Some men’s lives, it would seem, are decreed by Providence to be spent among the “extremes” of life and the associations of the world. Some are walking, talking, humming, and singing to themselves of the joys of heaven, the pleasures of the world, and the consoling influences of religion under the bright sunlight of heaven, as they, with light tread, step along to the goal where they will be surrounded with endless joy, where the tears of sorrow, bereavement, and anguish are unknown, and where the little dancing, prattling joys of earth have been transplanted into the angelic choir of heaven. There are others to be seen sitting under the shade upon some ditch bank with their elbows upon their knees, and their faces buried in their hands, enveloped in meditation and reflection with reference to the doings and dealings of Providence towards them on their journey of life, with an outlook at times that does not seem the least encouraging and hopeful, ending in mysteries and doubts as to the future, and the part they will be called upon to play in the ending drama. There are many who seem to be groping their way among the dark and heavy clouds which have been filled by God, in His wisdom, weighted with trouble and circumstances of earth and self; and while pacing among the clouds and darkness which have settled upon them almost too heavy to be borne, they imagine their lot to be the hardest in the world. Such I thought, has been my lot, as I tripped along, with bag in hand, over the green carpet, while the warbling little songsters were singing overhead, and a bright spring sun shining in my face, bringing life into, on every hand, the enchanting beauty of the orchards, hedgerows, and meadows, sending forth delicious scents, and lovely sights of the daisies, primroses, and violets, and a thousand other heavenly things, on my way to the station on a lovely spring morning to ramble among the gipsies and others upon the Warwick racecourse.

In the train, between Welton and Leamington, I met with some sporting “company’s servants.” One said, “Y. and G. were two of the greatest scamps in the world. When once the public backed a horse, they were sure to ‘scratch it.’” They discussed minutely their “bobs,” “quids,” losses, crosses, and gains. One of the sporting “company’s servants” was a guard, and he said, “I generally gets the ‘tip’ from some of the leading betting men I know, who often travel by my train to the races, and I’m never far wrong.” Another “company’s servant,” related his betting experiences. “One Sunday,” said he, “I was at Bootle church, near Liverpool, and heard the preacher mention in his sermon ‘Bend Or,’ and warned his congregation to have nothing to do with races, and I concluded that there was something in the horse, or he would not have mentioned his name in the pulpit. So on Monday morning I determined to put three ‘bob’ on ‘Bend Or,’ and the result was I had twelve ‘bob’ and a half, that was a good day’s work for me, which I should not have got if it had not been for our parson.” I said to the “company’s servant,” “Do you really think that racing is profitable for those engaged in it, taking all things into consideration?” “Well,” he said, “to tell you the truth, sir, I do not think it is. I have often seen dashing, flashing betting characters compelled to leave their boxes at the station in pawn for a railway ticket to enable them to get home.”

After leaving the train and the Avenue Station behind me, I made my way to my friends, Mr. and Mrs. John Lewis, for “labour and refreshment,” when, during my midnight tossings, nocturnal wanderings, and rambles in wonderland, the following rough and crude germs of thought prevented me getting the sweet repose which tired nature required:—

The beautiful snowdrop of heaven, and the first in God’s garden, is a pretty lively child growing up good and pure in the midst of a wretched family, surrounded by squalor, ignorance, and sin.

They are enemies, and beware of them, who, in your presence, laugh when you laugh, sing when you sing, and cry, without tears, when you cry.

A scientific Christian minister preaching science instead of the gospel, causing his flock to wander among doubts and hazy notions, is a scriptural roadman sitting upon a heap of stones philosophizing with metaphysical skill upon the fineness of the grain, beauty, and excellent qualities of a piece of granite, while the roads he is in charge of are growing over with grass, bewildering to the members of his church as to which is the right road, and leading them into a bog from which they cannot extricate themselves, and have to cry out for the helping hand to save, ere they sink and are lost.

Every glass of beer drunk in a public-house turns a black hair white.When a man or woman draws the last sixpence out of his or her pocket in a public-house, they pull out a cork that lets tears of sorrow flow.

A publican’s cellar is the storehouse of sorrows.

A Christian minister who preaches science instead of Christianity and the Bible, is going through a dark tunnel with a dim lamp at the wrong end of his boat.

Beer and spirits make more gaps in a man’s character than righteous women can mend.

The finest pottery has to pass through three crucial stages during manufacture before it can be said to be perfect. First is the “biscuit oven,” whereby the vessels are made hard and durable. Second is the “hardening-on kiln,” or an oven with an even, moderate heat to harden or burn on the surface the various designs and colours which have been placed there by artistic hands. And the third is the “glost oven,” which brings out the transparent gloss and finish, and gives beauty to the gold, oxide, cobalt, nickel, manganese, ochre, stone, flint, bone, iron, and clay, &c. So in like manner it is with the highest type of a Christian character. First, there is the family circle with its moulding and parental influence: this may be called the “biscuit oven,” fixing on the preparation for the fights and hardships of life. Second, there is the school and educational progress, which may be compared to the “hardening-on kiln.” And third, there is the work of the Holy Spirit: this may be compared to the “glost oven,” which gives the gloss, touch, and transparency to the vessel. Each of these stages will include the progressive steps of manufacture leading up to them.

Spectacles are of no use to a man in the dark. So in like manner scientific problems cannot help a man to see his way if he is in spiritual darkness.

Acrobatic Christians are those whose spiritual backbone and moral uprightness have been damaged by contortions, megrims, twirlings, and twisting their Christian character to suit circumstances.

So long as a man keeps upright the law of gravitation has but little power over him; immediately he begins to stoop its influence is soon manifest. So in like manner it is with an upright Christian, and so long as he keeps his perpendicular position by walking erect in God’s love and favour he is all right, and the influence of hell trebled cannot bend or pull him down; immediately he stoops to listen to the voice of the charmer, and gives way to the gravitation of hell—sin—down he goes, and nothing but a miracle will bring him upright again.

A hollow, hypocritical, twirl-about Christian, with no principle to guide him, is as an empty, shallow vessel pushed out to sea without either compass, rudder, or sails.

A man who, Christ-like, stoops to pick up a fallen brother, or who guides and places a youth upon a successful path, leading to immortality, is a man among men whom God delights to honour, as Jupiter was among the heathen gods, and he will be doubly crowned. His crown upon earth will be studded with lasting pleasure, shining brighter than diamonds; but his crown in heaven will be studded and illumined with the everlasting smiles of those he has saved, surpassing in grandeur all the precious stones in creation.

When a professing Christian visits the tap-room and places of light amusement with the hope of finding safe anchorage from the storms of life, it may be taken as an indication that he is at sea without a rudder, and the temporary one manufactured in a gin-palace out of frothy conversation will not bring him safe to land.

To hold up good works without faith and prayer as a shelter from an angry God for wrong-doing, is like holding a riddle over your head as a protection from a thunderstorm.

A man indulging in a lifetime of sin and iniquity, and then praying to God and giving alms in the last hours of his existence in the hope of securing eternal life and endless joy, is like a fowl with a broken neck and wings struggling to pick up golden grain to give it life and strength to fly to roost.

Love and spite dwelling in the heart can no more make a perfect Christian than poisoned vinegar and cream can make pure honey.

Every huntsman who jumps a fence makes it easier for those who choose to follow; and so it is with wrongdoers who jump the bounds of sin and folly. They are teaching those who follow to shun the plain, open path, and to take to the walls, fences, and ditches, which end in a broken neck, amidst the applause of fools.

Hotbeds of envy and hatred, heated with burning passion, have been productive of more evil results, direful consequences, bloodshed, cruel deaths, and foul murders than all the poison extracted from fungi, hemlock, foxgloves, and deadly nightshade have done since the world began, or could do, even if envy and hatred were to die to-day and poisons worked death to the end of time.

The morals and good deeds of a wicked, sensual, selfish man are the artificial flowers of hell.

Some professing Christians have only sufficient Christianity to make a pocket mirror, which the possessor uses in company as a schoolboy would to make “Jack-a-dandies.”

Crowns of credit or renown lightly won sit lightly upon the head, and are easily puffed off by the first breath of public opinion.

A man who trusts to his own self-righteousness to get him to heaven is wheeling a heavily and unevenly laden wheelbarrow up a narrow, slippery plank over a deep ravine, with a wheel in the front of his wheelbarrow that is twisted, loose, and awry.

The devil plays most with those he means to bite the hardest.

Singing heavenly songs in earthly sorrows brings joy tinged with the golden light of heaven on the mourner.

To get the cold, poisonous water of selfishness from our hearts God has often to furrow and drain our nature and affections by afflictions and cross purposes.

Too-much conceited young Christians with little piety, like young “quickset” hedges, become of more use to the Christian Church and the world after they have been cut down by persecution and bent by troubles and afflictions.

Sin in the first instance is as playful as a kitten and as harmless as a lamb; but in the end it will bite more than a tiger and sting more than a nest of wasps.

A Christian professor outside the range of miracles and under the influence of the devil is he who is trying to swim to heaven with a barrel of beer upon his back.

As fogs are bad conductors of light, sight, and sound, so in like manner is a Christian living in foggy doubts a bad conductor of the light, sight, and sounds of heaven.

Cold, slippery Christians who have no good object before them, and without a noble principle to guide them, are like round balls of ice on a large dish; and to set such Christians to work is a worse task than serving the balls out with a knitting needle.

Crotchety, doubting, scientific Christians are manufacturers of more deadly poisons than that produced from pickled old rusty nails.

The loudest and most quickening sounds to be heard upon earth are from a beautiful sweet child as it lies in the stillness of the loving arms of death.

Breakfast being over, with my “Gladstone bag” I begun my tramp-trot to the “course,” and while walking leisurely under the tall trees in one of the avenues at Leamington, on my way to the racecourse, a circumstance occurred—which my friend the gipsies say “forbodes good luck and a fortune, and that I shall rise in the world and have many friends.” Gipsies say and do queer things. To see, say they, the tail of the first spring lamb instead of its face forebodes “bad luck” to the beholder through the year. In the tramcar there was a little dog with a silver collar round its neck, evidently without an owner. The pretty little white English terrier whined about in quest of its master or mistress, but neither was to be found. In the tramcar there was a police inspector on his way to do double duty at the racecourse. This kind-hearted man tried hard by coaxing, sop, and caresses to be a friend to the dog; but no, and for the life of him the dog could not be brought round to look upon the inspector as a friend. Immediately the tramcar stopped, the little dog bounded off in search of its owner, but none was to be found, and the last I saw of the inspector and the lost dog was up one of the streets at Warwick, with the dog ahead and its tail between its legs, and the inspector scampering after it as fast as he could run, calling out, “Stop it,” “Stop it,” “It’s lost;” and away they both went out of sight, and neither the one nor the other have I seen since.

I once worked for a master in the slave yards of Brickdom in Staffordshire, who owned a bulldog. This dog took it into his head one day to leave its cruel master, and seek fresh lodgings of a better kind. Spying its opportunity, off it started out of the brickyard as if it was shot out of a gun; and the master for whom I slaved could not whistle, and knowing that I could whistle as well as I could cry and sing, bawled out to me, “Whistle him, whistle him, or I’ll black your eye! I’ve lost a dog worth five shillings; whistle him!” Of course, under the circumstances, trembling with fear and fright, I could not “whistle” very loud. The consequence was, the dog was lost, and I got a “good kick and a punch.” If the inspector could have whistled for the lost dog in the tones of its mistress, it would have saved his legs and brought the dog back to its comfortable home.

I was no sooner upon the racecourse, paddling through the quagmire, than I was brought face to face with some of the gipsies—the Hollands and the Claytons. I had not long been talking to them before one of the old Hollands came up to me and said, “I know who you are, Mr. Smith of Coalville; lend’s your hand, and let’s have a good shake. I would not mind giving five shillings for your likeness.” I told him he need not be at the expense of giving five shillings for a flattering photograph; he could have a good stare at the original, with all its faults, blemishes, and scars, for nothing. In my hands were a lot of picture cards for the gipsy children, given to me by the Religious Tract Society, upon which were a lot of texts of Scripture, in pretty patterns. Some of them read as follows: “My son, forget not my law;” “Thou art my trust from my youth;” “Thou God seest me;” “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet;” “My son, give me thine heart;” “Wisdom is more precious than rubies;” “Enter not into the path of the wicked;” “Even a child is known by his doings;” “Feed my lambs;” “Hear instruction, and be wise;” “Show piety at home;” “The Lord bless and keep thee;” “The Lord preserveth all them that love Him;” “I will guide thee with mine eye;” “The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil;” and many more. Immediately I had begun to distribute them among the children clustered round me, Alfred Clayton came up to me, as close as he could get, and he said, as I read out some of the texts to the children “I do like them; I could die by them; I’d sooner have some of them than a meal’s meat at any time. Do give me some, Mr. Smith, and I’ll get somebody to read them to me, and will take great care of them. I’ll have them framed and hung up.” The Hollands now asked me to go into their van, which invitation I gladly accepted. I was no sooner seated than Mrs. Holland, a big strong woman with pipe in her mouth, began to tell me how many children they had had, and that she had “been a nurse for the Lord,” for she had “had twelve children, nine of whom had died before they were three years old, and three are living, two of whom you see.” At this point she flew off at a tangent in language not suited for this book. Any one hearing her would think that she was a somewhat queer and strange kind of “nurse for the Lord.” Mr. Holland the elder told me of one poor gipsy woman, who, through her unfaithfulness and bad conduct, had come to an untimely end, so much so that it was with much difficulty and risk her rotten remains were placed in a coffin. Sad to say, her sins were not buried with her. Her family carry the marks upon them. After chatting about all sorts of things and old times, with the Leicestershire gipsies from Barlestone and Barwell, I turned in with some gipsy Smiths from Gloucestershire, whose van and tents were on the other side of the “grand stand.” I found that in three of the vans there were twenty-one children of various sizes and ages, and nine men and women sleeping and huddling together in wretchedness. One of the gipsy women told me that she had had “nineteen children all born alive.” As they sat round the fire upon the grass, I began to give them some cards, and while I was doing so, one of the men, Reservoir Smith, broke out in language not very elevating, and said among other things, “What use are picture cards to either the children or us; there is not one in the whole bunch that can tell a letter; and as for saying prayers, they do not know what it is and where to begin. We cannot pray ourselves, much less teach our children. Who are we to pray to? Parsons pray, and not we poor folks.” A gipsy woman must needs have her say in the matter, and said as follows, “Do not mind what he says master, if you will give me some of the cards we will have them framed; they will do to look at if we cannot read them.” At this they clustered round me—men, women and children; and I distributed cards and pence to the little ones as far as my stock would allow, with which all were delighted.

In the midst of this large group of idle men and women, ragged, dirty, unkempt, and ignorant children with matted hair, there were two of the Smith damsels—say, of about eighteen or twenty years—dressed in all the gay and lively colours imaginable, whose business was not to attend to the cocoa-nut “set outs,” but to wheedle their way with gipsy fascination amongst the crowd of race-goers, to gain “coppers” in all sorts of questionable ways of those “greenhorns” who choose to listen to their “witching” tales of gipsydom. Their “lurchers” and “snap” dogs came and smelt at my pantaloons, and skulked away with their tails between their legs.

Upon the course there were over thirty adult gipsies, and nearly forty children living in tents and vans, and connected in one way or other with the gipsy Smiths, Greens, Hollands, Stanleys, and Claytons, not one of whom—excepting one Stanley—could read and write a simple sentence out of any book, and attended neither a place of worship nor any Sunday or day school. When I explained to them the plan I proposed for registering their vans, and bringing the children within reach of the schoolmaster, they one and all agreed to it without any hesitation, and said as follows, that “it would be the best thing in the world, and unitedly expressed more than once, ‘Thank you, sir,’ ‘Thank you, sir.’”

Rain was now coming down, and the races were about to commence; therefore my gipsy congregation had begun to find its way to the various cocoa-nut establishments to begin business in earnest. With this exodus going on around me, and in the midst of oaths, swearing, betting, banging, cheating, lying, shouting, and thrashing, I turned quickly into Alfred Clayton’s van to have a friendly chat with him with “closed doors.” The conversation I had with him earlier in the afternoon led me to think that some kind of influence had been at work with him that one does not see in a thousand times among gipsies. Evidently a softening process had taken hold of him which I wanted to hear more about. With his wife and another gipsy friend in charge of his cocoa-nut business, we closed the door of the van, and he began his tale in answer to my questions. I asked him whether they had always been gipsies. To which he answered as follows: “My grandfather was a ‘stockiner’ at Barlestone, and lived in a cottage there; but in course of time he began to do a little hawking, first out of a basket round the villages, and then in a cart round the country. He then took to a van; and the same thing may be said of the Claytons. Originally they were ‘stockiners’ at Barwell, a village close to Barlestone, and began to travel as my grandfather and father had done. Thus you will see that the two families of gipsies, Claytons and Hollands, are mixed up pretty much. My father is, as you know, a Holland, and my mother a Clayton, whose name I take. At the present time, out of the original family of Hollands at Barlestone, and the original family of Claytons at Barwell, there are seven families of Hollands travelling the country at the present time, and fifteen families of Claytons travelling in various parts of Staffordshire and other places.” From the original two families it will be seen that there are over a hundred and fifty men, women, and children who have taken to gipsying within the last fifty years, not half a dozen of whom can read and write, with all the attendant consequences of this kind of a vagabond rambling life; which the more we look into, it is plain that Christianity and civilization, as we have put them forth to reclaim those of our own brothers and sisters near home, have proved a failure, not on account of the blessed influences of themselves being not powerful enough, but in the lack of the application of them to the gipsies by those who profess to have received those world-moving principles in their hearts. In the midst of this dark mass of human beings moving to and fro upon our lovely England, one little cheering ray is to be seen. Alfred Clayton tells us this. When he was staying at Leicester with his van some three years since, he stole like a thief in the night into the “Salvation Warehouse” at the bottom of Belgrave Gate, and while he was there an influence penetrated through the hardened coats of ignorance and crime, and the ramification of sin in all its worst shape to the depth of his heart, and awakened a chord of sympathy in his nature which has not died out, or wholly left him to this day. “Jesus the name high over all” caused him to open his ears in a manner they had never been opened before, and wonder what it all meant. This visit to the “Salvation warehouse” was not lost upon him, or without its effects upon his conduct. One cold wintry day, some two years ago, he was staying with his wife and family in this van on the roadside between Atherstone and Hinckley, when a youth, apparently about eighteen years old, came limping along the road, dressed in what had once been a fashionable suit of clothes, but now was little better than rags. His face was thin and pale, and his fingers long, and his neck bare. Upon his feet were two odd old worn-out shoes, and without stockings upon his legs; and as the forlorn youth neared the van and its occupants at dusk, he said, “Will you please give me a bit of bread, for I feel very hungry.” Clayton said, without much inquiry and hesitation, “Come into the van and warm yourself,” and while the youth was doing so, they got ready a crust of bread and cheese and some tea, which were devoured ravenously. Clayton learned that the stranger was related to one of the leading manufacturers named at Leicester, and well known as being rich; but unfortunately for the poor youth, his father died, and his stepmother had sold everything and cleared away to America, leaving this well-educated lad without any money, or means of earning money, to grapple with the world and its difficulties for a livelihood as best he could. Clayton, in the kindness of his heart, took the youth into the van, and he travelled up and down the country with them as one of their own during the space of two years, when owing to “his being a gentleman,” and a “capital scollard,” he was helpful to the gipsy family in more ways than one. After the two years’ gipsying spent by the youth with his kind friends the Claytons in rambling about the country, some kind friends at Atherstone took pity on him, and he is there to-day, gradually working his position back into civilized society, and a respectable member of the community, notwithstanding the treatment he has received at the hands of his cruel stepmother. After the meeting at the “Salvation Warehouse” Clayton had been seen and heard more than once, checking swearing and other sins so common to gipsies; but had never finally decided to leave gipsying and begin a better life until last Christmas. The steps which led up to his “great resolve,” he related to me as follows: “Mr. Smith, you must know that I have been about as bad a man as could be found anywhere. I felt at times, through drink and other things, that I would as soon murder somebody as I would eat my supper; in fact, I didn’t care what I did; and things went on in this way till my little girl, about three years old, and who I loved to the bottom of my heart, was taken ill and died. She had such bright eyes, a lovely face, and curls upon her head. She was my darling pet, and always met me with a smile; but she died and lies buried in Polesworth churchyard.” At this Clayton burst into crying and sobbing like a child. “I vowed,” said Clayton, “on the day, at the side of the grave, she, my poor darling, was buried, that I would not touch drink for a month, and do you know, Mr. Smith of Coalville, when the month was gone, I did not feel to crave for drink any more, and I have not had any up till now.” He now dried his eyes, and his face brightened up with a smile, and I said to him in the van, “Let us kneel down and thank God for helping you to make this resolution, and for grace to help you to keep it.” In the midst of the hum, shouting, and swearing of the races, we shut the door of the van; and after we had got off our knees, he knelt down again and again, and began to pray, with tears in his eyes, as follows:—

“O Lord Jesus, Thou knowest that I have been a bad sinner. O God, thou knowest I have been very wicked in many ways, and done many things I should not have done; but Thou hast told me to come to Thee and Thou wilt forgive me. Do my God forgive me for all the wrong I have done, and help me to be a better man, and never touch drink again any more, for Thou knowest it has been my ruin. Help me to live a good life, so that I may meet my little darling in heaven, who lies in Polesworth churchyard. Do, O Lord, bless my wife and my other little children, and make them all good. Oh do, my heavenly Father help my mother to give over swearing and bad things. Thou canst do it. Do Thou bless my father, and my brothers, and all my relations, and Mr. Smith in his work, and for being so good to us, so that we may all meet in heaven, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

“Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.”

After Clayton had dried his eyes we got up, to behold, over the top of the bottom half of his van door, the riders, dressed in red, scarlet, yellow, green, blue, crimson, and orange, with a deep black shade to be seen underneath, galloping to hell with hordes of gamblers at their heels as fast as their poor, cruelly treated steeds could carry them, all leaving footprints behind them for young beginners to follow. I said to Clayton, “Are you not tired of this kind of life?” And he said he was. “It is no good for anybody,” said Clayton, “and I am going to leave it. This is my last day with the ‘cocoa-nuts.’ I shall start in the morning—Saturday—for Coventry and Atherstone, where I mean to settle down and bring my children up like other folks. I have taken a house and am going to furnish it, and a gentleman is going to give me a chance of learning a trade, for which I thank God.”

As the shouts of the hell-bound multitude were dying away, and the gains and losses reckoned up, Clayton’s three little gipsy children, with their lovely features, curls, and bright blue eyes, came toddling up the steps to the van door, calling out, “Dad, let us in; dad, let us in.” The door was opened, and the little dears comfortably seated by our side. I gave them a few pictures, some coppers, stroked their hair, and “chucked their chin,” and bade them good-bye in the midst of a shower of rain, to meet again some day with the bright sun shining overhead and a clear sky without a cloud to be seen anywhere. For the present I must say with John Harris in his Wayside Pictures—

“Where Thou leadest it is best;
Cheer me with the thought of rest,
Till I gain the upper shore,
And my tent is struck no more.”