“Well, when you have saved two or three shillings, you can make your will, if you like, and leave it to somebody.”
“But I can’t write, and I’ve heard as how wills is ‘allus writed.’”
“Then you had better come to the Ragged School, as soon as it is opened, and learn.”
“Well, I think I will. I have heard it takes a sight o’ money to bury anybody. If I should die afore I can write, you can spend the money for that.”
“Very well; but I hope you will live and learn to read and write, and grow up to be a clever and good man.”
“And do yer now?” said he, walking off with one of those inimitable whistles peculiar to ragged boys.
CHAPTER IV.
Sowing Seed.
“Some say man has no hurts, some seek them to reveal,
And to exasperate some, and some to hide and heal.”Trench.
A LITTLE before Christmas I received an intimation through the women whom I used to meet, that their husbands would be glad to talk with me, if I would give them an opportunity for that purpose. I fixed an evening, and sixteen men came. They told me they had been thinking a great deal about the bad management of their affairs generally, and especially about their habit of buying everything at a great disadvantage; that they wished very much they could see their way to do better. One man had a copy of the rules of a Loan Society which had worked very well in other places, and might be a great help to them. They would require assistance from some of the gentlemen of the neighbourhood to help them to start it. This they asked me to obtain for them, and also the use of the school-room, where they might make their payments; since, if they had to go to a public-house for this purpose, they might as well abandon all thought of saving. Two or three of the men told me they wanted, in some quiet way, to learn to read and write better; for though, when they were asked, they said they could do both, yet they could do neither well enough for the occupation to be pleasant to them. I knew what they meant by the “quiet way:” men have a great dislike to learning as children, or with children. I told them, as to the writing, the best thing they could do would be to save a few sixpences, and buy some of Darnell’s copy-books. Any man might teach himself to write well from them, with no other assistance than just being told how to hold his pen. Good reading, too, they might acquire by constant practice and listening to others who could read better than they.
This last observation opened the way for me to introduce another subject. I told them that, before we separated, I wished to read a chapter in the Bible. Though we differed in many other respects, we were all alike in this, that each needed God’s teaching; and if we expected any of our plans for improving our condition in life to be successful, we must ask God’s guidance in making the plans, and His blessing in carrying them out. One of the men immediately got up and brought me a Bible, adding, “Now we shall be all right.” This man was a great professor of religion, but I knew, alas! not always a consistent one; and I saw the scornful curl of the lip directed against him from some of his comrades. Out of these sixteen men a great variety of creeds might have been collected. One or two of my listeners were stanch Baptists; about the same number were Wesleyans; one, I believe, was in the habit of attending the Church: but those who had hitherto taken the leading part in the conversation were men who have always a great deal to say against “parsons;” who use the word “humbug” more frequently than any other in reference to anything of a religious nature. Most of the rest belonged to a very numerous class; more numerous among working-men than is generally supposed. They might be styled Gallios; for they professedly, at least, “cared for none of these things.”