Those discourses of theirs are an exaggeration Of the jocular species of pulpit oration, Which was brought into vogue by that eminent surgeon And physician of souls to the multitude, Spurgeon. An impressible people are they that sit under These 'cute Boanerges, these smart sons of thunder, Who cause them, at will, to sing psalm or doxology By an influence much like electro-biology. Ira Sankey performs, as a musical Stentor, To the _mobile vulgus_ the part of Precentor. His remarkable name may suggest the inquiry If he ever exhorts them to sing "_Dies Iræ_?" _Quorsum hæc_? Can tomfoolery kindle true piety? Maybe so. Human nature is fond of variety. Mr. Merriman's unctuous sallies might irk us, But although a Revival American Circus, Ira Clown in the Ring, decent people would anger, Couldn't Moody and Sankey join Hengler and Sanger? If it didn't conduce much to edification, It would probably pay, as a good speculation. [Sidenote: _Punch and the Salvation Army_] The verses gave such offence that _Punch_ was moved to publish an explanation a week later, disclaiming any intention to throw any doubts on the motives or the sincerity of the American Evangelists, but maintaining his right to criticize what he honestly believed to be bad taste in the style and manner of their appeals. Let it be granted that there was much in the early methods of the Salvation Army that provoked opposition and caused the judicious to grieve. The outrageous familiarity with which the most sacred names and subjects were treated in the _War Cry_; the conversion of the most popular songs into hymn tunes; the military organization, uniforms and titles; the "allonging and marshonging" with big drums and trombones--all these features affronted and disgusted good people who associated worship with privacy and reticence; while the hooligans looked on the Salvationists as sour-faced Puritans, and organized a "Skeleton Army" to break up their meetings. Collisions were frequent, and throughout the 'eighties members of the Salvation Army were fined and even imprisoned as disturbers of the public peace. Those of us who are old enough to remember these scenes can well recall the impression which the Salvationists made upon the detached observer of forty years ago. Men and women and girls, they wore the set look of people who had espoused an unpopular and even perilous cause and were resolved to carry it through. They seldom looked happy, and they had little cause for it. In ten years the physiognomy of the Salvationists had changed, and they went about their work unmolested with serene and cheerful faces. _Punch_ could at least plead this extenuation of his hostility, that it was shared by learned and excellent men. But there is really no excuse for his childish exultation over the Queen's refusal to subscribe to the Salvation Army's funds in 1882, and his jeers at the