of the clergy of the East? "We felt that Dr. Thunderbolt's and Mr. Phemtra's hints were so excellent, that they ought to be known far and wide," benevolently remarked a distinguished churchman. Alas and alack! What, after all, had these good gentlemen told the rank and file of the clergy? Let them hear how we at St. Cuthbert's collect for this fund. Posters occupy

prominent positions. Special sermons are preached, morning, afternoon, and evening. My wife, who is an unusually able collector, devotes the whole day to visiting every inhabitant of every house in the district, not even allowing the public-house habitués to escape, or the loungers at the corners. Meals are snatched as

they may be; the day is one mighty rush from morn to night. Although one-tenth of the whole collection is given by myself, the net result of our united efforts averages little more than £4.

The slum parson cannot expect impossibilities from his congregation in the way of money; but he gets something that his West End brother would dearly like, to get if he could. In spite of the incessant grind of their daily labour, East-enders are most willing to give of the work of their hands. It was this cheerful readiness that made possible our Church Cleaning League at St. Cuthbert's. Week by week this little band of scrubbers, sweepers, and polishers are found at their posts, armed with their weapons of war; and once a year a grand battue is organised, when every nook and cranny of the church is raked from roof to floor. For years past not a single penny has been paid for church cleaning.

How did this wonderful League come into existence? Let the newspaper, that true friend of the East End

parson, answer in its own fashion. "Living in the Isle of Dogs, on an unscavenged thoroughfare, which he himself calls a disgrace to the metropolis, amid hovels and factories, evil smells and uncouth sounds, with an unendowed church where the weekly offertory is £1 and the weekly expenses £10, the Rev. Richard Free feels what it is to be well-nigh forgotten, while one's parochial work has to live from hand to mouth. His flock help him by making contributions in kind, in place of the money they cannot supply. A week or two ago the church wanted badly the spring-clean that had been lacking for three or four years. There was no means of paying for it. Mr. and Mrs. Free appealed to the congregation. Pails and soap and brushes were obtained from somewhere; ladders were borrowed; a colour manufacturer hard by donated sufficient paint and varnish; and in two evenings the church was clean from roof to floor. It was a volunteer band of men, women, and children who did it, and the parson and his wife worked as hard as any."—Morning Leader, April 1st, 1901.

The superior noses are tilted at a terribly acute angle, I fear; for "the parson and his wife worked as hard as any"! So undignified! And yet-and yet, what could be more in keeping with the best traditions of our religion? The monks of old knew well enough that work is prayer. But we, degenerates that we are, take so little interest in our spiritual homes, the treasurehouses of our best impulses and holiest thoughts, as to hand over their cleansing to hirelings. Christian churches should be kept clean by Christian people, for love and not for money; and the East End parson who works with his hands has a message for his genera

tion, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear.

So the work began, and the stress and strain of it. It was pioneering pure and simple. As the Bishop had warned me, there was no house to live in. Indeed, so acute was the house-famine that I could not even hire a room for use during the day. We were obliged to live. on the south side of the Thames, and frequently on Sundays crossed and recrossed the river by the ferryboat six or even eight times, which, as it was midwinter, was trying both to temper and to constitution. But strength was given where strength was needed; and there came a day when we perceived, to our unspeakable joy, that there was a stirring among the dry bones. Friendly interest in our doings began to be manifested, and I found myself greeted in most cordial fashion by a dozen people in as many yards; while as for the children, those little saviours of the East End, they poured out, as indeed had been their wont from the beginning, the wealth of their inexhaustible affection. But so important a subject as the East End child must have a chapter all to itself.

CHAPTER II

THE CHILDREN OF THE EAST

My wife has just called me to see a nearly nude little baby boy, whose greatest delight is to crawl from his home round the corner to the open door of our house, and take possession of the door-mat. There he squats, chuckling with glee at our playful advances, and screaming remonstrance at his proposed removal. He is a lovely child, fashioned as God intended he should be, and cheerful with the cheerfulness of perfect health. Arms and legs are grubby with unimaginable dirt, acquired by crawling along the pavement; but they are firm and substantial limbs which may stand him in good stead one of these days. As I look at him, he seems to me typical of the East End child so full of promise; but I could weep to think how all that fair promise may be blasted long before manhood is reached, by those bitter winds of adversity-painful labour, deadly toil, the intolerable pain of life.

Entirely delightful are the children of the East, whether immaculately stiff and frizzled in their Sunday best, or tattered and half-naked in their Saturday worst. What the East End would be without the children it is impossible even to imagine. Their eagerness and

inquisitiveness, their pathetic dependence, their innocence and ignorance, their generosity, their lavish affection: all these things are a perpetual source of refreshing to the dispirited worker, and he cannot picture himself existing without them. And their smiles! Why, their smiles are the most bracing experience imaginable. One could not do without their smiles. Many a time have I come home, after a disappointing day of drudgery, with this testimony on my lips and in my heart: “But for the children I should give up in despair." Not the moodiest temper could resist their enthusiasm. How I recall them in summer, crowding round the open window, and earnestly discussing what we were having for dinner. How I recall them in winter, flattening their noses against the frosty panes, and lamenting loudvoiced their inability to see more than the reflection of the dancing fire-flames. God bless the children of the East for the most fascinating morsels of humanity that were ever created!

I think it was 'first borne in upon me that the East End child is different from any other in the world when, as a Sunday School, we were fighting for dear life in our temporary home at the Settlement. Great gaps, through which the rain and the wind rioted at pleasure, yawned in the walls. The dust gathered in spacious grey drifts wherever it could hold together. Thick layers of it were on every ledge; every crevice was crammed with it; the floor was thickly carpeted with it. When the wind blew fierce and strong, which it generally did during school time, the dust rose in choking clouds which would not have disgraced the efforts of an Arabian whirlwind. But the children did not mind. They sat on the floor: they liked the floor.