Folly as It Flies Part 8

_ABOUT SOME THINGS IN NEW YORK WHICH HAVE INTERESTED ME._

The Battery was my first New York love. I shall never forget how completely it took possession of me, or how magnetically it drew me under the shade of its fine trees, to breathe the fresh sea-breeze, and watch the graceful ships come and go, or lie calmly at anchor, with every line so clearly defined against the bright sky. It was not "the fashion," even then, to go there; so much the better. It is still less the fashion now; but there I found myself, one bright Sunday not long since, as I left the leafy loveliness of Trinity church, with its sweet choral music still sounding in my ears.

Alas! for my dear old Battery. The sea is still there, to be sure--no "corporation" can meddle with that; and still the picturesque ships come and go; but the blades of gra.s.s grow fewer and thinner, and the dirty, dusty paths call aloud for a "vigilance committee." What a sin and shame! I exclaimed, that this loveliest spot in New York should present so forlorn an appearance. Is there not room enough in the purses and affections of New Yorkers for the Central Park and the Battery too? In good truth, when I reflect upon it, I am jealous of this new aspirant for the public favor. What is a _horse_ to a ship?

sacrilege though it be to say so. What is the gaudy, over-dressed equestrian "swell" of fine ladies and fine "Afghans" to the majestic _swell of the sea_? What are the stylish equipages and liveries, to the picturesque crowd of newly-arrived emigrants, with their funny little, odd-looking babies, their square, st.u.r.dy forms and bronze faces, chattering happy greetings in an unknown tongue, and gazing about them bewildered, at the strange sights and sounds of a great new city; or sauntering up to Trinity church, and in happy ignorance of novel steeples and creeds, dropping on their catholic knees in its aisles, in thankful, devout recognition of their safe arrival in a new country. What is the pretty toy-lake, and the hea.r.s.e-like "gondola,"

and "the swans," and the posies, and the "bronze-eagle," and the blue-coated policemen, who stand ready to handle rogues _with_ gloves, and _white ones_ at that, to my dear old Battery, battered as it is.

I call capricious, fickle New York to order, for thus forsaking the old love for the new. I demand an instant settlement of any protracted dispute there may be on hand, as to "whose business it is" to renovate the Battery, before it quite runs to seed, like the City Hall Park.

Not that _I_ won't keep on going to the Battery, though they should build a small-pox hospital on it; for it is not my way to forsake an old friend because he is shabby; but I _should_ like to be a female General Butler, for one month, and put this business through in his chain-lightning executive fashion.

It is a great plague to be a woman. I think I've said that before, but it will bear repeating. Now the wharves are a great pa.s.sion of mine; I like to sit on a pile of boards there, with my boots dangling over the water, and listen to the far-off "heave-ho" of the sailors in their bright specks of red shirts, and see the vessels unload, with their foreign fruits, and dream away a delicious hour, imagining the places they came from; and I like to climb up the sides of ships, and poke round generally, just where Mrs. Grundy would lay her irritating hand on my arm and exclaim--"What _will_ people think of you?"

I am getting sick of people. I am falling in love with things. They hold their tongues and don't bother.

I like also to stroll forth in New York, just at dusk, and see the crowds hurrying homeward. The merchant, glad to turn his back at last on both profit and loss. The laboring man with his tools and his empty dinner pail. The weary working-girl, upon whose pallid face the fresh wind comes, like the soft caressing touch of her mother's fingers. The matron, with her little boy by the hand, talking lovingly, as he skips by her side. The young man, full of hope for the future, looking, with his eagle eye, and fresh-tinted cheek, as if he could defy fate. The young girl, rejoicing in her prettiness, for the power it gives her to win love and friends. The little beggar children, counting their pennies on some doorstep, to see how much supper they will buy. The small boot-blacks, who stoop less, after all, than many men whose feet they polish, singing as merrily as if they were sure of a fortune on the morrow. The bright glancing lights in the shop windows, touching up bits of scarlet, and yellow, and blue, and making common beads and b.u.t.tons gleam like treasures untold. The lumbering omnibuses, crawling up and down, heavy with their human freight. The rapid whirl of gay carriages, with their owners. The little bits of conversation one catches in pa.s.sing, showing the depth or shallowness of the speakers.

The tones of their voices, musical or otherwise. The step, awkward or graceful, and the sway of the figure. The fading tints of the sky, and the coming out of the stars, that find it hard to get noticed among so many garish lights. The interior glimpses of homes, before caution draws the curtains. Now--some picture on the wall. Now--a maiden sitting at the piano. Now--a child, with its cunning little face pressed close against the window. Now--a loving couple, too absorbed in the old--old--but ever _new_ romance, to think that their clasped hands may be noted by the pa.s.ser by. Now--a woman for whom your heart aches; walking slowly; glancing boldly; going anywhere, poor thing!

but--_home_. Now--oh! the contrast--a husband and wife, with locked arms, talking cheerily of their little home matters. Now--a policeman with folded arms, standing on the corner, past being astonished at anything. Now a florist's tempting window, whence comes a delicious odor of tube-roses, and heliotrope, and geranium. There is a huge, fragrant pyramid for some gay feast. There is a snowy wreath and cross, white as the still, dead, face, above which they are soon to be laid. There is a snowy coronal for a bride. There is a gay, bright-tinted bouquet for an actress. Lingering, you look, and muse, and spell out life's alphabet, by help of these sweet flowers; and now you are jostled away by a policeman, dragging a wretched, drunken woman to the station-house.

People talk of Niagara, and tell how impressive is its roar. What is the roar of a dumb thing like that to the roar of a mighty city?

There, _souls_ go down, and alas! the shuttle of life flies so swiftly that few stop to heed.

There are persons who can regard oppression and injustice without any acceleration of the pulse. There are others who never witness it, how frequent soever, without a desperate struggle against non-interference, though prudence and policy may both whisper "it's none of your business." I believe, as a general thing, that the shopkeepers of New York who employ girls and women to tend in their stores, treat them courteously; but now and then I have been witness to such brutal language to them, in the presence of customers, for that which seemed to me no offence, or at least a very trifling one, that I have longed for a man's strong right arm, summarily to settle matters with the oppressor. And when one has been the innocent cause of it, merely by entering the store to make a purchase, the obligation to see the victim safe through, seems almost imperative. The bad policy of such an exhibition of unmanliness on the part of a shopkeeper would be, one would think, sufficient to stifle the "d.a.m.n you" to the blushing, tearful girl, who is powerless to escape, or to clear herself from the charge of misbehavior. When ladies "go shopping," in New York, they generally expect to enjoy themselves; though Heaven knows, they must be hard up for resources to fancy this mode of spending their time, when it can be avoided. But, be that as it may, the most vapid can scarcely fancy this sort of scene.

The most disgusting part of such an exhibition is, when the gentlemanly employer, having got through "d.a.m.ning" his embarra.s.sed victim, turns, with a sweet smile and dulcet voice, to yourself, and inquires, "what else he can have the pleasure of showing you?" You are tempted to reply, "Sir, I would like you to show me that you can respect womanhood, although it may not be hedged about with fine raiment, or be able to buy civil words with a full purse." But you bite your tongue to keep it quiet, and you linger till this Nero has strolled off, and then you say to the girl, "I am so sorry to have been the innocent cause of this!" and you ask, "Does he often speak this way to you?" and she says, quietly, as she rolls up the ribbons or replaces the boxes on the shelves, "Never in any other!" It is useless to ask her why she stays, because you know something about women's wages and women's work in the crowded city; and you know that, till she is sure of another place, it is folly for her to think of leaving this. And you think many other things as you say Good-morning to her as kindly as you know how; and you turn over this whole "woman-question" as you run the risk of being knocked down and run over in the crowded thoroughfare through which you pa.s.s; and the jostle, and hurry, and rush about you, seem to make it more hopeless as each eager face pa.s.ses you, intent on its own plans, busy with its own hopes and fears--staggering perhaps under a load either of the soul or body, or both, as heavy as the poor shop-girl's, and you gasp as if the air about had suddenly become too thick to breathe. And then you reach your own door-step, and like a guilty creature, face your dressmaker, having forgotten to "match that tr.i.m.m.i.n.g;" and you wonder if you were to sit down and write about this evil, if it would deter even one employer from such brutality to the shop-girls in his employ; not because of the brutality, perhaps, but because by such a short-sighted policy, he might often drive away from his store, ladies who would otherwise be profitable and steady customers.

There is an animal peculiar to New-York, who infests every nook and corner of it, to everybody's disgust but his own. He is a boy in years, but a man in vicious knowledge. Every woman who is unfortunate enough to be in his presence is simply a _she_--nothing more. He may be seen making a charmed circle of expectoration, about the seat he occupies in a ferry-boat, ferry-house, or car, while she stands half fainting with exhaustion, in hearing distance of his coa.r.s.e, prurient remarks to some other little beast like himself. Pea-nuts are the staple food of this creature, the sh.e.l.ls of which he snaps dexterously at those about him, when other means of amus.e.m.e.nt give out. When a public conveyance has reached its point of destination, this animal is the first to make an insane rush for egress, treading down young children, and tearing ladies' clothing in his triumphal march.

Sometimes he stops on the way to "bung out the eye" of an offending youngster, in so tight a place for a combat that somebody's corpse seems inevitable. Terrified ladies, who would fain give him elbow room if they had it, faintly e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e "Oh!" as they squeeze themselves into the smallest breathable s.p.a.ce; nor does he desist, till his adversary is punished for the crime of existing, without this brute's permission; he then emerges into the open street, settling his greasy jacket and indescribable hat, muttering oaths, and squaring off occasionally, as he looks behind him, as though he wished somebody else was "spiling for a licking."

Often this animal may be found in the city parks; where the city corporation generously furnishes about one seat to every hundred children, and selecting the shadiest and most eligible, stretches himself on it upon his stomach, while tired little children and their female attendants, wander round in vain for a resting-place. Sometimes sitting upon it, he will stretch out his leg so as to trip some unwary, happy little child in pa.s.sing; or perhaps he will suddenly give a deafening shout in its ear, for the pleasure of hearing it cry; or from a pocket well stuffed with pebbles will skillfully pelt its clean clothes from a safe distance; and sometimes this animal, who smokes at ten years like a man of forty, will address a pa.s.sing lady with such questions as these:

"Oh, aint _you_ bully? Oh, give _her_ room enough to walk!--oh, yes!"

Or, "Who's _your_ beau, Sally?" which last cognomen seems with them to const.i.tute a safe guess.

When not otherwise occupied, this young gentleman writes offensive words on door-steps and fences with bits of chalk, which he keeps on hand for this purpose. Or, if a servant has just nicely cleaned a window, he chews gum into little b.a.l.l.s wherewith to plaster it; or he kicks over an ash-barrel in pa.s.sing upon a nicely swept side-walk; or he rings the door-bell violently, and makes a flying exit, having ascertained previously the policeman's "beat" on that district; or he climbs the box round a favorite tree, which has just begun by its grateful shade to refresh your eye and reward your care, and, stripping off the most promising bough for a switch, goes up street picking off the leaves and scattering them as he goes; or he will stand at the bottom of a high flight of steps, upon the top step of which is a lady waiting for admittance, and scream, "Oh, my--aint _you_ got bully boots on?" He also is expert at stealing newspapers from door-steps, and vociferating bogus extras about shocking murders and fires, and "la.s.s of life;" and flowers out in full glory in a red shirt, in a pit of a Bowery theatre of an evening.

Sometimes he diverts himself throwing stones at the windows of pa.s.sing cars, and splintering the gla.s.s into the eyes of frightened ladies and children, and suddenly disappearing as if the earth had opened and swallowed him, as you wish some day it would.

What this boy will be as a man, it is not difficult to tell. He counts one at the ballot-box, remember that, when you deny cultivated, intelligent, loyal _women_ a vote there.

If there is one sight more offensive to me in New York than another, it is that of a servant in livery. Daily my republican soul is vexed by the different varieties of this public nuisance. Sometimes he appears to me in the sacerdotal garb--a long, petticoat-y suit of solemn black, with stainless stiff white cravat. Then again he crosses my path, bedizzened in blue, with yellow facings, and top-boots. Then again he flames out like a poll-parrot, in green coat, and scarlet waistcoat. Again, his white gloves, and broad hat-band, are the only public advertis.e.m.e.nts of his servitude. Generally upon the hat of this animal is mounted the "c.o.c.kade," which his parvenu master imagines is just the thing, but which in reality is in "the old country" only worn by servants of _military_ men. Yesterday I saw a vehicle, in which was seated a gentleman, driving a fine pair of horses, and behind him, on a small seat, was his man-servant with his arms folded like a trussed turkey, _and his back turned to his master_. This last fact seemed to me a very funny one; but, I dare say, it is satisfactorily accounted for in some book of heraldry, unfortunately not in my library. Now, it is not for a moment to be supposed, that when but so lately the nation was struggling for its "G.o.d-given rights," that the _men_ of America are interested in these finikin-equine-millineries. Of course not.

They are to be pitied; they are undoubtedly the too compliant victims of weak wives and silly daughters. For themselves, I have no doubt they are sick at their manly hearts at these servile and badly-executed imitations of old-country flunkeyism, and blush, with an honest shame, at being obliged to parade this disgusting and ill-timed exhibition, in the same streets where our maimed soldiers are limping home, with our torn and blackened flag, which tells so well its mute, eloquent story.

Let me speak of a pleasanter topic: my visit to the newsboys. One Sunday evening I went to "The Newsboys' Lodging House, 128 Fulton Street, New York." Few people who stop these little fellows in the street to purchase a paper, ever glance at their faces, much less give a thought to their belongings, a.s.sociations or condition. Oh! had you only been down there with me that evening, and looked into those hundred and fifty intelligent, eager faces, numbered their respective ages, inquired into their friendless past, given a thought to the million temptations with which their _present_ is surrounded, spite of all the well directed efforts of Christian philanthropy, and looked forward into their possible future, your eyes would have filled, and your heart beat quicker, as you have said to yourself, Oh, yes; something _must_ be done to save these children.

Children! for many of them are no more. Children! already battling with life, though scarce past the nursery age. Imagine your own dear boy, with the bright eyes and the broad, white forehead, whom you tuck so comfortably in his little soft bed at night, with a prayer and a kiss; whom you look at the last thing on retiring; for whom you gladly toil; whom you hedge around with virtuous, wholesome influences from the cradle; who does not yet know even the meaning of the word "evil;"

who jumps into your arms as soon as he wakes in the morning, with the sweet certainty of a warm love-clasp; who has the nicest bit, at breakfast, laid on his little plate; whose little stories and questions always find eager and sympathizing ears; imagine this little fellow of seven or eight, or ten years, getting out of his bed at one or two o'clock in the morning, going out into the dark, chill, lonesome street, half-clad, hungry, alone to some newspaper office, to wait for the damp morning papers, as they are worked from the press, and seizing his bundle, hurrying, barefoot and shivering, to some newspaper stand or depot, at the farther part of the city. Imagine _your_ little Charley doing that! Then, if that were all! If this drain on the physical immaturity of childhood were the worst of it.

The devil laughs as he knows it is not. Big boys--_men_, even--_cheat_; why not he? If he can pa.s.s off bad change--surely, who has more need to make a sixpence, though it be not an honest one? What care customers if he grow up a good or a bad man, so that the newspaper comes in time to season their warm breakfast? Who will ever care for him living, or mourn for him dead? What does it matter, anyhow?

That's the way this poor friendless child reasons. I understood it all last night. All too that this n.o.ble philanthropy called "The Newsboys'

Lodging House" meant. And as I looked round on those boys, I felt afraid when they were addressed, that the right thing might not be said to so peculiar an audience. For children though they were, they had seen life as men see it. Untutored, uneducated, in one sense, in others they knew as much as any adult who should address them.

Sharpened by actual hard-fisted grappling with the world, let him be careful who should speak to these grown-up children of seven, and ten, and fourteen years. Thinking thus, I said, as their friend, Mr. C. L.

Brace, rose to speak--pray G.o.d, he may take all this into consideration. Pray G.o.d, he may give them neither creeds nor theology; but, instead, the wide open arms of the good, pitiful, loving Saviour, whose home on earth was with the lowly and the friendless.

And he did! It was a human address. The G.o.d he told them of was not out of their reach. It was every word pure gold. Bless him for it! He had them all by the hand, and the heart too. I saw that. Promptly, frankly, and with the confidence of children in the family, they answered his questions as to their views on the chapter in the Bible he read them. And if you smiled at some of their queer notions, the tear was in your eye the next minute at the blessed thought that they had friends who cared whether the immortal part of them slumbered or woke; who recognized and fanned into a flame even the smallest particle of mentality. Now and then among the crowd a head or face would attract your eye, and you would be lost in wonder to see it _there_! The head and face of what I call "_a mother's boy_." G.o.d knows if its owner had one, or, if it had, if she cared for him! And as they sang together of "The Friend that never grew weary," my heart responded, aye--aye--why should I forget that?

I hope you will go--and you and you--on some Sabbath evening, if you come to New York. They love to feel that people take an interest in them. It brightens and cheers their lives. It gives them self-respect and motive for trying to do right; and don't forget to ask the Superintendent, Mr. O Conner, to show you the nice little beds where they sleep. _Do_ go; and if you can say a few words to them, or tell them a bright short story, so much the better. They will know you next time they sell you a newspaper; don't forget to shake hands with them _then_. And take your little pet boy Charley down there. Show him the little fellows who go into business in New York at seven and ten years old, and have no father or mother at night to kiss them to sleep. It will be a lesson better than any he will ever learn at school. He will find out that all boys are not born to plum-cake and sugar candy, and some of the best and smartest boys too. He will open his eyes when you tell him that without plum-cake, or candy, or a grandpa, or an aunt, or father or mother to care for them, some of the newsboys who came from that very house, to-day own farms in the West, that they earned selling newspapers, and have since come back for other newsboys to go out there and help them work on it. Tell Charley that. I think he will be ashamed to cry again because there was "not sugar enough in his milk."

People who visit a great city, and explore it with a curious eye, generally overlook the most remarkable things in it. They "do it up"

in Guide-Book fashion, going the stereotyped rounds of custom-ridden predecessors. If _my_ chain were a little longer, I would write you a book of travels that would at least have the merit of ignoring the usual finger-posts that challenge travellers. I promise you I would cross conservative lots, and climb over conservative fences, and leave the rags and tatters of custom fluttering on them, behind me, as I strode on to some unfrequented hunting-ground.

That's the way I'd do. Never a "lord" or "lady," or a "palace," or a "picture gallery," should figure in my note-book. "Old masters" and young masters would be all the same to me. When my book was finished, if n.o.body else wanted to read it, I'd sit down and read it myself. Of course you know such a method pre-supposes a little capital to start with, at the present price of paper; but really, I put it to you, wouldn't that be the only honest and racy way to write a book?

Don't be alarmed--there's no chance of my doing it. I dream of it, though, sometimes--this deliciousness of "speaking right out in meetin'" without fear of the bugbear of excommunication. And speaking of "meetin,'" that's what I have been coming at. The "Fulton-street daily prayer-meeting." It is one of the most wonderful sights in New York. In the busiest hour of the day, in its busiest business street, noisy with machinery of all kinds, even the earth under your feet sending out puffs of steam at every other step, to remind you of its underground labor, is a little plain room, with a reading-desk and a few benches, with hymn-books scattered about. Take a seat, and watch the worshippers as they collect. _Men_, with only a sprinkling of bonnets here and there. Business men, evidently; some with good coats, some with bad; porters, hand-cartmen, policemen, ministers; the young man of eighteen or twenty, the portly man of forty, and the bent form, whitening head, and faltering step of age. For _one_ hour they want to ignore, and get out of, that maelstrom-whirl, into a spiritual atmosphere. They feel that they have souls as well as bodies to care for, and they don't want to forget it. How lonely soever yonder man, in that great rough coat, may be, in this great, strange city, to which he has just come, here is sympathy, here is companionship, here are, in the best sense, "brethren." Never mind creeds; that is not what they a.s.semble to discuss. _But has that man a burden, a grief or a sorrow, which is intensified tenfold_ by want of sympathy? n.o.body knows his name; n.o.body is curious to know. He has sent a little slip of paper up to the desk, and he wants them all to pity and pray for him. It may be the man on this seat, or that yonder--n.o.body knows.

Yes--"_pray_" for him. Perhaps you are smiling. You "don't believe in prayer." Oh, wait till some strand of earthly hope is parting, before you are quite sure of that. Was there ever an hour of peril or human agony through which he or she who "did not believe in prayer," was pa.s.sing, that the lips did not involuntarily frame the short prayer, "Oh, G.o.d?"

Well, they "pray" for him. He feels stronger and better as he listens.

He has found friends, even here in this great whirling city, who are sorry for him; of whose circle he can make one, whenever he chooses; and to whom he can more fully introduce himself, if he cares to be better known.

_I say it is a good and a n.o.ble thing._ It warmed and gladdened my heart to see it. And all the more, that at every step, on leaving, I saw the "traps" of the Evil One, sprung for that man's return footsteps.

One of the pleasantest features of this "one-hour meeting" to me was the hymns. I don't know or care whether they were "sung in tune." It wasn't _hired_ singing, thank G.o.d! It came straight from orthodox lungs, with a will and a spirit. Those old "come-to-Jesus" hymns! I tell you I long for them sometimes with a homesick longing, like that of the exiled Swiss for his favorite mountain song. You may pick up the hymn-books containing them, and with your critical forefinger point to "h.e.l.l" and "an angry G.o.d," and all that. It makes no difference to me. Don't I take pleasure in looking at your face, though your nose isn't quite straight, and your eyes are not perfect, and your shoulders are not shaped to my mind. I don't mind _that_, so that there's a heart-tone in your voice, a love-look in your eye, when I'm heart-sore--don't you see?

Oh! I liked that meeting. I'm going again. It was so homely, and hearty, and Christian. One man said, "_them_ souls." Do you think I flounced out of the meeting for that? I liked it. One poor foreigner couldn't p.r.o.nounce straight, for the life of him. So much the better.

His stammering tongue will be all right some day. I haven't the least idea who all those people were, singing and praying there; but I never can tell you how I liked it. That "Come to Jesus" was sung with a _heart-ring_ that I haven't stopped hearing, yet, though I have slept on it once or twice. You may say "priestcraft!" "early education!" and all that. There are husks with the wheat, I know; but for all that--I tell you there is _wheat_!

With submission, to the authorities it seems to me that the Sunday Schools of to-day are somewhat perverted from the original intention of their founders. As I understand it, their object was to collect the children of poor, ignorant parents for Biblical instruction. I look out of my window, every Sunday morning, upon the spectacle of gaily attired little ladies and gentlemen, leaving their brown-stone fronts of handsome dwellings, and tripping lightly in dainty boots to the vestries of well-to-do churches. As I watch them, I wonder why their parents, educated, intelligent people, or at least with plenty of leisure, should shift upon the shoulders of Sunday-school teachers so responsible a duty? I say "duty," and it is a cold, hard word to use, in connection with a dear little child whose early lessons on religious subjects should be carefully and cautiously and judiciously unfolded. I cannot understand, and I say this without meaning any disrespect to the great army of well-meaning, good-hearted Sunday-school teachers all over the land, how these parents can reserve to themselves on Sunday morning only the dear pleasure of decking their little persons in gay Sunday attire, and never ask--never inquire--never think--what may be the answer given by a Sunday-school teacher, to the far reaching childish question, which may involve a lifetime of bewilderment, perplexity, and spiritual unrest, to the little creature, each shining fold of whose garment has been smoothed and patted into place by these "doting" parents; it may be treasonable to say so, but it seems to me an unnatural proceeding.

Then again I think these children should not occupy the time and attention of teachers, while the poor, who are always with us, are totally uninstructed, far beyond all the humane attempts that have been made, and are daily making, to accomplish this purpose. Surely no teacher whose heart is in his or her work, would let the want of fine clothes stand in the way of such effort. Now when I see the children in a locality like the Five Points, or in the various mission schools established for the benefit of children, I say--Now _that_ is "a Sunday-school" after the plan of the founders. These children, who have nothing inviting at their miserable homes on Sunday; whose weary parents have no heart or strength or knowledge for these things; gathered in here by kind men and women; to whom this weekly reunion is perhaps the only bright spot in their whole little horizon; who sing their little songs with real heart and feeling; who believe in their teachers, because they know they have come down to inodorous, disagreeable localities, and love them because their lives are not cast in pleasant places; these teachers who, if the children have had no dinner or breakfast, _give_ them dinner or breakfast--why--that I call a practical Sunday School! It is a blessed thing; and no one can listen to the hearty singing of these little uncared-for waifs of the street, without a choking feeling in the throat, that, if voiced, would be, G.o.d bless these teachers? If they were taught nothing but those simple little songs, it were worth all the time, and money, and self-sacrifice involved in the teaching.

Those words ring in their ears during the week. They sing them on the door-steps of the miserable dwellings they call home; there is a "heaven" somewhere, they feel, where misery, and dirt, and degradation are unknown. The pa.s.ser-by listens--some discouraged man, perhaps, whom the world has roughly used--some wretched woman who weeps, as she listens; and this little bit of Gospel, so un.o.btrusive, so accidental, so sweetly voiced, is like the seed the wind wafts to some far-off rock--when you look again, there is the full-blown flower; no one knew how it took root or whence it came, but, thank G.o.d, winds and storms have no power to dislodge it. My heart warms to such Sunday-schools; and, without any wish to disparage others, I cannot but think that, if the parents who are in condition to instruct their own children, would not delegate this duty, the hundreds of teachers by this means freed, might gather in the stray lambs, whose souls and bodies no man cares for.