Part 4

“Gipsy Smith,” he said, “I don’t know what you will do; the boys in the billets this week are the Munsters—Irish Roman Catholics. You would have got on all right last week; we had the York and Lancasters.”

“Do you think they will come to the meetings?”

“I don’t know,” he replied; “they come for everything else! They come for their smokes, candles, soap, buttons—bachelor’s buttons—postcards, and everything else they want. But whether they will come for the religious part, I don’t know.”

“Well,” I said, “we can but try.”

It was about midday when we were talking, and the meeting was to be at 6.30.

“Have you got a boy who could write a bill for me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve got a boy who could do that all right.”

“Print it on green paper,” said I.

Why not? They were the Munsters. Why shouldn’t we use our heads? People think mighty hard in business, why shouldn’t we think in the religious world?

“Just say this and nothing more,” I said.

“‘Gipsy Smith will give a talk in the Hut to-night at 6.30. Subject—Gipsy Life.’”

I knew that would fetch them.

At half-past six the hut was crowded with eight hundred Munsters. If you are an old angler, indeed if you know anything at all about angling, you know that you have got to consider two or three things if you are to stand any chance of a catch. You have got to study your tackle, you have got to study your bait, you have got to study the habits of your fish. When the time came to begin that meeting, one of the workers said,

“Shall I bring the box of hymn-books out?”

“No, no,” I replied; “that’s the wrong bait.”

Those Munster boys knew nothing about hymn-books. We preachers have got to come off our pedestals and not give our hearers what we want, but the thing that will catch them. If a pretty, catchy Sankey hymn will attract a crowd, why shouldn’t we use it instead of an anthem? If a brass band will catch them, why shouldn’t we play it instead of an organ?

“Keep back those hymn-books,” I said. “They know nothing about hymn-books.” I had a pretty good idea of what would have happened if those hymn-books had been produced at the start.

I got on that platform, and I looked at those eight hundred Munsters and said, “Boys, are we down-hearted?”

“No,” they shouted.

You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting “No” sounds like. They were all attention instantly. I wonder what would happen if the Vicar went into church next Sunday morning and asked the question, “Are we down-hearted?” I knew it would cause a sensation, but I’d rather have a sensation than a stagnation.

Those boys sat up. I said, “We are going to talk about gipsy life.” I talked to them about the origin of my people. There’s not a man living in the world who knows the origin of my people. I can trace my people back to India, but they didn’t come from India. We are one of the oldest races in the world, so old that nobody knows how old. I talked to them about the origin of the gipsies, and I don’t know it, but I knew more about it than they did. I talked to them about our language, and I gave them specimens of it, and there I was on sure ground. It is a beautiful language, full of poetry and music. Then I talked about the way the gipsies get their living—and other people’s; and for thirty minutes those Munsters hardly knew if they were on the chairs or on the floor—and I purposely made them laugh. They had just come out of the hell of the trenches. They had that haunted, weary, hungry look, and if only I could make them laugh and forget the hell out of which they had just climbed it was religion, and I wasn’t wasting time.

When I had been talking for thirty minutes, I stopped, and said, “Boys, there’s a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?”

“Yes,” they shouted.

“Come back to-morrow,” I said.

I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are hungry they will come back for more. For six nights I told those boys gipsy stories. I took them out into the woods. We went out amongst the rabbits. I told the boys the rabbits got very fond of me—so fond that they used to go home with me! I took them through the clover-fields on a June day and made them smell the perfume. I took them among the buttercups. I told them it was the Finger of Love and the Smile of Infinite Wisdom that put the spots upon the pansy and the deep blue in the violet. And then we went out among the birds and we saw God taking songs from the lips of a seraph and wrapping them round with feathers.

And the boys saw Jesus in every buttercup and every primrose, and every little daisy, and in every dewdrop, and heard something of the song of the angels in the notes of the nightingale and the skylark. Oh! Jesus was there, and they felt Him, and they saw Him. I took them amongst the gipsy tents, amongst the woodlands and dells of the old camping-grounds. They walked with Him and they talked with Him. I didn’t use the usual Church language, but I used the language of God in Nature and the boys heard Him.

Towards the end of the week one of those Munster boys came and touched me and said, “Your Riverence! Your Riverence!” he says. “You’re a gentleman.”

I knew I had got that boy.