MR. TUCKERMAN'S

SECOND QUARTERLY REPORT,

ADDRESSED TO THE

Umerican Unitarian Association.

BOSTON,

BOWLES AND DEARBORN, 72, WASHINGTON STREET.

Isaac R. Butts and Co. Printers.

Το

The Executive Committee of the

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.

GENTLEMEN,

Within the past six months I have been connected, as a Christian minister, with more than a hundred families. Some of these families have been broken up, and others have removed where I have not been able to find them. But I have still more than ninety in my charge; and, within the last three months, I have made a little over five hundred visits.

You will readily believe, that it would be very easy to give you a long report of what I have seen and heard in these visits, and a long detail of what I have said, and hoped, and feared. Should I ever find time to write upon these subjects, I may perhaps bring them in some form, before the public. But general statements are all that you will expect from me.

Among the families which I visit as their pastor, there are some which not only are not poor, but whose circumstances, in respect to property, are very comfortable; and I have great pleasure in telling you, that they cooperate with me, as they have opportunity, in my plans and efforts for the relief and improvement of the poor. I am connected with some families of this class, which would be a blessing to any community.

Another class of those whom I visit consists of families, which, from various causes, have not been able to accumulate property. There are widows, and there are

some husbands, who can provide for their families, and who maintain order, and find happiness, in their families, while they all have health, and while they can find regu lar employment. But in a long failure of the employment on which they depend for their support, or in a long sickness, the little that was laid up is exhausted; and, if they are not relieved by private bounty, they must incur debts, which weigh down the spirits, and produce feelings of discouragement and misery, for relief from which they resort to intemperance. I have cause to believe that, through the kindness of those who have supplied my poors' purse, I have been enabled to do important good among this class of my new friends, by administering to their relief in the time when relief was most wanted. And I am sure that this is a charity, on which, if they witness it, angels may smile with heavenly complacency. I think that I have witnessed aspirations of as pure a gratitude, for a small bestowment, which, however, at the time was greatly wanted, as often ascends to heaven. Even a little which is so given, by saving him or her who receives it from the discouragements of debt, may save them also from intemperance, from pauperism, and from ruin.

I have much wished to do something for the recovery of the intemperate. But I have been still more solicitous to do what may be done, to save those from intemperance, who are constantly exposed to it; and, of whom indeed we may well marvel, if they become not its vic tims. I wish always to act upon the principle, that human nature is never to be given up; that there is no condition of the vicious so desperate, as to forbid efforts for their recovery. I have therefore no sympathy with those who say to us, "let the confirmed drunkard perish." While he lives, he is not without the pale of God's mercy,

for it is this mercy that sustains him, even while he so wickedly abuses it. But I believe that very much may be done by frequent intercourse, by faithful conversation, and by well selected tracts, to restrain from this desolating sin. In this department of my service, I have reason to hope that I have not altogether labored in vain.

I visit in a few very vicious, and very corrupted families. Whether I am thus doing any immediate good, is indeed very doubtful. But the time of sickness, or of some other great affliction, may come to them, when they may be in a condition to receive impressions, of which they are now unsusceptible; and I shall be well repaid for the sacrifices that are required in maintaining an acquaintance with them, if I may then be an instrument of bringing them to repentance and to God.

I have spoken of the frequency of the removals of some whom I visit. There are families which, I believe, are never more than a few months in a place. They are compelled to remove by inability to pay their rent; and, to escape from the little debts which they have contracted in the neighborhood in which, for a short time, they have been located. They go to no church; and they are known by no minister, unless indeed a missionary steps in to visit them. And yet these are not always very vicious families. The husband of this class, or the widowed mother, or the mother who is forsaken by her husband, is thriftless, inefficient, and not entirely temperate; but yet not confirmed in any of the grosser vices. Here, then, I think the service of a missionary to be greatly useful. He does what he can to animate and encourage these parents to better efforts than they have yet made for themselves, and their families. He takes care that their children are kept at school. He gives to them in his conversation,