l attendant by the lake-side
tells me that the gathering has not been so large as usual. The young
Orientals--as is the custom of their race--love sunshine. They get
little enough of it, Heaven knows. The next bright Sunday morning, any
one who happens to be awake between the hours mentioned, and who would
like to add to his experiences of metropolitan existence, may do a worse
thing, and see many a less pleasant sight, than if he hailed a hansom
and drove by the principal entrance of Victoria Park to our Eastern
Bath.

CHAPTER XXI.

AMONG THE QUAKERS.

There is no more engaging or solemn subject of contemplation than the
decay of a religious belief. Right or wrong, by that faith men have
lived and died, perhaps for centuries; and one cannot see it pass out
from the consciousness of humanity without something more than a cursory
thought as to the reasons of its decadence. Being led by exceptional
causes to take a more than common interest in those forms of belief
which lie beyond the pale of the Church of England, I was attracted by a
notice in the public journals that on the following morning the Society
of Friends would assemble from all parts of England and open a
Conference to inquire into the causes which had brought about the
impending decay of their body. So, then, the fact of such decay stood
confessed. In most cases the very last persons to realize the unwelcome
truth are those who hold the doctrines that are becoming effete.
Quakerism must, I felt, be in a very bad condition indeed when its own
disciples called together a conference to account for its passing away.
Neither men nor communities, as a rule, act crowner's 'quest on their
own decease. That faith, it was clear, must be almost past praying for
which, disbelieving, as our modern Quietism does, the efficacy of
assemblies, and trusting all to the inward illumination of individuals,
should yet summon a sort of Quaker Oecumenical Council. I thought I
should like to probe this personal light myself, and by inquiring of one
or two of the members of the body, learn what they thought of the
matter. I was half inclined to array myself in drab, and _tutoyer_ the
first of the body I chanced to encounter in my walks abroad. But then it
occurred to me how very seldom one did meet a Quaker nowadays except in
the "month of Maying." I actually had to cast about for some time before
I could select from a tolerably wide and heterogeneous circle of
acquainta