ts. What I meant was, that, while we give hundreds of
pounds to foreign missions, pence are grudged for home work! There's
the Society for the Conversion of the Jews, for instance, to which I
have sometimes to give up my pulpit. Now, I dare say, it is a very
meritorious society, but how many Jews does it gain over really to
Christianity in return for the large sums that its travelling
secretaries collect every year?"

"These travelling secretaries," said I, "are what the _Saturday Review_
would call `spiritual bagmen,' or `commercial travellers in the
missionary line.'"

"And not very far out, either," said the vicar, smiling. "They are paid
a salary, at all events, if they do not get a commission, to beg as much
money as they can for the society to which they belong; and they do
their work well, too! They succeed in carrying off an amount of money
from poor parishes, which if laid out in the places where it is
garnered, instead of being devoted to alien expenditure, would do far
more good, and better advance the work of the Gospel than the conversion
of a few renegade Jews, whose reclamation is, in the majority of cases,
but a farce!"

"But, my dear sir!"--exclaimed Mr Mawley, completely shocked at this
overturning of all his prejudices.

"Hear me out," continued the vicar; "you must not misunderstand me. I'm
not opposed to the principles of missions; but, to their being promoted
to the disregard of all other considerations. Saint Paul says that we
should do good to all, and especially to such as are `of the household
of faith.' Our missionary societies never seem to consider this. The
endless number of charity sermons that we have to preach for their aid,
not only extracts too much of what should be spent for the benefit of
our own special communities, but militates against our getting
contributions to other works of greater utility. Our congregations
become so deadened by _these_ repeated onslaughts on their benevolence,
that they button up their pockets and respond in only a half-hearted way
when we claim their assistance for _our own_ poor and parish. Let us, I
say, look at home first, and reclaim the lost, the fallen, the destitute
in our streets; let us convert our own `heathen,'--our murderers, our
drunkards, our wife-beaters, our thieves, our adulterers; and, _then_,
let us talk of converting Hindoos and regenerating the Jews! Our duty,
Mawley, as I hold my commission, is to preach Christ's gosp