minals and
dotes on vice, she bustles about the reformation of confirmed topers.
By-and-bye she will get up a mission to lunatics and idiots. She is
now a very "forward" person. Forward movements are the rage in all the
churches. But Methodism bears the palm, though Presbyterianism threatens
to run it hard in the person of John McNeill. Hugh Price Hughes is a
very smart showman. When truth is stale he is ready with a bouncing lie,
and has "face" enough to keep it up in five chapters. But the West-End
Mission is getting rather tame. The dukes and duchesses are not yet
converted. Money is spent like water and the aristocracy still go to
Hades. A new move is tried. The "forward" Methodists organise a Mission
to Epsom, Jesus Christ goes to the Derby; that is, he goes by proxy,
in the person of Mr. Nix. A van, a tent, and a big stock of pious
literature, with mackintoshes and umbrellas, form his equipment. He
is accompanied by a band of workers. Their rules are to be up for
prayer-meeting at seven in the morning, and "never to look at any race,
or jockey, or horse." This is a precaution against the Old Adam. It
saves the Mission from going over to the enemy on the field of battle.

Mr. Nix gives an account of his performance in the _Methodist Times_. He
converted a lot of people. So has Hugh Price Hughes. "At one time," he
says, "there were three Church of England clergymen and their wives and
some distinguished members of the aristocracy in the tent"--probably
out of the wet. Of course _they_ were not converted. But what a pity!
A "converted clergyman" would have been a glorious catch, worth five
thousand pounds at St. James's Hall. And fancy bagging a duke! It was
enough to make Mr. Nix's mouth water. He must have felt some of the
agony of Tantalus. He was up to the neck, so to speak, in lords and
parsons, and could not grasp one. Dissenting ministers and their
wives did not show up. Naturally. They would not go to such a naughty
place--except in a mission van. Mr. Nix has a keen eye for the Methodist
business. He has open and sly digs at the Church clergy. One of the
tipsters said his father was a clergyman, but "his religion was no good
to him." He would give anything for the religion of "the little chap
that stood on the stool." That was Mr. Nix.

We suspect the Epsom races will outlast Mr. Nix. There is more boast
than performance about Missions. Christianity is always converting
drunkards, profligates, prostitutes, a