At half-past six the hut was crowded with eight hundred Munsters. If you
are an old angler, indeed if you know anything at all about angling, you
know that you have got to consider two or three things if you are to
stand any chance of a catch. You have got to study your tackle, you have
got to study your bait, you have got to study the habits of your fish.
When the time came to begin that meeting, one of the workers said,
“Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?”
“No, no,” I replied; “that’s the wrong bait.”
Those Munster boys knew nothing about hymn-books. We preachers have got
to come off our pedestals and not give our hearers what we want, but the
thing that will catch them. If a pretty, catchy Sankey hymn will attract
a crowd, why shouldn’t we use it instead of an anthem? If a brass band
will catch them, why shouldn’t we play it instead of an organ?
“Keep back those hymn-books,” I said. “They know nothing about
hymn-books.” I had a pretty good idea of what would have happened if
those hymn-books had been produced at the start.
I got on that platform, and I looked at those eight hundred Munsters and
said, “Boys, are we down-hearted?”
“_No_,” they shouted.
You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting “No” sounds like.
They were all attention instantly. I wonder what would happen if the
Vicar went into church next Sunday morning and asked the question, “Are
we down-hearted?” I knew it would cause a sensation, but I’d rather have
a sensation than a stagnation.
Those boys sat up. I said, “We are going to talk about gipsy life.” I
talked to them about the origin of my people. There’s not a man living
in the world who knows the origin of my people. I can trace my people
back to India, but they didn’t come from India. We are one of the oldest
races in the world, so old that nobody knows how old. I talked to them
about the origin of the gipsies, and I don’t know it, but I knew more
about it than they did. I talked to them about our language, and I gave
them specimens of it, and there I was on sure ground. It is a beautiful
language, full of poetry and music. Then I talked about the way the
gipsies get their living—and other people’s; and for thirty minutes
those Munsters hardly knew if they were on the chairs or on the
floor—and I purposely made them laugh. They had just come out of the
hell of the trenches. They had that haunted, weary, hungry look, and if
only I could make them laugh and forget the hell out of which they had
just climbed it was religion, and I wasn’t wasting time.
When I had been talking for thirty minutes, I stopped, and said, “Boys,
there’s a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?”
“Yes,” they shouted.
“Come back to-morrow,” I said.
I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are
hungry they will come back for more. For six nights I told those boys
gipsy stories. I took them out into the woods. We went out amongst the
rabbits. I told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me—so fond that
they used to go home with me! I took them through the clover-fields on
a June day and made them smell the perfume. I took them among the
buttercups. I told them it was the Finger of Love and the Smile of
Infinite Wisdom that put the spots upon the pansy and the deep blue in
the violet. And then we went out among the birds and we saw God taking
songs from the lips of a seraph and wrapping them round with feathers.
And the boys saw Jesus in every buttercup and every primrose, and every
little daisy, and in every dewdrop, and heard something of the song of
the angels in the notes of the nightingale and the skylark. Oh! Jesus
was there, and they felt Him, and they saw Him. I took them amongst the
gipsy tents, amongst the woodlands and dells of the old camping-grounds.
They walked with Him and they talked with Him. I didn’t use the usual
Church language, but I used the language of God in Nature and the boys
heard Him.
Towards the end of the week one of those Munster boys came and touched
me and said, “Your Riverence! Your Riverence!” he says. “You’re a
gentleman.”