Page:Distinguished Churchmen.djvu/358

 3 io DISTINGUISHED CHURCHMEN

life we corresponded almost every week, for she took the liveliest interest in every detail of the parish work, and in all sorts of people whom she knew only by name, and she remembered all about them and asked after them continually. And in money matters well, she would manage to find out when we were going to be badly off and send us ;ioo or 200. When she died some years ago, at the age of eighty-nine, I felt I had lost the best friend I ever had in my life.&quot;

&quot; But what did you find the people in the East End most in need of?&quot;

&quot; Well, they really stood in need of many things, but the strange part about it was that they were quite indifferent indifferent to religion, indifferent to most things of interest to people in better surroundings. If we began our morning service at St Augustine s with six people and ended up with twelve we thought it rather well. There would be about fifty present in the evening. The services, when I came, consisted of matins, sermon and celebration at n a.m., evensong and sermon at seven, on Sundays ; and on Wednesdays, even song and sermon at eight o clock, followed by baptisms and a short choir practice. The rest of the week the church was locked. There had also been an early celebration on the first Sunday in the month. The first alterations, of course, were to have an early celebration every Sunday, and to say matins and evensong every day, and

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