Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, Volume 2 by Harriet Beecher Stowe
page 101 of 423 (23%)
page 101 of 423 (23%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
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. I noticed in the back part of the church a number of children in tattered garments, with rather a forlorn and wild appearance, and was told that these were those who had just been introduced into the school, and had not been there long enough to come under its modifying influences. We were told that they were always thus torn and forlorn in their appearance at first, but that they gradually took pains to make themselves respectable. The archbishop said, pleasantly, "When they return to their right mind they appear _clothed_, also, and sitting at the feet of Jesus." The archbishop sent me afterwards a beautiful edition of his sermons on Christian charity, embracing a series of discourses on various |
|