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In the `Rest' are held prayer-meetings and Bible-classes, and when these are dismissed, the sailors find the open door of the `Welcome Home' ready to receive them, and the inmates there seek to deepen the good influence that has been brought to bear at the meetings and this in the midst of one of the very worst parts of London, where temptation to every species of evil is rampant, on the right-hand and on the left, before and behind.

Under other heads he found that outcast boys were received, sheltered, sent to Industrial Homes, or returned to friends and parents; that temperance meetings were held, and drunkards, male and female, sought out, prayed for, lovingly reasoned with, and reclaimed from this perhaps the greatest curse of the land; that Juvenile Bands of Hope were formed, on the ground of prevention being better than cure; that lodging-houses, where the poorest of the poor, and the lowest of the low do congregate, were visited, and the gospel proclaimed to ears that were deaf to nearly every good influence; that mothers' meetings were held one of them at that old headquarters of sin, the "Black Horse," where counsel and sympathy were mingled with a Clothing Club and a Bible-woman; that there were a Working Men's Benefit Society, Bible-Classes, Sunday-School, a Sewing-Class, a Mutual Labour Loan Society, a Shelter for Homeless Girls, a library, an Invalid Children's Dinner, a bath-room and lavatory, a Flower Mission, and hear it, ye who fancy that a penny stands very low in the scale of financial littleness a Farthing Bank!

The first fruits may be seen in G. C., once a violent opposer, afterwards a valuable helper in Canada, and now a preacher of the Gospel in China. The work at the Bedford attracted so much interest, that many helpers were drawn to it from other parts. The Sunday Bible-classes became an object of remarkable interest. Perhaps such an assemblage has seldom been seen.

If a young man come in wanting something for the soul, there are the Bible-classes, prayer-meetings and preaching of the gospel. Religion wears no monk's cowl in that place, no hair shirt, no spiked sandals, but the floor and the ceiling and the lounges and the tables and the cheerful attendants seem to say: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

I do not suggest that education should encourage a feverish religiosity; but that it ought to produce balanced men and women, whose faculties are fully alert and responsive to all levels of life. As it is, we train Boy Scouts and Girl Guides in the principles of honour and chivalry. Our Bible-classes minister to the hungry spirit much information about the journeys of St.

After prayer I encouraged them to ask questions, which made these gatherings interesting and also instructive on the very points upon which they required information. I found that these Bible-classes were a great blessing to those who attended them, but more than all, perhaps, to myself; watering other souls with the water of life I was more abundantly watered.

He gave a grudging assent to the Bible-classes, the Wednesday evening services at the Sunday-school, the lectures on great men on the first Monday in the month, which Alick proposed and established. He thought it all weariness to the flesh and a waste of time and energy; but the traditions of his order were strong, if he himself did not share them, and he had to give way in the end.

Instead of sending for Barbara, for instance, when he arrived in London, or any other sensible woman, say, like Frau von Hagen of Cettinje, he drags poor Euphemia, a timid maiden lady of forty-five, from her tea-parties and Bible-classes and Dorcas-meetings at Tunbridge Wells, and plants her down as guide, philosopher and friend to this disconcerting product of Chicago and Albania.

A revival soon broke out in that place, and the crowds who came to the meetings were so great, that we had as many people outside the large school-room as there were in. At the end of the six weeks the new vicar returned, and I was able to hand over the parish to him, with a full church, three Bible-classes, and a large Sunday-school.

He entered largely into the moral questions of that day; was greatly interested in the preaching of James Freeman Clarke; a constant attendant at meeting and the Bible-classes. Occasional lay-preaching being the custom of that church, young Andrew sometimes occupied the pulpit and conducted the services to the general acceptance of the people.