Too-much conceited young Christians with little piety, like young “quickset” hedges, become of more use to the Christian Church and the world after they have been cut down by persecution and bent by troubles and afflictions.
Sin in the first instance is as playful as a kitten and as harmless as a lamb; but in the end it will bite more than a tiger and sting more than a nest of wasps.
A Christian professor outside the range of miracles and under the influence of the devil is he who is trying to swim to heaven with a barrel of beer upon his back.
As fogs are bad conductors of light, sight, and sound, so in like manner is a Christian living in foggy doubts a bad conductor of the light, sight, and sounds of heaven.
Cold, slippery Christians who have no good object before them, and without a noble principle to guide them, are like round balls of ice on a large dish; and to set such Christians to work is a worse task than serving the balls out with a knitting needle.
Crotchety, doubting, scientific Christians are manufacturers of more deadly poisons than that produced from pickled old rusty nails.
The loudest and most quickening sounds to be heard upon earth are from a beautiful sweet child as it lies in the stillness of the loving arms of death.
Breakfast being over, with my “Gladstone bag” I begun my tramp-trot to the “course,” and while walking leisurely under the tall trees in one of the avenues at Leamington, on my way to the racecourse, a circumstance occurred—which my friend the gipsies say “forbodes good luck and a fortune, and that I shall rise in the world and have many friends.” Gipsies say and do queer things. To see, say they, the tail of the first spring lamb instead of its face forebodes “bad luck” to the beholder through the year. In the tramcar there was a little dog with a silver collar round its neck, evidently without an owner. The pretty little white English terrier whined about in quest of its master or mistress, but neither was to be found. In the tramcar there was a police inspector on his way to do double duty at the racecourse. This kind-hearted man tried hard by coaxing, sop, and caresses to be a friend to the dog; but no, and for the life of him the dog could not be brought round to look upon the inspector as a friend. Immediately the tramcar stopped, the little dog bounded off in search of its owner, but none was to be found, and the last I saw of the inspector and the lost dog was up one of the streets at Warwick, with the dog ahead and its tail between its legs, and the inspector scampering after it as fast as he could run, calling out, “Stop it,” “Stop it,” “It’s lost;” and away they both went out of sight, and neither the one nor the other have I seen since.
I once worked for a master in the slave yards of Brickdom in Staffordshire, who owned a bulldog. This dog took it into his head one day to leave its cruel master, and seek fresh lodgings of a better kind. Spying its opportunity, off it started out of the brickyard as if it was shot out of a gun; and the master for whom I slaved could not whistle, and knowing that I could whistle as well as I could cry and sing, bawled out to me, “Whistle him, whistle him, or I’ll black your eye! I’ve lost a dog worth five shillings; whistle him!” Of course, under the circumstances, trembling with fear and fright, I could not “whistle” very loud. The consequence was, the dog was lost, and I got a “good kick and a punch.” If the inspector could have whistled for the lost dog in the tones of its mistress, it would have saved his legs and brought the dog back to its comfortable home.
I was no sooner upon the racecourse, paddling through the quagmire, than I was brought face to face with some of the gipsies—the Hollands and the Claytons. I had not long been talking to them before one of the old Hollands came up to me and said, “I know who you are, Mr. Smith of Coalville; lend’s your hand, and let’s have a good shake. I would not mind giving five shillings for your likeness.” I told him he need not be at the expense of giving five shillings for a flattering photograph; he could have a good stare at the original, with all its faults, blemishes, and scars, for nothing. In my hands were a lot of picture cards for the gipsy children, given to me by the Religious Tract Society, upon which were a lot of texts of Scripture, in pretty patterns. Some of them read as follows: “My son, forget not my law;” “Thou art my trust from my youth;” “Thou God seest me;” “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet;” “My son, give me thine heart;” “Wisdom is more precious than rubies;” “Enter not into the path of the wicked;” “Even a child is known by his doings;” “Feed my lambs;” “Hear instruction, and be wise;” “Show piety at home;” “The Lord bless and keep thee;” “The Lord preserveth all them that love Him;” “I will guide thee with mine eye;” “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil;” and many more. Immediately I had begun to distribute them among the children clustered round me, Alfred Clayton came up to me, as close as he could get, and he said, as I read out some of the texts to the children “I do like them; I could die by them; I’d sooner have some of them than a meal’s meat at any time. Do give me some, Mr. Smith, and I’ll get somebody to read them to me, and will take great care of them. I’ll have them framed and hung up.” The Hollands now asked me to go into their van, which invitation I gladly accepted. I was no sooner seated than Mrs. Holland, a big strong woman with pipe in her mouth, began to tell me how many children they had had, and that she had “been a nurse for the Lord,” for she had “had twelve children, nine of whom had died before they were three years old, and three are living, two of whom you see.” At this point she flew off at a tangent in language not suited for this book. Any one hearing her would think that she was a somewhat queer and strange kind of “nurse for the Lord.” Mr. Holland the elder told me of one poor gipsy woman, who, through her unfaithfulness and bad conduct, had come to an untimely end, so much so that it was with much difficulty and risk her rotten remains were placed in a coffin. Sad to say, her sins were not buried with her. Her family carry the marks upon them. After chatting about all sorts of things and old times, with the Leicestershire gipsies from Barlestone and Barwell, I turned in with some gipsy Smiths from Gloucestershire, whose van and tents were on the other side of the “grand stand.” I found that in three of the vans there were twenty-one children of various sizes and ages, and nine men and women sleeping and huddling together in wretchedness. One of the gipsy women told me that she had had “nineteen children all born alive.” As they sat round the fire upon the grass, I began to give them some cards, and while I was doing so, one of the men, Reservoir Smith, broke out in language not very elevating, and said among other things, “What use are picture cards to either the children or us; there is not one in the whole bunch that can tell a letter; and as for saying prayers, they do not know what it is and where to begin. We cannot pray ourselves, much less teach our children. Who are we to pray to? Parsons pray, and not we poor folks.” A gipsy woman must needs have her say in the matter, and said as follows, “Do not mind what he says master, if you will give me some of the cards we will have them framed; they will do to look at if we cannot read them.” At this they clustered round me—men, women and children; and I distributed cards and pence to the little ones as far as my stock would allow, with which all were delighted.