myself I began to reprove the poor man,
telling him that it was very wrong to have allowed matters to get into
such a state as he described, and that he ought to have applied to the
relieving officer. His answer was that he had done so, and was told to
come at eleven o'clock the next morning, but that he feared that his
wife might not live through the night. "Ah," thought I, "if only I had
two shillings and a sixpence instead of this half-crown, how gladly
would I give these poor people one shilling of it!" But to part with the
half-crown was far from my thoughts. I little dreamed that the real
truth of the matter simply was that I could trust in GOD plus
one-and-sixpence, but was not yet prepared to trust Him only, without
any money at all in my pocket.

My conductor led me into a court, down which I followed him with some
degree of nervousness. I had found myself there before, and at my last
visit had been very roughly handled, while my tracts were torn to
pieces, and I received such a warning not to come again that I felt
more than a little concerned. Still, it was the path of duty, and I
followed on. Up a miserable flight of stairs, into a wretched room, he
led me; and oh what a sight there presented itself to our eyes! Four or
five poor children stood about, their sunken cheeks and temples all
telling unmistakably the story of slow starvation; and lying on a
wretched pallet was a poor exhausted mother, with a tiny infant
thirty-six hours old, moaning rather than crying at her side, for it too
seemed spent and failing. "Ah!" thought I, "if I had two shillings and a
sixpence instead of half-a-crown, how gladly should they have
one-and-sixpence of it!" But still a wretched unbelief prevented me from
obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the cost of all I
possessed.

It will scarcely seem strange that I was unable to say much to comfort
these poor people. I needed comfort myself. I began to tell them,
however, that they must not be cast down, that though their
circumstances were very distressing, there was a kind and loving FATHER
in heaven; but something within me said, "You hypocrite! telling these
unconverted people about a kind and loving FATHER in heaven, and not
prepared yourself to trust Him without half-a-crown!" I was nearly
choked. How gladly would I have compromised with conscience if I had had
a florin and a sixpence! I would have given the florin thankfully and
kept the rest; but I was not ye