CHURCH AND PIPE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5655, 28 August 1896, Page 6 (Supplement)

CHURCH AND PIPE.

The "smoking parson," who, some time ago, instituted a Gospel service at which tobacco smoke is allowed to ascend with the prayers of the congregation, appears to be still attracting " crowded houses " to the church in Spitalfields. Over the door of the place of worship appears the invitation :— " Come Sunday at three o'clock to Christ Church Hall, Hanbury Street, and have a smoke, and hear a bright address. It will do you good. Tobacco free for the early birds. Tea and a bite for all." This announcement, touched up with many flourishes and capital letters, attracted a journalistic visitor recently, who has given a realistic account of what he saw. Hanbury Street is the centre of one of the worst districts in London, and the hall was packed with as ragged and sorry a collection of humanity as could be imagined. The men were seated on one side, the women on another, nearly three hundred in all ; and Parson Collings, curate of Spitalfields, arrayed in shirt sleeves, and with a substantial pipe in his own mouth, was running about, giving a twist of the soothing weed to one, showing another to a seat, comforting an old lady with a pinch of snuff, and so on. There was nothing remarkable about the service, which was of the usual evangelical type, and only noteworthy for the free use of colloquialisms by the preacher and his evident desire to interest the audience without much regard for grammar or preoision of speech. The sermon had no text, and the subject seemed very much mixed, but the people liked it, and evidently understood it if their long hand-clapping at the end meant anything. The sermon over, the parson put his pipe in his mouth and puffed away, while the important business of distributing the bread and coffee was proceeded with. All this seems more than half burlesque, but the apparent travesty was redeemed by the earnestness of the preacher, and by the practical charity "which concluded the service. Parson Collings mentioned to the visitor that since the church was started four years ago thirty thousand meals had been given away at a cost of .£64. They had had cases during the winter of men dropping unconscious in the hall, and being takon out to die. The cause of death was starvation, and it was to relieve desperate poverty of this kind as much as to preach the Gospel that the church had been founded. -I