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For some weeks I was confined to bed, and not till six months had elapsed was I discharged. An event took place during my second sojourn in the hospital which caused much excitement among the prisoners. This was the stabbing of a Scripture-reader by one of the patients. The case was afterwards disposed of at the Assizes, and the culprit was sentenced to five years' penal servitude.
The Scripture-reader has brought his "visiting book" to be inspected, and a special report on the character of a doubtful family in the parish. The organist drops in to report something wrong in the pedals. There is a letter to be written to the inspector of nuisances, directing his attention to certain odoriferous drains in Pig-and-Whistle Alley.
Elsie smiled, as the rector and Scripture-reader had done not visibly, indeed, as they had, yet Jim somehow felt he was being laughed at, which made him angry. "He is a smart lad that, but I don't like him," said the rector, as he and Hendrick watched Elsie and Jim going down the avenue.
"Please, Jim says he 'd like to go to school, minister; and I 'd like too, if it wasn't so far." The pleading voice was not in vain. After much anxious consideration the Rev. Cooper Smith resolved to use his efforts to get the aid of a Scripture-reader for Tor Bay, and other outlying districts of his vast parish.
She was a staunch supporter of the church, and, had her circumstances permitted, would have been a Scripture-reader or at least a district visitor. But the world was so much with her, in the shape of domestic necessities at Bellevue Lodge, as to render parish work impossible, and so the Dorcas meeting was the only systematic philanthropy in which she could venture to indulge.
Jim's first step was to write a somewhat haughty letter to the Rev. Cooper Smith, and an excessively gushing and almost affectionate one to Elsie. Both letters were shown to George Hendrick, the consequence being that one afternoon on returning home Jim found the Scripture-reader awaiting him. "Well, Jim, my boy, I'm afraid you have been making a rare fool of yourself!"
A sudden fear fell upon me so much so, that I returned to the church, and shutting the door, begged God's forgiveness; and thanking Him for this warning, asked that I might remember it, and never transgress again. As my Scripture-reader continued to denounce wrath and vengeance, instead of preaching the Gospel, I parted with him. Next, let me tell of a vision which refers to others.
You can realise the fact as well in England as here, by substituting a Scripture-reader of dubious birth and humble parents, exposing the fallacy of a ceremonial church-going religion, and pointing out how impossible it is to please God by such religious formalities....
The sound of childrens' voices told me that some kind of lesson or prayer was going on, so I waited in the garden till the doors opened and a dozen neatly dressed boys and girls poured out. Then I went in, and found the wife of the schoolmaster and scripture-reader, a sweet young woman, who, in her husband's absence, had been holding a Bible class.
'My Scripture-reader, who was naturally a most excitable and noisy man, tried to do his best before the clergy; he spoke of the sweet words which they had heard from the reverend speakers; it was charming, he said, to hear of a good cause supported in such "mellifluous accents," and so forth.
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