SUB-KINGDOM II.

FORAMINIFERA, SHOWING ROOT-LIKE FEET.

TheForaminifera(perforated animals), of this class, have several peculiarities. The body is even more simple, being apparently without layers or cavity. The processes thrown out as arms and legs are not blunt or massive, but long and slender. And, moreover, small as it is, it has the wonderful property of secreting about itself an envelope, whose thin walls are built of the carbonate of lime. The delicate little structures are often singularly beautiful. Some are monads, having but a single shell; others, by a process of budding add new cells or chambers, often in a spiral coil. These are marine shells, and their numbers in many parts of the ocean are astounding. The bottom of the sea, for many degrees on both sides of the equator, wherever examined by dredging, is found covered with them, either still in their organic state, or ground by attrition to a fine lime dust. It is estimated that a single pound of the sea bottom in some localities contains millions of them, and they are the principal material of the chalk hills.

Class IV.—Infusoria.This class includesVorticella(wheel animals),Flagellata(whip-shaped animals),Tentaculata(having tentacles), and others. Their general characteristics do not differ widely from those already mentioned. As the name imports, they are mostly found in vegetable infusions that have been exposed for some time, and are directly the product of invisible cells or animal germs that were floating in the atmosphere till a lodgment was found favorable to their development. Those calledVorticella, to the eye seem simply mould on the plant to which they are attached, but under the glass their animal qualities appear; and they multiply with amazing rapidity. Every drop of water from a stagnant pool is full of these animalculæ, of various shapes and dimensions, some of them constantly in motion, propelled by numerous cilia, or slender, hair-like appendages that fringe the circumference, and are used as oars. Their whole organism, though delicate, and having a thin membranous covering, is imperfect. There are two contractile openings, with a slight depression at the mouth, leading to a funnel-shaped throat, into which the nutritive substances descend.

Spongida, or sponges, are especially worthy of mention. When much less was known of their nature and habits, they were classed with vegetables, but since their mode of reproduction has been discovered, they are known to be animals. The sponge is formed of an aggregation of ciliated cells, built together on a skeleton or framework of calcareous or silicious substance, that extends by slow external secretions as the animal body grows. There is a central cavity toward which there are numerous channels, from openings on the surface, through which water is continually received, and one through which it is discharged. The animal part is a sensitive, gelatinous film, extending through the growing mass, and spreads out over the surface. It is perforated, in places, and adapts itself to all the sinuosities and intersections of the canals that run in every direction. The little animals are provided with exceedingly fine cilia that they keep in almost constant motion; no one knows how, or for what, but it is supposed they thus sweep in the water that circulates through all the channels and chambers formed for it. After death, the soft matter, like all animal tissues, decays, or is dried up; and by beating and washing, it and any calcareous substances are removed. The horny, elastic fibers are found so exquisitely connected about the internal canals and cavities that water is freely admitted, or by pressure expelled. Sponges are found in every latitude, but are more numerous and grow larger in warm climates. Those in our markets are mostly from the Bahamas and the islands of the Mediterranean. They are obtained by diving, often to great depths.

Cœlenterata(hollow intestines). These are radiate animals, have a distinct digestive cavity, and always two layers of tissue in their walls. They have minute sacs containing a fluid, and barbed filaments capable of being thrown out as stings. The classes of the Cœlenterata are theHydrozoa,Anthozoa, andCtenophora. The best known representative of the former is the fresh waterhydra(water animal). It gives but slight evidence of a nervous system, has no stomach, or digestive sac, but is a simple tube into which the mouth opens. The sensitive little body is in color and texture, to the casual observer more like a plant than an animal. It is attached at one end to a submerged aquatic plant, while the mouth at the free end is provided with tentacles,[2]by which it feeds and moves. It buds, and also produces eggs. The young hydra, when hatched or thrown off, attaches itself to plants, as did its parents. Some hydroids attach themselves to shells, and are supported by horny, branching skeletons, specimens of which are numerous, and may be seen in almost any museum.

HYDRA, SHOWING BUDS.

A second representative of this class is the jelly fish. It has a soft, gelatinous, circular body, that floats or swims on the surface in calm weather, with the mouth downward. Tubes radiate from the center to the circumference that is fringed all around with pendant tentacles, sometimes of great length and of considerable contractile power. They are of various sizes, some quite small, others as much as eight feet in diameter. They move about by flapping their sides, after the manner of opening and shutting an umbrella. When dried, the thin, filmy covering is very light. One variety, calledLucernaria, is found attached to grasses along the Atlantic shore. But the ordinary jelly fish is free, and borne on the surface of the sea.

TheAnthozoa(flower animals) are small, but not microscopicanimals, having a double cavity, the inner of which is the digestive sac. The best known of the class is theActinia(rayed), or sea anemone, so called from its resemblance to a plant or flower of that name. The body is somewhat like a flower in shape. The disc has a central orifice, very contractile, and surrounded with tubular tentacles of various forms, which it elongates, contracts, and moves in different directions. They are so many arms by which the animal seizes its prey, and when expanded for the purpose, being tinted with brilliant colors, present an elegant appearance, and make vast fields of the ocean look like beautiful flower gardens. They feed voraciously on little crabs and mollusks, that often seem superior to themselves in strength and bulk, but they have power in their little tentacles to seize and hold their prey, and when they engulf large bodies the stomach is distended to receive them; and their digestion is good. The purple sea anemone is very common on the southern shores of England, and one species, found on the shores of the Mediterranean, is said to be esteemed a great delicacy by the Italians. At night, or when alarmed, the animal draws in its arms, shuts the door, and seems but a rounded lump of flesh, a huge oyster without a shell. The coral polyps (many footed), belonging to this class, are little folk, but of importance from their well-earned reputation as reef builders. They are very diminutive creatures, mere drops of animal jelly, often not larger than the head of a pin, but their works show unmistakable evidence of life, and an organic structure. They live in communities, closely united, but each, having a distinct individuality, by the sure process of secreting a portion of the calcareous matter within reach, prepares for himself a house, as all his ancestors have done, and his neighbors are now doing. They build together, their foundations having strong connections, and thoroughly cemented. There in his own little palace the polyp lives, his food being brought to his lips; and, having sent out a numerous progeny to do likewise for themselves, there he dies. Life and death, as in all mundane communities, being in close proximity, the old dying, a new generation builds houses over their sepulchres.

SEA ANEMONE.

The great variety of corals seen in any extensive collection, some very beautiful, others rough and unsightly, are from different branches of a very extensive family.Astrea(star shaped), from the Fiji islands, is a kind of coral hemisphere, covered with large and beautiful cells.

Mushroom coralis disc shaped, not fixed or attached, and is the secretion, not of many, but of a single huge polyp.

Brain coralis globular, and the surface irregularly furrowed or corrugated.

Madrepora(spotted pores)coralis neatly branched, the branches having pointed extremities ending in single minute cells.

Porites, or sponge coral, is also branched, but the branches are not pointed, and the surface smoother.

Tubipora, or organ pipe coral, shows some very striking peculiarities. A section of the vast structures built by them resembles a collection of regular, smooth, red colored pipes, firmly bound together by cross sections.

Coral rocks are of slow formation, but have attained prodigious dimensions; whole islands are of coral origin, and in some seas the concealed rocks make navigation dangerous. The reefs are often 2,000 feet thick, though it is estimated that not more than five feet are added in a thousand years. The little architects were at work early.

Corallium rubrum, or red coral, much sought after and precious, is shrub-like, of fine texture, and a beautiful crimson color. In a living state its branches are said to be covered over with bright polyps, and the skeleton receives a very fine polish. It is used for ornaments. Professor Dana says: “Some species grow in large leaves rolled round each other, like an open cabbage, and another foliated kind consists of leaves more crisped, and of more delicate structure. ‘Lettuce coral’ would be a significant name; each leaf has its surface covered with polyp flowers. The clustered leaves of acanthus and oak are at once called to mind by this species.”

CORAL ISLAND.

The Ctenophora(comb-bearing) are considered the highest of the Cœlenterata, having a more complex digestive apparatus, and better developed nervous system. Their long tentacles, and comb-like cilia are used for swimming.

Echinodermata(spiny skinned) have all their parts symmetrically arranged about a central axis, a contractile heart, good digestive organs, and a peculiar system of radiating canals extending through the organism. They are a numerous family of exclusively marine animals, and their characteristics furnish an interesting study. Most naturalists mention four classes.

Class I.—Crinoidea, or sea lilies, now nearly extinct, are fixed to rocks, or the sea bottom, by what seems simply a stem, but is the body of the animal. At the top is the mouth,resembling an expanding bud or flower that opens upward, surrounded by long tentacles, or arms, not unlike the sea anemone. It is supported by a calcareous skeleton consisting of many members, stiff-jointed, crossing and interlacing with one another. When living, the gelatinous animal partly envelops this framework.

Class II.—Asteroidea, or star fish, have a flat disc, five or more radiating arms extending some distance from the body at the center, and containing a part of the viscera. The mouth is where the arms meet, and opens downward. The upper surface is studded over with rough knobs, between which are the openings of many little tubes, for the passage of water into and out of the body. The round mouth is very dilatable, enabling it to receive large and solid objects for its food, which there is no attempt to masticate. After the digestive organ is somehow wrapped around the shell fish on which it feeds, it is held in its firm embrace till the nutritive portion is disposed of, and then thrown out. They are voracious eaters, devouring all kinds of garbage that would otherwise accumulate along the shores, valuable as sea scavengers, though destructive of living crustaceans and shell fish.

Class III.—Echinoidea(hedgehog-like) are covered with spines which they move either by the enveloping membrane or by small muscles properly situated for the purpose. The thin, horny, and, when dry, very light skin is peculiar, in that it is composed of regularly shaped, pentagonal plates, arranged in radiating zones, every alternate plate perforated with small holes; and among the spines, but capable of extending beyond them, are little arms, provided at the end with forceps, probably for seizing their prey, or for ridding themselves of troublesome parasites. These are also used for locomotion. They are less active than some others of the family, live near the shore among rocks, or under the seaweed, feed on crabs, and are oviparous.[3]

Class IV.—Holothuroidea(whole mouthed). They are elongated, like a cucumber, and the head end terminates abruptly, the mouth being a circular opening surrounded with feathery tentacles. They have remarkable muscular power, by which they can disgorge the contents of the stomach, throw off their tentacles, and even eject most of their internal organs, and survive the loss, afterward producing others, perhaps more satisfactory or in a healthier condition. In tropical climates, they have been likened to the sea urchin, without a shell, but are proportionally longer, and their axis horizontal.

Vermes(worms). Animals having head and tail composed of segments. The digestive organ is tubular, and the nervous system a double chain of ganglia[4]on the ventral[5]surface. There are six classes of vermes. The animals differ greatly in appearance.

Class I.—Flat wormsare best known as the parasites that infest animals, such as the liver fluke of the sheep, and the tapeworm. The flat worms pass through a very peculiar metamorphosis, some varieties taking as many as seven different forms.

Class II.—Round or Thread Wormsare represented by the pin worm andTrichina. The latter is the dangerous worm which finds its way into the human system from pork flesh, in which it is imbedded.

Class III.—Wheel Animalculæ, orRotifera. A most interesting microscopic worm, abounding in fresh water and in the ocean. They will remain dried up for years, and then recover life. Their shapes are very peculiar.

Class IV.—Moss Animals, orPolyzoa, are the animals which form a coral-like shell. They are abundant on the seashore, and are called sea mosses.

Class V.—Lamp Shells(Brachiopoda). These worms are marine, and form a bivalve shell, the valves being on either side of the body. The body has long arms on one side of the mouth, which bear fringes; the motion of the fringes draws food into the mouth. They are also used in respiration. But few species of the Brachiopods are now living, though they were once very plenty.

Class VI.—Annelidæ.This last class includes the leeches, a flat worm, whose body is divided into segments; the earth or angleworm, a familiar worm of many segments, and the marine worms. Each segment of the latter bears clusters of bristles, used in swimming.

Mollusca(soft). General characteristics—Mollusks, a numerous branch of the animal kingdom, are so called from the softness of their bodies, which usually have no internal skeleton or framework to support them. They are covered with a tough, muscular skin, and generally protected by a shell. They have a gangliated nervous system, in some cases well developed, the medullary[6]mass not enclosed in a cranium or spinal column—of which they are mostly destitute—but distributed more or less irregularly through the body. They have hearts, and an imperfect circulative system, the blood being pale or blueish. Some breathe in air, some in fresh, more in sea water. Some—both of those on land and those in water—are naked, others have a calcareous covering or shell. The larger marine mollusks are often guarded by very strong, heavy shells. Some are viviparous, others oviparous, and multiply rapidly.

SNAIL.

Three general, and many subdivisions are recognized. The total number of living species is said to exceed twenty thousand, of which only a few can be mentioned. The classes under this division areLamellibranchiata,Gasteropoda, andCephalopoda. The chief representatives of the first class are all ordinary bivalves.

Ostrea(oysters) are well known bivalve mollusks. The shells are so irregular in surface and shape that it would be impossible, as it is unnecessary, to describe them. The animal itself is very simple in structure, proverbially stupid, low in the scale of animal life, but highly esteemed as a delicious article of food. They are found in almost all seas, and in water of from two to six fathoms, but never very far from some shore. They multiply so rapidly that, though the consumption increases with the increase of population and the facilities for distributing them, the supply is equal to the demand. Boston is mostly supplied from artificial beds, and the flats or shallow bays in the vicinity of our maritime cities abound in such “plants.” Baltimore and New York have each an immense local trade, and the oysters exported from the Chesapeake Bay fisheries amount to about $25,000,000 annually.

Class II.—Gasteropoda(stomach-footed). This class, including the great snail family, is a very large division of terrestrial, air-breathing mollusks. Their light shells vary much in form; when spiral and fully developed they have as many as five or six whorls, symmetrically arranged. Theshell can contain the whole body, but the animal often partially crawls out and carries the shell on its back. The locomotion is slow and accomplished by the contractile muscle of the ventral foot.

Class III.—The Cephalopoda(head-footed) have distinctly formed heads, large, staring eyes, mouths surrounded with tentacles or feelers, symmetrically formed bodies wrapped in a muscular covering; they have all the five senses, and are carnivorous. This class is entirely marine, and breathes through gills on the side of the body. The nakedCephalopodaare numerous, and furnish food for many other animals. Those living in chambered shells, once numerous, are now known principally by their fossils, the pearlyNautilus(sailor) being their only living representative. This has a smooth, pearly shell, and is much prized as an ornament. It is a native of the Indian Ocean, dwelling in the deep places of the sea, and at the bottom. The shell is too well known to need description, and but few specimens of the living animal have been obtained.

NAUTILUS.

The following facts as to the physical organization and habits of this interesting species of univalves are gleaned from the American Cyclopædia, and given for those who have not access to any extensive work on the subject; they were mostly copied for the Cyclopædia from Professor Owen’s celebrated memoir, and the “Proceedings of the Linnæan Society of London:”

The posterior portion of the body containing the viscera is soft, smooth and adapted to the anterior chamber of the shell; the anterior portion is muscular, including the organs of sense and locomotion, and can be drawn within the shell. The mantle is very thin behind, and prolonged through the calcareous tube of the occupied chamber as a membranous siphon, and through all the divisions of the shell to the central nucleus; on the upper part of the head is a broad, triangular, muscular hood, protecting the head when retracted and used as a foot for creeping at the bottom of the sea, with the shell uppermost. … The mouth has two horny mandibles, like the beak of a parrot reversed, the lower overlapping the upper, moving vertically, and implanted in thick, muscular walls. … There are ninety tentacles about the labial processes and head. The internal cartilaginous skeleton is confined to the lower surface of the head, a part of the cephalic nervous system being protected in a groove on its upper surface, and the two great muscles which fasten the body to the shell are attached to it. The funnel is very muscular and is the principal organ of free locomotion, the animal being propelled backward by the reaction of the ejected respiratory current against the water before it. … The nautilus, though the lowest of the Cephalopods, offers a nearer approach to the vertebrate animals than does any other invertebrate, in the perfect symmetry of the organs, the larger proportion of muscle, the increased bulk and concentration of the nervous centers in and near the head, and in the cartilaginous cephalic skeleton. The mature nautilus occupies but a small part of the shell, the parts progressively vacated during its growth are one after another partitioned off by their smooth plates into air tight chambers, the plates growing from the circumference toward the center, and pierced by the membranous siphon. The young animal before the formation of these chambers can not rise from the bottom of the sea, but the older ones come to the surface by the expansion and protrusion of their bodies producing a slight vacuum in the posterior part of the chamber unoccupied, and, some say, by the exhalation of some light gas into the other deserted chambers. They rise in the water as a balloon does in the air, because lighter than the element surrounding them. They float on the surface with the shell upward, and sink quickly by reversing it. By a nice adjustment, in the completed structure, between the air chambers and the dwelling chamber, the house and its inhabitant are nearly of the same specific gravity as water. … In parts of the Southern Pacific, at certain seasons of the year, fleets of these little ships are carried by the winds and currents to the island shores, where they are captured and used for food.

ARGONAUT.

The Paper Nautilus, or argonaut, secretes a thin, unchambered shell in which its eggs are carried; has tentacles or arms with which it crawls on the bottom, and swims backward, usually with the back down, squirting water through its breathing funnel. The argonaut differs from the true nautilus in having larger arms of more complicated structure, with sucker discs, and partially connected by a membrane at the base. It has an ink gland and sac, for its secretion. It has a great number of little cells, containing pigment matter of different colors, whose contractions and expansions give it a remarkable power of rapidly changing its tints. There is no internal shell, and it is ascertained that the external shell is peculiar to the female, and is only an incubating and protective nest for the eggs. The eggs are attached to the involuted spire of the shell, behind and beneath the body of the female. From the fact that the animal has no muscular or other attachment to its shell, and has been known, after quitting it, to survive sometime without attempting to return, the argonaut has been supposed to be a parasitic occupant of the cast off shell of another, but is now pretty clearly proved to be the architect of its own shell, which it also repairs when broken by the agency of its palmated arms. It is said the argonaut rises to the surface, with the shell upward, turning it downward when it floats on the water; by drawing the six arms within the shell and placing the palmated ones on the outside, it can quickly sink. This explains why the animal is so seldom taken with the shell. The shell is flexible when in water, but very fragile when dry. The largest known specimen is in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History; it is 10 by 6½ inches. For a full account of this animal see “Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History,” vol. v, pp. 369-381.

End of Required Reading for April.

BY COLEMAN E. BISHOP.

Extremes of life meet in a great city. “Man, the pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,” here swings between the utmost extremes of squalor and splendor, misery and enjoyment, sin and virtue. That conflict between good and evil—old as the human soul, its arena—is waged nowhere as fiercely as here, where life is intense and assailable souls are legion. You have to go but a little below the surface of city life to find a worse than Dante’s “Inferno;” and if that were the whole story, if there were no compensating charities, one would feel it a mercy to call down on the city the desolation, and the peace of Sodom.

But, thank God! therearethose redeeming, reforming influences to give one new hope for civilization, new faith in humanity, or new faith in divine grace. Its missions and charities are the sunny side of New York. There are over one hundred and thirty established missions in the city, with a million and a half of dollars permanently invested, beside the other millions required to support them; and the eleemosynary and relief institutions of New York outshine the charities of all other cities, proportioned to numbers. Some liberal, devout souls seem to be looking after every conceivable phase of suffering and sin, and if the devil seems generally to be getting the advantage, let us believe that it is because his antagonists are not more numerous, rather than because he is any smarter or attends more strictly to business. Indeed, the ingenuity of some of the foes of sin, might put to confusion the proverbial originality of the great adversary. Of these exceptional efforts, perhaps there is none more unique than the work of the late Jerry McAuley, nor one that has wrought so great results with so little human aid; nor one to which the Christian believer can point as a testimony of divine agency with greater confidence.

Yet, a thoughtful study of the man and his work will reveal the rationale of it, and help us to understand why it took hold of a certain class in the way it did; that is, why he proved so exact a means to that exact end. The characteristics and training that made Jerry McAuley a successful criminal made him, when his nature and purpose had been transformed, a successful missionary. The son of a counterfeiter, he was educated in the worst streets and dens, graduated a tippler and petty thief in his boyhood, and took his degrees of gambler, drunkard, burglar and wharf rat; and at the age of nineteen was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment. Short and inglorious career of sin! To be followed by a long and glorious one of righteousness, and crowned at last with a triumphant death in faith! Here for seven years he hardened under perfunctory gospel ministrations and prison discipline, until at the right time Orville Gardner, known as “Awful Gardner, the Reformed Prize-fighter,” found Jerry and led him to that change which he always called his “transformation.” He was pardoned out, only to meet the killing, chilling reception that society gives to one who has passed the bars. Now followed seven years of struggles for an honest life. Only his soul and its Maker know what these were. At one time he relapsed into his old ways, but he was sought and reclaimed by agents of the Howard (“Five Points”) Mission. Strange, is it not, that good people are so much more alert to recall the fallen than to aid the struggling and keep the rescued secure? Why is it that interest in the unfortunate is deferred till interest seems useless?

Jerry now conceived the plan of a mission to people of his own old life, men and women tempted in all points like unto himself. He applied for advice and help to one or two clergymen and some wealthy church members, only to meet with mortifying coldness or refusal. We can readily understand this caution, considering McAuley’s antecedents and qualifications. He could hardly read and write his own name. Churches are so fiercely criticised that they have to be very chary about espousing unpromising enterprises. It was anaturalcaution if not aChristiancharity; worldly if not spiritual wisdom. Besides, are there not still things that He hides from the wise and prudent, and reveals unto babes? At length, McAuley found men able and willing to help, and with their aid he opened his Water Street Mission, in 1872. This situation is one of the worst in the lower part of the city, in the “Bloody Eighth Ward,” the haunt of river thieves, sailors and abandoned women of the lowest degree. It was a “rum start,” indeed, to the denizens of Water Street when one of their leaders was graduated from prison to prayer meeting; and by scores they “came to scoff, and remained to pray.” This mission was a success from the start, and to-day remains in full tide of beneficent operation.

Two years ago Jerry was able to carry out his long-entertained desire to “do something for up-town sinners” by the establishment of the “Cremorne Mission.” It was a more daring undertaking because it had to do with more respectable sinners. He said it was a mistake to speak of those in the gutter as “hard cases;” their pride and reliance are gone, and they are not likely to be affronted or resistant when told they need a Savior; the prosperous and successful are the hard hearted; as you ascend the scale in means, intelligence and pretension, the harder the sinner becomes.

On West Thirty-Second Street, just off Third Avenue, was the infamous Cremorne Gardens, one of the most dangerous becausenotone of the lowest resorts of abandoned men and women. In this vicinity are many houses of ill repute of the higher rank; gamblers and sporting men have their “runways” in that part of the city. Jerry “carried the war into Africa” by leasing a building next the “Cremorne Garden,” so that in all respects the sad satire of DeFoe was and is reversed,

“Wherever God erects a house of prayerThe Devil always builds a chapel there;And ’twill be found upon examinationThe latter has the larger congregation.”

“Wherever God erects a house of prayer

The Devil always builds a chapel there;

And ’twill be found upon examination

The latter has the larger congregation.”

The passenger by the elevated railroad, or one of the several street car lines that converge at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Broadway, may see any evening a brilliant prismatic sign of “Cremorne Garden,” and seemingly just above it this more brilliant legend:

Jerry McAuley’s Cremorne Mission.

He will reach the Mission first, as he approaches this strange conjunction of stars; Jerry said he wanted the Lord to have the first chance at a sinner when he could.

The doors are open night and day, and some one is always there to welcome the visitor. A “protracted meeting” is held here all the year, and all the years, around. Going in, you stand in a long, narrow hall, with high ceilings modestly decorated; an aisle down the middle flanked by rows of oaken settees terminates at a low platform on which are chairs, a cheap desk, and a grand piano. The place seats five or six hundred. The hall is brilliant with electric lights, and the walls are illustrious with such Scripture quotations as, in the words of one of the converts, have been found most apt to “fetch ’em”—i. e., sinners. By the platform are conspicuous notices that speeches are limited to one minute each, a rule that is easily enforced in the case of the converts, because they have only facts to tell, and do not seem to be in love with that sweetest music on earth,the sound of their own voices. “One minute each,” Jerry would say: “Don’t be too long; cut off both ends and give us the middle; you need not get mad, as some people have done, if I ring this bell.” “All right,” replied one easy speaker; “If I get long-winded pull me down by my coat tails;” whereat all laughed heartily, as they frequently do.

Jerry McAuley’s method, first and last, was unique, but simple and very effective. Testimonies are the great reliance. They teach salvation by object lessons, prove the truth of conversion by concrete examples. There is no argument, no exhortation, no didactics, no theological disquisition. What need of these in the presence of these living examples? A man stands up and says: “For twenty years I was a common drunkard and thief. Five years ago I found Christ here. I have not touched a drop nor stolen a thing since.” McAuley was won byproof. He said: “It was a testimony that brought me. I was ‘sent up’ for fifteen years and six months; I listened to preaching there for over seven years, but I was still unmoved. Then a man came along who gave his experience. He had been a wicked man. That man told just my history; but he was saved, and since there was hope for a desperate man like him, I knew there was hope for me. And there was! Now you have heard the biggest debtor to grace that is in the room, let the next heaviest debtor follow me.” Others were won by the undeniable transformation of Jerry. These things were irresistible. Men describe the effect on themselves of these living witnesses:

“The Bible reading and the prayer did not have any effect upon me, but the testimonies of some who had been, as I could not help admitting to myself, just as I then was, did affect me. I felt that I was in the same boat as they had been in. The conviction of my state forced itself upon me, whether I wanted to think of it or not.”“I came to this meeting three weeks ago. I was drunk when I came in here, but drunk as I was, those testimonies, such as you have heard to-night, reached me, and I went forward to those chairs. There I gave my heart to Christ after serving the devil forty-seven years.”“When I first heard the testimonies here I thought those who spoke had great impudence to tell all about their past lives, but by and by I felt that they were describing my case. Then, as they told how Jesus saved them, I felt I needed to be saved.”“As testimony after testimony was given I would say to myself: that’s me, that’s me.”Another said that the prayer and Bible reading did not affect him, but the testimonies were “like shot after shot fired at him.”

“I came to this meeting three weeks ago. I was drunk when I came in here, but drunk as I was, those testimonies, such as you have heard to-night, reached me, and I went forward to those chairs. There I gave my heart to Christ after serving the devil forty-seven years.”

“When I first heard the testimonies here I thought those who spoke had great impudence to tell all about their past lives, but by and by I felt that they were describing my case. Then, as they told how Jesus saved them, I felt I needed to be saved.”

“As testimony after testimony was given I would say to myself: that’s me, that’s me.”

Another said that the prayer and Bible reading did not affect him, but the testimonies were “like shot after shot fired at him.”

These effects are driven home and clinched by direct personal efforts with penitents, by attentions that follow them to their homes or shops, or into evil haunts, by relief and creature comforts—in a word, by an interest vigilant, ceaseless, and tender as divine love, because inspired by it.

As the method is peculiar, the atmosphere of the meeting is. One familiar with ordinary devotional meetings, and, more, with revival efforts, can not fail to notice here the contrast. Speaking is uniformly in an ordinary tone, and in a conversational, matter-of-fact manner—an effect that is heightened by the use of phrases common in the resorts where some of the converts learned their vernacular. And prayer is specially subdued and low toned—the more impressive and reverential on account of it.

Then, one feels the momentum of the exercises and the tone of cheerfulness and joy that prevail. There is none of that exhortation to “improve the precious time;” none of that dismal bewailing of spiritual barrenness and besetting doubts, fears and temptations, which sometimes make devotional exercises mechanical and dreary, and furnish stumbling-blocks to young believers. These converts do not dwell much on theirenjoymentof religion; albeit, they do one and all give thanks without ceasing for their deliverance. One notes, too, the absence of cant, of quotations and set phrases; everything is original. There is little exhortation of others. In short, like Bartimeas, they know “Whereas Iwasblind,nowI see;” and unlike the blind man, they know who worked the miracle.

It was the founder and leader of the two missions who gave all this tone to their services. He was of a medium height and slender, with a heavy, wiry moustache, keen eyes, a nervous temperament, energetic, quick-witted, sympathetic; one readily caught good feeling and confraternity from his presence. He would flash out at a hymn, a text, or a testimony, with a bit of experience. Before two sentences had passed his lips he probably would leap down from his place on the platform, saying, humorously: “I can’t talk up on that stage,” and go down the aisle as if to hold pleasant converse with his audience. It was a strangemelangeof earnestness, experience, humility and wit, with not the least attempt at eloquence, and apparently no study of effects. He describes one case of conversion:

“This man had come into the meeting with his head about twice the usual size, and his eyes as red as a red-hot poker. You could have squeezed the rum out of him. He asked me to pray with him, but I hadn’t much faith in the man, but that’s just where God disappointed me. I was deceived. The man meant business.”

The missions are supported entirely by voluntary contributions left in the boxes by the door. Sometimes these run low. One night Jerry asked all who were glad to be there to hold up their hands. All hands up. “Now,” said he, “when you take your hands down put them way down—down into your pockets, and fetch something out to put in the boxes by the door.” He said, that to run a mission successfully required “grace, grit and greenbacks.” I fancy considerable of his influence was due to his knowledge of the secret hearts, the personal experiences of his auditors; he was like a priest at confessional, when out of meeting. There are noverbatimreports of his talks extant, and if there were they would give the reader no proper idea of the man, because the grotesqueness of his language would probably be the most striking feature of them. He must have been heard to be understood, and even then I think he could not have been understood save by those whose experience and modes of life gave them the touchstone.

Sister Maggie is a typical convert. At one of the Cremorne missions a Sunday-school worker from the East Side told of his class of fifteen street boys and girls. “I asked them,” he said, “how many of them drank beer, and all promptly put up their hands. I asked how many thought it a bad practice, and only four or five responded. I then told them of the evils that drink led to, and cited them numerous examples within their knowledge, and finally asked how many of them would resolve never to drink any more beer. About half of them kept their hands down, and in a way that showed they meant business.”

This discouraging incident brought to her feet, on the platform, a tall, thick-set, strong-featured woman. She spoke with a strident, energetic voice, a Bowery accent, and a manner to which all thought of shrinking or embarrassment was a stranger. It was Sister Maggie. She said, as nearly as I recall the words: “This teaching children beer-drinking is the beginning of all the deviltry. I was passing a dive yesterday and I saw a little kid come out with a pail of beer that she had been sent for, and no sooner was she outside the door than the pail went to her head. That’s the way I used to do, and learned to drink and steal at the same time. But God can help us to reclaim even beings so badly educated. He helped me, and there can’t be a worse case on the East Side. There is not a dive over there that I haven’t been drunk in. Brother S. knows how often I have drank with him at old C.’s dead-house (rum-shop). Sixteen years ago I was a leper, a confirmed sot. If you had seen me you would not have believed that I could have been saved. Christians said I was too far gone; they said there was not enough woman left in me to be saved. I had had the jim-jams twicet. [Laughter.] The first time I had ’em I thought my back hair was full of mice—oh, that was awful! [More laughter.] I was just getting over the tremens when I first come in here. I was a walking rag-shop, and if you’d aseen me you’d give me plenty of room on the walk. I staggered in and sat down on the very backest seat. Now they let me sit up here on the platform. What d’ye think of that? God helped me, and he has helped me now for sixteen years, and I am going through. I am happy. I have friends and good clothes, and more than all, I havea good home, and that is what I never knew before.”

At the mention of the word “home,” all the woman’s instinct asserted itself, and for the first time her voice softened, and her manner melted; she sobbed, and sat down.

I can give no complete idea of the effect of this, because the reader can know nothing of the surroundings, the antecedents of the speaker and of many of her listeners, and the keen rapport that ties them together. These worshipers are a class and an organization by themselves; they have no church affiliations, and their worship issui generis; many of them were outcasts of society in former years, they stand alone since their reformation, and they are drawn close together in their isolation. True, there are many among them who were always respectable members of society; many who since their conversion here have joined churches; there are richly dressed and cultured-looking people scattered in these audiences; but the fact remains that the genius and distinctivepersonnelof the meetings are of the order of which Jerry McAuley and “Sister Maggie” and their ministrations are representatives.

I know of no religious exercises better calculated to inspire the true religious feelings of faith, charity, humility, gratitude, and rejoicing—the distinguishing marks of the original Christian following. But they differ from the noisy demonstrations which sometimes are taken for “primitive Christianity,” as they do from the cold and conventional worship which advertises itself in brownstone structures and double-barred mahogany pews. If one wants to get a breath of vigorous faith and wholesome humility, he should attend the Sunday evening services at one of the McAuley Missions.

Jerry McAuley died suddenly, but not unexpectedly, last September. His funeral, held at the great Broadway Tabernacle, was one of the largest ever seen in this city, and was attended by hundreds of abandoned characters who had been reclaimed through his instrumentality, and who were probably never inside of a church before, and may never be again. Women with painted faces, but with tears in their eyes and bits of crape fastened at their throats or arms, stood with downcast heads beside other women who, under other circumstances, would have shunned them. Thus did all classes testify to the power of simple faith and devotion in a poor, uncultured outcast. Over the platform in his chapels are his last, characteristic words:

“IT’S ALL RIGHT.”

“The workman dies, but the work goes on.” There is no calculating the power and extent of the influences this humble worker has set in motion. Beside the hundreds of living examples of his labor here, the seed has scattered to the four winds of heaven, and sprung up in various forms to bless the world—in other cities and other lands. The Missions publishJerry McAuley’s Newspaper, which, extensively circulated, especially in prisons and “the slums” of cities, carries the glad tidings of the testimonies to do a silent and unknown work. An affecting feature of the private work of these converts is their efforts to hunt out and reclaim missing boys and girls. Letters are received from agonized parents, from distant points as well as the city, imploring the help of missionaries to find these estrays; and their efforts are often successful.

I close with one example of this radiating, ramifying influence: Michael Dunn was an English thief by inheritance, for his parents were thieves, and as he expresses it, “he had thieving on the brain.” He had spent the greater part of thirty-five years in different prisons, and continued the same life after coming to this country. One evening an unconverted man sent him into the McAuley Mission as a joke, but it proved to Dunn a blessing, for he found a Savior, and the desire for stealing was all cast out. He was moved to undertake that most important work, the provision of a home for refuge and work for his brother ex-convicts. After many trials and difficulties he finally established the Home of Industry, No. 40 Houston Street, New York, where many lost men who were a terror to society, have been made honest Christian citizens, and are working to save others. Nor did the work stop here. In the autumn of 1883, Dunn was called to San Francisco, California, to open a similar Home in that city, where his labors are as successful as they were in New York.

TRANSLATION OF LUTHER’S FAMOUS HYMN.

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