ST. SAVIOUR’S CHURCH.

Few districts are more thoroughly vitiated, more distinctly poverty-struck, more entirely at enmity with soap and water than that in which this church stands.  Physically, mentally, and spiritually, it is in a state of squash and mildew.  Heathenism seethes in it, and something even more potent than a forty-parson power of virtue will be required to bring it to healthy consciousness and legitimate action.  You needn’t go to the low slums of London, needn’t smuggle yourself round with detectives into the back dens of big cities if you want to see “sights” of poverty and depravity; you can have them nearer home—­at home—­in the murky streets, sinister courts, crowded houses, dim cellars, and noisy drinking dens of St. Saviour’s district.  Pass through it, move quietly along its parapets—­leaving a tour through its internal institutions for some future occasion—­ and you will see enough to convince you that many missionaries, with numerous Bibles and piles of blankets, are yet wanted at home before being despatched to either farthest land or the plains of Timbuctoo.  The general scene may be thus condensed and described:  Myriads of children, ragged, sore-headed, bare-legged, dirty, and amazingly alive amid all of it; wretched-looking matrons, hugging saucy, screaming infants to their breasts, and sending senior youngsters for either herring, or beer, or very small loaves; strong, idle young men hanging about street corners with either dogs at their feet, or pigeon-baskets in their hands; little shops driving a brisk “booking” business with either females wearing shawls over their heads or children wearing nothing at all on their feet; bevies of brazen-faced hussies looking out of grim doorways for more victims and more drink; stray soldiers struggling about beer or dram shops entrances, with dissolute, brawny-armed females; and wandering old hags with black eyes and dishevelled hair, closing up the career of shame and ruin they have so long and so wretchedly run.

Anybody may see the sights we have just described.  We mention this not because there is anything pleasing in it, but because it is something which exists daily in the heart of our town—­in the centre of St. Saviour’s district.  No locality we know of stands more in need of general redemption than this, and any Christian church, no matter whatever may be its denominational peculiarities, which may exist in it, deserves encouragement and support.  The district is so supremely poor, and so absolutely bad, that anything calculated to improve or enlighten it in any way is worthy of assistance.  A Baptist chapel was built in the quarter we are now describing—­it was erected in Leeming-street, at the corner of Queen-street—­in 1783.  Fifty years afterwards it was enlarged; subsequently the Baptists couldn’t agree amongst themselves; the parties to the quarrel then separated, some going to Pole-street Chapel, others forming a