The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People.Weylland, John Matthias
History
The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People.
Weylland, John Matthias
City missions; London City Mission
"Yes sir, begging your pardon, the saints, or that sort of them that
ain't advanced, and can't get on without their ears being tingled. We
who live all our waking hours elevated on a 'bus observes a great deal,
and that there are two sorts of Christians. It is wonderful if you
compare duly what religion does. The hundreds of gentlemen's carriages
it keeps indoors; the lots of working-men and city gents who can be
happy at home, and the wonderful number that goes to their own places of
worship, as is right. Well, these religious riders are a strange set,
they are indeed. Sometimes they are ashamed of their prayer or hymn
books, and sometimes they show them off boldly. My conductor was a
Sunday-school boy not long ago, and he hates the sight of them. Between
the box and monkey board there is an understanding, 'signs and wonders,'
as I calls them, and when a religious party gets in, he puts his hands
together and looks solemn; and when the pleasure-takers--our worst
enemies--and there's no end of them, he rubs his hands and looks jolly.
Well, these religious Sunday riders are a selfish, shabby lot; it's
quite common when they pay with a shilling for them to say, 'Give me a
threepenny piece, please, conductor.' That, you know, is for the
collection; but if he can help it he don't give it them, as he is of my
opinion, that these people ought to keep to their own places of worship,
and not bring religion into contempt by supporting Sunday labour. Well,
but the Sunday pleasure people are generous fools. They do a hard day's
work and pay for it, as they don't believe in the religious way of
being happy. At night the men put their wives and children inside and
get out here themselves smoking hard after the drink they have had. Last
Sunday night two of this sort got up beside me, and one of them swore
badly, and offered me a cigar; but I said to him, 'The saying is, that
"the tongue defiles the whole body," and I don't care to smoke with a
man that curses.' Then he bullied me and threatened to inform about me;
and I thought afterwards that I had done wrongly, as it is not doing my
duty in that state of life in which God has placed me (as the Catechism
says) if I offend riders; and as we outcasts--yes, I say outcasts, as
men who have no Sundays and no ministers to care for them are--can't
hope to be saved if God Almighty does not have mercy upon them for doing
their duty."
[Illustration: Man collecting fares]
The last part of this speech, which had been delivered at intervals
between stoppages, was uttered with an expression of despair which
reminded one of the day's sigh of the prisoner without hope. After a
pause, the remark was ventured, "But, James, you can surely get a Sunday
off whenever you like; it is only forfeiting the day's pay; and as I
have ridden with you for some time, I had a thought of asking you to let
me give you a Sunday, you could then attend Divine worship?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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