Page:The Story of the Jubilee Singers (7th).djvu/84

 Sitting by his window at the hotel in Hull on Sunday evening, and noting the tide of people flowing idly by, Mr. White proposed an extempore religious service for their benefit. Taking the base of the King William monument as a platform, Mr. Pike preached and the Singers sang of the love of Christ, to a crowd that filled the street farther than the voice of either speaker or singer could be heard. Tears trickled down the cheeks of many to whom the sound of prayer or religious song was apparently almost unknown.

In Scarborough, a free concert yielded a collection of about £90, and on Sunday the Singers sang, in a heavy rain, to a Sunday-school gathering of four thousand people on the green. At Newcastle, Rev. H. T. Robjohns had so thoroughly worked up the public interest that every seat was sold before it was time for the concert to commence. At Sunderland, Moody and Sankey had been holding meetings not long before, at the beginning of what afterwards became such a famous work, and the special interest thus awakened in religious song prepared the way for the Singers. Hon. J. Candlish, M.P., presided, the ministers of the different denominations were advertised as patrons, and the large Victoria Hall was filled before many who wished to attend could obtain admission.

Lord Shaftesbury, with characteristic kindness and foresight, had given the Singers a cordial letter of introduction to his friend, John Burns, Esq., of the Cunard Steamship Line, at Glasgow. Mr. Burns's sympathies were at once awakened, and he arranged