any

action of all the persons of the drama would be sufficient to create an illusion, able to rivet the attention of the spectators. But, as the great majority of actors are mere sticks, and even the chief stars are not always shining at their best, managers have constantly been compelled to make gorgeous spectacle their main attraction; and a splendid transformation scene, or a telling stage procession, will draw crowds night after night, even in the absence of theatrical celebrity. Hence a lesson may be learnt by those who are not too proud to learn from the stage. For it is a maxim in liturgiology, that no public worship is really deserving of its name, unless it be histrionic. Histrionic for three reasons:-First, because it is an attempt to imitate and represent on earth what Christians believe to be going on in heaven. Secondly, because this representation is partly effected by the employment of material symbols, to shadow forth invisible powers. Thirdly, because personal action rather than passive receptivity, is the essence of its character."-The Church and the World, p. 37.

We hope that our readers fully appreciate the significance of this passage. It is manifestly in the mind of the writer that the work of the preacher, like the work of the actor,

VOL. III.-NEW SERIES.

depends wholly for its success on the brilliancy of his intellectual and physical power. The two, in his mind, are plainly correspondent; and as the actor has to reinforce his uncertain and feeble power by the aid of a grand "spectacle," SO the preacher, in such degenerate ages as these, must submit to the same conditions if he would win success. "It is not

ye that speak, but the spirit of your Father which speaketh in you," to such a mind can have no meaning whatever, as far, at any rate, as the preaching of the Gospel is concerned; and the words," And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified," must seem to such an one either a wild outburst of the purest fanaticism, or the record of a time so hopelessly above our own in privilege and power, that any return to its principles and methods of action is a thing of which we may not venture even to dream. But there is worse to come. On the subject of clubs and gin-palaces take the following:

"Societies like the Odd Fellows and the Foresters find the ordinary routine of business meetings, even though directly beneficial to their members, insufficient to insure cohesion; and consequently elaborate processions, with badges, music, and banners, are found needful appliances for attracting members and keeping them together; and there is reason to believe that their abandonment would lead to the collapse of any such society, which should determine to go in for simplicity."-The Church and the World, p. 39.

C

be

"And here again, a lesson may learnt from one of the least pleasant forms of ordinary life. There is no institution so widely and universally popular amongst the London poor as the gin-palace. Given the craving for drink, and it would seem that no additional inducement would be needful to lure customers across the threshold, and to retain them as long as possible on the premises. Yet it is not so. A gin-palace, whose entrance is up a couple of steps from the footway, or whose doors do not swing open readily at a touch, is at a commercial disadvantage when compared with others on the street level and with patent hinges. Nay, more, internal decoration, abundant polished metal and vivid colour, with plenty of bright light, is found to pay, and to induce people to stay on drinking, just because everything is so cheerful and pretty to the eye, and so unlike the squalid discomfort of their own sordid homes. Many landlords have found even all this insufficient, without the additional attraction of music; and the low singing-hall is sure to indicate the most thriving drinking-shops in the worst quarters of the metropolis. If, then, painting, light, and music are found necessary adjuncts in a trade which has already enlisted on its side one of the strongest of human passions, it is the merest besotted folly to reject their assistance, when endeavouring to persuade men to accept and voluntarily seek an article for which they have never learnt to care, even if they are not actively hostile to it-to wit, Religion."-The Church and the World, p. 39.

The last passage descends to a depth of baseness—we can call it by no other term-which would be simply

incredible were it not so explicitly and powerfully set forth. We have no need to waste words in arguing against the writer's ideas. The simple statement of them in the most naked form will, one would imagine, be sufficient to earn for them the reprobation of all earnest Christian hearts, in which the least measure of faith survives in that Gospel, the preaching of which is the power of God and the wisdom of God to the salvation of mankind.

The argument is simply this. Men like gin and dislike religion. If then they need to have the lust of the eye gratified, in order that they may be drawn to gin which they do love, how much more must the same lust of the eye need to be satisfied when they have to be drawn to religion, which they do not. Of a Spirit who is "drawing" them to religion and away from lust, this writer seems to have heard nothing. In One above who has promised to be with his preachers" to the end of the world,” he seems to have not the faintest trust. It is very terrible, this blank, dreary, deadly unbelief; it prepares us for the passage in which he sums up his ideas as to the strongest means of Christian influence on men, and with which we close this brief exposition "of the missionary aspect of Ritualism."

the eldest three years, and the other an infant, fourteen days old, which the old woman was holding in her arms, whilst she endeavoured to comfort its weeping mother.

The scene he had witnessed

in court made a deep impression on Mr. Crabb's mind, and, having read Hoyland's "Survey of the Gipsies," he felt an earnest desire to make some attempt to promote the spiritual improvement of these unhappy beings. Although

he felt the difficulties of their case to be well nigh insurmountable, he was not disposed to view it as altogether hopeless.

A few weeks after he was at Winchester, he met the old woman whom he had seen there, and invited her and her daughter-in-law (the widow of the condemned gipsy, who had in the exterval been executed), to call at his house, which they accordingly did; and the result of this visit was that Mr. Crabb obtained two of the old woman's grand-children for the purpose of instruction. These he placed in the infant school, where they were brought under discipline and taught to read. Other children were secured, and the efforts to instruct them proving successful Mr. Crabb began to devise some plan by which, under the Divine blessing, these outcasts of the human family, for whose souls no man seemed to care, might be effectually and permanently benefited.

After various plans had been devised, only to meet with as many discouragements, it was ascertained that a number of gipsies were in the habit of encamping on Shirley Common and other places near Southampton. A man of Christian character, well acquainted with their habits, and capable of imparting instruction to infants and adults, was sent to visit their encampment, and the result was that, in about a year and a half, twenty adults and children had been brought under religious instruction. Work of a suitable kind was found for six women in South

ampton, and four boys were apprenticed to different trades.

In

Such was the commencement of the work amongst the gipsies. By Mr. Crabb's energy money was obtained for carrying it on, and many persons were induced to give it their support. six years' time, from a report published, it appeared that forty-six gipsies had been brought out of their vagrant and predatory habits of life, to a settled state of domiciliation; and it was then suggested that if committees were formed in other towns and places throughout the kingdom, and a suitable person employed by each committee to visit the gipsy tents and give them instruction, much good might be reasonably expected.

The suggestion was not acted upon with the enthusiasm it deserved, but the Southampton friends did not relax in their energies. We cannot follow the very interesting history of the movement, but must advance to 1857, at which date the London City Mission was asked by the Institution for the Evangelization of the Gipsies," as commenced by the late Rev. J. Crabb, of Southampton, to appoint a missionary. The entire support of the missionary is guaranteed by that Institution, as well as his travelling expenses to the various suburbs of the metropolis: and it also educates a limited number of gipsy children recommended by the missionary.

We have before us the reports of the Institution for several years, those for 1858-9 being specially interesting. In the first of these we have a picture of the homes of the gipsies. Those that occupy houses, either permanently or only during the winter, generally select the very lowest neighbourhoods for their abode-often amongst thieves and pickpockets, under wretched roofs, in crowded courts or lanes, where distress and want conceal themselves from the sunlight, and where sorrow languishes in garrets-neglected places,

residence. In a small room four families will be found cooped up with no bed but straw, shavings, or old rags, with no chairs or tables in some cases, and in others an old table and a broken seat or two. Many, however, still keep to the vans and tents, and these may be seen by the road-side, in lanes, fields and woods, or on a small patch of land, for which they pay a small rent. These portable habitations of theirs comprise bed room, dressing room, kitchen, washhouse, and workshop. Their work is chiefly confined to basket making, caning chair-seats, skewer, mat, and peg-making.

In regard to the ignorance of the gipsy tribe it is stated that out of 462 persons, composing 102 families, only twelve were able to read. Many of them have no religious knowledge at all. Speaking to a lad about fifteen years of age, the missionary said that when he asked him concerning his soul the boy turned upon him a pair of penetrating eyes, and said, 'A soul, what's that? -"Did you never hear of the soul, which we all have in our bodies?" "No, Sir." "What becomes of you when you die?" “I goes under the ground," he replied, pointing at the same time to the earth.

"Did you ever hear of heaven or hell?" "No!" "Did you ever hear of Jesus Christ? "No!" Speaking to a 66 fortune-teller," the missionary said she had no idea that there was a hereafter. When he spoke to her about prayer, she said she had never prayed in her life, and she did not know any prayer. The Lord's Prayer she did not remember to have heard of. She also said she never entered a place of worship that she knew of till she was seventeen years of age, and not many times since then.

Amongst the vices of the gipsy race, gambling, drunkenness, and Sabbathbreaking, hold prominent place; by gambling many of them come to ruin. One gipsy lost £75 in one day at

Epsom races, and several times he had come home without either van or clothes, having lost all through gambling. Intemperance prevails to a frightful extent not only among the men but the women. Some have been known to spend as much as £3 per week in drink ; one man declared that for five years he paid regularly £1 per week for his beer score. The results of this intemperance are seen in the frequent fights and brawls amongst them, the wives encouraging the husbands and the parents their children in this savage work.

It will be readily admitted from the above, that the evangelization of the gipsies presents a wide field of usefulness to the Christian missionary, and it is very gratifying to know that much good continues to be effected amongst them. Perhaps with no class of men does the Gospel work a more striking outward as well as inward change than with these wanderers. In their gipsy life they have, as we have seen, a few light employments which the more industriously inclined follow; but there can scarcely be found a gipsy tailor, carpenter, or stonemason; scarcely any of them can be found following any trade which would tend to locate them. Numbers of them may be seen day after day spending their time in idleness, lounging in their tents or in the neighbourhood of public houses; the children, capless and shoeless, covered with rags, beg charity of every passer by, which, if bestowed, only goes to feed the sloth and vice of their parents. The employments in which they take most delight are donkey-racing, gambling, and fiddling at races, fairs, and low public houses.

Now the first thing which the Gospel does with such people is to give them a new and civilized daily life. When they become Christians they cease to be gipsies. The fortune-teller, who has made great gains by her art, betakes herself to the honest wash-tub, or any