highly creditable to those parts, and thoroughly well administered
by a most intelligent master. I remarked in it, an instance of the
collateral harm that obstinate vanity and folly can do. 'This was
the Hall where those old paupers, male and female, whom I had just
seen, met for the Church service, was it?'--'Yes.'--'Did they sing
the Psalms to any instrument?'--'They would like to, very much;
they would have an extraordinary interest in doing so.'--'And could
none be got?'--'Well, a piano could even have been got for nothing,
but these unfortunate dissensions--' Ah! better, far better, my
Christian friend in the beautiful garment, to have let the singing
boys alone, and left the multitude to sing for themselves! You
should know better than I, but I think I have read that they did
so, once upon a time, and that 'when they had sung an hymn,' Some
one (not in a beautiful garment) went up into the Mount of Olives.

It made my heart ache to think of this miserable trifling, in the
streets of a city where every stone seemed to call to me, as I
walked along, 'Turn this way, man, and see what waits to be done!'
So I decoyed myself into another train of thought to ease my heart.
But, I don't know that I did it, for I was so full of paupers, that
it was, after all, only a change to a single pauper, who took
possession of my remembrance instead of a thousand.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' he had said, in a confidential manner, on
another occasion, taking me aside; 'but I have seen better days.'

'I am very sorry to hear it.'

'Sir, I have a complaint to make against the master.'