Again. There was a personage introduced
into the discourse (not an absolute novelty, to
the best of my remembrance of my reading)
who had been personally known to the preacher
and had been quite a Crichton in all the ways of
philosophy, but had been an infidel. Many a
time had the preacher talked with him on that
subject, and many a time had he failed to
convince that intelligent man. But he fell ill, and
died, and before he died he recorded his
conversion—in words which the preacher had taken
down, my fellow-sinners, and would read to you
from this piece of paper. I must confess that
to me, as one of an uninstructed audience, they
did not appear particularly edifying. I thought
their tone extremely selfish, and I thought they
had a spiritual vanity in them which was of the
before-mentioned refractory pauper's family.

All slangs and twangs are objectionable everywhere,
but the slang and twang of the conventicle
—as bad in its way as that of the House
of Commons, and nothing worse can be said of
it—should be studiously avoided under such
circumstances as I describe. The avoidance was
not complete on this occasion. Nor was it quite
agreeable to see the preacher addressing his pet
"points" to his backers on the stage, as if
appealing to those disciples to shore him up, and
testify to the multitude that each of those points
was a clincher.

But, in respect of the large Christianity of his
general tone; of his renunciation of all priestly
authority; of his earnest and reiterated
assurance to the people that the commonest among
them could work out their own salvation if they
would, by simply, lovingly, and dutifully following
Our Saviour, and that they needed the mediation
of no erring man; in these particulars,
this gentleman deserved all praise. Nothing
could be better than the spirit, or the plain
emphatic words of his discourse in these
respects. And it was a most significant and
encouraging circumstance that whenever he
struck that chord, or whenever he described
anything which Christ himself had done, the
array of faces before him was very much more
earnest, and very much more expressive of
emotion, than at any other time.

And now, I am brought to the fact, that the
lowest part of the audience of the previous
night, was not there. There is no doubt about
it. There was no such thing in that building,
that Sunday evening. I have been told since,
that the lowest part of the audience of the
Victoria Theatre has been attracted to its Sunday
services. I have been very glad to hear it,
but on this occasion of which I write, the
lowest part of the usual audience of the
Britannia Theatre, decidedly and unquestionably
stayed away. When I first took my seat and
looked at the house, my surprise at the change
in its occupants was as great as my disappointment.
To the most respectable class of the
previous evening, was added a great number of
respectable strangers attracted by curiosity, and
drafts from the regular congregations of various
chapels. It was impossible to fail in identifying
the character of these last, and they were very
numerous. I came out in a strong, slow tide of
them setting from the boxes. Indeed, while the
discourse was in progress, the respectable
character of the auditory was so manifest in their
appearance, that when the minister addressed a
supposititious "outcast," one really felt a little
impatient of it, as a figure of speech not justified
by anything the eye could discover.

The time appointed for the conclusion of the
proceedings was eight o'clock. The address
having lasted until full that time, and it being
the custom to conclude with a hymn, the
preacher intimated in a few sensible words that
the clock had struck the hour, and that those
who desired to go before the hymn was sung,
could go now, without giving offence. No one
stirred. The hymn was then sung, in good time
and tune and unison, and its effect was very
striking. A comprehensive benevolent prayer
dismissed the throng, and in seven or eight
minutes there was nothing left in the Theatre
but a light cloud of dust.

That these Sunday meetings in Theatres are
good things, I do not doubt. Nor do I doubt
that they will work lower and lower down in the
social scale, if those who preside over them will
be very careful on two heads: firstly, not to
disparage the places in which they speak, or the
intelligence of their hearers; secondly, not to
set themselves in antagonism to the natural
inborn desire of the mass of mankind to recreate
themselves and to be amused.

There is a third head, taking precedence of all
others, to which my remarks on the discourse I
heard, have tended. In the New Testament there
is the most beautiful and affecting history
conceivable by man, and there are the terse models
for all prayer and for all preaching. As to the
models, imitate them, Sunday preachers—else why
are they there, consider? As to the history, tell it.
Some people cannot read, some people will not
read, many people (this especially holds among
the young and ignorant) find it hard to pursue
the verse-form in which the book is presented to
them, and imagine that those breaks imply gaps,
and want of continuity. Help them over that
first stumbling-block, by setting forth the history
in narrative, with no fear of exhausting it. You
will never preach so well, you will never move
them so profoundly, you will never send
them away with half so much to think of.
Which is the better interest: Christ's choice of
twelve poor men to help in those merciful
wonders among the poor and rejected; or the
pious bullying of a whole Union-full of paupers?
What is your changed philosopher to wretched
me, peeping in at the door out of the mud of
the streets and of my life, when you have the
widow's son to tell me about, the ruler's
daughter, the other figure at the door when
the brother of the two sisters was dead, and
one of the two ran to the mourner, crying,
"The Master is come and calleth for
thee"?—Let the preacher who will thoroughly
forget himself and remember no individuality
but one, and no eloquence but one, stand up