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Do we know our own hearts? Do they not often lust within us to envy? The shock to the Missionary Sewing Society of Crampton by this letter of acknowledgment was very great indeed.

Their efforts went now, for a considerable time, to the repairing of their own church. They raised a good sum of money by their industry, and appropriated it in that way till they accomplished their object, to the great satisfaction of the whole town. Crampton was regarded by the neighboring towns as a sort of model place for churches and sewing societies. It was a neat, handsome, well-ordered, business community and town. The church, especially, was a thing that everybody had a good word for; and it seemed to pay for what was laid out on it. To all appearance, the Gospel declaration, "The poor ye have always with you," did not apply to Crampton. Indeed, had any one asked an active common citizen of the town if there were many poor people in the place, he would probably have said, "No -- almost none at all;" meaning respectable poor people, of course. And perhaps he would not have known that in the poor-house of that town there were always to be found from ten to fifteen and twenty paupers, so utterly wretched and woe-begone that their condition, in common with the universal condition of paupers, led some, even among the high and wealthy, to tremble at the possibility of their own future poverty; so forgotten, that the cast-off garments of even the common people were not thought of for them and given for their comfort; so poorly nourished, wet, and cold in their leaky habitations and cheerless rooms, that they paid out of their little class the heaviest per cent, of death in the town per annum -- a community in want of every temporal mercy, for it had been stripped from them; wanting spiritual light and consolation, for they were feeble and dispirited; the remnants and relics of themselves; the "vestiges of creation;" the needy poor of the hedges and waysides these -- would he have known all this? Had he seen, heard, thought of it? Had he ever been there -- ever taken it into his mind to go and inquire if there was a sufferer in the house of want to whom he, for Jesus' sake, could bring relief? Alas! the paupers of New England linger near their last goal, few remembering them in their sad and deplorable state of absolute, unchangeable poverty. And surely poverty is an evil oft leading one to crime 1

"Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty
Among the fallen on evil days;
'Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,
And houseless Want, in frozen ways,
Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,
And, worse than all, that inward stain.
Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers
Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears
First like hot gall, then dry forever!" -- SHELLEY.

Rosalind & Helen, p. 314, Hazard's ed.,Phila., 1856.

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"Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes; the home of the very poor." * * *
"But what if there be no bread in the cupboard !" * * *
"The children of the very poor do not prattle."

CHARLES LAMB'S Essay of Elia, xii, p. 291-2.

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"Nothing in poverty so ill is borne
As its exposing men to grinning scorn."

BOSWELL'S Johnson, p. 28, Bond's ed., Bait., Oldham's imi. of Juv.

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"Extreme and abject poverty is, vice excepted, the most deplorable condition of human nature."

Harriet LEE's Canterbury Tales, "Clandine," vol. ii., Mason Bro.'s ed.

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"The consequence of poverty is dependence." -- Web.

"'Pauper' -- A poor person; particularly, one so indigent as to depend on the parish or town for maintenance. *

* * The increase of pauperism is an alarming evil." -- IBID.

CHAPTER XXXI.
ABRAHAM Bacon and Mrs. Bacon, Mr. and Mrs. Siddleton -- actors all, in the grand Pauper Drama, representing Shrewdness, Profit, Speculation, Genius, Morality and Religion.

Father Time with his light, quick tread, passed along over Crampton five successive summers, and James Sherman, a tall grown, handsome, self-possessed youth, borne by him through every difficulty, and guarded by the same scythe that had been the scourge and death of others, was now entered a student at Yale College. He was nearly seventeen years of age, and had long since, under the kind tuition of his guardians, the Rodmans, got far out of the slough of ignorance and pauperism.

Five years flow quickly by with some; they linger on with others, and make deep furrows and strong points in society every where. In Crampton it was so. Mrs. Phillips was no more, and her stricken husband was a sufferer from acute rheumatism, though living at home still with one of his married daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Shire had removed from town; Squire Ben was grown more corpulent and more fond of ale; Savage more and more keen for trade and speculation. Indeed he was now rather heavy on the grand list, and grumbled sorely at the taxes. Long since. Captain Bunce had lost the poor-house, lost his property, lost one of his eyes, was half incapacitated for labor, and lived with his blind daughter Henrietta, in a low, rude cottage, attached to which there was a small garden, the rent of all, ten dollars a year. Henrietta could knit, and wash, as well as do a little sewing. Her father was often intoxicated and helpless. They received some help from the selectmen of the town, and it was expected would soon be thrown entirely on it as paupers! Of the old paupers there yet survived aunt Prescott, Mag Davis, Tucker, Roxy, Dan and Bill. All the others had gone to their long rest, besides many new ones received during this period. Mr. and Mrs. Haddock and all their family remained. Miss Flush was yet as busy as ever in her public enterprises, although she had declined, for the first time in seven years, at the last annual meeting of the ladies' sewing society, the post of president in that association. The office was filled by the appointment of Mrs. Smith.