“Not so good as the nigger minstrels, but better than nothing,” he said. So we joined the throng of listeners. It was the usual audience, the devotees (mainly women) forming the inner circle, in close proximity to the preacher and the harmonium. Next came the half-hearted, weaker vessels, who separated the former as by a wall from the irreverent throng of idlers who laughed and talked and smoked on the outside fringe. The preacher was a man of the ordinary type, only a little stouter, a little more flaccid and even more illiterate than usual. Where do they come from, these preachers? Are they men who think they have a call or a gift? and are they accepted for the office on their own valuation? Certainly they are not chosen for any capability that can approve itself to the impartial hearer. The present representative of the school was enlarging, when we came up, upon the demerits of the publican. Ronald, after a few minutes, began to fume and fret. But he behaved for a while excellently well, though I could hear him muttering words in an undertone distinctly uncomplimentary to the preacher. “And it is publicans like these—the scum and refuse of Jerusalem—that are represented in this town to-day by the inn-keepers, barmen, and pot-boys, who an hour or two hence will be serving many of their fellow creatures—many, I fear, of this audience—with drink, to the ruin of their lives here and of their hopes of salvation hereafter.” “Nothing of the sort,” shouted Ronald, “he wasn’t an innkeeper at all; he was a tax-gatherer. Every schoolboy knows that.” The silence that followed was awful; every eye was turned upon the boy, and it was a strain upon my loyalty to remain at his side, and not then and there renounce his acquaintance. “Oh, he wasn’t, wasn’t he, young man?” said the preacher. “Well, as you seems to know more about the Bible than I do, perhaps you’ll step up here and take my place. Kindly tell us, if _you_ please, out of _your_ superior knowledge, what he was, and why he was called a publican if he was a tax-collector; and why a poor collector of rates, who only did his duty, is held up to our scorn and reprobation; yes, our _reprobation_.” (This word he regarded as a crushing climax.)