his house I
repaired."

He paused, and for some minutes was silent. At length he said,--

"It is strange, but there are certain passages in my life, not very
remarkable in themselves, that remain distinct and marked out, just as
one sees certain portions of landscape by the glare of lightning flashes
in a thunderstorm, and never forgets them after. Such was my meeting
with this Mr. Millar. He was distributing bread to the poor, with the
assistance of his clerk, on the morning that I came to his door.
The act, charitable and good in itself, he endeavored to render more
profitable by some timely words of caution and advice; he counselled
gratitude towards those who bestowed these bounties, and thrift in their
use. Like all men who have never known want themselves, he denied that
it ever came save through improvidence. He seemed to like the theme, and
dwelt on it with pleasure, the more as the poor sycophants who
received his alms eagerly echoed back concurrence in all that he spoke
disparagingly of themselves. I waited eagerly till he came to a pause,
and then I spoke.

"'Now,' said I, 'let us reverse this medal, and read it on the other
side. Though as poor and wretched as any of those about, I have not
partaken of your bounty, and I have the right to tell you that your
words are untrue, your teaching unsound, and your theory a falsehood. To
men like us, houseless, homeless, and friendless, you may as well preach
good breeding and decorous manners, as talk of providence and thrift.
Want is a disease; it attacks the poor, whose constitutions are exposed
to it; and to lecture us against its inroads is like cautioning us
against cold, by saying "Take care to wear strong boots,--mind that you
take your greatcoat,--be sure that you do not expose yourself to
the night air." You would be shocked, would you not, to address such
sarcastic counsels to such poor, barefoot, ragged creatures as we are?
And yet you are not shocked by enjoining things fifty times more absurd,
five hundred times more difficult. Thrift is the inhabitant of warm
homesteads, where the abundant meal is spread upon the board and the
fire blazes on the hearth. It never lives in the hovel, where the
snowdrift lodges in the chimney and the rain beats upon the bed of
straw!'

"'Who is this fellow?' cried the Rector, outraged at being thus replied
to. 'Where did he come from?'

"'From a life of struggle and hardship,' said I, 'that if _you_ had been
expose