Then to other churches. To be really truthful, and that is what I aim at in all things, even if I tell the truth to mine own hurt, I did not care so much about my own religious welfare as to see how other people took theirs. I think it is a feature of human nature that we all are anxious that everybody else should obey the laws, whether we do or not. Many people though unjust themselves, dislike injustice in others. Probably most people go to church more to see that their neighbors are there, than to repent of their own shortcomings and sins. I think this statement, however, would not be quite true about that Sunday as only a few people were present in any of the churches. Here I wish to observe that it has always appeared very strange to me, that since Christian people insist so much on the vital importance of religious duties, they should be so indifferent in the performance of them. One would naturally suppose then in a Christian city like London, every mother’s son and daughter would go to church. They perhaps believe that the priests or the church in some vicarious way can get them tickets for heaven, so they need not bother themselves to work out their own salvation. Yet, I cannot help liking to see a man honest, though he be a Christian, and practice what he professes. This may be a stupid idea of mine, still I cannot get rid of it. I was told that one of the Sunday sights was Vanity Fair in Hyde Park, so after a hasty tiffin I directed my cabby thitherward. He was a jolly good fellow, rotund as a beer barrel, and red in the face as if he had lived on boiled lobsters all his life and their complexion had gone into his. I had liberally tipped him on starting in the morning and remarked to him that there was nothing like food and drink for either horse or man, and he agreed heartily with me. There is nothing so omnipotent in London as shillings, except it be sovereigns. With them in sight, I think my cab would have driven me to the devil, if not back again. One day I wished to see the houses of Parliament. The six foot guards were shooing the people away as if they were chickens bound to depredate in a garden. I walked up towards one of these stalwarts, putting on all the dignity I could command, with my hand in my pocket making a very significant movement of drawing out my purse, asking, “Do you ever show any one about this place?” He replied, “Come this way, sur,” and we went behind a big pillar where I dropped some shillings into his hand. He then took me anywhere and everywhere, and showed me Lord’s this and that Lord’s gown and wig and told me all I wished to know. He got the money, and I the money’s worth, so we were both agreeable. Nothing like shillings, unless it be sovereigns. A man might as well be without them in London, as to be without rupees when he has a case in court in India. I cannot refrain from quoting what the greatest poet of the world says: