A mother who sends her children unwashed to school is embedding in the child’s nature seeds that will one day bring a crop of poverty, wretchedness, and despair.
A man who sits playing with his thumbs, hoping that something will turn up to put him upon the pedestal of fame and fortune, is hatching addled eggs, and the longer he sits upon them the worse they will stink.
Infidelity is a thick, muddy canal made by men’s hands, the bosom of which is covered with the weeds of idiosyncrasies and Satanic doubts; and beneath its surface it teems with all kinds of big and little, prickly, dead, and dying venomous reptiles; and woe be to the man who trusts his barque upon its stinking and putrefying surface with the hope that it will carry him to the crystal river and sea of glass.
Something of the wonderful infinitude, love, and power of God, in regulating and governing the external and internal relation of myriads upon myriads of millions of worlds teeming with life, variety, and beauty, may be gathered if we can grasp the idea that the separate particles of the rays of light sent forth by the sun to illumine our world each morning are, after they have done their work, whirled into unknown and unbounded space, and transformed as they fly, at a rate faster than imagination can travel, into suns to light up other worlds and other systems. And yet He finds time to number the hairs upon our heads; yea, a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice. Wonderful! most wonderful! Past comprehension. None can fathom.
As the twelve precious stones—jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolyte, beryl, topaz, chrysoprasus, jacinth, and an amethyst formed the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem, the future home of His saints, with pearly gates, as seen by John the divine in apostolic days; so do hopeful, believing, fighting, wrestling, joyous, singing, patient, benevolent, praying, working, and conquering Christians form the foundation of the present-day heavenly temple, with love and concord as doors, and walls of virtue, wherein God delights to dwell among His children, witnessing adoration with loving eyes, and listening to hymns of praise and thanksgiving with melodious ears.
A man may be said to be in a fog when he cannot see the hand of Providence in all his dealings, or God’s finger pointing out his way.
A closet is a burrow into which a Christian who is hounded to death by the dogs of hell can run and be safe. When once there, Christians can smile at their howls and sing while they show their teeth with rage.
At seven o’clock I was unbolting the door, making my way out of the house to a number of gipsy vans in an orchard on the outskirts of the town. On going to the place I met a little posh gipsy dressed in “rags and trashes,” with the heels—what was left of the “trashes”—upside down. He had just turned out of his bed, he said, and from his bed followed the dog, both having snoozled under the van—in which his uncle and aunt lay—on the ground, with a wet, damp rug as a covering. “Master,” said the little posh gipsy boy, “can you tell me where I can get a bottle of ginger beer? I am so thirsty and hungry. I’ve had nothing since my dinner yesterday.” I went with the boy to several houses where “Ginger-beer sold here” was displayed in the window, but without success. I gave the boy the price of a bottle and trotted him off lower down the town to quench his thirst and satisfy his appetite.
The gipsies were just beginning to “turn out,” and the little gipsies, half naked, were hunting up sticks out of the hedge-bottom to light the fire to boil the water for breakfast. The men and dogs were collecting together in groups, half-dressed, to relate to each other their successes at the fair. Apart from the rest of the gipsies, owning a van of a better kind than the others, two old gipsies were enjoying their breakfast upon the ground. As soon as the old gipsy woman—whose face betokened that it had figured in many an encounter, and was somewhat highly coloured—saw me, she began to get excited, and called me to them. I thought, “Now is the time for squalls; look out.” I drew near to the old woman with a strange mixture of feelings. It was early in the morning. There were now about a score of gipsy men and women looking on, and a few of the dogs came sniffing at my heels. I tried to screw a smile upon my face, and to dig and delve low for a pleasant joke, but it would not come from the “vasty deep.” On my approach the old woman jumped up from the ground, and with both hands clasped mine in hers, which felt as rough as a navvy’s, saying while griping them tightly, “Bless yer, my good mon, I’ve wanted to see yer for a long while. I’ve long ’erd abaut yer, and ha’ never had th’ pleasure o’ puttin’ my een on yer till this mornin’. Sit yer down on th’ gress, I want to tawke to yer. Dunner yer be freetened, I’m not goin’ to swaller yer, bless yer, master mon. Yer’ll ha’ sum brekust, wonner yer?” “Yes,” I said, “I did not mind.” Although I did not exactly like the appearance of things, I thought it would not do to say “no,” and I knelt upon the damp grass. In a pan over their fiery embers were the remnants of bacon and red herrings. There was only one large cup and saucer, without a handle, for the pair of them. I thought most surely she would fetch a cup and saucer out of the van for me. Such was not to be the case. A group of some ten or twelve working men of Hinckley stood looking over the hedge only a few yards away, at the old woman’s “megrims.” She handed me in the first place a piece of bread, upon which was some bacon and herring. It took me all the time to swallow this uninviting morsel. I munched a little of it, and some I put into my pocket for another time. She now filled up her cup with tea, and made her fingers do duty for sugar tongs. I could see no teaspoons about, except one that was among the herrings and bacon. This was fetched out and plunged into the tea, and round and round it went, leaving upon the top of the dark-coloured tea—which I could now see by the bright morning sun shining upon the scene—stars floating about. The old woman first drank herself, and then handed the cup of tea to me. I supped and nibbled the crust. I supped again, till between us the cup was nearly emptied. She had a strong scent of “Black Jack,” and I kept a very sharp eye upon what parts of the cup the old woman drank from. “Now then to bisness,” said the old gipsy. “Yer see none o’ we gipsies con read an’ write. I’ll show yer I con, if none o’ them conner. Han yer got anythin’ wi yer for me to read?” I had a few copies of “Our Boys and Girls,” with me, given to me by the Wesleyan Sunday School Union, and I handed one to the old woman, dated September 1880, and she began stammering at some of the verses in an excited frame of mind between anger and pleasure, as if determined to read them whether she could or not. “Ha—ha—ha,—Haste traveller—ha—ha,—haste! the night comes on.” She got through one or two of the verses pretty well. I then gave her another verse, which she read fairly well:
“He is our best and kindest Friend,
And guards us night and day.”