this little garden blossoming, all for
his eyes alone, in a desert.

As one looks about this church the present fades away and the past
comes back. I see, once more, the Rector, what time George II. was
King, in full wig and black gown poring over his learned discourse.
Below him sleeps his clerk. In the Lord Mayor's pew, robed in garments
and chain of state, sleep my Lord Mayor and the worshipful the
Sheriffs; their footmen, all in blue and green and gold, are in the
aisle; the rich merchant of the parish clad in black velvet, with silk
stockings, silver buckles to their shoes, ruffles of the richest and
rarest lace at their throats, and neckties of the same hanging down
before their long silk waistcoats, sleep in their pews--it is a sleepy
time for the Church Service--beside their wives and children. The
wives are grand in hoop, and powder, and painted face. We know what is
meant by rank in the days of King George II. In this our parish church
we who are or have been wardens of our Company, aldermen who have
passed the chair, or aldermen who have yet to pass it, know what is
due to our position, and we bear ourselves accordingly. Our
inferiors--the clerks and the shopkeepers, the servants and the
'prentices--we treat, it is true, with kindliness, but with
condescension and with authority. On those rare occasions when a Peer
comes to our civic banquets we show him that we know what is due to
his rank. As for our life, it is centred in this parish; here are our
houses, here we live, here we carry on our business, and here we die.
Our poor are our servants when they are young and strong, and they are
our bedesmen when they grow old. Do not, I entreat you, believe in the
fiction that the Church neglected the poor during the last century.
The poor in the City parishes were not neglected; the boys were
thoroughly taught and conscientiously flogged, thieves were sent away
to be hanged, bad characters were turned out, the old were maintained,
the sick were looked after, the parish organization was complete, and
the parish charities were many and generous. Outside the City
precincts, if you please, where there were few churches and great
parishes, always increasing in population, the poor were neglected;
but in the City, never. But listen, the Rector has done. He finishes
his sermon with an admirable and appropriate quotation in Greek, which
I hope the congregation understands; he pronounces the prayer of
dismissal; the organ