Now the worshipers one after another glide in; silks rustle; plumes wave; satins glisten; diamonds glitter; and scores of forty-dollar handkerchiefs shake out their perfumed odors.
What an absurdity to preach the gospel of the lowly Nazarite to such a set! The clergyman knows better than to do so. He values his fat salary and his handsome parsonage too highly. So with a velvet-y tread he walks round the ten commandments, places the downiest of pillows under the dying profligate's head, and ushers him with seraphic hymning into an upper-ten heaven.
From this disgusting farce let me take you to the lecture-room of the Rev. Dr. Tyng. It is the first Sunday afternoon of the month (when he regularly meets the children of his parish, who are mostly members of his Sabbath-school). It would seem an easy thing to address a company of children. Let him who thinks so, try it! Let him be familiar without being flat; let him be instructive, and at the same time entertaining; let him fix roving eyes; let him nail skittish ears; let him stop just at the moment when a child's mental appetite has lost its digestive power. All this requires a--Dr. Tyng.
See--group after group of bright faces gather around him, and take their seats; not one is afraid of "the minister." He has a smile of love and a word of kindness for all. He has closed his church _purposely_ to meet them, and given the grown-folks to understand, that the soul of a child is as priceless as an adult's, and that he has a message from God for each little one, as well as for father and mother and uncle John. He asks some question aloud. Instantly a score of little voices hasten to reply, as fearlessly as if they were by their own fire-side. He wishes to fix some important idea in their mind: he illustrates it by an anecdote, which straightway discloses rows of little pearly teeth about him. He holds up no reproving finger when some lawless, gleeful little two-year-older rings out a laugh musical as a robin's carol. He calls on "John," and "Susy," and "Fanny," and "Mary," with the most parental familiarity and freedom. He asks _their opinion_ on some point (children like that!), he repeats little things they have said to him (_their_ minister has time to remember what even a little child says!) He takes his hymn-book and reads a few sweet, simple verses; he pitches the tune _himself_, and, at a wave of his hand, the bright-eyed cherubs join him.