The children who attended the ragged
schools of that particular district were seated in the gallery, each
side of the organ. As this was the Sunday appropriated to the
exercise, all three of the creeds were read--the Apostles',
Athanasian, and Nicene; all which the little things repeated after the
archbishop, with great decorum, and probably with the same amount of
understanding that we, when children, had of the Assembly's Catechism.
The venerable archbishop was ushered into the pulpit by beadles, with
gold lace cocked hats, striking the ground majestically with their
long staves of office. His sermon, however, was as simple, clear, and
beautiful an exposition of the duty of practical Christianity towards
the outcast and erring as I ever heard. He said that, should we find a
young child wandering away from its home and friends, we should
instinctively feel it our duty to restore the little wanderer; and
such, he said, is the duty we owe to all these young outcasts, who had
strayed from the home of their heavenly Father.
After the sermon they took up a collection; and when we went into the
vestry to speak to the archbishop, we saw him surrounded by the church
wardens, counting over the money.
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