Amidst a population of four or five hundred thousand there will always be a great number whose situation is very deplorable. Misery, with a thousand voices, addresses all the sympathies of our nature, and she cannot be sent away without a blessing. Perhaps St. Petersburg knows nothing of that pinching starving poverty which is felt in some large cities of other nations. The very lower orders in Russia seldom want food, what they usually eat can be procured at a low rate, and if one poor man is really in distress, his neighbour will help him. The benevolence of the poor to one another is almost unparalleled and yet even in St. Petersburg a man who is truly alive to the necessities of his fellow creatures, will find ample scope for his most enlarged compassion. His head, and heart, and hand, and tongue, will be completely occupied. I have perceived this particularly in perusing the numerous papers which have passed under my review while preparing this Memoir. It is almost impossible to conceive what a variety of cases came before this excellent man, and each of them met with proper attention. He appears to have entered warmly into the spirit of that injunction of his divine Master," Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away."

A few instances as a specimen, copied from a page of one of his pocket memorandum-books, may be gratifying to his friends, and may afford a hint to some of the opulent who still survive him.

B. G. who is very ill

Widow of the Executor of the prison

Rubles

100

10

50

25

5

10

60

5

25

25

S. K. a debtor in the prison at Cronstadt

Some poor Exiles to Siberia

A prisoner in the Gubernsky

Captain M.

Towards the release of a Female

prisoner

100

Then follows a case of a peculiarly touching nature. A widow and her children relieved from the most painful situation by his timely and persevering aid. The following letter is a copy of that which he wrote to his Excellency General Papof on the subject:

66

My dear friend,

Enclosed is the receipt of the widow S. and

her children for two thousand three hundred and sixty-two rubles, and ninety kopeeks, and I thank your Excellency for affording me the pleasure (although you had the trouble of getting it) of paying this sum into their own hands. And I take this opportunity of acknowledging the great obligations of love, which I feel toward our dear Prince Galitzin, and yourself, for relieving a poor but very respectable widow and children, and saving them not only from want, but also from a prison, of which they were in danger.

I remain, my dear friend,

affectionately yours,

W. V."

Let not the Reader for a moment imagine that these things are introduced with a design to represent Mr. Venning, as a man of perfect character, nothing would have been more abhorrent to his feelings. He watched and studied the human heart, and was well acquainted with its dreadful depravity. He often detected its departures from God, and mourned over such departures: and every person who is accustomed to this painful, but important duty, will find it easy to say with an ancient King "I have seen an end to all perfection." One of the most useful aphorisms which dropped from the lips of a heathen sage

is, “Man know thyself;" and the great teacher of mankind, even Christ himself, strictly enjoined his disciples to watch and pray that they enter not into temptation. The heart is perpetually prone to sin, therefore what was so needful for Peter, and James, and John, in the garden of Gethsemane, is needful for every man, in every place, and on all occasions. That man who says his heart is good, can never have searched it, and watched it. But watchfulness is one grand part of the Christian's duty, and with this is intimately connected self-examination: And O! if prayer, and watchfulness, and examination, be neglected, or cursorily performed, what dreadful consequences follow! The individual who has been thus unmindful of his own personal felicity, will be astonished when he comes to himself, when he takes a retrospect of the weeks that have thus passed, he will be astonished, to find even on a moderate computation, what a large portion of his thoughts have been occupied on things that are sinful. Behold an instance of it, in one of the most irreproachable men that the world has produced. While his friends were looking at him with delight, as eye-witnesses of his indefatigable zeal in the cause of benevolence; and others were looking at him with a sneer as being " righteous overmuch;" I see him retired into his closet--entering into the solitude of his bosom,

developing those springs which are hidden from the eye of mortals-and trying himself by the unerring standard of God's holy word. The scrutiny is solemn The decision truly humiliating-Let us read it, as written by himself, by a hand now motionless in the grave.

"I was led this morning to the contemplation of Isaiah, chap. 38, in which it appears that He zekiah recorded his thoughts during his sickness, as I have just done some of mine. Perhaps my sickness was a punishment for sin-a want of watchfulness and running into temptation. Evil, if not resisted, will bring me into captivity, slavery, and death. The tempter finds me too often idle. Wicked men are his instruments, who assist him in the temptation and ruin of others. I have relaxed in secret devotion and watchfulness.

Slothfulness is habitual to me. I may fall into the greatest sins--this is certain. O Lord, "lead us not into temptation." I have now a strong conviction of the absolute necessity of keeping at a distance from temptation. A true Christian trembles at its entering into his heart, like a man discovering for the first time the symptoms of a malignant fever, and he beseeches the protection of God. He is like a man partially recovered from a dangerous sickness, and who is afraid of a relapse-sin has still too easy access to his heart.