Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-02-07
DICKEN S
He Does a London Parish
Church.

Ihe following truthful picture OF a
church in the heart of London, the
most Christian city in the world" will
give a good idea of the piety of the
Cockneys
As a congregation we are fourteen
strong, not to count an exhausted charity
school in the gallery, which has dwind-
led away to four boys and two girls. In
the porch is a benefaction of loaves of
bread, which there would seem &c be no
body left in the exhausted congregation
to claim, and which l saw an exhausted
beadle, long faded out of uniform, eat
ing with his eyes for self and family
when l passed in. There is also an ex-
hausted clerk in a brown wig, and two
or three exhausted doors and windows
have been brieked up, and the service
books are musty, and the pulpit cushions
are ~threadbare, and the whole Of the
church furniture is in a very advanced
stage Of exhaustion, We are three old
women (habituaD two young lovers (ac-
cidental,) two tradesmen, one with a
wife and one alone, an aunt and nephew,
again two girls, (these two girls dressed
out for church, with everything about
them limp hat should be stiff, and rice
rersa, an invariable experience and
three staggering boys. The clergyman
Is, perhaps, the chaplain of a civic COM
pany he has the moist and vinous look,
and exc the dubious boots, OF one ac-
quainted with Twenty port, and comet
vintages."
We are so quiet in our dullness that
three staggering boys, who have got
away into the corner by the altar-rail-
ing, give US a start, like crackers when
ever they laugh. The aunt and nephew
in this city church are much disturbed
by the staggering boys. The nephew
Is himself a boy, and the sniggerers
tempt him to secular thoughts of marbles
and strings, by secretly offering such
commodities TO his distant cOntempla-
ton. This young St. Anthony for a
while r~esists, but presently becomes a
backslider, and in dumb show defes the
young sniggerers to heave a marble OF
Two in his direction. Herein he is de-
tected by the aunt "a rigorous reduced
gentlewOman who has the charge Of Off
ces, and l perceive that worthy relative to
poke him in the side, with the CORFU
gated hooked handle Of an ancient UNI
brella. The nephew revenges himself
for this, by holding his breath, and ter
rifying his kinswoman with the dread
belief that he had made up his mind to
burst. Regardless Of whispers and
shakes, he sWells and becomes diseol-
ored, and yet again sWells and becomes
discOlOred until the aunt can bear it no
longer, but leads him out, with no visi-
bic neck, and with his ewes going before
him ike a praWn's. This causes the
sniggerers to regard fight as an eligible
move, and [ know which of them will 90
out first, because of the over devout at
tention that he suddenly concentrates
on the clergyman. In a little while this
hypOcrite, with an elaborated demon
%stration Of hushing his footsteps, and
with a face generally expressive of hav- :
ing until now forgotten a religious ap- {
polntmept elsewhere, is gone. Number {
two gets put in the same way, but rather q
quicker. Number three getting safely 7
10 the door, there turns reckless. and ?
banging it open, flies forth with a whoop! {
that Ubrates to the top Of the tower D
above US. 5
The clergyman, who is of a prandial v
presence and a mufled voice, NAV be C
scant Of hearing as well as Of breath o
but he only glanees up, as having an 1
idea that somebody has said amen in a T
wrong place, aud continues his steady !
log-trOt, like a farmers wife going 10 Z
market. He does all he has to do in 0
the same easy way, and gives US a con- !
else sermon, still like the jog-trot, Of the D
wife on a level road. It's $
drowsy cadence soon lulls the three old 4
to sleep, and the unmarried Il
tradesman sits looking at windows, the II
one is looking at his wife's bon L
net, and the lovers sit looking at one L
another so supeTlatiyely happy that l y
mind e l, turned Of eighteen, went y
with my Angelica to a city church on s.
account Of a shower (by this special coin Il
claence that 1t was in Huggin -lane.O and 81
Hhen SAID to my Angelica, " Let the a
blessed event, Angelica, occur at M altar "
but this and when my Angelica con- L
that it should occur al no ot5er a
which it certainly never did. for i Il
occurred any where. And O. An, S
gelica what has become Of you, this h
present Sunday morning when l can't Il
attend to the sermon and difficult ques- a
ton than that, what has become Of me d
as l was when l sat by your sidel a
But We receive the signal to make q
that unanimous drive which surely Is a
conventional-like the strange (
rustlings and settings and elearings Of
throats and noses. which are never dis !
pensed with, at certain points of the !
church service, and are never held to !,
be necessary under any other circum- !
stances. In a minute more it is all over. v
and the organ expresses itself to be as '
glad of 1t as it can be Of ANYTHING in its 8
rheumatic state, and in another minute a
We are all of US out Of the church and P
Whity-brown has locked it up. il
4