a
similarly discreet manner. The lads had been impressed by a public
funeral, and Mr. Tracy suggested their listening to a little reading
from the Bible. They consented, and were a good deal surprised at what
they heard. The "Golden Rule" struck them as an altogether impossible
kind of precept to obey, especially when one was "stuck and short," and
"had to live." The marvels of the Bible--the stories of miracles and the
like--always seemed to them natural and proper. That a Being of such a
character as Christ should control Nature and disease, was appropriate
to their minds. And it was a kind of comfort to these young vagabonds
that the Son of God was so often homeless, and that he belonged humanly
to the working classes. The petition for "daily bread" (which a
celebrated divine has declared "unsuited to modern conditions of
civilization") they always rolled out with a peculiar unction. I think
that the conception of a Superior Being, who knew just the sort of
privations and temptations that followed them, and who felt especially
for the poorer classes, who was always near them, and pleased at true
manhood in them, did keep afterward a considerable number of them from
lying and stealing and cheating and vile pleasures.

Their singing was generally prepared for by taking off their coats and
rolling up their sleeves, and was entered into with a gusto.

The voices seemed sometimes to come from a different part of their
natures from what we saw with the bodily eyes. There was, now and then,
a gentle and minor key, as if a glimpse of something purer and higher
passed through these rough lads. A favorite song was, "There's a Rest
for the Weary," though more untiring youngsters than these never frisked
over the earth; and "There's a light in the Window for Thee, Brother,"
always pleased them, as if they imagined themselves wandering alone
through a great city at night, and at length a friendly light shone in
the window for them.

Their especial vice of money-wasting the Superintendent broke up by
opening a Savings-bank, and allowing the boys to vote how long it should
be closed. The small daily deposits accumulated to such a degree that
the opening gave them a great surprise at the amounts which they
possessed, and they began to feel thus the "sense of property," and the
desire of accumulation, which economists tell us, is the base of all
civilization. A liberal interest was also soon allowed on deposits,
which stimulated t