ground that
it was not a "Sunday" subject, he pointed to the church steeple and
said, "You don't understand. This is Sunday, and those jockeys are all
racing to see which of them can get to church first," which strikes me
as a peculiarly ready and ingenious explanation for a child of six.

In London we all went on Sundays to the Scottish Presbyterian Church in
Crown Court, just opposite Drury Lane Theatre. Dr. Cumming, the
minister of the church at that time, enjoyed an immense reputation
amongst his congregation. He was a very eloquent man, but was
principally known as always prophesying the imminent end of the world.
He had been a little unfortunate in some of the dates he had predicted
for the final cataclysm, these dates having slipped by uneventfully
without anything whatever happening, but finally definitely fixed on a
date in 1867 as the exact date of the Great Catastrophe. His influence
with his flock rather diminished when it was found that Dr. Cumming had
renewed the lease of his house for twenty-one years, only two months
before the date he had fixed with absolute certainty as being the end
of all things. All the same, I am certain that he was thoroughly in
earnest and perfectly genuine in his convictions. As a child I thought
the church--since rebuilt--absolutely beautiful, but it was in reality
a great, gaunt, barn-like structure. It was always crammed. We were
very old-fashioned, for we sat down to sing, and we stood to pray, and
there was no instrument of any sort. The pew in front of us belonged to
Lord Aberdeen, and his brother Admiral Gordon, one of the Elders,
always sat in it with his high hat on, conversing at the top of his
voice until the minister entered, when he removed his hat and kept
silence. This was, I believe, intended as a protest against the idea of
there being any special sanctity attached to the building itself qua
building. Dr. Cumming had recently introduced an anthem, a new
departure rather dubiously welcomed by his flock. It was the singular
custom of his congregation to leave their pews during the singing of
this anthem and to move about in the aisles; whether as a protest
against a daring innovation, or merely to stretch their limbs, or to
seek better places, I could never make out.

Dr. Cumming invariably preached for over an hour, sometimes for an hour
and a half, and yet I never felt bored or wearied by his long
discourses, but really looked forward to them. This was because