Surrounded by several vans and carts there was a fire in an old bucket, round which stood men, women, and a lot of poor little gipsy roadside Arabs. Presently into the pot over the fire—a large old kettle—a gipsy woman puts a lot of the commonest dirty-looking sugar, and some butter, or “butterine,” and when it has begun to boil, one of the children stirs it with a dirty stick for a time. After the boiling process is over, it is taken out and handed to the man or woman, as the case may be, to be “pulled” or twisted into the long walking-stick shape you see on some of the low, dirty gingerbread stalls attending fairs. A light-coloured “rock,” or “toffy,” is made by adding lighter-coloured sugar and flour.
The light-coloured “rock” and the dark-coloured “rock” are then mixed and twisted together, forming what is called the “scrodled rock.” The mixing process gives the hands of the mixers a clean appearance inside, contrasting strongly with the back of the hands, which at times, with this class of folks, resemble very much in colour the backs of tortoises or toads. George Herbert, in the “Fuller Worthies” Library, might almost have seen and tasted some such like, when he wrote—
“A sweetmeat of hell’s table, not of earth.”
A few yards from this manufacturing process there were man, woman, and two little children “as clean as pinks,” and a boy, who was scrubbing himself, head and shoulders, down to the waist, till he was “all of a white lather.” This case, and the few others I saw of a similar nature, were the “new comers on the road.” I expect to hear of their rising as a cow’s tail grows.
A laughable incident occurred while I was standing by watching the boy scrub at his head as if he meant to fetch the hair up by “the roots.” From beneath one of the vans a big black dog sallied forth down the fair with a piece of white paper in its mouth, carefully wrapped up, and much resembling a parcel of sandwiches. No sooner was the dog in the fair than some of the gipsies were after it, crying out, “Stop it! Stop it!” At first the dog would not listen; ultimately it stopped. The gipsies came up to the frightened animal. Everybody expected the dog had run away with something valuable in the shape of eatables, if nothing else. One big gipsy cried out to the dog, “Down with it! Down with it!” The dog did as it was told. This was no sooner done than the gipsy picked up the paper, and began to carefully unwrap it, when, to the horror of the gipsy and a few others who had taken part in the chase, and roars of laughter of onlookers, it turned out to be a paper containing a few bloaters’ heads and other unpalatable trifles. The parcel was dropped much quicker than it was picked up. Another laugh burst forth. The huntsmen pinched their noses and slunk away. One said, “I thought he had got somebody’s grub.”
I now came upon Mr. Bachelor Nabob Brown, a chimney-sweeping gipsy—and a most curious stick he was—in charge of a weighing machine and a few other trifles. He was just turning out of his bed, which had been in his cart, covered with a yellow sheet. Nine o’clock was the time he had promised overnight to be ready for a stroll. He got up, gave himself a rub, yawn, and a stretch, and set to work lighting his fire in the usual gipsying drawing-room fireplace among the other gipsies. Of course washing was out of the question. He boiled his water, stewed his tea, frizzled his bloater, and then set to work upon his breakfast with a strong smell of paraffin oil pervading the whole of the contents of his “larder.” Nabob Brown combed his hair with his fingers, threw on his patched and ragged old pilot Chesterfield, and off we started for a tramp to the outskirts of Oxford. We had not gone far before he began to apologize for not being dressed as a gentleman, and said, “You don’t mind, sir, do you, at me walking along with you in this cut and figure?” I said, “Oh no, I do not mind in the least. Very few know me personally in Oxford, but it would make no difference to me if they did. If it would help on the cause of the gipsy children, I would as soon have my dinner with a gipsy as with a prince.” “All right, my friend,” said Mr. Nabob Brown; “I’m glad to hear you say that. I know who I am talking to.” In going along I said to Nabob, “I should like to know a little about your family.” “All right,” he said; “that’s just what I wanted. Let me tell you, sir, that the ‘Browns’ are amongst the best families in the land. In our family are dukes, lords, M.P.’s, and squires without end, and never a one has done anything wrong. They are all high-class and first-rate folks. In everything that is good a ‘Brown’ starts it. I feel proud that my name is ‘Brown.’” I said, “I thought Smith was not a bad name.” “They are nothing like the ‘Browns,’” said Nabob. “Smiths stand second, Browns stand first. I shall come in for a fortune one of these days before long, and I shall not forget you. Will you give me your address?” I said, “Yes, with pleasure; I shall be glad to have the prospect of a fortune again for my children’s sake.” “All right, give me your card.” I handed him my card, and the poor “cracked” fellow wrapped it up and put it into his pocket.
Mr. Nabob Brown stopped, rubbed and scratched in the street, and commenced again as follows:
“I am one of fifteen children, and the only one living, thank God. My father was George Brown, who served thirty-five years in the Fifty-second Light Infantry. He was present at the battles of Waterloo, Salamanca, and Badajoz; after which he was pensioned off. He spent three years in Chelsea Hospital, and was then taken to the soldiers’ madhouse at Norwich, and there he died. People say that I am getting like him, but they are fools and don’t know what they are talking about. I’m as sensible as any man in the country—don’t you think so?” I told him I did “not like answering questions of that kind without longer experience.” “My father was of a drunken family, and it was in one of his drunken fits when he tumbled me downstairs and put out one of the joints of my backbone.” We now came to a dead stand opposite one of the colleges and near to some large houses. People big and little, gentle and simple, were passing to and fro. He now turned his back towards me and bent his bead low to the wall. He then turned up the tail ends of his old coat, exhibiting his under ragged garments, and took hold of my hand and poked my finger into a small dent in the slight bend upon his back. Of course I consented. He next took off his old hat and poked my finger into a hole upon his head. All the time his tongue was going at the rate of “nineteen to the dozen.” Mr. Nabob’s arms began to swing backwards and forwards, and he shouted out, “I live by excitement; without it I should die.” Children began to stare and gather round us, but before doing so I said, “I suppose you cannot stand drink?” “Oh dear no! I have been teetotal these twenty-five years, on and off, and am religions in my heart, but I doesn’t always show it. I goes to church sometimes. I’m a Church of England man; but then you know, sir, we in our profession cannot do without telling lies sometimes. I’m giving up all bad things, women and everything else. If it was not for being religious at my heart I should have been dead long ago.” He now began to “dance and caper about the road.” Fortunately we were close to the grounds round Christ Church College, and very few saw his megrims.
We had now arrived opposite a small conservatory with some beautiful flowers in view. The pretty flowers sent Mr. Bachelor Nabob Brown off at a tangent. “Oh!” said Mr. Brown, “I love flowers. It is delightful to be among flowers. I could die among flowers. I’m a first-rate gardener.” The names he gave to some of the commoner sorts of flowers he saw were anything but Latin or English. The small rivulet, green meadows, tall trees, pleasant walks, with the burning sun shining overhead, seemed to have excited Mr. Nabob’s dormant artistic qualities, and he commenced to give me specimens of his musical abilities. After he had done he said, “I never had any regular training, or I should have been one of the ‘stars;’ as it is I can play the fiddle, concertina, piano—in fact, I should not be stuck fast at anything. I consider myself to be a regular musician, and no mistake. Oh, my back and my head, sir. Let us sit down for a chat under one of these trees.” “All right,” I said, “I am quite ready.” Several gentlemen and ladies paced backwards and forwards, no doubt wondering who we were or what our movements meant. Maybe, for aught I know, that some of them thought that we had dynamite designs upon Christ Church College; or that we were “two poor wandering lunatics.” Mr. Nabob Brown next poured forth his other qualifications—adaptability and practice in photography, jewelling, shop-keeping, selling tobacco, sweets, and fruits. His recital of these things brought him upon his feet again; and he shouted out with his arm aloft, “Would you believe me, sir? I lost over a hundred pounds in ‘dissolving views.’” I told him jokingly that I was not surprised at it. “There were so many wicked men in the world who have not brains and force of character sufficient to carry them through the difficulties of life, and therefore their only course was to get upon somebody’s back and allow themselves to be carried to a safe place. I have seen many men of this class in my time.” “Right you are, sir. That is just how I have been served through life. I have not only had my brains run away with, but my coat off my back; aye, and one time a big black dog ran away with a piece of my leg. Oh! oh!” shouted Brown, with a twinged face, “gipsies are terrible devils. We are a bad lot, but I don’t like to tell everybody, nor do I like to say all I know, or they would be down upon me at the next fair, and I should have no peace in my life; I might as well be hung. Give it the policemen; I don’t like them chaps, they are no good to anybody. Blow me!” Nabob cried out as we came to a sudden stop on the road, “I left my old umbrella in my cart when we started, and I’ll bet a farthing it will be gone when we get back; let’s be off.” So we began to trot off together, leaving the austere, grim walls of Christ’s College to stand the rude and rugged storms of centuries from without, and the assaults of dogmas, creeds, divinity, law, philosophy, moral force, and logic from within. On our way he told me of the tricks practised by the stall-keeping gamblers upon their wheels of fortune, and the hoodwinking process the policemen undergo at fair times.
We had now arrived at the post office, and Brown said, “Just one word before we part,” and I chimed in, “Perhaps never to see each other again.” “I say, sir, I quite agree with you that all our travelling children should receive a free education as you propose, and the publicans should be made to pay for it. Good-bye, sir, and God bless you,” and away he popped out of sight into the post office, and I sauntered into the fair.
In charge of a gambling cocoa-nut concern I noticed a gipsy named I—, with his hand tied up, which he said was brought about by blood-poisoning. In the van were two brothers and one sister. Connected with this family there were seventeen brothers and sisters, together with father and mother, making a total of nineteen human beings. And only one out of the whole could read and write, and this one, to his everlasting credit, had early in life given up gipsying and put himself out as an apprentice to engineering, and during his apprenticeship he had, unaided by any teacher except his workmates, taught himself to read and write. All honour to such men, be they gipsies, canal boatmen, or brickmakers. As I noticed his good brother, who had run over to the fair for a day to assist his lame brother and their sister, I could not help seeing the vast contrast between the two men. Self-help and education had raised one from a gipsy tramp to the position of an engineer at a salary of thirty-five shillings per week, with his nights to himself.
I next turned again to my friend George Smith, the gipsy, who, with his wife and six children, were attending to their cocoa-nut concern. George Smith was just having his lunch, to which he invited me. Of course I joined him, notwithstanding the crush of the fair. Smith did not know of more than one gipsy among all their relations who could read and write.
Early in the morning I paid a visit to one of the vans, and there saw a woman and her six little girls, and one little boy about three years old, in a most wretched, dirty condition. They were thin, and some of their young faces looked prematurely old. She knew me, and the poor slave of a mother seemed ashamed of their condition. I gave them a lot of pictures, cards, &c., and left them to make their way. It was heartrending to see the poor pretty children scan the pictures, anxious to know what they were about, but unable to tell a letter. Despair seemed to come over their faces, as they turned them over and over and from side to side. Later on in the afternoon I again paid a visit to them. Of course in the morning I was behind the scenes; but in the afternoon more phases appeared; they were in “public.” In the van was wretchedness and misery, and all the other evils attending such a course of life; but on the “boards” they were fairies, dressed in lively pretty colours, dancing, skipping, and riding about, not from love, but from pressure and force. You could see as the six pretty children danced about that their smiles were forced. I saw them about six months since, and I now noticed a marked haggard change in their features. The husband had the “light end of the stick.” He fared well, and did well, and worked but little. I could hear the chaps round me say of the mother, as she moved to and fro upon the platform, or outdoor stage, and whose fanciful dresses were none too long, that it was her “legs” that drew the crowds round their establishment. Others said she was “well limbed.” She certainly was more presentable in the evening than in the morning. In my opinion it was the little girls who were the mainstay of the concern.
I could not help noticing the vast number of clergymen moving about. The prettily dressed, and not bad-looking woman had charms for some of them—old and young. She had a good head of black hair, as most gipsies have. Probably her witching eyes and tresses tickled the fancies of the clerical onlookers. One grave-looking clergyman walked up the fair very sedately, not seeming to notice such nonsense, but I could see him glancing out of the corner of his eye at the woman and her children as they danced about. It may be that he was there for the same purpose as I was, viz., to see both sides of gipsying, the evil and the good. If such was the case, I am sure that he found it like the Irishman found his wife, nearly “all bad and no good.”
In the fair, and with smiling looks, pleasant tongue, and busy hand, was Mr. Wheelhouse, the Oxford city missionary, trying to sell his heavenly books. A few came and looked, and turned away, notwithstanding the low prices at which he offered his soul-saving wares. Trash! bosh! Dash and a splash into the Oxford English gipsying was what the crowd wanted, and some of them had it to their heart’s content, with shadows of the morrow’s sorrows hanging over them as they dived deep into sin. Occasionally the missionary would have a customer, which caused him to smile like a full-blown rose.
The good old man, as he gave me a parting grip, said, “God bless you in your noble work. I’ve long wanted to see you. God bless you, good-bye,” and he gave me an extra squeeze, and I then jostled into the crowd.
I noticed three or four of the most respectable gipsy-looking men soliciting subscriptions. It could not be for taxes, I thought, for gipsies never pay taxes—at least those who do not hawk and don’t live in houses. I inquired what their loss was, and I was told that a young woman, one of the mainstays of one of the establishments in the fair, had been burnt to death the previous week in one of the vans. The organ, van, and contents had gone to the winds, and the poor woman’s charred black remains consigned to the cold, cold sod, and tears and black crape left to tell the tale. How she came to her untimely end was not fairly cleared up at the inquest. When the great book is opened it will be made clear. I gave them some silver, and when they asked in what name it was to be entered, of course I told them, and they opened their eyes with wondrous curiosity and amazement. I shook hands with them, and for some minutes I was lost in the crowd. I suppose they had been told by wicked outsiders that I had nothing but hard words for the gipsies and travellers.
A big, idle, hulking-looking fellow of a gipsy now “boned” me. He wanted me to lend him a shilling—as he said—for his wife and children. I tackled him. I asked him what he was doing in the fair. He said he was a collier out of work. I asked him to let me look at his hands. After shuffling about a little he let me look at his hands. I could see plainly that he was not a collier. I said, “You have not had a ‘coal-pick’ in your hands to work with it in your life.” At this he seemed to get into a rage. I said, “The marks you show me have been done upon the ‘wheel of fortune’ in the ‘stone jug.’” This he did not deny. When I asked him about the prices colliers have per ton for getting coal he was nonplussed. I said, “Now, before I give you anything, I want to see your wife and four children,” and away we started to find them, on their way to Banbury. I turned back; but still the fellow was boring me to lend him a shilling, and he vowed and vowed that he would repay me the amount. At this juncture he bolted into a stationer’s shop for a piece of paper, upon which he wanted me to write my address, so that he might send me the shilling back. I followed him into the shop, and quite a scene ensued. The gipsy tramp could neither beg a piece nor buy it. At last, after ten minutes’ wrangling over a piece of paper, the shopman gave him an old envelope, and we came out of the shop. Nothing would serve his purpose but that I was to write my address. So to please, and to get rid of the ignorant, idle, dirty scamp, I wrote upon the recently begged old envelope, “Jupiter Terrace, Moonlight Street, Starland.” The fellow wrapped it up very carefully, and put it into his pocket, and I then gave him sixpence and left him, telling him that he was to send the amount in postage stamps, as I could not get post-office orders cashed at the address I had given him. I expect the sixpence and the gipsy tramp are on the wing still.
In the fair there were over fifteen gambling tables—i.e. tables upon which there were all kinds of gipsy nick-nacks and fairy trifles, some of which were sold and others gambled for. On the table there was a large painted wheel, something like a clock-face or compass, with a swinging finger or hand. Round the outer edge of the wheel stood a lot of things, chiefly ornamental children’s toys in fern cases, fancy boxes, and other ornaments. Those who wanted to “try their luck” had to put down a penny opposite the thing they fancied. When several had done this, and the pennies were studded about the wheel, then swing went the finger round and round till it stopped—seldom where the pennies were. The finger seemed to either just go past the mark or to stop short of it. All blanks and no prizes seemed to be the order of the day. I saw one lady dressed in silk, with a lot of young women, girls, and boys round her, gamble several shillings away on the “wheel of fortune.” It was a most pitiable sight to see the vast numbers of well-dressed young persons and children receiving their first lessons in gambling, in the shadows of churches and colleges. I was told, by those who knew, that the “wheels of fortune” and “shows” made more money than all the other things in the fair put together. It was a sunny fair for the gambling stall-keepers, but not for the patron saint under whose auspices it was held. I rather fancy the saints of bygone days, to whom the colleges and churches were dedicated, would look down upon the assembly with abashed countenances at the work of sin going on under the shadow of the Oxford sacred precincts, and, it would seem, had retired in favour of Discordia, Momus, Mars, et Pluto. The big and little gamblers could win when the proprietors thought well to allow the smiles of fortune to descend upon them. Fortune’s smiles consisted in the pressing of the stall-keeper’s thigh against a stud, that operated underneath the top of the table against the swivel upon which the finger or hand was placed, and he could stop it whenever he liked. After many blanks he would let one of his fools occasionally win, just to encourage others.
I was put up to this move by one of the gipsies, but with strict injunctions that I was not to let the “cat”—i.e., my informant—“out of the bag.” When I told my friend the gipsy that gambling of this kind was against the law, “Yes,” he said, “and the ‘bobbies’ are down upon us in some places for it; and they would no doubt have been so here, but they have been ‘squared.’” When he talked about “squaring,” I thought I would “try” him and “prove” him, but found him to be blank. I found out that this “squaring” process consisted in blinding the policemen with “silver-dust.” The fact is this kind of gambling is growing to an alarming extent in the country under the policemen’s noses, and this they know right well, and take no steps to stop it. Of course the Oxford police as a body of men could not be held accountable for the dereliction of duty by a few of them. As a whole they are a fine lot of village soldiers.
I next turned my step towards one of the shows. There was upon the platform, or stage, a sharp little fiery woman beating the drum—which sounded like a kitchen table—and bawling out till she was hoarse, “Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you want to see the best show in the fair, now is your time; they are just going to begin. Come up quick, and take your places,” and she banged again at the old drum as if she was going to knock the bottom out. Beside the sharp, ready-tongued woman stood “Boscoe,” dressed, daubed, and painted like a Red Indian, whose rough visage and broken nose had the appearance of having been in many a “fisticuffing” encounter. Although he was daubed over, I recognized him as one with whom I had had a long chat on Sunday afternoon, and who pleasantly received some of my books for his children. Boscoe noticed me in the crowd, and gave me a few of his sly winks while the megrims were going on. Close to “Boscoe” stood a tall, wretched, half-starved, red-faced looking man, the picture of a beer-barrel in his face, with red-herring tendencies from the shoulders downwards. On the ground there were his wretched, lantern-jawed wife and their six ragged children. Their home was a donkey cart covered over with rags, and a bed of rags was what those eight human beings had to lie upon, and I could have said with Burns—
“Oh, drooping wretch, oppressed with misery!”
and as she stood cowering and trembling I could have said with Crashaw, “Oh, woman!—
“‘Upwards thou dost weep;
Heaven’s bosom drinks the gentle stream.’”
I should like to have whispered in her ear, “Weep on, poor woman, weep on. Weep on, poor children, weep on. Your tears will bring down the mighty arm of the Great Living Father, which shall deliver you from this wretched tramping life of misery and degradation. Look up! look up! His hand draweth nigh. The Friend of the children hears the children’s cries, and woe be to the nation or people who step in to prevent the gipsy children receiving the embraces of a loving heavenly Father.”
After the performance “Boscoe” came off the stage and invited me to go into the “show,” which invitation I accepted, and was led in by the side door. I witnessed “Boscoe’s” tricks, such as eating fire, making leaden bullets, putting a red-hot poker down his throat, and drawing a red-hot bar across his tongue, and the bending of red-hot iron bars with his feet. “There are dodges in every trade, except rag-gathering,” said the old rag-woman the other day, as she sat by the side of the brook, wetting her rags before she sold them. The acrobat performances of a poor boy about twelve were cruel in the extreme. After one of his movements I could see that the poor thin-faced lad was suffering intense pain by his twinging and limpy walk. This poor specimen of humanity could not read or write a sentence. To bend, twist, twirl, and contort the limbs and bones of a poor child to bring smiles upon the faces of fools—for they are no better who witness such exhibitions—is hellish, and money gotten in this way provides those engaged in it with “workhouse” and “spittles” uniform. Other performances, such as a pony telling fortunes, &c., brought the entertainment to a close. On coming away old “Boscoe” came off the stage to shake hands with me among the crowd, which circumstance seemed to puzzle some of the bystanders.
I had a turn round with the gingerbread and toy stall-keepers, and I was not long among them before I found out two old “backsliders,” one of whom was from Northampton, and until two years ago was a “member of a class.” Now, with her son, she was tramping the country, and attending fairs and races in the daytime, and sleeping under their stall at night! A chat with her about old times, and the “blessed seasons” she once had, and the peace of mind she once enjoyed, brought scalding tears to her eyes, as copiously as if I had been talking to her of the death of a darling rosy-checked, curly-headed little boy, whose little wax taper flickered out as its soul was being wafted to Paradise in the midst of a convoy of angels. The good woman with quivering lips said, “Do you remember giving me, sir, at Long Buckby, a little book and a picture card?” I said, “Yes.” “Well, I sent them to my son, who is a soldier in South Africa, and they pleased him very much.” I could see that I could press the subject a little nearer home, and I said to her, “How do you get on with this kind of life? How do you manage to say your prayers at night?” “Well,” she said, “this kind of life is not the right thing, and I am not what I ought to be; but somehow or other I say my prayers at night, and feel safer after it. I hope to give up travelling and settle down again.” While moistened sorrow was reddening her eyes, I said in substance if not in words—
“’Tis a star about to drop
From thine eye, its sphere;
The sun will stoop to take it up.”
With a deep, deep-drawn sigh she bade me good-night several times over, and the curtain dropped.
I now came upon a man and woman sitting at a weighing machine. (I might state that I was weighed at two different weighing machines in the fair. Nabob Brown’s machine put me down at eleven stone ten pounds, and F—’s machine showed that I weighed twelve stone and eleven pounds.) Both looked above the ordinary kind of gipsies. The clean, good-looking woman was nursing a baby, and trying the weight of “ladies and gentlemen,” and the man was “ringing” his cheap fashionable sticks off to those who would try “three throws a penny.”
This couple, I soon found out, were Primitive Methodist “backsliders.” Their names were F— although they were known among the travellers as W—. His father was one of the oldest local preachers in the Brinklow district. He had worked hard in the cause of the Great Master, and had succeeded in raising a “Band of Hope,” two hundred members strong, in one of the London districts; but in the fulness of his heart, and in what turned out to be an evil moment for him, he admitted another “brother” as a co-secretary, who, instead of helping my friend the gipsy in the good work, supplanted him, and “collared” the tea-cake, at which the committee winked. This worked up the tender feelings of my gipsy friend to such a pitch that he withdrew from the society he had raised, and took the downhill turning, and in this course both he and his wife are, at the time of writing this, gipsying the country. Richard Crashaw says—
“These are the knotty riddles
Whose dark doubts
Entangle his lost thoughts
Fast getting out.”
I asked my friend F— a few questions about the gipsies he had been mixed up with. Among other questions was the following. “Now, Mr. F—, how many gipsies and travellers have you known, during your travels, to attend a place of worship on Sundays?” “Well, sir,” said Mr. F—, “you ask me a straightforward question and I will give you a straightforward answer. I do not remember ever having seen one.” I said, “This state of things is truly awful.” “Yes,” he said; “it is no more awful than true. I’m getting tired of it, and I think I shall settle down this next winter.”
A long conversation with them both brought out tears, downcast looks, and sighs, which contrasted somewhat strangely with the yelling “fools,” “clowns,” and simpletons in the fair. I gave them and their children some books, pictures, &c., and they in return gave me a walking stick as a “keepsake,” which I shall preserve; and after shaking hands several times over, I toddled off into the fair, to wander among the vans with my “keepsake” stick in my hand, gently tapping the gipsy children as they turned up their smiling faces.
It was now about eleven o’clock, the buzz and din of fools, wise men and simple, was getting gradually less. The echo was getting fainter and fainter. The crowd was thinning. Policemen seemed to be numerous; the gipsies dogs were sneaking from under the vans, and prowling after bones and thrown-out trifles. The swearing of drunken gipsies was heard more distinctly than ever. The gipsy women—some of whom had “had a little too much”—were loud in their oaths and hard words. In many instances blows threatened to be the outcome. Children were screaming, and big sons and daughters were quarrelling.
Half-past eleven arrived, and the inmates of the two hundred and twenty vans and shows, numbering about a thousand men, women, and children, were bedding themselves down in their, in many instances, wretched abodes. As I wandered among them at midnight hour I felt a cold chill of horror creeping over me, and nightly dewdrops of sorrow forcing their way down my face. To witness the sight I saw was enough to cause the blood to freeze in any man’s veins. One of the most hellish sights upon earth is a dirty, drunken, swearing woman putting her children to bed upon rags undressed and unwashed, and with a flickering candle dying in the socket. Fathers and mothers, sons and daughters all lying mixed together, numbering on an average four, six, eight, ten, and twelve men, women, and children, of all ages and sizes, in the space of a covered waggon, is what ought never to be allowed in any civilized country, much less Christian England, which spends millions in trying to convert the Indian, civilize the savage, transform the Chinaman, Christianize the African, and in preparing the world for the millennium which is to follow the redeeming efforts of Christ’s followers. Oh! haste happy day, when John’s vision shall dawn upon us with all its never-ending transcendent splendour, tenderness, and heavenly reality. [161]
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.”
Not half a dozen of this thousand human beings would be offering up an evening prayer other than that of hell. The backsliding woman from Northampton and her son had crept for the night under their stall. Of course she had said her prayers, as she had told me, according to her wont, by the side of their stall, or may be after she had drawn their tent covering round them for the night; at any rate I left them to have one other peep at my friends the gipsies F— before wending my way to my lodgings. On arriving at the van I saw a flickering light in the windows. The top window was nearly shut. The woman had had a little too much, but not sufficient to drive her wild or out of her senses. The husband had been “cross” with her. They had finished their midnight meal. The poor little children were almost “dead sleepy,” and for a minute or two all was quiet, and then I heard the backsliding mother teaching the poor sleepy children as they knelt down in the van to repeat,
They now fastened their van top door down and bade me good-night. Their dog had snoozled under their home on wheels. Fogs and chills were creeping round. The policeman’s tramp was to be heard, and with death-like silence reigning I crept between the cold sheets to toss and tumble about till the bright morning sun appeared, to fasten upon my heart the sights of the previous day at the Oxford St. Giles’s fair, not to be removed till eternity dawns upon my soul with heaven in full view. To, as Marianne Farningham says in The Christian World—
“A land where noises of the earth
For evermore shall cease,
Where the weary ones are resting
In the calm of perfect peace.”
Hinckley September fair has for many long years been regarded as one of the greatest “screw” fairs in England, and as a place where many gipsies annually gather together to follow their usual and profitable occupation of horse-dealing. At this fair they buy all the good-looking “screws” they can put their hands upon, and palm and physic them off, temporarily, as sound horses. They both, as one told me, “make their market” and “make hay while the sun shines” at this fair. A thorough old “screw” knows as if by instinct the scent of gipsy pantaloons; and by some means, known only to a few, the horses find their way back into gipsy hands again.
With these facts before me, I was prompted to pay the gipsies a visit at their Eldorado. The morning was like a spring morning. The sun shone cheerfully, lovely, and warmingly, and was fast drying up the mud. On my way to the station some slovenly waggoner had left some thorns in the way, which I threw over the fence and passed on. I had not gone far before I found, on a rising hill, a large piece of granite in the centre of the road, which some idle and careless Johnny had left behind him. I rolled it out of the way and sped along. On the top of the hill a coal higgler had left a large lump of coal in the way—or it had jolted off while he was asleep, or akin to it. This I deposited among the thistles and nettles in the ditch, where it remained for some weeks. While I was clearing these little troublesome and somewhat dangerous things out of the way, the skylark was singing cheeringly and sweetly overhead as of spring-time. My gipsy friends would say that these were forebodings and prognostications, ruled by the planets, which indicated joys and troubles, pleasure or sorrows for the travellers, according to the amount of silver and gold there was floating about within their reach. How I was guided by the Creator and the planets, and with what success I pursued my course, will be seen before I have done rambling.
At the station a poor woman was in a difficulty. She had promised to have tea with her long-absent daughter, at the “feast” at four o’clock the same day; but, unfortunately, the train would not take her to the “feast.” Notwithstanding the remonstrances of the porters, the good woman got into the train and said, “I shall go,” and she sped her way, but not to the “feast.”
A mother’s love sees no difficulties and fears no dangers, and will draw more tears from the human fountain than any other force on this side heaven.
At Nuneaton there was the usual long time to wait; after which I duly arrived at the “screw fair.”
At the entrance there was gipsy — and his wife—with their six lost little children, and the probability of a seventh being soon added—setting up their stall.
As I neared them, the poor woman met me and said, “I don’t know what to do; I ought not to be here in this market-place like this. I am liable to be down at any minute, and I don’t know one in the place. I wish our Jim had settled down last spring. It is a hard lot to be a gipsy’s wife,” and she began to cry. “Nobody knows what I have had to put up with since I took to travelling. Why, bless you, dear sir, it would make your heart ache if I were to tell you a tenth part of what myself and the children have gone through. Between Hilmorton and Ashby St. Ledgers will never be forgotten by me. It was a cold night, at the back end of the year; rain came down in torrents. We had only an uncovered cart for all of us to sleep in down one of the lanes. The children crouched under the cart upon the ground like dogs. Our Jim, myself, and three of the children slept, or lay down, in the body of the cart with our dripping clothes on us. We drew an old torn woollen rug over us, and did the best we could, shivering and shaking till morning. The children cried, and were half starved to death. I cannot tell you, if I went down upon my knees, of a twentieth part of our sufferings and hardships on that night, and hundreds of other nights besides. I had a black eye, and was black and blue on many parts of my body. Our Jim was very cruel at that time; but he has not been so bad lately.” Her husband, Jim, is about three parts a gipsy, or between a posh and a Romany chal. He has six children by his first wife, living with their grandmother near Epping Forest, who are left to gipsy and take care of themselves. I don’t think that he would be a bad sort of a man if it were not for “drink” and gipsy companies. The only one who can read in this family is the poor woman, and that is only very little. With tears in her eyes she said, “I often read the little books you gave me, to our Jim at bedtime, till he cries, sometimes like a baby. My heart is at times ready to break when I see how our children are being brought up.” Business was beginning to look up with them, and I made myself scarce for a time. Such sad, heartrending instances of gipsy neglect, depravity, poverty, and wretchedness would be impossible if our Government would carry out my plans for reclaiming them, and Christians and philanthropists would do their duty towards drawing them into the arms of the State and the fold of God.
I had not gone far before a terrible row was echoing in the air from a stall lower down the market, between two gipsy women and a “potato master.” The gipsy women said the potato master had promised them three roasted potatoes for a halfpenny, and he had only given them two. A fight, hair-pulling, and bloodshed seemed to be in a fair way for being the outcome of this trumpery dispute, and would have taken place if the policeman had not put in an appearance. As it was the fracas ended, for the present, in nothing worse than threats of vengeance, oaths and curses being poured upon the head of the potato seller without stint or measure.
I now turned into the horse fair, and had scarcely got many yards before I found myself roughly jostled in the midst of a gipsy row over a dog. The gipsy horse-dealer had a lurcher dog with him, which was owned by a collier. The collier said his dog had been stolen by some gipsies about two months ago. High words, carrying mischief and blows, were flying about thick and fast, and bade fair to end in bloodshed and the pulling of the dog limb from limb. The dog preferred his old master to the gipsy. This the gipsy saw, and at the approach of the police the pair withdrew to a public-house to “square” matters. In the end the collier came out with his dog, which he said “had won more handicaps than any dog in the county,” and off he started home, with a smile instead of blood and bruises upon his face, and the dog wagging its tail with delight at his heels, much to the chagrin and discomfiture of the gipsy.
While I was among gipsy horse-dealers I made the best use of my eyes for a little time, and one of the first dodges of the gipsies was to hire a country Johnny to ride one of their “screws” up and down the fair. Of course the gipsies kept clear away, hoping thereby to draw the attention of customers to the horse as one that a farmer had no further use for. Johnny had very nearly sold the horse to a higgler, but “at the last pinch” the question of reducing the amount Johnny was to sell it for, by one pound, necessitated an appeal to the gipsy owner, who was not far away. The higgler saw the dodge of the gipsy and he withdrew his offer. The gipsy’s blessing was given, but the higgler did not mind it, and he went to seek other quarters for horseflesh.
A little higher up the fair there stood a man with two horses, who was evidently a small farmer in somewhat needy circumstances. It might be, for anything I knew, that he was wanting some money to pay for the cutting of his corn, which was ripening very fast. The horses looked like two thoroughly good sound horses, although aged. The price he asked for the best-looking was £25, and £20 for the other. The gipsies saw that this farmer was very anxious to sell. A big, good-looking gipsy came up to him and said, “What for the big horse? Now, then, speak the lowest price you will take for it in a word.” The farmer said, “£25.” “Nonsense,” said the gipsy; “you must think everybody is either a fool or asleep. I’ll give you a ‘fiver’ for it, and it is dear at that price.” To one of his gipsy mates he said, “Jack, jump across it and ride it up the fair.” Jack jumped across the horse, and off they started at a rattling pace, almost frightening people out of their wits who were in the way. After going up and down a few times several gipsies clustered round the horse when it and its gipsy rider had cleared to outside the throng of the fair. The group stood for a few minutes, and then the horse was brought back and given up to the owner. The bargain was not struck, and the gipsies cleared away. In the course of ten minutes the horse began to get very restless, kick, and plunge about. Sometimes it seemed as if it wanted to lie down. It would then begin to cringe and kick, much to the danger of the lookers on. The owner said that a horse-fly was on it somewhere. He stroked and tapped it, but all to no purpose. Presently another gipsy came up, evidently one of the gang, and said to the farmer, “Why, governor, your horse has either got the ‘bellyache’ or an inflammation; it will be dead in half an hour; what will you take for it at all risks? Now, speak your lowest figure at once.” The farmer said, very much “chopfallen,” “A little time ago I asked £25, but I suppose I must take less than that now.” The gipsy saw his chance, and at once said, “I will give you a ‘tenner,’ and not a farthing more; say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ and I’m off.” The horse was still kicking about. The farmer, much dejected, said, “I suppose you may as well have it.” The bargain was struck and the kicking horse led away. In going up the fair a group of gipsies clustered round it with evident glee. A few hours afterwards I saw the horse led off quietly enough from Hinckley fair at the heels of a gipsy. No doubt the horse had been doctored by the gipsies in some way when they first took it in hand and while it was surrounded by the first group.
In another instance a countryman bought a horse of a “farmer-looking” gipsy and paid the money, when, just before the horse was handed over to the purchaser, another gipsy came upon the scene and claimed the horse as his own, and, apparently, threatened vengeance and the gaol to be the doom of the man who had sold the horse. The two gipsies now began to pull each other about—without any bones being broken or blood flowing—and to wrestle and struggle for the possession of the horse. The country man had parted with his money and he had not got the horse, nor any prospect of it. Another gipsy came up and suggested that the whole business should be ended by the countryman having his money back except ten shillings and the payment of “glasses round.” To this arrangement the countryman assented, and they turned into the public-house to carry out the bargain. What sharp men and fools there are in the world, to be sure, to be met with on gipsy fair ground!
As usual there were gipsy Smiths in the fair, and without much difficulty I ran against one who was the proprietor of a popgun establishment and two shillings’ worth of “toffy” stuck round a wheel of fortune. I had a long chat with him between the “cracks,” and elicited the fact that he had twice tried gipsying in Ireland, but it resulted each time in a drawn game. He only visited four fairs. Irish soil and poverty are not suited for the development of gipsying. The fact is, Irishmen are too wide awake for the vagabond gipsies, and they are too much taken up with the matter-of-fact everyday life to listen to idle lying, misleading, romantic, wheedling tales designed to draw the money out of their pockets. At one of the fairs in Ireland my gipsy friend took four shillings, with a prospect of losing his tent, bag and baggage. If he had been one of Arabi’s Egyptian ragamuffin soldiers frightened from Tel-el-Kebir he could not have decamped more quickly from the land of St. Patrick. The pleasure fairs of England and the fashionable squares of London, and the watering-places on the coasts are places and palaces where gipsy kings and queens thrive best.
They fatten and thrive fairly well in some places in Scotland. One cannot but smile sometimes at the ease with which some of them go through the world. If their cleverness was turned into legitimate channels and honourable business transactions, they would soon be a credit to themselves and to us as a nation. It is a thousand pities that in these educational days there are narrow-minded croakers who, under the guise of friends—though in reality their worst enemies—are trying to keep the gipsy children in ignorance; but their object is easily seen by those who stand by and are looking quietly and thoughtfully on. These false friends smile in gipsy faces while they are robbing them of their lore to fill their empty coffers, and this the gipsies will see some day.
Gipsy Smith and myself began to enumerate all the vans in the fair, together with those living in them. There were about thirty gipsy vans, shows, covered carts, &c. In one of the vans there were eight children besides adults. In another van there were seven children besides adults. Altogether we counted over one hundred travelling children in the fair, not three of whom could read and write. Smith said that in all his travelling experience he had not known either gipsy, showman, auctioneer, or traveller ever attend a place of worship from fair grounds. “Sundays as a rule,” said Smith, “are spent in travelling with their families from town to town and from place to place.” Gipsy Smith lived and travelled with his wife in a covered pony-cart. There were four “Aunt Sally” stalls, which dealt out cigars to children for successful “throws.” The gipsies are to-day doing more to encourage gambling and smoking than is imagined by ninety-nine out of every hundred Englishmen. The former saps the morals and the latter the minds and constitutions of those who are simple enough to indulge in them.
Before I had done talking with gipsy Smith the Salvation Army brass band from Leicester, with “Captain” Roberts from the headquarters, one of the staff officers, hailed within sight and sound, and as I had not had the opportunity to spend an evening with the Salvation Army, to see and hear for myself something of the proceedings, I joined in the procession as an outsider. Some of the people made an eye-butt of me at which they stared. Crowds were gathering round the band as it played in martial strains—if Mr. Inspector Denning had been there from the House of Commons better order could not have been kept—
“Hark! hark! my soul, what warlike songs are swelling
Through all the streets and on from door to door;
How grand the truths these burning strains are telling
Of that great war till sin shall be no more.”
And then the vocal band with their voices would join in singing the choruses with exciting strains and gesture—
“Salvation Army, Army of God,
Onward to conquer the world with fire and blood.”
After this the brass band led the next verse—
“Onward we go, the world shall hear our singing,” &c.
After they had played this up the street for a time, the Army halted, and Captain Roberts and one of the lieutenants addressed some words to the “band” with fire and vigour running through them, to which the lads and lasses, young men and maidens, saints and sinners, responded with the “Old Methodist” and Primitive Methodist “Glory! glory! bless the Lord!” “Hallelujah!” “Religion is the best thing in the world!” “Glory!” another called out at the top of his voice. While the Army was giving out no uncertain sound the brass band commenced, under marching orders and exciting surroundings, reminding me of old times—
“We are marching home to glory,
Marching up to mansions bright,
Where bright golden harps are playing,
Where the saints are robed in white.”
And then, in obedience to the captain’s arms and orders, the lads and lasses struck up with the chorus—
“There’s a golden harp in glory,
There’s a spotless robe for you—
March with us to the hallelujah city,
To the land beyond the blue.”
And in this way we kept on till we arrived at the “Salvation Warhouse.”
A drunken man dressed in rags, but with an intelligent-looking face and a high forehead, must of needs have a word to say, and for a time a “branglement” seemed inevitable. However, with a little tact the storm blew over. After a little work at “knee drill” in the warhouse the Army rested for a short time to recruit their animal strength. While this was going on I looked out for a couch upon which to rest my bones for the night, and this I found out at Mr. Atkins’, in the market-place. I then retired to get my dinner and tea in a coffee-tavern, of pork pie and coffee, among “chaps and their girls” who had come to Hinckley for a “fairing.” From thence I strolled to some gipsy vans on the green, to find a number of the women washing clothes. My reception was in anything but heavenly language. The gipsies at this fair were from Staffordshire, nearly all of whom were unknown to me. If two of the women had wanted to impress a stranger with the idea that they were of the poor unfortunate gutter-scum class, they could not have used more disgusting language than they did. I chatted with them and gave the children some books and pennies, which brought sorrow from the lips of the gipsy parents for having insulted me. After strolling about among the gipsies and vans in the fair for a time, and distributing some cards and picture-books among the gipsy, show, and other travelling children, I wended my way, guided by the sound of “the light and leading” of the Salvation band, to the “Salvation shop,” to spend a happy hour or two. I sat in one corner and looked quietly on, which seemed to puzzle them. The leaders all had a good stare at me; and first one and then the other would try to draw me out with the usual question, to which I replied very politely and left them in a maze. Captain Roberts told me over breakfast on the Sunday morning that I had been a puzzle to the “band” all the previous evening; and, except to “Captain Roberts” and the good family with whom I was staying, I still remain so, for aught I know.
The Army had commenced proceedings, and at the word of command began to “fire red-hot shot at the devil.” It was a lively, exciting time. The band struck up while they were sitting down—
“My rest is in heaven, my rest is not here,
Then why should I murmur when trials are near?
Be hushed, my dark spirit, the worst that can come
But shortens my journey and hastens me home.”
After this the “command” was for “knee-drill.” Certainly some of the language and action of the soldiers was a little out of the “Friends’” style of doing things. One soldier shouted out at the top of his voice, with a large amount of enthusiasm, “Lord, help us to kill the devil, he has troubled us long enough.” Another would call out, “Lord, the devil has got some powder in his breast; light it with a match and blow his head off;” to which another soldier would reply, “Give the devil string enough and he will hang himself.” “Glory!” they all shouted.
They now got off their knees, and big and little began to relate their experiences, and to “tell what the Lord had done for them.” Our “good brother” in his experiences said, “While I was serving the devil, he made a sign-post of me for a rogue’s shop. Now I am a member of the Salvation Army, with a bit of blue in my coat, which is better than having red on the end of your nose.” “Thank God, it is good, brother; hallelujah!” shouted a number of volunteers.
One little boy said, in his experience with moistened cheeks, “Thank the Lord; before I joined the Salvation Army I was a bad boy; but now I say my prayers, and am trying to be good, and mean to get to heaven! Amen.”
One little girl, with tears in her eyes, said, “Before I joined the Salvation Army I used to be a naughty, bad girl; now I am praying to God, and try to be good. O Lord, do save my poor mother, and my brothers and sisters, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.” A number of girls and boys related their experiences in similar strains. One grey-headed old man, with wet eyes and trembling emotion, thanked “God that He had put it into the mind of one of the boys in the room to leave him a tract, and to invite him to join the Salvation Army. It was the best thing that had ever been done to him. Instead of serving the devil, who was a bad master, he was serving God, and hoped to get to heaven. Bless God, and the lads and lasses. Amen.”
The captain now called on the “band” to strike up one of their “marches,” which they did:
“There is a better world, they say, oh so bright!
Where sin and woe are done away, oh so bright!
And music fills the balmy air,
And Angels with bright wings are there,
And harps of gold, and mansions fair, oh so bright!”
And
“The Lion of Judah shall break my chain,
And give us the victory again and again,” &c.
I then wended my way to my lodging at Mr. Atkins’, all the better for having spent a couple of hours with the “Salvation Army;” and with good wishes for its success, I dozed away, with a “captain” of the Salvation Army for a neighbour on one side, and a clergyman of the Church of England on the other, feeling sure that between these two good Christian centurion brothers, and under the eye of my Master, I was pretty sure to land safely, after the tossings of the night, at the breakfast table in the morning. During my midnight wandering in mist and dreamland, the following aphorisms, thoughts, and suggestions floated before my brain.
As the beautiful colours of the field, forest, dell, garden, and bower are produced by the rays of the sun, so are the beautiful traits of Christian life produced by the rays of Divine love, as exemplified and manifested by the Son of God, our blessed Lord.
The nation that allows her children of tender years to drift about at sea without rescuing them from ruin, has decay, or “dry rot,” at work among her timbers, and will before long become a wreck.
The country that cannot find time to see to the interest of its little children within its borders, has allowed the devil to throw dust into the eyes of its leaders, to blind them against its happiness and prosperity by leading all into the dark.
Why are some Christians little-loved, weak-kneed, and sickly? Because they, like babies, live on “sop”—i.e., trashy fiction, shows, sights, sounds, and unrealities, instead of the love of God and the pure milk of His word.
When you see a Christian with the love of God burning deadly within his soul, and without either light or heat being the outcome, it may be taken for granted that a lot of worldly ashes are in the way choking up the ventilation and air passages; and if he will not set to work at once to clear out the ashes and dust of sin God will do it for him, either by the chastening rod of affliction or losses and crosses in other forms.
Cloaks of deception and fraud are made out of the fibres of disease and putrefaction, and those who wear them are exposed to the disgust and loathing of all upright observers.
Cloaks of honesty and uprightness are made out of the fibres of love and truthfulness, and the wearers of them are received with the smiles and loving embraces of all classes of society.
When you see a Christian without either life or soul within him, you may rest satisfied that bank-notes, musty-fusty deeds, or other things upon which he has set his affections, are clinging round and coming across the ventricles of his heart, and unless removed they will cause death both to the body and to the soul. If the earth-bound Christian will set fire to them by exposing them and his heart to a ray of Divine love, he will be able to jump over a mountain and scale the battlements of heaven, and with flag in hand shout, “Victory!”
Some dashing, flashing wicked men are like a balloon without a vent-hole filled with the devil’s gas, which expands the higher it rises; and for a time they float upon the surface of humanity, finally seeking pleasure among the clouds of fascination and frivolity; and in this region they burst and come down to earth and their senses with a tremendous crash, to find when it is too late that they have been making fools of themselves, and that their grappling irons will not save them from oblivion and ruin.
A clever, wise, thoughtful, sagacious, and Christian statesman may be compared to an aeronaut, who sits in his balloon-car carried by public opinion and pulling the strings of popular applause. Popular applause is the gas by which a statesman floats in the air above his followers; the cords and netting that hold the bottom together are his friends; the treasury bench is his car and the press his strings, which, wisely handled, enable him to land upon the desired spot. Poor wayward and wrong-doing relations are the grappling irons that hold him to the earth; hangers are paupers, and loafers are his sandbags. Infidels, Fenians, Sceptics, and Communists are matches, fusees, and percussion caps, thrown into his car by disappointed office-seekers and courtiers with the object of sending him to Jamaica before his work is done. When those various elements have either been thrown out of the car, stamped out, or brought under proper control, he will then mount higher and higher till he finally quits his car and finds himself seated by the throne of God.
The best stimulating food for an overworked brain, and containing more phosphorus than a thousand fish, is the essence of Divine love, and grace and truth in equal quantities, to be taken upon the knees as often as circumstances need. Before applying to the Great Physician for this medicine the patient should spend an hour in meditation and solitude.
When you see professing Christian parents setting their children to ferret into other people’s affairs, it is a sure sign that they are fonder of rat-catching than filling their souls with good things; and the unwary should be on the look-out, or they will be trapped by these godly rat-catchers and their skins taken to be made into purses.
The various denominations of Christian churches in the country may be likened to an orchard of apple trees, most of which are bearing fruit in one form or other. Some are just beginning to bear fruit, and there are others dead or dying, while there are some trees producing larger quantities of ripe, healthy fruit. In some cities, towns, and villages the best kinds of fruit are to be seen, and in other places the little hard sour crabs, which almost set one’s teeth on edge to look at them, much less to taste. The best and largest fruit in any case is that which grows upon the most healthy trees and branches, exposed to the sun’s rays, and draws its nourishment the most direct from the parent trunk. Fruit upon almost dead branches does not so soon get ripe as the fruit upon healthy branches, and it is small and shrivelled up. In some localities we shall see what we may call “Blenheim” churches, “Russett” churches, “Crab” churches, “Keswick” churches, “Northern Green” churches, “Whiting Pippin” churches, “Winter” churches, &c., growing side by side. The “Crab” church is little, hard, and sour; the “Blenheim” church is rich, large, delicious, and healthy; the “Russett” church is uninviting, but juicy, and much better than it looks. So in like manner with other kinds of Christian churches. The name of the churches answering under these various names must be answered by the members themselves. As digging, dunging, pruning, and grafting improves the trees and the quality of the fruit, so in like manner our heavenly Father has to deal with His churches, or they would all die together. Conscience, surrounded with death-like stillness, asks the question, “To which do you belong?”
A man who has forsaken the path God has marked out for him has stuffed his ears with wool, and jumped upon the devil’s steam tug, and is being taken into a long, dark, dark tunnel, with no light at the other end; and the light of heaven and the gospel which he has left behind him are, through distance, smoke, and steam, and his own bad actions, getting gradually less. The only light he can see, and which will not help him to grope his way in his wretched condition, is derived from farthing rush-lights called science, made and placed in the dark watery cavern by men’s hands; and these get fewer as he is being pulled along by evil influences, until he is lost in despair, with horror upon his face and wringing his hands in grief he passes away.
As children sitting upon a swing gate rocking to and fro are in some degree being prepared for the storms of a life at sea, so are the little foretastes of heavenly pleasure enjoyed by His children from time to time, filling, preparing, and nerving them for the tempestuous ocean which awaits them.
People without gratitude for God’s mercies may be compared to swine eating chestnuts as they fall from the trees. Their refined senses are only manifested in grunts and grumbles. Wise are the people who take lessons from the little birds, and sing God’s praises while they enjoy His blessings.
Gamblers are the devil’s cats set by his Satanic majesty to catch children and fools, and woe be to those who are caught within their clutches.
Those who cling to forms and ceremonies entirely as a means of getting to heaven, will have their eyes opened some day to find out that they are hugging and fondling an illegitimate child of a parent of a very questionable character. The more they know of the child they have been fondling and its mother, the more they will be disgusted with themselves at having been such dupes and fools.
Those who disobey their parents will find that they are putting a noose round their necks, and tying the other end of the rope to a gate post; and when they have done this the words “love” and “duty” in letters of fire will spring up as from the ground, which will keep getting larger and hotter until the wrong-doers are strangled.
The devil’s butterfly is an unconverted clergyman, who gets upon the back of a horse to gallop a fox to death on the week day, dresses in fantastical colours on Sundays, dances before his congregation with incense in his hands, and with his face towards the east, tries to carry his congregation on his wings to a place he knows not where; hypocritically singing the Te Deum in Latin as they go from “pillar to post.”
Those landlords who object to the cultivation of their waste lands for food for man and beast will find that the scent of the gorse, perfume of the heather, contains the fragrance of the bankruptcy court, with the hares, rabbits, partridges, pheasants, woodcock and snipe flapping about the doors uttering horrible noises for their folly. The horrors of the court will be increased by hearing the cries of the children asking for bread with none to give.
Those people who, with the aid of a glib tongue, cunning, and deception, are weaving a cloak of soft words to cover a mass of iniquity, will find out too late, unless very careful, that the mass of corruption they have been hiding will burst out with a more horrible stench than that of a dead corpse.
Infidels and sceptics who rest entirely upon science and nature as a lever by which they hope to lift humanity into paradise, have only to look into a bright black earthenware teapot to discover what sort of wry and contortious faces they are pulling before the public.
The most powerful magnet in the world is the love of God. It can draw the sting of the devil, disarm enemies, and lift all the human beings in the universe into heaven. The more it is used the stronger and more powerful it gets.
Sceptics and infidels, seeking for the so-called errors in the Divine Word, may be compared to blind and foot-tied weasels, trying to catch “Jack Sharps” in a broad, deep, clear stream of pure water. They leave their sickening scent on their trail behind them, to be carried forward to be lost in the great stream of truth from whence all our blessings flow.
Children’s gifts to children produce more blessed, lasting, and Christ-like results than any other gifts in the universe. Children’s gifts to poor little outcast, forgotten, and neglected children are seeds of kindness that will live as long as this world endures, and they will then bloom in Paradise for ever.
Christians who receive their strength for the conflicts and trials of life from reading light books while sitting in drawing-room slippers, and under the sound of frothy conversation, instead of from closet prayer and faith, and the rain and sunshine of heaven, are like window plants, which derive their strength from cold and poisonous water put to their roots. Plants, whether in nature or grace, grown under such circumstances soon become unhealthy and drooping, and unable to stand the bare breath of opposition.
Christians living upon the church roll in name only, without the cheering and enlivening influence of the Holy Spirit, will become like plants grown in a dark room, pale and feeble. Some Christian lives are weeds, and may be known by their crotchets, tempers, and wrinkles.
The first signs of a withering church may be said to have manifested themselves when the living members extend the dead hand of sympathy to the suffering members of their own flock.
With the seeds of life are the seeds of death, and at the birth of any child the mortal conflict begins, never to result in a “drawn game.”
Big Christians, like big plants, require more water than small ones; and so in like manner Christians who have many cares, troubles, business and state responsibility require more grace than little Christians, and those who have it not will soon become bankrupt.
The “will” and “principle” are man’s own twin-sisters, the offspring of life, and run side by side through the marrow of man’s nature; and who derive their vitality, life, and power from the unseen spiritual influences by which they are surrounded for good or for evil; and every action that tends to cripple either the one or deform the other is soon manifested in the crooked actions of a man’s life, shaping immortality.
Crooked Christians, like crooked trees, are neither so profitable nor beautiful to behold as those who grow straight and stately.
Under the guise of an angel of light, Satan dangles false hope before some Christians, as a basket made of finely-wrought and tender twigs, a bouquet of delicate, beautiful, lovely, and richly scented greenhouse plants, as a foretaste of what is before, or in reserve for those who follow his advice—i.e., the influence of the ball-room, theatre, gay living, high life, fashion, and fancy, &c.; and so dexterously does the arch enemy hold these things before the simple ones, or entwine them round their hearts, that they are ready to cry out, “hell” is heaven and “heaven” is hell; and in this way the simple are groping after shadows till they find themselves surrounded by a darkness blacker than midnight, and without a friend in the world, with the devil laughing in their face for having been such fools.
The best antidote against beer and hellish swears is cold water and upward prayers.
To a troubled conscience, at midnight hour the ticking of a clock sounds as loud as the death knell of the church bell.
Every act of good or ill we perform makes an indent upon the coil of future life, which will speak and re-speak to us through the never-ending ages of eternity as they roll along.
Every time a Christian looks at sin with a longing eye, the devil draws a thin beautiful tinted film before his eyes, through which film, in process of time, the fire in his conscience eye, kindled at the time of his conversion, is unable to penetrate, or see the dangers lying across his path.
Tears of penitence, joy, and gladness are the best eye-salve for those whose eyes are growing dim.
Christians who have to live in and wade through the mud of slander and lying pools of deceit have need to wear watertight boots, of the kind described in the good old book.