a want of fitness. It would have been touching and pretty at a wedding or a baptism.

It was not so

easy not to say, "Were you not sacrificing the solemn to the picturesque, and diverting thought from the judgment-throne and the world of glory, on behalf of the merely graceful and beautiful?"

CHAPTER V.

"THE BOYS' MEETING."

In every crowded community there is a circle which, IN from profligacy, ignorance, or poverty in the parents, falls below the educational degree; and if that circle is to be taught at all, it must be led and raised by the hand of Christian benevolence. New York has a crowd of such persons who linger about the docks half employed, because intemperate-not to mention the newly-arrived and desolate-looking emigrants; and is quite as able to furnish out a few "ragged schools" as are the Trongate of Glasgow, and the Cowgate of Edinburgh.

I am not sure that, with the exception of that of Mr Pease at the Five Points, any such week-day gathering of forlorn creatures has been made. Several Sabbath ragged-schools, however, have been assembled by means of the energy of individual compassion. Intelligent and spirited young Christian men have permeated the throng, and coaxed them within the sound of instruction. By what ingenious devices they influenced the wild little

denizens I am not aware-perhaps by some such as the poor shoemaker, John Pounds, on Plymouth dock used, whose pot of hot potatoes on a cold day used to furnish a bribe by which the boys were drawn within the circle of instruction. The good youths must have had many a fruitless or at least disappointing stroll on the docks and around Hudson and Greenwich Streets, before they assembled the nucleus of what are now very flourishing schools.

And here we find gathered "the stepchildren of nature and fortune, the outcast, the benighted, the brutalised, and the homeless." Surely here we shall find Horace Greeley and some of his brave three thousand, toiling with might and main to raise the motley crowd to the level of the common school. They may be there, but I did not hear of them. Well, but the children are assembled. What shall we call them ? There's much in a name ! Though every knee and elbow testifies that it is a ragged gathering, though every mop-head unconscious of a comb, and many a shirtless neck buttoned round by the collar of a coat big enough for father, proves that they are uncared for, yet "it is not right to have it thus set down."-Ragged school indeed! Which of all those four hundred tatterdemalions would enter your door, in spite of the temptation of a dry seat and warm stove, if you give it such an opprobrious name. Benevolence is ingenious. It will not be balked by any obstacle that can be managed; and so, to publish itself in

the district without offence, it hangs out its cotton placard, on Sundays only, with "THE BOYS' MEETING," in capital letters, for guidance to the wanderers.

Here they come, pell mell! but a composed person meets them at the door, whispers a calm word or two, admits them one by one, and turns them over to another, who seats them. And now look along the benches. Here are four hundred creatures full of grimace, restlessness, trick, and temper, ready to fly to buffets, if but their neighbours touch them. A good man, with fire in his eye and zeal in his heart, tells them a little of Him who made and preserves, and can destroy or save them, and asks the open-mouthed, unintelligent throng to join him in prayer. He directs an attitude and act quite new to them, and seeing them all down on their knees, he closes his own eyes, and addresses a few simple petitions to his reconciled Father in heaven; but when again he looks up, what does he find?-that the occupants of the front seats, out of sheer ignorance and fun, have crept under the benches, till they have actually reached and stood up at the lower end of the room, laughing at their exploit, and as busy as may be, tugging, knocking, and struggling with each other. Oh! hopeless crew! Shall the good man turn you out and resign his attempt? By no means. The ingenuity of benevolence is not so soon spent. He tells them if they will replace themselves, he and his friends will sing for them, and if they like it they may learn to sing

too. The wondering and diverted mob flows back, and distributes itself once more over the seats. The good man recites twice or thrice the words of a single verse, and he and his associates raise a lively tune. We have all heard what it is that music has charms to soothe. It is wonderful, that power. After two or three repetitions of that one verse, one and another takes up the strain, till all the musical ears, which happily are always nine-tenths of any company, have caught it, and are engaged in following the air. Now he has got them interested, their

leader says, "If you will learn the words, we will

sing it together," and thus is the point of the wedge inserted. Presently it is driven deeper. "Now, if you will be quiet, I will read you a story, and then we will sing our verse again before we part;" and so perhaps the "prodigal son," or "the man that fell among thieves," is read, and at least a third listen, and the hymn is repeated, the blessing prayed over their neglected heads, and off they go, amused and surprised by the novelty, and chiming the new tune, and newer stanza, as they run.

They had been some months under training when I saw them-steady and quiet by help of a little admonition from their teachers, who, it was observable, did not venture to exact much mental effort from them. They sung two or three hymns, answered as many questions, listened with tolerable decency to a passage of Scripture and its explanation, and with lively interest to a narrative which