yet now, in 
 many parishes, farmers, labourers, and their families 
 
 I
 
 Hoir shall the Parish Feast he dealt tvith ? 17 
 
 begin by going to church to give God thanks for 
 the harvest; they then spend the afternoon together 
 in amusements, and after an evening meal quietly 
 disperse. And the men themselves acknowledge that 
 the new way is the better one ^. May we not look 
 forward to such a celebration of the Feast-day? A 
 glorious contrast, indeed, would there then be ! 
 The Feast is hut a memorial of sins to which each 
 year adds its heap in passing. It tells of many a 
 saddened heart and grievous fall in generations 
 that are gone. It speaks to many a mother of her 
 daughter's shame, to many a son of his father's 
 drunkenness. It places beacons in the course of 
 many an evil life, from the first temptation yielded 
 to, to the last cup of the drunkard tottering into 
 his grave. It m'ujht be (in our children's time, if 
 not our own,) a memorial of joyful thanksgiving to 
 God for the blessings of His Church; for the grow- 
 ing mercies of each returning season ; for the inno- 
 cent amusement bringing no sorrow with it ; for the 
 happy gathering of families, to which (as once to 
 the feast of Cana) it might be recorded that " both 
 Jesus was called and His disciples.^^ 
 
 But such a change, even if it can be wrought in 
 our day, implies more self-sacrifice and devotion than 
 at first sight appears ; for it can be attained by no 
 spasmodic efi'ort once in the year. Our power to act 
 efficiently at the critical times of our people's need 
 
 '' See a Lecture on Harvest Thanksgivings, by the Rev. E. Jacson. 
 (Masters: 1857.)
 
 18 A Visitation Sermon. 
 
 must depend upon our bearing at ordinary times;| 
 The sailor who cannot manage his vessel in a calm 
 will be helpless indeed if a storm comes and seas 
 begin to break over her. When Sir James Brooke 
 went on his great enterprise to Borneo, it was with 
 a crew which he could trust as his right hand ; but 
 he had trained them for the dangers of the Indian 
 Archipelago by home service in the Mediterranean. 
 And in our spiritual work we must seek for men's 
 love and trust in the every-day routine of our pa- 
 rishes, if we would influence them when their feel- 
 ings and passions are aroused. If they find us 
 worldly, indolent, luxurious, self-seeking, following 
 our own pleasures greedily while trying to change or 
 raise theirs, — then away with any hope of effectual 
 good ! Our lives will witness against us, and for very 
 shame we shall speak with a faltering, uncertain voice. 
 But if we are ever desiring to "make full proof of 
 our ministry," as those who know that " the Judge 
 standeth before the door ;" if we are ever watchful, 
 so '^that when He cometh and knocketh, we may 
 open unto Him immediately ;" then we may humbly 
 trust that He will hear our prayer, and pour out His 
 Holy Spirit upon us and our people ; so that through 
 His infinite merits and mediation many shall be 
 brought out of trial and temptation, and be pre- 
 sented faultless before the throne of God.
 
 A TASTOllAL LETTEIl. 
 
 MILLBBOOK FEAST. 
 
 My dear Friends, 
 
 You may perhaps feci, when you 2:et a letter from 
 me about the Feast, that I am meddling in what I 
 have nothing to do with; and so I tell you at once, 
 that I am only desirous that you may enjoy the 
 Feast as much as possible. ]\[any of you will be 
 surprised to hear that no one can have been think- 
 ing about it more than I. Indeed, nothing which 
 affects your happiness can ever fail to be full of the 
 deepest interest to myself. 
 
 And now, let me tell you what my thoughts were, 
 at first, about the Feast. I said, " IIow glad I am 
 that these dear people should be going to have a 
 holiday ! They have been working hard, and they 
 ought to have a little innocent pleasure. The chil- 
 dren will rejoice in their toys and cakes; tiic boys 
 and young men in a game of cricket. The girls 
 will rest from their lace-making or straw-plaiting. 
 The old will look on, and prevent any mischief from 
 following. All this will be a sight to enjoy." 
 
 But after enquiring whether the Feast was really 
 anything like this, I found that, on the contrary, it 
 is a serious harm to the parish. I was told that 
 swearing, drunkenness, and riot are common; that 
 there is a dancing-booth open almost all night; that 
 girls go there, so dressed out that no one would 
 know them, — looking half ashamed, indeed, of their
 
 20 A Pastoral Letter. 
 
 own finery. After this account, I felt that, God 
 helping me, I would try to shew you how these evils \ 
 may be avoided, and yet the Feast be kept most 
 happily. 
 
 Now, some of you may say, — " The Feast has gone 
 on for a great number of years, and has always been 
 kept in the same way. Besides, there are Feasts 
 everywhere. They cannot therefore be quite wrong. 
 There must be some good in the Feast V 
 
 Yes, I quite agree with you that there must be 
 some good in it ; there must be good at the bottom. 
 But we must go down a good way to find it; just as 
 the Duke^s men were obliged to dig a good way down 
 before they came to water in the well which had been 
 so long stopped up at Little End. Indeed, Mill- 
 brook Feast is something like that well. The good 
 of it has been for a long time stopped up. As for 
 the Feast itself, it really has not always been kept 
 in the same way as now it is kept. Far from it. 
 
 The Feast is, perhaps, eight or nine hundred years 
 old; and it began in this way: — After our church 
 had been built, to the glory of God, it was set apart 
 to Him by the name of Saint Michael (one of His 
 angels) ; and so our Feast came to be held on Saint 
 Michaers Day, or, as we now call it, Old Michaelmas 
 Day. On that day, people used to go to church, 
 and ofi*er up a hearty service of prayer and praise ; 
 and blessings were asked from God for the year to 
 come. Then, too, there was a happy gathering of 
 friends; children came home from place; quarrels 
 were made up, and there was plenty of merriment. 
 Thus Saint Michael's Day became one of the great- 
 est in the year for Millbrook ; but, of course, there 
 were no ^^ drunkenness, revellings, and such like," 
 or so holy a day would not have been chosen for the
 
 MilJlroolc Feast. 21 
 
 Feast. The parson of the parish had also his full share 
 in the pleasure of that day, as well as the people. 
 
 But now, all thoughts of God seem clean put 
 
 away. His Name is only heard in oaths. Fresh 
 
 quarrels are begun, instead of old quarrels being 
 
 made up. Few families meet for any good purpose; 
 
 few children who come home make their parents 
 
 happier; and many a sad hour do fathers and 
 
 mothers pass, as they sit silent by their firesides, in 
 
 fear for what their children are about amidst the 
 
 riot over the hill. How often does a man return 
 
 , from the Feast reeling with drink for the first time ! 
 
 J How often does a girl go up in the evening, just to 
 
 I look about, and sorrows for it ever after ! Surely this 
 
 i is dreadful. Yet, Feast after Feast, we keep on doing 
 
 the same thing; following the same bad example. 
 
 How is it that we will not take warning? will not 
 
 see that for these things God will bring us into 
 
 judgment? 
 
 Tell me, young men and young women, — would 
 you like to die the day after you had spent hours in 
 the dancing-booth? No others with vou then: no 
 music, no noise about you to drown care ; but your 
 own soul brought face to face with Death ! Are 
 filthy songs, and disgusting oaths, and indecent talk, 
 any preparation for joining in the hymns of angels 
 and the songs of the redeemed in the great Feast 
 of heaven? If not, I entreat you, as your truest 
 and best friend, do not rush into the follies of the 
 Feast : do not take any part in them. Do not enter 
 the public-house or the dnncing-booth at all; and if 
 you go to the stalls, let it be only in broad daylight. 
 Try and bring back the Feast to what it used to be 
 in old times: come to church one and all, and let us 
 be heartily in earnest there. Many of you enjoyed
 
 22 A Pastoral Letter, 
 
 the harvest service^ and sang the hymns as if you 
 meant them. Be of the same mind now, and we 
 may then really believe that God will bless us in our 
 family gatherings and our innocent amusement. 
 
 Pray help me in this matter, all of you. The 
 fathers and mothers will be on my side, I know : I 
 am sure the children will. I will never believe, till 
 they tell me so, that the young women will grieve 
 my heart by acting immodestly, and gadding to the 
 fair after dusk. The young men of Millbrook will 
 surely desire to set a good example to others. I, 
 for my part, shall be ready to give you all the help 
 I can. Do let us, one and all, turn over a new leaf, 
 and try to make our Feast a blessing and not a curse. 
 Think of the day,— Old Saint Michael's Day. We 
 should remember what God gives His holy angels 
 charge to do for us. He sets them to watch what 
 we are about. They know whether we pray for 
 Christ to be with us, " in our going out and coming 
 in )' whether we put ourselves into any company 
 where we cannot ask Him to be with us, as He was 
 at the Feast of Cana ; whether we think pure, right 
 thoughts, and speak gentle, modest words. How 
 must the angels be grieved, how must the God of 
 the angels be offended, at all the sin of our Feast ! 
 at seeing Christian men brought lower than the very 
 animals; youni;- girls losing shame, talking at ran- 
 dom, laughing loudly, trying with all their might to 
 destroy every good thought which God's Holy Spirit 
 puts into their hearts ! 
 
 Then, for the love of Christ who died for you, be 
 warned against such a way of spending this next 
 Feast-time! Do not mind the scoffs and jeers of 
 others. So only can you have part in that beautiful 
 promise of the ninety-first Psalm, — '^Because thou
 
 Mlllhrooh Feast. 23 
 
 liast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the 
 Most High, tliy habitation; there shall no evil befall 
 thee, neither shall any pla<j:ue come nigh thy dwell- 
 ing. For He shall give His angels charge over thee, 
 to keep thee in all thy ways. Tliey shall bear thee 
 up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against 
 a stone." 
 
 And now, with the most earnest hope and prayer 
 that you may not only read this letter through, but 
 really ask God to teach you how to keep the Feast 
 rightly, believe me, ever 
 
 Your faithful Friend and Pastor. 
 
 MlLLBROOK ReCTOET, 
 
 Oct. 6, 1857. 
 
 On ^Tonday Evening, October 12, there will be 
 (God willing,) A Special Service, and the Feast 
 Sermox, at Seven o'clock. 
 
 Prayi:us at Half-past Seven in the Morning, every 
 day in the AVeek, with a very short Address. 
 
 On Tuesday Evening, the Magic Lantern, at Seven 
 o'clock, in the Schoolroom.
 
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