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FRC 1 was speaking same time ago on this subject, and there were several small children in the audience. I begun by asking the children to tell me if they knew what a Gypsy was. One little fellow raised hi* hand and- said* ~*Pleaae sir, a Gypsy, is a wild man." Another little feliow said, "A Gypsy is a wanderer." A little girl said "A Gypsy ie> a fortune teller." Another boy said, **Plgase sir, a Gypsy is a loafer." / And still another boy said,^Please, sir, a Gypsy is a man ^v. wlu i??'lij- ? ?amiras KIOI." I \htw are as near as we know be?V J^een three and four millions of Gyp. ???/ies in the world today. In England yP We have between, thirty and forty thousand. Just think of living in a community with forty thousand people with no Bibles, ho schools, no preachers and no teachers! And if you can imagine that, then yoir will know something of the condition of the Gypsy people in England up to a few years ago. People often ask me, . "Where do the Gypsies come from?" Nobody knows. There is not a scholar in the world today who can tell us exactly the origin of the Gypsy race, y Encyclopedias differ,, but we are not so much concerned where we came from, as to where we %re going, dome people seem to think that- they* originally came from Egypt, others that they came from India, but they cannot' preve it. We believe that the . Gypsies are one of the lost tribes of lataair and while of course we cannot , , panvet it, yet I want to give you one 4A oi two seasons why we believe so; First'of all, there were lost tribes, amp as* yet- nobody has located them. Then if you; take a hundred of our people promiscuously, you will find that1 85- per eent of them have Bible names. My grandfather is named Cornelias; my uncle, my father's only . brother ,ia named Esekiel; my sister' a-named Rhoda Zillah, and I have a great* uncle who wae named Bartholomew; who had in his'famil- children, bp the name of Ruth, Nam d, Elisha,. , c Esekiel, and then Samson and Delilah. In the same family. Where do they gsfc Ihssa pamest Certainly not from the Bible. They could not read a BiMfcfetf they, had ctae. The Gypsies, nithrvrsad nor write. , And. do you tewe d?s ie only one race in the . C world/ toddy having xBible names in: theis. entirety, and that if the Jewish nethsu. TSmtt if*ww.are opt.Jews, wet roust have come from the country wkera'thedfr.namea Were used.^ Again: thnriSypeiesvhave no'religion, yet they hanei learned that back of the. world iaj ai first cause which controls the uni-> vease?. This fliat. cause they havei learned to ^alTCcd. They believe thati this God will punish all those who dot Wrong, and reward all thpae who dot right, and wrong ccmea from the laws> ofthei country through which they are* traveling and dictated by their own; conscience. Ami yet a Gypsy wouldl not take a-horse to the brook'on thei TTshhntti day for water if he could geti mongh oa Saturday and hold it overt MlwwMffiWUMIl out" or style in hit French coimmandant of Adriaiv Colonel Uoar, accompanied by officers, officially called on Tapir turned over to him the city and ^Mftesstern Thrace. The day pass Untoward events wars . lacking. Pull 0f Song Birds r trom the mLSnS JB* k the fact that the meetdo with him?" Moses and Aaron aid, "We do not know, but we wilt CO and ask Jehovah." And Jehovah said-, "Tike him outside the camp and atone him to death, he has broken ! ' the Sabbath day." If you ask the Let me gjve you another reason. WtSrn * Gypsy person is taken siclc we-pnt on one side for his use a plate, knife, fork and spoon, if we are iMihslii enough to possess these tMags, and when he or she recovers we destroy or bury them, they have bossiesite-the Gypsy language "chicklyf which means unclean. If a perI |^H1 v- H^B k*fl> ^B^HBHHH KM bUCILB ABERNATHY <Ht?? mrn^a^Oi9f s?lifc )M G 0 I * an?%.?%%*%%%%*x $ son diet, immediately th? body ia placed in the casket, all the bedding with th? clothoe of the deceased are either burned or the casket ia made large enough ta contain both body and clothes. We have been told that these customs werer common among the ' Jews in Palestine; Let me give, you another reason. Up to sixty years agp, when a man and woman wanted to get married, first of all they secured the consent of their parents; then the young man built for his intended a home on wheels, for his Gypsy girl does/not believe in light housekeeping, and then she would go into his tent or wagon and become his wife, just in the same way that Isaac took Rebecca into his tent and she became his wife. There is no race of people under the sun today mpre maligned or more slandered than the Gypsy race. We have- been maligned in nuveis ana sianaered on the stage, and yet W..T. Stead, who was one of the greatest editorial writers in England for the last hundred years, and who perished with the sinking of the Titanic, claimed for our people that morally we had. no peers in the world; Theodore Watt* Dunton, an English novelist and art critic, has written a book called "Aylwin," and in that book is a Gypsy character by the name of Synfal Lovell and I think he has portrayed the Gypsy character better than any other novelist that I know of. To know any nation or any class of people you must live with them and get close enough to them to find out all their traits, habits anr custims; While you have heard a great deal about the wickedness, of the Gypsy race, let me tell you one or two good things about them. I have never known "of a Gypsy committing murder, neither have I ever heard of a Gypsjf committing suicide. Did you ever hear of a Gypsy breaking into a bank or reorganising one? Becauset yon. have great names for your sinsi in the twentieth century. Did you. ever read of a Gypsy robbing widows i and orphans ? Did you eve* read of a G^psy putting bis hands in another man's pockets to keep them warm ont a winter's day? I think I can tell you something that you never heard of, pnd that is- a Gypsy peddling her virtues on the streets of any of your cities. And we have no God, and not Christ, and no schools, or teachers, or preachers, or scholars. You own everything that yon have to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, then pity those who have never hed your chance. You say the Gypsies are very wicked. Let me teli you what ' I think their worst faults are: First of alL 'hey are very profane. But the education which Americans have received hasn't helped much in that respect, for everywhere I go I hear men swearing as though they had been to hell for their education, and had the devil himself for their schoolmaster, for they have learned the language of the pit perfectly. No gentleman swears; he may call himself a gentleman, but when he swears the sign drops automatically* Rave you ever thought for a moment what God said about swearing T He said, "Thou shalt not kill," and that was enough. He said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," and that was enough, but when it came to swearing He said, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His- nam* in vain." You can always tell what kind of wheels a man has in his head by the ...1 VI- tl. Viiab vviuv uuw ui mid liiuuiu. I think their next wont fault ia their habit of drinking. Although the Gypsies are not great drinkers, yet they are* moderate drinkers j and when several families meet then the men will, sometimes go into a spree which lasts "for weeks, and then they I drink fearfully. I Their next fault, I think, is their habit of petty pilfering. You might say they are great thieves. I would not; I have a better name for it?I would call them "good finders." They never buy anything that they ean find. If" a Gypsy person 1 came across your garden and ha needed some* thing for dinner, well, he would take. He would not take very much; only enough for a'meal. He would not bother carrying it, because he knows* there is plenty more further flown the' road. He ia like his> great ancestors, he gathers his < manna daily. Occasionally they find a rope?with a horse on the end Their worst fault is- their fbrtune telling. God has said that the future is veiled from our eyes, no man.ean tell us anything of tomorrow, and when you cross a .Gypsy girl's hand with silver, to tell your fortune you are paying an ignorant woman to Ue who has naver had your chanee: Now with that little bit about the Gyps lea, let me tell you that my * ther was born in Epping Forest just outside the city of London, on the 31st of March in the year 1830, 10 you ass what he missed if he had been born the nntt day. fia was fourth of-a fhmlty of Has, all bam is s Gypsy tent. My father grew up as sweat as the birds} and as wild as the rabbits, the rabbits got an fend of Idas that they would follow him ' ' J ' " ' A v IPSY 1 \ N i f * i home sometimes when no one was looking I would like to say here that I think my father lived closer to Jesus than any man I ever knew. The Gypsies are what you would call in America, peddlers. They make clothe pins from the "Willows, and baskets from the short underbrush, and. they recane chairs. The father fa usually the manufacturer, while the mother and the children are the salespeople. The girls usually travel with a basket on their arm filled with rll kinds of notions that women need in the home. This is- very often a blind, because * Gypsy girl likes to: tell fortunes, and caw make more money telling fortunes; in an 'hour than she can make in legitimate trading a day. But let me tell you- the change that came inw oar' iamny. me eldest daughter, a beautiful girl, waa taken ill. - The Gypsy women are skilled in the use of herbs, and my grandmother gave her what local remedies she knew of, bnt she gradually got worse. One day my grandmother said to my -grandfather, "Emily is getting worse, and I dont know just what ails here, we had better' go into town and see a doctor." They pulled her into a little town by the-name of B&ldock, in Hedtfordshire, and stopped the wagon opposite a doctor's house; Will you let me describe a wagon to you T It is a complete house standing on four wheels, the steps going up to the doors through the shats. There are two large berths at the ffrther end of the wagon, and there is plenty of room for the father and mother and four children to sleep, while the children are small. When they get bigger they take a tent for the older children to sleep in. There is a little window nicely curtained on each side of the wagon, and on one side a table, and on the other side a cooking- stove with an oven to bake in. All the utensils they use are made of solid copper. The Gypsy women are superstituious, and will not UBe utensils - that are made of iron, Hn nr MlvaniiAil Tn a?o)1 nf the wagon near the door is a little china-closet frith a glass door, where the Gypsy woman keeps what possessions that she has, in the way ol china' or glass. There is a nice carpet on tha floor, and the sides and roof of the wagon inside are covered with a* thick, dark blaze to keep out the inclement weather. That is a Gypsy wagon, or as we would say in the Gypsy language, a "Romany Tan." My grandfather went up to the dooi of' the* doctor's house, rang the bell, and when the doctor came to the door he said, "What can I do for you?" My grandfather said, "I want you to come into onr wagon and sOe our ilck child." Tha doctor climbed up the stops of^the wagon and looked in through the open doer and beckoned to the tick girl to get out of the bed end come to the door, he would not go into the home, because it was only a Gypsy horn?, and who wants a Gypay; anyway? As tho sick girl stood in her night robe, with tho March biting winds playing around her, the doctor examined her and then turned ro my grandfather and said, "Get dut of the city as quickly as you can, and ge.aut beyond the city ditnita, your daughter' has the smallpox." My grandfather was only ap ignorant Gypsy, but be knew what smallpoa wen,, and he knew that it waa eon. tagious, and also that a smallpox patient ought to have the best care and the beet food possible, ha said to fbs TEN' V ' - ;V,. * If II id By Gipsy Smith REV. GIPSY SMITH doctor, "Where shall I go to, for I don't want to go too far away bo that you can't attend to my child." Then the doctor named a little by-lane a few miles outside of the city, which was a favorite camping ground of tha Gypsies, and said: "Go there and I will come this afternoon and attend to your child." My grandfather turned 'round with a heavy heart that day, and finding the old lane, pitched his tent at the end of it, and then turning to nw ?rrAnHmn*hor -?iO "v"" stay here in tha tent with the four children that are well, and I will take Emily, the akk child, and turn the wagon 'round eo that you tan nee into the open door, and we will call that the hospital, and 1 will stay there and nurse Emily tKe best I know how." When thb doctor came to see the sick girl he discovered that the eldest boy, named Ezekiel, also had the smallpox, and he was taken over the line and placed in the wagon so that my grandfather had now two patients. My grandmother would go to the village and get what food she could, and then would prepare it over the camp-fire, and carry it half way to the wagon, she would lay it on the ground, and call for her husband to come for the food. She dare not go any nearer, for the reason that she might get the dreaded disease and so take, it back to vhe other children in the tent, and as her husband would come for the food she would inquire about the sick children. Sometimes when she would rail for my grandfather there would bo no response probably he. was busy attending to the children, or perhaps he had gone for a walk, and then in the anxiety of her loving heart she would wonder if the children were worse, or if her husband was sick, too. And then she would walk up and down the lane in a distracted condition, wringing her hands and frying, "My poor children will die and I shall not bo able to go near them." You could not keep a mother very long away from her two first, born children. And unconsciously she got closer and closer 1 to the line until the day came when |t she was sick, and when the doctor was , sent for, he had to tell them the awful news that grandmother had the > smallpox, too. My grandfather was , iiow in a dilemma, for he had now to I look after both sick and wall, and he I could not keep them seperate any ; longer. So he hitched up the horses t to the wagon and pulled it alongside l of the tent, and there they lay side bj - Fide. A few days afterward a little baby was born in the home, and now , my grandfather had his wife and baby and his two eldest children all with | the smallpox. God only knows just , now he stood it. For thirty days and ( thirty nights he never took his clothes . off, and never eaw a human person | to speak to except the physician as he made his calls. I One day going into the wagon and I, .noticing how chhi his wife was get; ting and noticing the hollows in her dyes and the sunken cheeks, he tried , to smooth the clothes to make her I more comfortable, she raised herself up in bed tfffd putting her arms around , his neck, she raid, "Cornelious, I arn going to leave you soon. I want you tc promise me before I go that you will be a better father to. the children. > I want yon to promise me that you . wont Vbrink so much." Promfee frer? i - -he would have cut off Ms right arm, if he could have helped her. And then | not able to eontain himself any longer r.nd fearful of breaking down in her | presence, he ran out of the wagon ? and threw btaaelf en the ground by - ' .' w rjro i Friday Evening J?H - ' .'tv 8 I > ti bbksk p . i | 11 ( the side of the wagon, and laid there ] and sobbed like a child. When presently he was started to hear his wifa ' singing, and sho was singing this: "1 have a Father in the Promised Land. My God calls me. I mrat <"*' To meet Him in the Promised Land." My grandfather jumped op startled and asked her, "'Polly, where did you leam that?I never heard you sing that before." And she said, "When 1 was a little girl my father pitched his lent on a village green beside a church, or chape), and on the Sabbath day I saw the people going into the church. They would not let me go in, for I was only a Gypsy girl, but I sat on the doorstep and I heard them sing that song." Can you tell me just what it was that brought that song back to her in her dying moment? Would you say it was a freak of memory, or only a conscience? i should say that it was the Holy Spirit. For I think that God in His iniinite goodness looked down into that Gypsy "wagon and saw my grandmother dying in her super* stition and ignoiance, and I believe! that He sent that chorus back to her so that by the means of it she could climb out of her ignorance and out of her superstition into the Glory Land. For Christ said, "When the Comforter is come Ho will bring back to your remembrance all things." The next morning my father and his little sister wore walking hand in hand up the lane, for those little tnings were inseparable, when suddenly my father heard his name called, "Rodney, Rodney," and he turned 'round and saw his eldest sister standing in her night robe on the top step r?f the wagon, for bed could not hold her that morning, and as she waved her handkerchief she shouted, "Rodney, your mother is dead!" My father threw himself on the ground and sebbed with his boyish heart, "Rodney, you will never be like other boys any more, for you have no mother." When the undertaker came to prepare the body for the casket he said that she was a Gypsy, she must be buried at midnight; they could not have the hearse on account of the disease, co the undertaker promised to get them an old farmer's cart. There was some trouble about buying her> in the cemetery for fear that some of the parishioners would object to a Gypsy being buiied in their midst, but eventually the authorities gave their permission that she could be buried in a corner of the church yard where the sexton threw his rubbish, and all that was left of my grandmother tho next night was placed in an old farmer's mart and carried to the cemetery, as the old church steeple wtruck twelve. My grandfather followed the casttet as me oiuy mourner, ana sne was buried with the light of an old lantern, and when he came back to the camp in the early hours of the morning, he sat by the fire and cried and wondered what was going to become of his five motherless children. My grandmother's death waa the beginning of a change in the Gypsy home. My grandfather tried not to swear, and tried not to drink, so that he might not break the promise made to his wife, but he knew no power save his own will to help him, andwhen temptations came ha often broke his promise. For several weeks they traveled in a circle around the church cemetery, keeping a few miles* distant, bet not going too far away. * . PUI VIy grandfather could not bear to ;et out of sight of the church steeple. A few weeks after the death of my grandmother my father woke k up larly one morning and lifting up the lap of the tent saw, two or three niles away, the church steeple. Ho voke his little Fitter and said to her, Tillie, let's go see mother's grave. K?fore father wakes up." Those title things, hand in hand, started tcross the fieM, and when they -cached a house, just near the cemeery, they knocked at the door, and r.y father said, "Please, could you ,ell us which is mother's grave?" rhey didn't think it necessary to say vho' their mother was. They thought veryone knew their mother. The voman remembered the Gypsy fur. ral and took the children in and jave them something to eat and then lirected them to the grave. They played around it all day?with no thought ?f fcod, and plucked wild flowers and rianted them in the earth, and then at he close of the day, with darkness .fining un, ana Knowing that their !nher would be worried, not knowing vhere they had cone, they started for lome. When they got tc the gate of ;he cemetery my father turned to his lister and said, "Tillie, isn't there lomething more that we can do for uothfcr?" And then like a flash he .urned 'round and started back for the frave. When h% found it he knelt iown on the cold earth, and, taking )ff his little cap. he took out of the lapel of his cout, a little stickpin :.hat some maid had given him when ie had called to sell his wares, not worth much, but certainly the only ;hing of value that he ever possessed is a boy, and sticking the pin into the ;arth, he looked up to the sky and iaid, "There, mother, I have given you all I have in the world, I have given you my stickpin." My father wore in those days a smocked cloak. It waa a loose slip that fell over the shoulders, with sleeves and large pockets, and it was smocked across the front and across the back. .It was a kind of over-all, and it was an under-all, too, because when it was off he was ready for bed. ibe boys used to like these things, because of their big pockets. One morning, some months after my grandmother's death, they we*e camping on a very large farm. This farmer was noted for his large plum orchard, and my grandfather, early that morning said to his children, "I don't want you to leave the wagon toduy." They knew what that meant; it me?nt this: ' This farmer and I are oif good terms. He lets me camp on his ground, trade together, and I live in his good graces, so I do not want you children to go around the farm seeing what vou can find " Gypsy children usually know better than to disobey their parents. A Gypsy father is very fathprly when his boy disobeys, he has a way of taking him over hib knee with his face downward, and when he makes an engagement with his son that way he never breaks it. My father made up his nflnd that he would take a chance because he wanted some of those plums. When his father's back was turned, he started for the orchard, found the best tree, and then cl.mbed to the top of it, because he knew that the best fruit was on the top of the tree. He filled his pocketB with plums and had one in his mouth enjoying it, when he saw the farmer at the foot of the tree waiting for him. He swallowed the one in his mouth for he didn't want the farmer to think he was after his plums, and the farmer gave him a very pressing invitation to come down. My father said, "I am not a good climber." To which the farmer replied, "I will wait for you." My father thought he would try'to soften the farmer's heart, and he said: "You know, sir, I have no mother." He thought that had touched the farmer's heart, so he said it again. The farmer said, "Yes, I know you, and I know your father, and I know he. would not have you stealing my plums, so I am going to wait for you to come down." My father knew it was no use staying up there all day, so jiwcame down, but he didn't come down like Zaccheus came down the sycamore tree. He didn't make haste, and there was not any joy to it. When he reached the bottom the farmer got hold of him by the ear. When anybody gets hold you like that, you know they are mighty glad to see you, and you always want to go the same way they are going. He pulled my father over to a tree that had a <<m n>ilail nn i* .-.J I'C? vm iv ?nu oaiu, vyau jruu r*md that?" My father said, "No, sir; I do not know how to read." "Well,"' the farmer said, "I will read it for you. 'Whosoever is found trespassing on this property will ba prosecuted. Do you know who 'whosoever' means f My father said, "No, sir." "Yon will before I get through with vou," replied th ? farmer, and he started across the field pulling my father vdth him, still holding on to his ear Sometimes my fathers feet were clean off,the ground and he was protesting and crying, and promising that he would never go near the orchard again If the fanner would only let him off. Eventually the farmer did let htm off, but ha let him off with a caution. Ha threw an old shoe at him? MaMaMMWriMM* PIT j but he forgot to take his foot out of it* My father has never needed anyone, from that day to this, to explain to him what 4 whatsover" means, it made a lasting impression on him. But he was getting tired of this over-r all business. His father had trousers, and his brother had them and he wanted them, too. He was very small and very thin for his age, while mv grandfather weighed 240 pounds, and was six feet in height. My father walked up to the steps of the vvag?.n one day and looking up at hit father taid, "Father, can't I have a pair of trousers?" My grandfather said, "Yes, son, I will give you a pt?r of mine. He got a pair of old trousers lhat were hangtne un in th* ?. ? ?/*? and taking a pair of shears he cut them off at the neea, and then throwirg them out to my father Aid, "Go and put them on." My father went into his dressing room, that was, Im. hind a hedge, and while he was getting into them his brother and his father made all kinds of remarks. His brother ran over to him with a piece cf string and said, "Rodney, what time does the balloon go up?" Of course he had never put on trousers before; and I don't know just which way he had them on, but when he came from behind the hedge, his father said, ' Rodney, which way are you going? Ara you going or coming?" But he saw that they wanted to laugh him out of those trousers and he would not be laughed out of them. A few days afterwards they were ine guests of the Prince of Wales, only the prince didn't know it? They were camping on his estate for ths purpose of poaching, and at night after they had set their snares all over the field and had caught nine rabbits, they were surprised by the gamekeepers. In bteaking for cover, grandfather didn't know just what to to do with the rabbits. He didn't want to leave them and at the same time if he were caught, he didn't want fhe keepers to :.ee the rabbits. Suddenly he noticed my father running ahead with those big trousers, and then calling him over to him he took the nine rabbits and hung them on my father's suspenders inside hia pants, so his first pair of pants be. came fur-l.ned. Sometimes my grandfather would forget his promise to his wife and would go to a saloon, thinking, he could drown hi? trouble in drinlc. When he went lo a saloon he always used to take his violin with him, for the Gypsies are musical. And when toe violin went my father had to go too. When they entered the saloon the men who were there would say, ? "Here comes the old Gypsy fiddler." And my grandfather would begin to nlay and my father would jump on the table and begin to dance. After he had danced awhile, my grandfather would nod to him, then my father would take his little cap and go around the crowd and take the collection. That is where he graduated for the ministry. But my grandfather would drink too much, he would get what we call in England, "Three sheets in the wind," and when he got like that he wou'd not know whether lie was pulling the bow over the first or third string. My father used to watc^i him at those times, and when lie saw his father in that condition he would go 'round and make another collection and what he got that time he would put in his own pocket. You see he was a member of the firm, it was "Smith & Son," and he was not a sleeping partner, and he had a right to his share of the profits. But my grandfather found that he could not drown his troubles that way, and from the day that his wife died he became gloomy and rooiose. . f Some months after his wife's death, , , breaking camp one morning he saw' coming to see h m over the distant hill two other Gypsy wagons and when I hey got closer he found that they were the wagons of his two brothers, Bartholomew and Woodstock. He had been longing for the companionship of his own people, and when these three ' ^ fellows met in the middle of the road, ptu their arms around each other and kissed each other, he told thenao* . \ , loss of his wife, and they tri^fl^ V < (Concluded on last #>?*he " WM . f the ush^ ew approHb down and RwRhese young untold help (pfwpaign. MR. CHARLIE ALLEN ' ,J%,' , rA;WK Choir Looiiorof Cripoj 9wU^'. ,'^k^M DB