“It is better than the papers,” said a young porter, whom we heard with some companions singing hymns below ground.
Even the newsboys, with the Sunday papers under their arms, like to have something profitable for Sunday reading. One ragged, pale little fellow was in the habit of telling us one Sunday what were the contents of the small book he received the previous Sabbath; and another youth of larger growth emphatically demanded “A big’un. I likes a big book, please.” These and sundry others are the hawkers of newspapers. Oh! why cannot people wait till Monday morning for such secular reading, and why are our ears to be deafened with cries of the ‘paipers’? Cannot we give one day in seven to the service of Him who said, “Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy,” and who added, “I am not come to destroy the law, but to fulfil”?
I wish all those who will not remember it had heard an undeserved rebuke administered to us on a weekday by a railway official; undeserved, because we do not travel on Sunday, either to hear popular preachers or otherwise amuse ourselves.
“I shall be happy to take your book to-day, ma’am; but I never accept one on Sundays,” he said. “Why?” we inquired. “Because you know we have to work all day Sunday for the public, and I don’t think people who travel on Sundays, and break the law themselves, have any right to give us books to teach us how to keep it.” Let Sabbath-breakers take this to heart.
It is very rarely that we meet with a rebuff. On one occasion, however, when distributing illustrated leaflets to a party of scavengers, we were arrested by the words, “No, thankee. I don’t want one.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate cant, and it’s all cant.”
“I am sorry. Do I look like a cant?”
“No; I can’t say as you do.”
“He’s a bad’un, and al’ays rude to the ladies,” whispered a neighbour confidentially.