mind.  There was a faint ripple of mirth at this, and then, one by one, the boys who were engaged in attempting to sleep raised themselves slowly up in a sheepish manner, trying to look as if they were only altering their position naturally.  It was intensely ludicrous; but so good for the offenders!  And then the preacher rose into a higher vein, and said how the thought of the school chapel would come back to the boys in distant days; that the careless would wish in vain that they had found the peace of Christ there, and that those who had worshipped in spirit and truth would be thankful that it had been so.  And then he drew a little picture of a manly, pure, and kind ideal of a boy’s life in words that made all hearts go out to him.  Boys are heedless creatures; but I am sure that many of them, for a day or two at all events, tried to live a better life in the spirit of that strong and simple message.

Well, yesterday we had a man of a very different sort; earnest enough and high-minded, I am sure, but he seemed to have forgotten, if he had ever known, what a boy’s heart and mind were like.  The sermon was devoted to imploring boys to take Orders, and he drew a dismal picture of the sacrifices the step entailed, and depicted, in a singularly unattractive vein, the life of a city curate.  Now the only way to make the thought of such a life appeal to boys is to indicate the bravery, the interest of it all, the certainty that you are helping human beings, the enjoyment which always attaches to human relationship.

The result was, I confess, extremely depressing.  He made a fervent appeal at the end; “The call,” he said, “comes to you now and to-day.”  I watched from my stall with, I am sorry to say, immense amusement, the proceedings of a great, burly, red-faced boy, a prominent football player, and a very decent sort of fellow.  He had fallen asleep early in the discourse; and at this urgent invitation, he opened one eye and cast it upon the preacher with a serene and contented air.  Finding that the call did not appear to him to be particularly imperative, he slowly closed it again, and, with a good-tempered sigh, addressed himself once more to repose.  I laughed secretly, hoping the preacher did not observe his hearer.

But, seriously, it seemed to me a lamentable waste of opportunities.  The Sunday evening service is the one time in the week when there is a chance of putting religion before the boys in a beautiful light.  Most of them desire to be good, I think; their half-formed wishes, their faltering hopes, their feeble desires, ought to be tenderly met, and lifted, and encouraged.  At times, too, a stern morality ought to be preached and enforced; wilful transgression ought to be held up in a terrible light.  I do not really mind how it is done, but the heart ought somehow to be stirred and awakened.  There is room for denunciation and there is room for encouragement.  Best of all is a due admixture of both; if sin can be shown in its true colours, if the darkness, the horror, the misery of the vicious life can be displayed, and the spirit then pointed to the true and right path, the most is done that can be done.