Part 17

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.

By listening attentively to the prayers of a Christian, you will soon discover whether he wants—like a run-down clock—winding up. Losses and crosses, the death of a darling child, affliction, and a thousand other things, God useth as He seemeth well to wind him up and set him a-going again with fresh vigour.

A man who has a heart full of prejudice, spite, malice, and envy has an extra eye upon his nose, eclipsing his other eyes, which can both smell and see the dark side of a man’s character. So sensitive is this nose-eye that it can detect faults and failings when there are none to be detected.

The most lovely Christians are those who, like the beautiful butterfly and charming songsters, live in the sunlight of His throne.

The more miserable Christians are those who, like bats, buzz about in the dark.

Some Christians are like London dogs galloping about the streets after froth, losing their masters, and then they howl out, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!”

When the benevolent action of drawing-room philanthropy ends in nothing but tall talk and carpet gossip, it may be compared to soap bubbles piped forth for show.

Youths receiving their habits, nourishment, character, and stamina from the pothouse and gin-palace may be compared to plants grown in a room lighted and warmed with gas, which sicken and die.

Artificial Christians are like wax flowers, pretty to look upon; but without scent and perfume, difficult to handle, and they will not stand the fire.

Society is like a book of poems, and those members with the most sentiment, poetry, or sympathy in their natures will be the most sought after, prized, and used.

To a man who has done wrong, and has a troubled conscience, a louse upon the window pane appears as an ugly monster.

Conscience is the soul’s looking-glass, and blessed is the man who has courage to hold it up to behold what manner of man he is.

A sick room is often God’s pinfold, where He places in naughty wandering children; and there they will lie until either our blessed Saviour unlocks the gate or takes them over the top of the walls to heaven.

Authors and their books are like flowers: some are small, but send out a rich fragrance, and may be used as button-holes in the drawing-room; others are lovely to look upon, but as sour as crabs to handle and taste. There are others as large and showy as the sunflower, with a perfume anything but paradisical; and there are others with heavenly virtues running through themselves and their books to such an extent that a child will have no difficulty in gathering sufficient flowers to form a beautiful bouquet; and not a few in this our day are actually poisonous, and dangerous to meddle with.

Strong conviction, the offspring of thought and reflection, is the handmaid of inspiration, and the agent through which this heavenly soul-impelling power works out the Divine ends and decrees of Providence in carrying on the affairs of the world; and those who are heavenly inspired by means of the golden cord of love and sympathy, in full action between themselves and God, may be said to be His cabinet ministers.

The food eaten by an idle man warps his body, stunts his mind, and sends his soul to ruin.

An oak tree, or any other tree which stands the storms with defiance, are those whose roots have hold of mother earth with the firmest grip; and as in nature so in grace. A man to withstand all the storms of life must have firm hold upon the Deity.

A crooked tree may be said to be faulty; and it is neither so valuable nor beautiful as those that are straight and stately; so in like manner it may be said of the crooked members of Christian churches and social societies.

Some members of the community may he properly called “creepers,” for they very much resemble the ivy. They have neither backbone nor principle. Their object is to creep into religious communities and social societies, so as to entwine themselves round the members. They harbour filth, impede growth, hide beauty, and climb by the strength they steal from others.

A church whose members are tipsters may be compared to a marsh with too much water at the roots, bringing forth rushes, sedges, and buttercups.

Upon the tail of a snail a farmer’s weather glass is to be seen; so in like manner the footsteps of an enemy will reveal to an observing mind the dangers to be avoided.

Some Christian ministers are like the gas stove, warm-looking in the pulpit, but cold at home.

A man with all sorts of wrong ideas, crotchets, and queer notions in his head exhibits himself as a marsh with spots of green grass and daisies, to get at which mud and quagmire will have to be faced and got through before they are reached, and when this has been done the trouble will have been wasted.

Selfish men and misers engaged in grubbing after mammon may be compared to a swarm of flies feeding upon a dung-heap; and so long as the sun of prosperity shines they can feed, buzz, annoy, and sting.

A man who kisses his wife to hide his sins is sowing seeds that will produce a crop of anguish and despair that will hang heavier round his neck than a millstone. A kissing deceiver is the devil’s major-general.

Every time a man or woman does a deceitful action they make and deposit a grain of gunpowder, that only requires the light of public opinion and truth to send the maker, according to the number of grains deposited, into eternity to reap his folly.

Hungry-bellied politicians, whose object is to sting in order to feed, are the gadflies of English society, settling upon John Bull to fill their pockets and rob for fame.

Paupers and lawyers are leeches which fasten upon social life, often sucking the blood of those who are the least able to stand them.

A wife who cooks her husband’s meals five minutes behind time is carving furrows upon his forehead.

A mother who sends her children unwashed to school is embedding in the child’s nature seeds that will one day bring a crop of poverty, wretchedness, and despair.

A man who sits playing with his thumbs, hoping that something will turn up to put him upon the pedestal of fame and fortune, is hatching addled eggs, and the longer he sits upon them the worse they will stink.

Infidelity is a thick, muddy canal made by men’s hands, the bosom of which is covered with the weeds of idiosyncrasies and Satanic doubts; and beneath its surface it teems with all kinds of big and little, prickly, dead, and dying venomous reptiles; and woe be to the man who trusts his barque upon its stinking and putrefying surface with the hope that it will carry him to the crystal river and sea of glass.

Something of the wonderful infinitude, love, and power of God, in regulating and governing the external and internal relation of myriads upon myriads of millions of worlds teeming with life, variety, and beauty, may be gathered if we can grasp the idea that the separate

## particles of the rays of light sent forth by the sun to illumine our

world each morning are, after they have done their work, whirled into unknown and unbounded space, and transformed as they fly, at a rate faster than imagination can travel, into suns to light up other worlds and other systems. And yet He finds time to number the hairs upon our heads; yea, a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice. Wonderful! most wonderful! Past comprehension. None can fathom.

As the twelve precious stones—jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolyte, beryl, topaz, chrysoprasus, jacinth, and an amethyst formed the foundation of the heavenly Jerusalem, the future home of His saints, with pearly gates, as seen by John the divine in apostolic days; so do hopeful, believing, fighting, wrestling, joyous, singing, patient, benevolent, praying, working, and conquering Christians form the foundation of the present-day heavenly temple, with love and concord as doors, and walls of virtue, wherein God delights to dwell among His children, witnessing adoration with loving eyes, and listening to hymns of praise and thanksgiving with melodious ears.

A man may be said to be in a fog when he cannot see the hand of Providence in all his dealings, or God’s finger pointing out his way.

A closet is a burrow into which a Christian who is hounded to death by the dogs of hell can run and be safe. When once there, Christians can smile at their howls and sing while they show their teeth with rage.

* * * * *

At seven o’clock I was unbolting the door, making my way out of the house to a number of gipsy vans in an orchard on the outskirts of the town. On going to the place I met a little _posh_ gipsy dressed in “rags and trashes,” with the heels—what was left of the “trashes”—upside down. He had just turned out of his bed, he said, and from his bed followed the dog, both having snoozled under the van—in which his uncle and aunt lay—on the ground, with a wet, damp rug as a covering. “Master,” said the little _posh_ gipsy boy, “can you tell me where I can get a bottle of ginger beer? I am so thirsty and hungry. I’ve had nothing since my dinner yesterday.” I went with the boy to several houses where “Ginger-beer sold here” was displayed in the window, but without success. I gave the boy the price of a bottle and trotted him off lower down the town to quench his thirst and satisfy his appetite.

The gipsies were just beginning to “turn out,” and the little gipsies, half naked, were hunting up sticks out of the hedge-bottom to light the fire to boil the water for breakfast. The men and dogs were collecting together in groups, half-dressed, to relate to each other their successes at the fair. Apart from the rest of the gipsies, owning a van of a better kind than the others, two old gipsies were enjoying their breakfast upon the ground. As soon as the old gipsy woman—whose face betokened that it had figured in many an encounter, and was somewhat highly coloured—saw me, she began to get excited, and called me to them. I thought, “Now is the time for squalls; look out.” I drew near to the old woman with a strange mixture of feelings. It was early in the morning. There were now about a score of gipsy men and women looking on, and a few of the dogs came sniffing at my heels. I tried to screw a smile upon my face, and to dig and delve low for a pleasant joke, but it would not come from the “vasty deep.” On my approach the old woman jumped up from the ground, and with both hands clasped mine in hers, which felt as rough as a navvy’s, saying while griping them tightly, “Bless yer, my good mon, I’ve wanted to see yer for a long while. I’ve long ’erd abaut yer, and ha’ never had th’ pleasure o’ puttin’ my een on yer till this mornin’. Sit yer down on th’ gress, I want to tawke to yer. Dunner yer be freetened, I’m not goin’ to swaller yer, bless yer, master mon. Yer’ll ha’ sum brekust, wonner yer?” “Yes,” I said, “I did not mind.” Although I did not exactly like the appearance of things, I thought it would not do to say “no,” and I knelt upon the damp grass. In a pan over their fiery embers were the remnants of bacon and red herrings. There was only one large cup and saucer, without a handle, for the pair of them. I thought most surely she would fetch a cup and saucer out of the van for me. Such was not to be the case. A group of some ten or twelve working men of Hinckley stood looking over the hedge only a few yards away, at the old woman’s “megrims.” She handed me in the first place a piece of bread, upon which was some bacon and herring. It took me all the time to swallow this uninviting morsel. I munched a little of it, and some I put into my pocket for another time. She now filled up her cup with tea, and made her fingers do duty for sugar tongs. I could see no teaspoons about, except one that was among the herrings and bacon. This was fetched out and plunged into the tea, and round and round it went, leaving upon the top of the dark-coloured tea—which I could now see by the bright morning sun shining upon the scene—stars floating about. The old woman first drank herself, and then handed the cup of tea to me. I supped and nibbled the crust. I supped again, till between us the cup was nearly emptied. She had a strong scent of “Black Jack,” and I kept a very sharp eye upon what parts of the cup the old woman drank from. “Now then to bisness,” said the old gipsy. “Yer see none o’ we gipsies con read an’ write. I’ll show yer I con, if none o’ them conner. Han yer got anythin’ wi yer for me to read?” I had a few copies of “Our Boys and Girls,” with me, given to me by the Wesleyan Sunday School Union, and I handed one to the old woman, dated September 1880, and she began stammering at some of the verses in an excited frame of mind between anger and pleasure, as if determined to read them whether she could or not. “Ha—ha—ha,—Haste traveller—ha—ha,—haste! the night comes on.” She got through one or two of the verses pretty well. I then gave her another verse, which she read fairly well:

“He is our best and kindest Friend, And guards us night and day.”

I gave her another verse, but I could see tears in her eyes, which prevented her getting through it as well as she desired. She laid the fault to her being without spectacles. Her reading these lines touched her very much, and she became quite excited again, and jumped up and clutched hold of both of my hands and said, “Yer see, my good mon, if none o’ the t’other gipsies con read, I con, conner I? But I con do more than read, I con say a lot o’ the Bible off by heart. The Creeds, Church Catechism, Belief, and Sacraments, which I larnt by heart when I was a girl. I went to the Church Sunday School at Uttoxeter. Yer’ll see by that I have not allus been a gipsy. When I got married to my old mon I had to go a-gipsying wi’ him, and have never been in th’ church since. My name’s Bedman, of ‘Ucheter,’ and am well known.”

She knelt upon the grass again, and supped a little more of her strong tea. The number of Hinckley working people and gipsies was increasing, and up she jumped again, clutching both of my hands, after which she laid her hand in navvy fashion upon my shoulder, and began to repeat the Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,” and on she went to the end in her fashion. After this she knelt down again and began with the Decalogue; “God spake these words and said, I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have none other gods but me,” and with a red face, and tears in her eyes, trembling with emotion, she sung in the usual chanting tone, “Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law.” The old gipsy woman went on to the end, to which I responded, “Amen.” Some portions of the Litany were repeated, and then she struck off at a tangent into the Catechism, commencing with “What is your name? May Bedman. Who gave you that name? My godfathers and godmothers in my baptism, wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. What did your godfathers and godmothers then for you? They did promise and vow three things in my name. First, that I should renounce the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh. Secondly, that I should believe all the Articles of the Christian Faith. And thirdly, that I should keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of my life;” and then she sung out, “Amen.” “Ah!” said the old woman, “you see, my good master mon, I know a little, don’t I?” “Yes,” I said, “you know a little, and he that knoweth his Master’s will, and doeth it not, ‘shall be beaten with many stripes.’” “Yes,” said the old gipsy, “I do know my Master’s will, and I have not done it, and I’ve been beaten with many stripes during the last forty years, and here I am. Never mind, let bygones be bygones. ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’” And I replied, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” “Yes, you are right, bless you,” said the old backsliding gipsy, and with wet knees and wet eyes she sang out again, “Lord, have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law,” to which I responded, “Amen.” I then left this penitent gipsy’s strong grips, the gipsy gang, and the number of lookers-on to go to my “quarters” for my breakfast. I then spent another half-hour with the Salvation Army. After a pleasant conversation with the clergyman at my lodgings, I started homeward, and on my way to the station I came upon one of my old gipsy families, who were just having their breakfast in a very filthy, tumbledown van, with their six poor ragged, dirty little children squatting about on the bottom of it. The good-hearted _posh_ gipsy woman seemed to have lost all spirit in her struggles to live a respectable traveller’s life, and was now with her children in the depths of despair and poverty. She would insist on my having a cup of tea as I sat upon the doorstep. I could not drink all of it, but did the best I could under the circumstances. She persisted in pressing me to take a cocoa-nut and a sponge for my little folk at home, the cocoa-nut to eat and the sponge to clean their slates with.

It is from two adjoining villages in the neighbourhood of Hinckley that two of our present-day English tribes of gipsies spring. Many years ago the father of one tribe was a “stockinger”—_i.e._, one who makes stockings—and he conceived the idea that he would like to be a gipsy. Accordingly he set up a pedlar’s “basket of trifles” and began to stump the country. From this small beginning there are now between forty and fifty “real gipsies,” as some backwood gipsy writers—who would delight in seeing this country dragged backward into Druidism as a retaliation for their own failure in the battle of life—would call them. Poor little-souled mortals! they are to be pitied, or my feeling of disgust at their wrong-doing would lead me to say hard things about them. To be laughed out of school is a start bad enough in the wrong road in all conscience, without a severe probe from me. My pleasure would be to put out the hand to lead wrong-doers back to the wise counsel of a loving Christian father, the decalogue, and the teaching of Christ.