Ah Cum was severely let alone after that upon the subject of his conversion. I have no hope of him until we agree among ourselves exactly what we wish the heathen to accept. It is in vain we preach one God and five different religions; there must be only one true religion as well. Ah Cum's defence of the worship of ancestors was clever. It ran thus: All religions acknowledge the Creator of life as the true object of worship. Taking hold of his watch chain he began at the first link and said: "I worshipee my parents (passing one link), my parents worshipee their parents" (passing another link, and so on till he had passed quite a number); "by by come to firstee, lifee Goddee. You jump up sky all oncee, miss him, may be."
He thought he had a sure thing passing up link by link to the end. We need clever missionaries to hold their own with these Celestials.
Lancaster, July 9, 10.
Lancaster.
We had done our twenty-nine miles from Preston and reached Lancaster in good season. There we had a treat. The High Sheriff for the county had just been elected and made his entry into town according to immemorial custom. He represents royalty in the county during his term of office, which I believe is only two years. It costs the recipient of the honor a large sum to maintain the dignities of the office, for its emoluments are nil. The sheriff was staying at our hotel, a very fine one, The County. He is wakened every morning by two heralds richly dressed in the olden style and bearing halberds. They stand in front of the hotel and sound their bugles to call His Highness forth. It is the Lord Mayor's procession on a small scale. Nobody laughs outright at the curious mixture of feudal customs with this age's requirements, however much everybody may laugh in his sleeve; but England will have lost some picturesque features when all the shams are gone. If mankind were not greatly influenced by forms, I could wish that just enough of the "good old times"—which were very bad times indeed—could be preserved, if only to prove how far we have outgrown them; but every form and every sham, from royalty downward, carries its good or evil with it. That not only the substance should be right, but that the form should correspond truly to it, is important if we are to be honest; so I reconcile myself to the passing away of all forms which no longer honestly represent what they imply.
Lancaster is a beautiful place and noted for its admirable charitable institutions. The lunatic asylum and an orphanage attracted our special attention. These and kindred institutions abound in England, and are ably conducted. Rich Englishmen do not leave their fortunes for uses of this kind as often as Americans do. The ambition to found a family, and the maintenance of an aristocratic class by means of primogeniture and entail, tend to divert fortunes from this nobler path into the meaner end of elevating a name in the social scale; but the general public in Britain is most generous, and immense sums in the aggregate are annually collected for charitable institutions. It is common for a class to support its own unfortunates. The commercial travellers, for instance, have an extensive home near London for children of their fellows and for members in their old age, and there is scarcely a branch of industry which does not follow this example.
A Noble Charity.
One cannot travel far without seeing that the British are a people most mindful of the unfortunate. These pretty homes of refuge and of rest we see scattered everywhere over the land, nor are they the least glorious of the many monuments of England's true worth.
A Mr. Ripley, of Lancaster, left his fortune for an orphanage, open to all orphan children born within fifteen miles of Lancaster. Three hundred are now provided for, but so rapidly has the fund grown that it has been found practicable to extend the boundaries of its beneficence, and children from distant Liverpool are now admitted. Bravo! Mr. Ripley. What is an earldom for your eldest son to this! His father's name will carry him farther with the best, and he should be prouder of it. Show me the earl who has done as much for his neighborhood!