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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #53014 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53014)
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-Project Gutenberg's Twice-born Men in America, by Harriet Earhart Monroe
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Twice-born Men in America
- or The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a Christian
- Psychologist in Rescue Mission Work
-
-Author: Harriet Earhart Monroe
-
-Release Date: September 8, 2016 [EBook #53014]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
- Twice-Born Men in America
- OR
- The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a Christian Psychologist in
- Rescue Mission Work
-
- BY
-
- HARRIET EARHART MONROE
-
- ALSO AUTHOR OF “CONVERSATION AS A SCIENCE AND AN ART,” “HEROINE OF THE
- MINING CAMP,” “HISTORICAL LUTHERANISM,” “THE LIFE OF GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS,”
- AND “WASHINGTON—ITS SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS”
-
-
- PHILADELPHIA, PA.:
-
- THE LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY
-
-
-
-
- COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
- HARRIET EARHART MONROE
-
-
-
-
- PREFACE
-
-
-I taught psychology for fifteen years at the Atchison Institute, the
-predecessor of Midland College, located at Atchison, Kan. I was there
-greatly impressed by the fact that the books gave no adequate analysis
-of the psychology of the greatest mental and moral change which can come
-to the human mind, namely, conversion and regeneration; yet these
-changes make the great difference which we see between men and nations.
-
-A Rescue Mission gives a great opportunity to study mental and moral
-changes, and my observations and conclusions, made from years of study,
-are herein embodied.
-
-This book is sent forth with the earnest hope and prayer that it will
-lead many souls to Christ; also that it will show earnest laymen just
-how to bring about that psychological change which we call conversion. A
-Sunday school teacher who brings only ninety per cent of her students
-through the process of conversion and regeneration is ninety per cent a
-success and ten per cent failure. The same is true of a pastor with a
-class of catechumens.
-
-“Ye must be born again,” is just as true to-day as it ever was, and if
-we believed it as Paul believed it, what live wires we would be.
-
-This book is to remind us that Jesus saves to the uttermost in our day,
-just as He did when He visibly walked this earth.
-
- HARRIET E. MONROE,
- 204 A Street, S. E., Washington, D. C.
-
- JULY 29, 1914.
-
-
-
-
- CONTENTS
-
-
- CHAPTER I
-
- PAGE
-
- HOW I HAPPENED TO BECOME INTERESTED IN RESCUE MISSION WORK 7
-
-
- CHAPTER II
-
- RESCUE MISSION WORK 22
-
-
- CHAPTER III
-
- INCIDENTS SHOWING THE POWER OF GOD TO SAVE 29
-
-
- CHAPTER IV
-
- AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK 36
-
-
- CHAPTER V
-
- BIG FEET 44
-
-
- CHAPTER VI
-
- HOW WE GOT A NEW MISSION BUILDING 49
-
-
- CHAPTER VII
-
- VARIETIES OF WORK IN A GOSPEL MISSION 59
-
-
- CHAPTER VIII
-
- THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK 69
-
-
- CHAPTER IX
-
- THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY 82
-
-
- CHAPTER X
-
- THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL 94
-
-
- CHAPTER XI
-
- HEREDITARY SIN 107
-
-
-
-
- Twice-Born Men in America
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER I
- HOW I HAPPENED TO BECOME INTERESTED IN RESCUE MISSION WORK
-
-
-In January, 1908, a great calamity came to me in the form of destruction
-by fire of most of my earthly property and the death in the fire of a
-loved sister. The event had in it some other elements of great pain not
-necessary to mention here. If my soul had not been anchored in Jesus,
-the combination of sorrows would have broken down my mentality and sent
-me to the asylum. As it was, I stood steadily trusting God, knowing that
-all things worked together for good to those who love God. I was sure I
-was a lover of God, and so, while every fiber of my body and soul ached
-with unspeakable pain, I never doubted God's love, care and sympathy.
-
-In the midst of this grief I received a letter from Mr. George W.
-Wheeler, the President of the Executive Board of the Gospel Mission,
-saying about this, “Come down to the Gospel Mission, look it over and
-see if you care to come in with us in the work of saving souls. Unless
-we secure a woman of large executive ability, our work can scarcely go
-forward.”
-
-I answered that I would be glad to join them, and the next week, the
-first week of September, 1908, I received a letter from the Secretary,
-S. M. Croft, saying I had been elected to the Executive Board of the
-Gospel Mission, which met once every week.
-
-The following Monday I met with the Board, where I heard a letter from
-Mr. Tyson, saying that he withdrew from the Board because the
-dormitories were badly kept. Then followed a letter of the same kind
-from a Mr. Fritz, and another from Mr. Sidell. As soon as the session,
-which was largely a prayer service, was closed, Mr. Wheeler accompanied
-me to look over the dormitories.
-
-I never saw or dreamed of such conditions. The very walls were alive
-with vermin. In the story above the chapel were fifteen vile beds, and
-on the third story above us we saw a floor covered with dirty, wrinkled
-newspapers. I said, “Where do the men sleep?” “On the beds you saw in
-the third floor and on these newspapers.”
-
-In my heart I said, “Dear Lord, surely not here, amid this vileness?”
-The answer was as sharp and distinct as though spoken through a trumpet,
-“Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”
-
-“Mr. Wheeler,” I said, “I see conditions, and I take charge.” He left
-for his work in the United States Treasury, and I went to the street and
-hired a force of cleaners, whitewash men, scrubbers, sweepers, etc., and
-called up Mrs. Claude Myers, the wife of a Presbyterian minister, and
-two other fully consecrated women who were not afraid of work. I asked
-them to come at once and bring with them buckets, scrub brushes, rags,
-soap, etc., while I put in a supply of chemicals for the vermin.
-
-Those women helped to burn the bedding and to send away some as trash.
-They helped me clean the beds; the whitewashers even entered into the
-spirit of it, and every crack was filled with plaster of paris; they
-went over the walls three times with lime and carbolic acid. The Health
-Bureau in the Municipal Building gave me a preparation used on floors in
-jails and in hospitals for contagious diseases. Some redeemed men came
-to our help, and by Saturday night we turned over a clean house.
-
-Every one of us cleaners was obliged to go to the Turkish bath and have
-our clothing brushed and fumigated before we could go to our own homes.
-
-On Saturday evening I told Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Gordon that besides the
-good men and women who had helped us for the cause for five days, we had
-spent twenty-five dollars. Never will I forget the dismay of those two
-good men. “What! Twenty-five dollars! Where do you think we will get
-that?” I answered, “Fortunately I belong to a church that lives and
-works by faith, and to-morrow, being Sunday, I shall tell the Sunday
-school of the Luther Memorial Church, and we'll see about that
-twenty-five dollars.”
-
-The next morning I went to the pastor, Rev. J. G. Butler, D.D., and he
-secured permission from the superintendent of the Sunday school for me
-to speak three minutes. The superintendent hated innovations, but I can
-say a lot in three minutes, especially when I state the needs of the
-lost men of the community. After the school was dismissed nearly every
-teacher and grown student gave me something, and in less than five
-minutes I had twenty-seven dollars.
-
-Sunday night I told what the Lord had done for us, and I began to ask
-all persons present to contribute sheets and pillow-cases. I did this so
-much and so often that season that a little four-year-old girl of Mrs.
-Claude Myers upset the gravity of an entire meeting by saying out loud
-one Sunday evening, “There comes Mrs. Sheets and Pillow-cases again.”
-Well, before winter was over we had about fifty clean, well-equipped
-beds for which, when they had it, men gladly paid ten cents per night.
-If they did not have it, the beds were given as long as they lasted;
-but, after the beds were filled, often fifty men slept on the floor with
-only the boards under them and no covers.
-
-We had no heat in the dormitories, but one day Mrs. Richard Butler, a
-wealthy woman of the city, was ordered by the Spirit to visit the
-Mission. She came by Mr. Gordon's office in her carriage and he took her
-through our building. She saw our first need was heat. She sent
-immediately to a hardware store and ordered a large stove for the third
-floor with a drum for the fourth story, and through her kindness the men
-were given heat, but not until after two deaths, caused by cold, hunger
-and wet clothing, had about broken our hearts.
-
-I remember a young, fair-haired man from Virginia, evidently well born
-and bred, coming in one night, slightly under the influence of liquor.
-It was a rainy, snowy night; his clothing was wet and he was suffering
-from a severe cold. When the meeting was over he started to go up
-stairs, which had nearly a zero temperature. I begged him to stay by the
-fire and sleep on a bench, if needed, but he petulantly refused. He was
-dead by nine o'clock next morning. I had wept all the way home, for I
-feared just what happened.
-
-Mrs. Butler's stove put an end to that. She furnished coal for the
-entire winter.
-
-Now that we had beds and heat, I saw we could not keep the beds clean
-without bathing facilities. So at our next Board meeting I said,
-“Brethren, we need a good shower-bath with warm and cold water so that
-men soiled and weary can have the comfort of a warm bath.” All the
-members of the Board demurred on account of the expense. Then I said,
-“Brethren, if I make myself responsible for the eighty-five dollars
-needed and you are in no way held for it, may I have the bath put in at
-once?” Of course, they wanted the bath, as they saw how much it was
-needed, and gave cordial consent. I purchased a rubber stamp, and on the
-outside of our first circulars which we issued I stamped the words, “I
-have made myself personally responsible for the cost of a shower-bath.
-Help a little.” And with my own contributions the bath was paid for as
-per contract.
-
-That fall we put out a circular folder, of which the following is the
-open letter, and is introduced only to give the continuity of this work
-so that my friends may know the aim, object and history of the Mission
-from the beginning:
-
- GOSPEL MISSION,
- 1230 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, N. W.
- WASHINGTON, D. C.
-
- DEAR FRIEND:
-
- Under the blessing of God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a
- Rescue Mission has been opened at No. 1230 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.
- W., where nightly gospel services will be conducted and the Lord
- Christ held up to view as a Saviour “mighty to save and strong to
- deliver.”
-
- Our corps of workers is composed of consecrated and Spirit-filled
- men and women, many of whom have had long experience in efforts of
- this character. On the occasion of the opening service (Saturday
- evening, May 12) God set His seal to the work by drawing seven
- earnest seekers to our altar for prayer.
-
- Street meetings will be held nightly, and an earnest and aggressive
- work carried forward for the betterment of society and the salvation
- of lost men and women.
-
- Our hall is well located on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue,
- N. W., in the midst of saloons and pool-rooms and in close proximity
- to that section of the city almost wholly given up to evil, and it
- will be the constant effort of the Mission and its workers to seek
- out and rescue the erring girls and reckless men who are found in
- large numbers in this immediate neighborhood.
-
- The management is determined that the expenses of this work shall be
- kept at the minimum figures—not exceeding $100 per month—and they
- confidently appeal to their Christian brethren and friends and to
- the public for such funds as shall be found necessary to carry
- forward this work. Can you, will you, aid us?
-
- With great respect,
- G. W. WHEELER, _Chairman_,
- J. S. MEWSHAW, _Secretary_,
- H. D. GORDON, _Treasurer_,
- _Executive Committee_.
-
-These good men are at this writing (1913) yet connected with the work.
-Mr. Mewshaw is an employee of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and has charge
-of a station some distance from Washington, but contributes and comes
-with us occasionally. But no organization was ever more fortunate than
-the Gospel Mission in its officers.
-
-
- TREASURER, MR. H. D. GORDON
-
-is a prominent lawyer of the city. He really gives more time to the
-Mission than his business can afford. When we are under strain to make a
-payment on the building, he and Mr. Wheeler can go to their friends and
-raise $1000 more readily than the remainder of the Board can raise $100.
-They ask largely of their friends. The others of us ask for one dollar
-monthly contributions, and we each receive as we ask. Mr. Gordon's
-devotion cannot better be illustrated than by the following: Mr. Gordon
-is a most effective singer. I have heard many singing evangelists, but
-none with a finer pathos of voice than Mr. Gordon's. One evening in the
-fall of 1909, when each evening we were privileged to hold our outdoor
-meetings in front of the city post-office, I was passing on the street
-car when I saw Mr. Gordon with his guitar standing all alone, trying to
-sing salvation to some passing sinners. I found the tears coursing down
-my cheeks, so I got off at the next corner and went back to help him,
-but by that time other workers were on hand and it was less sacrifice
-for me to speak for him. I acknowledge here a mean pride (which the Lord
-has had to thrash out of me with many hard knocks) against speaking on
-the street. I have had to remember many times that Jesus was an outdoor
-preacher all His days, and all the Apostles, and who am I that I am
-ashamed to follow where He has led! But Brother Gordon can stand alone
-anywhere for Christ. He is greatly in demand in other cities as a
-successful evangelist.
-
-I want to here bear testimony to the great good done by outdoor
-meetings. If all evangelical churches who believe in conversion and
-regeneration would hold their meetings outdoors in the summer, they
-would bring many souls, for which they will be held responsible, to
-Christ. If young people would hold alley meetings in the alley nearest
-their church they would bring sinners to Christ, there would be no slums
-and the young Christians would grow in grace.
-
-
- PRESIDENT, GEORGE W. WHEELER
-
-President, George W. Wheeler, of the Executive Board, is one of God's
-best gifts to the city of Washington. He is the very best City Rescue
-Mission worker I have ever seen, and I have seen most of the city
-missions of the United States and Europe. In the summer of 1910, in
-company with Mrs. M. P. Spindle, I visited all the great cities of
-Europe, especially Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome,
-to obtain suggestions for improving our work, as we thought, at that
-time, to plan for erecting a great mission building unequaled in all the
-world. Most mission buildings are mere adaptations of old buildings. We
-hoped to do better, but God ordered otherwise. Among all these great
-mission workers I have seen none superior to George W. Wheeler in Rescue
-Mission work and in conducting an interdenominational organized work for
-God. First, his consecration is marvelous. He had been thirty or more
-years in government service, to lose time means not only loss of money,
-but even endangers a man's tenure of office.
-
-But when Mr. Wheeler is called to see a soldier, a sailor, a sick man in
-the hospital, who must be seen in business hours, he never, as all other
-government members of the Board do, pleads loss of any kind, but goes at
-once on the errand of love and mercy. Then he gets on well with his
-Board of Directors; if debate runs high and a measure is carried without
-his favor, he holds no grudge, he is universally kind. That means much.
-Then his acquaintance is so large he can secure good talent for helpers
-in every line; he has the absolute confidence of the community (which he
-richly deserves), and by the blessing of God secures funds for our great
-work; and, best of all, he leads many souls to Christ. He has probably
-seen more souls born into the kingdom of God than any other living
-rescue worker.
-
-(Mr. Wheeler died January 19, 1914. “He buries the workers, but the work
-goes on.”)
-
-
- MRS. M. P. SPINDLE
-
-is a Christian woman whom I found connected with the Mission when I went
-there. My attention was first attracted toward her by her liberality
-when I made the calls for bedding, so now I borrowed $85 from her and
-put in the bath. She was kind enough to let me pay it back in driblets,
-and from that day to this she has given more money than any other
-worker. She has loaned or given the money to go forward in each venture
-of mine, and, above all, I have had the benefit of her counsel and her
-favor in every form, and together we have prayed through many an
-obstruction which seemed an impassable barrier.
-
-
- THE FUMIGATOR
-
-No sooner did we get the bath in place than I saw the necessity for a
-fumigator, not only that men should have their clothing purified from
-disease and from vermin, but for the sake of the beds. I found that they
-could not be kept clean without the men bathed and had their clothing
-fumigated.
-
-The Board again did not feel able to put in the fumigator, which cost
-$125. In this work I found a friend in Mr. Ernest Gichner, who invented
-a sheet-iron room with suitable fire-box and chimneys, which he anchored
-on the roof of the building.
-
-It did good service and added to the comfort of the men and the
-cleanliness of the house, not only while there, but later he moved it
-over to our new building. Mr. Gichner permitted me to make payments in
-installments of $25, which I was able to collect mostly from my friends
-in the Luther Memorial Church and the Mission workers themselves, who
-are always liberal even beyond their means.
-
-
- ENLARGEMENT
-
-I became Chairman of the House Committee in September, 1908, and the
-following December Mr. H. W. Kline was made Superintendent. As soon as
-we had nice beds to offer for ten cents a night, we had a steadily
-increased patronage, so that by the fall of 1909 we were obliged to rent
-a large room back of us. That winter we had eighty-four beds filled
-nearly every night.
-
-A friend in California sent me $25 as a Christmas present, and I put
-white spreads on the twenty-five best beds. Some members of the Board
-laughed at me so much that I was obliged to remind them that the money
-of the Mission was not used. Long ago they have come to see that a white
-bed is a necessity if we are to keep a clean house.
-
-By October, 1909, our expenses for rent, fuel and necessities had
-increased from $100 to $150 each month.
-
-Our statistics for 1908, as shown by our circular, were as follows:
-
- _Statistics of the year and of the last quarter—From January, 1908, to
- January, 1909_
-
- _Statistics of three months of 1908, as follows_:
-
- Attendance Req. for Prayer Seekers Conversions Services
-
- Dec. 1908 1961 165 86 14 41
- Jan. 1909 2487 217 73 37 46
- Feb. 1909 1245 51 34 13 28
- ———— ——— ——— —— ———
- Total 5693 433 193 64 115
-
-(Now we care for over 50,000 persons a year.)
-
-During the year employment was found for probably 300 men.
-
-We accept it as a great privilege to have presented the gospel of Jesus
-Christ to this number of people.
-
-Our little circular of that period thus sets forth:
-
-
- THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK
-
-“Washington is a dreadful place for a man out of work. The city having
-no manufactories, and all rough work, such as excavating, is let by
-contract to men who prefer Italians or Negroes as diggers, while stores
-and offices have room for only the efficient young person, so that, when
-from age, inefficiency or lack of political influence, people are
-dropped from the government service, we are often at our wit's end to
-provide means of subsistence for these worthy persons most anxious to
-labor. We have some old men whose working days are over. These are for
-the most part good men, for the wicked do not live out half their days.
-A few immigrants from northern Europe, sick men who are able to walk
-about, but could not work if they had it; the shoestring man, the
-umbrella man, the sandwich man, the men who are half insane for lack of
-food and enforced lack of sleep, for they have no place to sleep oftener
-than once a week. Then we have the criminal classes, which must be
-touched with the Spirit of God, or they will become the dynamite which
-will destroy our cities, also the men just out of prison. These are the
-special thought of the Mission, for unless they are made to feel that
-they are but temporarily sidetracked from the great highway of success,
-they will become an ever-increasing menace to society.
-
-“Above all, we have the drunkard, who has lost his grip, lost family,
-lost place in society, lost business and has become a mass of putrid
-flesh, utterly abhorrent to his fellow-men. When we look at these
-people, whose weary eyes have looked long into unspeakable sorrow, our
-very souls rejoice that we have proven beyond possibility of doubt that
-'the blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanses from all sin; that if we
-confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
-cleanse us from all unrighteousness,' for we have seen some of every
-class mentioned redeemed, placed back in society, among the producing
-power of the nation.”
-
-
- “OUR GOSPEL MISSION TIDINGS”
-
-(a monthly paper) was issued first in October, 1909. All members of the
-Executive Committee have helped in some measure on it, but the
-responsibility has fallen heaviest on Mr. G. W. Wheeler and myself. Our
-entire income is the result of our paper, it is our means of
-communicating with the public.
-
-
- THE INDUSTRIAL PLANT
-
-was really brought about by two tragedies. One cold day I went to the
-Mission, and on the outside I saw a man, whom I shall call Kelly,
-shivering at the door. He looked like death, pale, trembling, the lips
-and nostrils drawn as if in extreme pain. “What is the matter, Kelly?” I
-said. “I am starving to death; amid all these happy people I am left
-out. I have walked the streets hunting work till I can walk no more.”
-
-At that time we did not provide food of any kind, but I said, “Let us go
-up stairs to the Mission,” where Mr. Proctor, then acting as
-Superintendent, provided bread and coffee. I set the man to
-re-whitewashing the dormitories, and we kept him till he secured work.
-
-The other was the case of a young man just released from Moundsville
-Penitentiary. After I had given the lesson one Tuesday night, I was led
-to tell in detail the story of Valentine Burke, a man converted in the
-St. Louis jail, from reading one of Mr. Moody's sermons in a city
-newspaper. Mr. Burke afterward became a valuable citizen, held the
-position of assistant warden, and led hundreds of lost men into the
-clear light of the gospel. When I had finished, a well-dressed man on
-the front seat said, “I am just out of Moundsville; no one has spoken a
-kind word to me, I have had nothing to eat to-day, I see no way but to
-steal again.” He was only about twenty-two years of age. I put my arm
-over his shoulder and said, “Son, we will take care of you and get you
-work.” The Superintendent took him up stairs, gave him bread and coffee,
-then a warm bath, but he was so weary the men had to help him to get to
-bed. We all tried to get that boy work, but as soon as the word
-penitentiary was mentioned every door was closed. I remember walking up
-Capitol Hill, crying aloud to God, “Give us an industrial plant or the
-sorrows of homeless, workless men will take my life.”
-
-I paid for the food for a week. He tried also to obtain work, but I
-think the sight of my anxious face worried him—I have learned not to
-carry sorrow in my face since then. That boy slipped through our fingers
-and went back to crime. Now, at whose hands will that soul, anxious for
-better things, be required?
-
-Before I went for my summer vacation I urged before the Board an
-industrial plant. Mr. Kline strenuously objected. During that vacation I
-laid the matter very fully before God in prayer and felt constrained to
-urge the starting of an industrial work.
-
-At our first meeting in September Mr. Kline said, “Brethren, I have come
-to see the need of an industrial plant, not only so that men can earn
-lodging, but where, after conversion, we can keep a man a few days to
-teach him the way of life.” A Mission worker often prays himself into
-light.
-
-Again I was forced to borrow money with which to purchase a horse and
-wagon. Mrs. Spindle loaned me the $150 needed. That fall my little book,
-called “The Life of Gustavus Adolphus,” published by The Lutheran
-Publication Society, Philadelphia, came out. The house gave me $25 in
-cash, if I remember correctly, and 100 copies of the book, which I sold
-at 40 cents a copy. So I gave the $65 of my own on the horse and wagon
-in paying back Mrs. Spindle for the loan.
-
-In some way we also secured a paper baler, thus we gave two men work in
-collecting books, newspapers, etc., and two men at the baler. In the
-November _Gospel Tidings_ we announced that the wagon from the Gospel
-Mission would call on the first and fifteenth of the month, and would
-accept papers, rags, clothes, bottles, etc., saying, “We have old men
-who separate these things and label and bale this material.” The money
-was used to feed and care for these unfortunates.
-
-The city people responded most generously, and in this way our
-industrial branch was started, and greatly benefited the Mission for two
-and a half years.
-
-Later we obtained a wood-saw run by a gasoline engine, and we started
-the penny bundling industry, where we could use eight or ten men and
-make the double purpose of work for unfortunate men and yet make the
-industry self-supporting.
-
-When the United States granted wood pulp to be brought into the country
-free of duty, our paper industry was destroyed, as we could not sell the
-paper, and the government took our woodyard and killed our wood
-industry, but they both did much good in their day.
-
-The Gospel Mission in the fall of 1914 will again open a laundry, wood
-cutting, rope-making, printing, and chair caning in the line of
-industries for men who will gladly work rather than eat the bread of
-charity.
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER II
- RESCUE MISSION WORK
-
-
-When I was called to assist in the Gospel Mission, I was not a novice in
-rescue work, having been among the workers of the Sunday Breakfast
-Association in Philadelphia, Pa., for twelve years under the direction
-of Mr. Lewis Bean, probably one of the ablest mission workers of this or
-any other country. The Sunday Breakfast is, so far as I know, the
-largest Rescue Mission of this country.
-
-
- HOW GOD CALLED ME
-
-When I moved from Washington to Philadelphia, I found myself very
-lonely. I had been President of a Collegiate Institute at Atchison,
-Kan., from 1870 to 1885, when, because of failure of health, I came
-East, and took up literary work. At Washington, where I lived from 1885
-to 1888, I soon came in contact with literary people, and belonged to
-both literary and scientific clubs, some of whose members are to this
-day strong personal friends. But in the twelve years in Philadelphia I
-never became much acquainted with university people, authors' clubs,
-Browning or Shakespeare clubs, although I knew they were all there. God
-had to break me loose from too great devotion to that side of life in
-order to use me for more spiritual work.
-
-One evening, in the summer of 1888, I came along Arch Street where, in a
-basement room at Broad and Arch, some women were holding a prayer
-service. I entered and joined with them. Three poor, ragged, soiled men
-were converted. I saw the women were even more inexperienced with the
-phenomena of sudden conversions than I was. So I stepped forward and
-pledged the converts to a Christian life. Then I appealed to the good
-men present to see that the converts had a good meal that night, and
-asked for work for them. Good men at once promised both.
-
-When the meeting was dismissed a gentleman came to me and said, “We need
-you at the Sunday Breakfast Association to speak next Sunday night. We
-shall have over 1000 men present, all needing to find God. You are one
-of the women who can speak without any of the Little Johnny death-bed
-scenes, and we need you.” I replied, “If you asked me to talk on
-Dickens, Shakespeare, or any literary character, I could easily do it,
-but to win souls to Christ, I am not at all sure I could do it.” He did
-not argue, he simply said, “I give you your opportunity.” That startled
-me, and I said, “I will try.”
-
-So the next Sunday evening at the Breakfast Association I made my first
-talk before an audience largely of the submerged tenth. The galleries
-and the platform were filled with well-dressed people, and, instead of
-trying to save some soul, I tried to make a fine speech. My rhetoric was
-perfect, my periods nicely rounded, my illustrations pertinent, and I
-sat down pretty well satisfied with my fine self. Mr. Bean saw what I
-had done, so he shook a few grains out of all the chaff I had given
-them, made the application, and let me down as easily as he could.
-
-But while I sat there God's Spirit dealt with me. “What if a mother of
-one of these lost men had had your opportunity,” said God's Spirit,
-“would she have talked platitudes to the galleries and the platform?
-Would she? Would she?” I saw my sin. As I fled from the house I nearly
-cried aloud in my shamefaced grief. When I got to my room I went to my
-knees and I cried to God my deep shame, “Dear Father, I have sinned. I
-know now that is not my work. My business is to instruct the intellect.
-I will leave the winning of souls to preachers and mothers. Help me to
-bear the testimony of a well-ordered Christian life, speaking for you in
-my own social set, but I am not equal to facing those who have looked
-long into the eyes of sin and suffering and sorrow, and are uncomforted
-with a knowledge of Thy grace.”
-
-So I felt I had disposed of that, and determined to keep to literature
-forevermore. The next day the card of a woman whom I had met in the
-highest social circles of Washington was sent to my room. As I came down
-through the hall I saw in front of the house her carriage with footman
-and driver and team of Kentucky-bred horses. When I entered she broke
-out in a sort of wail, “I hear you spoke at the Breakfast Association
-last night.” “Yes, and made a great guy of myself. I do not expect to
-ever go there again, except as a spectator. I fear I am more literary
-than religious.”
-
-I wish I could describe the next few minutes. Her face blazed. “You,
-you!” she said; “why you had a father a minister, your mother a praying
-woman, and you not to go there to speak to lost men, if you have the
-opportunity! You have had everything which training can give, and you
-refuse to reach a hand to lost men.”
-
-“Well, what does that concern you?”
-
-She sat down. The agony in her face became anguish. She turned white,
-then red, then back to white, till I feared for her heart. “What does it
-concern me! What! What! Well, I must tell you. I have a son who sits
-down in that awful crowd!”
-
-It was my turn now to be moved. “You?” I said, “why, you live in a white
-marble palace, and can it be that your son is a homeless, friendless
-man?”
-
-“Yes,” she said, “I live in a white marble palace and I hate it from
-turret to foundation stone, because my oldest son is not allowed under
-its roof. He is a drunkard, and will steal everything he can lay his
-hands on and sell it for drink, so that his father forbids me to see him
-or to give him money. The last time I saw him he was shoveling coal into
-a manhole; he looked the part.”
-
-Here she tried to give me a large roll of money, as she said, “Take
-this, and please go to the Breakfast Association and find my darling
-boy.” “Madam, I am not authorized to take money for the Association. Dr.
-Henderson is the Treasurer, do see him!” “I will not. Will know who you
-are. I told him much of meeting you in Washington. I want you to take
-this money and find and clothe my sorrowful son; and oh, say what I
-would like to say if I could talk like you! Tell him when he sees a
-light at the top of the house that his mother is in the attic praying
-for him, and will you pray for me that I shall not die under this? Will
-you pray for my son?”
-
-Then we two kneeled and poured into the heart of a loving Saviour that
-story of woe. How she wailed over her own frivolous life, and promised
-her God a life for Him. Nearly all the persons referred to have died,
-so, though the parties may be recognized in Philadelphia, it cannot now
-harm anyone.
-
-I took the money offered. The next Sunday evening I went to the
-Association, and my face must have told the story, for when I said to
-Mr. Bean, “I have a message,” he let me speak. I selected the words,
-“Son, behold thy mother!” I told many incidents of heart-broken mothers
-because of the sins of their sons, and then I told of Mrs. W., nearly in
-the above language. Probably two hundred men requested prayer that
-night, and I saw God could use me for other than literary work.
-
-Mr. Bean said, “That man will not show up till the others have gone,” so
-I sat down and waited.
-
-When nearly everyone had left the room a poor, blear-eyed youth came to
-the platform. He said, “Mrs. Monroe, I am Will W. Do give me some
-money.” I said, “Will, do you intend to break your mother's heart? Do
-you intend to keep on drinking?” “Now, see here, Mrs. Monroe, I have
-honestly tried to quit.” Then, pushing up his sleeve, he showed me
-scars. “There I have signed the pledge with my own blood, and I cannot
-quit.” Howard McMasters, one of the Breakfast Association workers,
-pointed the way to Christ far better than I could. Then he gave him
-tickets where he could get lodging. I met him the next day at a Turkish
-bath house. At first they refused to take him, and only by paying a high
-price could I secure him a bath and proper barbering. I gave him a
-complete outfit of clothes, and he looked very respectable. Mr.
-McMasters put a good man on the case to talk with him, to read the New
-Testament with him, to explain salvation and to help him find God, and
-to keep at his side whenever possible.
-
-My business took me out of town for several weeks; when I came back to
-the city, I went, of course, the first Sunday evening to the Breakfast
-Association. After the meeting was over Will W. came slouching up to the
-platform as vile as when I first saw him. He had sold every article I
-had given him for drink. This sorrowful experience was repeated about
-five times, but as good is stronger than evil, the prayers of God's
-people prevailed, and Mr. McMasters brought him forward to the altar and
-God met him.
-
-His mother's prayers, the word of God as shown by Howard McMasters and
-that wonderful Divine Spirit made a clean work, and a soul was born to
-God. We kept him as well guarded as we could. The smells of the street
-troubled him, for that reason I went to his father's wholesale house on
-Market Street. I had met Mr. W. with his wife in Washington, and he met
-me cordially, till I said, “Mr. W., I have come to talk to you about
-your oldest son.” He blazed at me, “Don't you dare to speak to me of my
-oldest son. He has broken my heart, his mother's heart, and disgraced my
-name. I will not permit even my wife to speak of him, much less a
-friend.” “But he is converted, Mr. W. It will be different now.” “Oh! he
-has a new dodge, has he?” “Mr. W., you must talk to me fairly about this
-wrecked young life or refer me to someone who can act in your behalf.”
-“Well, see his brother,” and a clerk showed me to the brother's
-counting-room. He heard my story with sympathy. After stating the case,
-I said, “I want you to put him on a truck farm down near Media, and get
-him away from the smells of Philadelphia.” This was done, though it took
-several weeks to bring it about.
-
-The next Sunday night Will sat on the platform, and testified to the
-power of God to save. When the meeting had closed, a handsome young
-woman, wearing a costly tailor-made gown and with the stamp of the
-patrician in every line of her dainty person, said to me, “Mrs. Monroe,
-I am going to marry Will W. this week.” “Oh, my dear girl, do not risk
-it till he has proved himself for two years! Do not risk it!” “You
-believe he is converted, do you not?” “Why, yes; but we should see the
-transforming power of the gospel before you risk your happiness.” “Will
-needs me now to help him keep straight. You have not as much faith as
-you ought to have yourself, or you would believe he will hold out.”
-
-What more could I say? They were married. His mother was present at the
-ceremony, and they went to the farm to live. Will was held by the power
-of God, and, after much blundering, they made a fair success with a
-truck farm.
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER III
- INCIDENTS SHOWING THE POWER OF GOD TO SAVE
-
-
-Among the many other impressive cases of the power of God to suddenly
-change a human life from evil to good occurred at the Breakfast
-Association in Philadelphia about the year 1898, and although fifteen
-years have passed, every incident, every word is indelibly written on my
-memory.
-
-I was coming off the platform one evening when I met a large,
-fierce-looking, scowling man, who looked as if he wanted to strike me. I
-stopped at once. “Friend,” I said, “you are in trouble.” “What is that
-to you and such as you?” “It is much to me. You look like an employer of
-men, yet here you have been taking the bread and coffee of charity.”
-“Well, I have been an employer of men, but now I cannot even get
-employment. I have been behind bars; now what hope in life is there for
-me?” “Many men who have been behind bars have afterward made good
-citizens and even made fortunes. Let us go down to the Board room and
-talk this out.”
-
-As he went along growling that there was no hope for him, I motioned to
-Mr. McMasters and another worker to come with us. When we were seated,
-he said, “Now, all I want of you people is to help me get work so that I
-do not wander like a stray dog through the streets of the city where I
-was born. My wife and family have deserted me and I am a desperate man.”
-
-“Yes,” I said, “brother, no woman could live with you as you are now,
-one would as soon live with a wolf; your hand is against every man and
-every man's hand is against you. But God can again make you an employer
-of men. He can make you a good husband and father, but you must find God
-first. Where is your mother?” I saw him shrink, and I knew then I had
-the key. “My going to prison killed my mother. I had a mill in a suburb
-of Philadelphia, and sometimes, after the day's work was done, I would
-step into a saloon and take a glass of beer with my foreman. I was not
-what you would call a drinking man. One evening we got into a dispute
-about something concerning the mill, and I picked up a monkey wrench and
-struck my foreman just one blow, but I killed him. All our property went
-for lawyer fees, all to no purpose, for I was sent to prison for ten
-years. I have just been pardoned,” and he drew the governor's pardon
-from his pocket. “When I went to my home I found strangers in it, but at
-last I found my wife and my children now nearly grown, but they would
-not let me live with them.” I knew perfectly well from other experiences
-that he had gone in violence and had been met with violence.
-
-Mr. McMasters now took the case. He said, “If your mother were now
-living, do you believe she would have received you?” “I am sure she
-would. The warden often told us that our mothers would stay by us, that
-children grew ashamed of a father in prison, wives persuaded themselves
-that it only kept up their grief, but a mother's love is like that of
-the God above, it remains. But mother died.”
-
-“Well, you want to meet her again, do you not?” “Yes, but my mother was
-a Christian.” “That is it; let us kneel and talk to your mother's God.”
-Reluctantly, growling that God cared nothing for a poor devil like him,
-he kneeled, and with the three of us kneeling about him, we each one
-presented the case to God, calling on the “God whom this man's mother
-loved and served, asking mercy for a broken life, a broken home and a
-broken heart.” By the time the last one prayed his head was on the chair
-and he was sobbing. Then he prayed for himself, and God came down and
-the old alchemy of God turned the heart of stone to a heart of flesh,
-and George Gneiss was born into the kingdom of God. It was not difficult
-to get him a place as a skilled miller, and from that day to this he has
-made good.
-
-The transforming power of the gospel was plainly seen within a week in
-his face, in his clothing, in his bearing at every meeting. After a few
-Sundays I was called out of town for six weeks. When I came home, I went
-to the Breakfast Association and there, from the gallery, Mr. Gneiss
-looked down on me. At his side was a Quaker woman in the plain dress of
-her Church, and with them was a manly boy of seventeen. After the
-services, they all came to me (I motioned to others to come), and they
-told us the story of their reunion. Tears stood in her eyes as she said,
-“We have family prayers now, and we pray for you every day. God is
-blessing us in every way. Pray for us.”
-
-After that they came to see me, either at the Breakfast Association or
-at my home, as often as three or four times a year as long as I remained
-in Philadelphia.
-
-
- THE GOSPEL MISSION
-
-After telling about those two incidents connected with my small share of
-rescue work in Philadelphia, it is time now to resume the story of our
-Gospel Mission. It is only because we see souls converted almost every
-night that makes it possible for us to bear the sight and the foul smell
-of unclean bodies, of dead whisky and tobacco, and the revolting
-drunkenness, then the remonstrances of one's own kindred and church
-people are trying, unless God gave great recompense, first in one's own
-enlarged spiritual life, in order to fit us for the work, and almost
-daily gave us the joy of seeing souls converted, it would be an
-impossible work.
-
-
- CONVERSIONS AND REGENERATION
-
-Conversion seems to me to be largely man's share in the greater fact of
-regeneration, which is entirely God's work in a human soul.
-
-At a Rescue Mission the theologian could get a new and practical
-knowledge of the gospel he preaches; the professor of psychology sees
-how spiritual powers, unseen to mortal eye, can grip the entire
-machinery of the mind, and by a supernatural application of God's Spirit
-and the word of God make a man over again.
-
-Hundreds of times have I seen the alchemy of God make men who steal to
-do God's service; feet that have been in the way of the transgressor to
-walk in the paths of righteousness, and tongues accustomed to blaspheme
-to sing God's praises.
-
-Professor James defines conversion thus: “To be converted, to be
-regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain
-assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or
-sudden, by which a self hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior
-and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy,
-in consequence of its firmer hold on religious realities.”
-
-[Illustration: “REMEMBER ME”: HANDS UP FOR PRAYER]
-
-_The first element in conversion is first an influence from the Holy
-Spirit brought about by prayer._ Now, that prayer may have been sent up
-years ago by a mother now dead, but is usually the result of a prayer
-atmosphere in the meeting.
-
-The Holy Spirit acts like a searchlight on the human soul, and the
-sinner for an instant sees himself as God sees him. I have seen men rush
-through the door, and, without taking a seat, come straight to the
-altar, because God's Spirit had met them. That is not the usual way, and
-it is usually some immediate message of His word, rendered in song or
-spoken word to the sinner's heart, by which he catches a glimpse of his
-lost condition.
-
-Let no parent be discouraged concerning a wandering child. Delayed
-answer to prayer is not a denial. I know a minister whom God greatly
-uses who was a wild youth when his mother died, but God answered her
-prayer. He will answer yours.
-
-It is important who presents the sinner to God. A perfunctory church
-member who plays cards, dances, tipples or smells of tobacco, cannot
-acceptably bring a soul to God. God often accepts a soul without an
-intermediary, but the wrong person keeps a soul from God. It makes a
-difference. You remember Ezekiel 14:20, “Though Noah, Daniel and Job
-were in it, they shall but deliver their own souls by their
-righteousness,” showing that as we abide in Him, God answers prayers
-accordingly. Then the word of God comes in. The helper tries to make the
-seeker lay hold of the promises. I have seen many conversions on Romans
-10:13, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
-saved.” It comes like a wireless message from on high. It becomes
-personal as the praying sinner cries to God, he believes he is heard, he
-believes he is forgiven, he accepts the pardon and rises to his feet a
-redeemed man. A supernatural power has come into his soul. Another verse
-which brings men through is 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is
-faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
-unrighteousness.”
-
-The religion of Christ has two elements in it—a destructive element and
-a constructive element. The destructive element is what we figuratively
-call “the blood of Christ.” It not only pardons or washes away the past
-sins, but it takes out of the soul lying, drinking, lust, laziness,
-deceit, fraud of any kind, and with the constructive element it puts
-into the soul honor, truth, industry, integrity or wholeness. It creates
-in the soul the desire to walk in companionship with Christ.
-
-The recognition of sins forgiven and the conscious presence of God is
-what in emotional natures makes some shout, some weep, some tremble as
-with an ague, but regeneration in all souls brings unspeakable joy. It
-not only energizes for action, but it puts into the soul the power of
-endurance before unknown.
-
-
- I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH
-
-One cold night in November, 1908, the writer had charge of the Gospel
-Mission service. In the testimony meeting a fine looking young man arose
-and said about this: “I am a graduate of a college in Maine, also of a
-medical department of a college of this city. I have had a good practice
-and a good home. I have lost all of these from hard drink. Last spring I
-was converted in a street meeting held by this Mission at the
-post-office corner. Soon after that I obtained a situation in a large
-department store in this city, where I did good work, but I lost my
-temper at the inefficiency of a driver. I learned then and there that
-only proprietors have the right to lose their tempers, and I lost my
-place. I have had a hard time since. God only knows the suffering of a
-man without money, friends, or even acquaintances in a great city.” And
-with a wail, like a cry of anguish, he said, “But I've kept the faith!
-I've kept the faith!”
-
-After the close of the meeting, a worker said, “I fear that man has had
-no food to-day.” I went to him and said, “Son, when did you eat last?”
-He answered, “Yesterday morning.” I slipped into his hand a dollar bill
-and my card, and said, “Come and see me to-morrow morning.”
-
-We had no difficulty in getting him back into the department store where
-his quick and clear penmanship, his great executive ability, have been
-most highly appreciated for nearly five years.
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER IV
- AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK
-
-
-Unless one can see the humor in rescue work, the tragedy of it all would
-break the heart, ruin one's health, and keep one's mind all the time on
-the sorrowful stories that we hear daily.
-
-A part of successful rescue work is the ability to bring each sorrowful
-case to God, lay it on His altar, and leave it behind us when we leave
-the Mission.
-
-
- AUNT MARY
-
-One very cold night, a few years ago, we had present among our visitors
-a wealthy lady and gentleman from Pittsburgh. We were most anxious that
-the Mission should make a good impression on them, hoping a donation of
-at least $25. It was a very cold night. Soon after the services opened a
-person, whom I shall call Charles Winters, son of an old Virginia
-family, came in. He was much under the influence of liquor, and began at
-once to make a disturbance.
-
-I remembered his dear old gray-haired mother and his accomplished
-sister, and knew in a moment that if he were put out he would freeze to
-death or be placed in prison. Two of the helpers started to put him out;
-that was the easy way, and there were my guests and that prospective
-donation.
-
-The men already had hold of him, when I said, “Stop, men; please let me
-speak to him.” Laying my hand kindly on his shoulder, I said, “Charles,
-sit down and behave yourself.” With a drunken laugh, he said, “I'll sit
-down for you, Aunt Mary, but not for these toughs.” All evening I had to
-go back every few minutes to quiet him, much to the amusement of my
-friends, who frequently to this day call me Aunt Mary. But I saved a
-family from shame and my donation came all right.
-
-In most businesses old age is a handicap, but every gray hair of my
-white head is an asset. Nearly every evening some poor, vanquished
-soldier of fortune, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, comes to me and says
-with quivering lips, “You look just like my mother, to-night, will you
-care a little for me?” And I lay my arm across the soiled coat and say,
-“Son, the trail of every sin is on your poor soiled body; you have tried
-some by yourself to be good, now let us ask Jesus to help. But I shall
-send you up stairs under guard and to the bath-room, where you must take
-a very warm bath while I go to the workroom and get you clean clothes
-from the skin out; your clothing will go into the fumigator over night;
-you shall have enough to eat and be physically comforted, then we will
-try again with Jesus as yoke-fellow. You and I will talk to Him about it
-and we will try again, shall we?”
-
-There is no use talking salvation to a hungry man or a man physically
-uncomfortable. We usually help a poor fellow several days before
-anything more than the above is said, then we show him the tendencies of
-his life; he sees them in the wrecks all around him. He hears the
-testimony of redeemed drunkards, thieves and gamblers, and sees them
-clothed and in their right minds; then the teachings of some Christian
-mother, Sunday school teacher, or preacher comes back, and lo! he prays.
-God's Holy Spirit acts as a searchlight, and he sees his abhorrent self
-as God sees him, and he cries for mercy. God comes down when the sinner
-calls for redeeming power, and a great psychological change takes place.
-If a soul really agrees to give up every sin, to take Jesus Christ as
-pattern and friend, Christ Himself enters into covenant relations with
-that soul and the man is born again. He usually lays hold mentally of
-some one verse of Scripture, which becomes to him a personal message
-from on high. I have seen many take the verse, “Seek ye first the
-kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
-added unto you,” and use it as the stepping stone into the higher life.
-They seek God and live His righteousness. Take the case of
-
-
- MR. E. C. CONNAUGHT
-
-as an example. One very cold morning in January, 1912, Mr. Kline
-received a telephone message like this, “There is a drunken man with a
-wife and four children set out on the street at so and so. Bring coffee
-and food at once.” Just as quickly as they could get the food, Mr. and
-Mrs. Kline hastened to the relief of that family. The wind was blowing
-snow and sleet, though it seemed too cold for either. The family,
-including the drunken father, were brought immediately to the Mission,
-though their household stuff was left standing on the street, where it
-remained four days. It was such a miserable collection that even the
-colored people did not steal any of it. Then it was brought to the
-Mission and stored in the cellar.
-
-One child was in the hospital from a blow from the father. They were
-physically comforted and put in the “Shelter,” a place reserved for
-stranded women and children. By night the father was fairly sober and
-they were all taken to the religious services in the chapel, where Mr.
-Connaught heard man after man rise and testify that God had saved him
-and taken away the appetite for drink. At first there was a sneer on his
-face, but gradually, as one well dressed man after another bore the same
-testimony, he cried out, “I have been an infidel, not believing in God
-or immortality, but if the God you worship can cure me of this awful
-appetite, I want Him.” He kneeled at one of the front benches, and an
-awful spectacle of rags and dirt and bloated flesh he was.
-
-I remember thinking, “Surely this case is beyond help,” but God is
-better than we even dare hope. Several prayers were offered in his
-behalf, then he prayed for himself, and lo! he prayed with the tongue of
-the learned. He said, “O God, if there be a God, hear the prayer of the
-very lowest of Thy children. I need Thee, I am totally undone, I put
-myself in Thy hands for forgiveness and for discipline. O Lord, save
-me!”
-
-He kneeled a moment longer, then rose to his feet with a clear brain,
-and, looking about like one dazed, said, “What has happened, you all
-look different?” Mr. Kline laid his arm lovingly over the man's
-shoulders as he said, “Brother Connaught, you have received your sight.
-The Lord Jesus has come into your soul.”
-
-The next morning the Associated Charities had him arrested for
-non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy, a good man, was on the bench.
-One of our workers said to the judge, “This man was converted last
-night, and if you will give him a chance he will now support his
-family.” “Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather than go to
-Occoquan” (name of the workhouse). “But, judge, this is no fake case;
-try him.”
-
-The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him, and the judge
-sent him up for eleven weeks. The little woman and her children were
-sent to her relatives in North Carolina by the Board of Charities and
-Children's Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, reminding
-him that he had put himself in God's hands for discipline, and assuring
-him that if he could stand true, God had a useful life in store for him.
-A marked New Testament was given him when he left for down the river.
-There his head was shaved in the very cold weather, his clothing
-changed, so that he took a severe cold which came near carrying him off
-with pneumonia. It took about two weeks to bring political and social
-influence to bear to have him paroled and sent back to the Mission.
-
-January and February of 1912 were very cold months, it was hard to get
-any kind of work for men to do, and the only thing we could secure for
-Connaught was passing circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to
-$3.60 per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3, to be
-sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline phoned me, “Connaught
-is trying to live on the rolls and coffee given in the bread line at six
-o'clock in the morning.” I replied, “Connaught must have oatmeal with
-cream—real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must have eggs and meat
-and strong coffee, or he will lose his religion.” “Well, who is going to
-provide all that?” “The Lord has money enough for that.” “Well, suppose
-you bring some of it right along,” which of course I did.
-
-About the tenth day after he began circulating papers, the work gave
-out. We really prayed night and day, for we feared he would be
-rearrested and we had no money to support him. In a few days he secured
-work at digging on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been
-accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with him on his poor
-blistered hands, he said, “I am so glad to get the work that the hurt is
-nothing.” Think of that for a man who had not done a lick of work,
-physically or mentally, for months and months.
-
-Long before this we had found that he was a graduate of an English
-university, had lived in good style, keeping servants, he had possessed
-a nice home when he was first married, but when he found the habit of
-drink had fastened itself upon him, he came to this country hoping to
-break away from old companions and surroundings, and thus get away from
-the sin which bound him.
-
-He tried all the cures; in fact, all his property not spent in drink
-went to the cures, but nothing cured him. We found he had been a
-first-class bookkeeper for one of the great railroads centering at
-Washington, so we applied to them. I am glad to say they took an
-immediate interest in the case.
-
-A man was sent to see him, then Mr. Connaught was put in charge of an
-office building at $40 per month, and at once he wanted his family back.
-They came first to the Mission, for we desired to keep him attending
-services every night till he would understand better the word of God and
-grow strong in faith. The railroad now pays him $80 a month, for he is a
-good executive, and he has bought a little home in the suburbs on which
-he is paying monthly; a home where he can have a garden, an orchard and
-chickens. About once a week the father, the mother, and children come to
-the Mission. No better looking or happier looking people enter that
-building. He comes, as he says, to bear testimony to the saving and
-keeping power of the dear Lord Jesus.
-
-
- PSYCHOLOGY
-
-Now, science could not cure this case; all that science could do had
-been done for him. He had become so low that if he saw his children
-starving and he had ten cents, the money went to the saloon and not for
-bread. It is, as Professor James says, that “Conversion is the only
-means by which a radically bad man can be changed into a radically good
-person.” The agencies in any conversion are first prayer, then the Holy
-Spirit and the word of God. This man was so far gone that he did not
-believe in the existence of God. But the sympathy of the workers made
-them pray most earnestly for God's Spirit, which came with convicting
-power. The verse of Scripture which came like a wireless message to his
-soul was, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
-our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He claimed and
-still claims the last clause as a message to him personally.
-
-The reason that hundreds of sermons fail to comfort a saint or convert a
-sinner is because they fall on prayerless pews. You remember how what is
-known as the Great New England Revival came about. Dr. Jonathan Edwards
-was accustomed to go to his church every Saturday afternoon to think and
-to pray for his people.
-
-On one occasion a beggar, known in the town as Old Betty, sat unseen in
-a back pew. The great preacher put his head down on the Bible and
-sobbed. As he came out Old Betty said, “What is it, Dr. Edwards, that so
-troubles you?” “Betty, I have not seen a soul converted in this church
-for a year. Why is it?” “It is because these pews are prayerless.” “Will
-you pray till you get the answer that God will come in power to this
-church?” “I will.” Betty hid when the janitor came to close the church,
-and the answer to her soul did not come till the dawning of the morning.
-
-The following day Dr. Edwards started as usual to read his sermon, but
-he soon put it away and began a straight evangelistic talk, professed
-Christians stood in their places and asked for prayers, elders and
-deacons prostrated themselves before God, the whole town became a prayer
-circle, and the New England Revival had begun.
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER V
- BIG FEET
-
-
-One day a very large man, well over sixty years, and with three fingers
-off each hand, in a very modest way said to me, “I am so ashamed to tell
-a lady my needs,” and he turned up his foot and showed me where the sole
-was worn out, so that at every step he made he left a track in blood.
-“You poor fellow, you need not be ashamed to tell me of need like that.
-I shall arrange for you to stay at the Mission till I get shoes for
-you.”
-
-He was of the class who sell shoestrings and pencils, but in very cold
-weather people do not stop to buy from street merchants. That night,
-after the midweek service of my church, I rose in my place and asked for
-a pair of shoes number 9½ or 10. The men hooted, no one of them ever
-wore that size, declaring, of course, that I wanted them to wear myself.
-
-“Well,” I said, “whether you wear them or not, you get them for me,” and
-I told the story of the bleeding feet. I did the same at my boarding
-house. By the next day one of the elders of the church came with two
-pairs of shoes which looked nearly big enough for boats, also one of the
-men of the boarding house sent to Annapolis to his father, a very large
-man, for a pair of shoes, which came to me by express. I put the three
-pairs into a basket and rushed to the Mission, when lo! the poor man
-could barely get his toes into the shoes. With trembling lip, he said,
-“It is simply disgraceful to be old and poor and so awful big that even
-one's friends cannot help a fellow.” “Indeed, it is no disgrace to be
-old, poor and big, but it is a disgrace to be a bad man of any size or
-age. Don't you worry, I shall find the shoes.”
-
-That afternoon I met a Board composed mostly of men eminent in city
-affairs, among them was a distinguished lawyer, a very large man. He sat
-with his foot across one knee, when I leaned over and said, “Brother,
-would you mind walking home in your hose, and giving me those shoes for
-a poor chap as large as you are?” “Do you really mean it?” “Yes, I do;
-only I will let you wear them home, then send them to me with hose,
-under clothes, and any other clothing you can spare.”
-
-By the next morning I had clothing for the poor fellow, and Mr. G.'s
-number 11 shoes fit as if made to order.
-
-If the poor man had successfully sold pencils and shoestrings all winter
-he could not have been so well clothed as he was that day. But, best of
-all, while he was obliged to wait he read the four Gospels through
-several times, and he sought and found salvation in Jesus Christ. That
-was November, 1911. Since that he has gotten a place as night watchman
-in a large building, and he is a good and faithful man.
-
-In Missions we have a large number of deserted wives with children, whom
-we clothe. By that help they can by their own labor keep their little
-families together, and then on every holiday, such as Christmas,
-Thanksgiving, etc., we bring them all to the Mission for reunion and a
-big dinner. The joyous seasons for the rich are the saddest times for
-the poor and the bereaved. It is such a privilege to be the
-administrators of the church people who send money and clothing for
-these purposes. In return, the Missions are the real protection of the
-city. A hungry man is dangerous, and a man with a hungry family is a
-menace.
-
-My maid told me, one extreme cold day, that a man was at the door to see
-me. I found there one of the most dangerous housebreakers in the
-country. “Murphy,” I said, “I do not want to see any of you men at my
-home. What do you want?” “I am starving.” “Well, go to the Mission, we
-never turn a man away there.” “I wouldn't be caught dead there.” “Why
-not?” “Well, I hate Kline (the Superintendent) and the whole outfit, but
-I am starving, I tell you.”
-
-I knew by that he had been stealing at the Mission. Thieves fold up the
-sheets and pillow-cases, even when they have been entertaining free, put
-the bedding under their coats and get away with it. In time we get to
-know them and will not put them in the dormitories, but only in the
-barracks fitted with shelving but with no pillows or covers, but fire is
-kept all night. The bath and toilet-room adjoins or is part of the
-barracks, so that men are made comfortable. I took Murphy to an eating
-house near by and filled him up, but at the same time warning him to get
-out of town as soon as possible or change his course and become a good
-man. Now, if that man had not been given food he would surely have
-gotten it, if it cost a human life. Bad as he was, he would have been
-fed had he gone to the Mission. I feared he would not go, but would
-commit some depredation. Speaking of thieves, reminds me of the case of
-a man whom I shall call
-
-
- JAMES MANN.
-
-One evening a tall, fine-looking man came into the Mission chapel. One
-gets to know thieves somewhat as you know an Englishman, a German, an
-Italian, by the marks environment have left on the person. I knew on
-sight that he was a thief. We had a Salvation Army man at the Mission
-that night from West Virginia, who gave the message. His subject was,
-“Be sure thy sin will find thee out.”
-
-He had been a thief, had served time, but now he told how happy and safe
-he felt serving God and in being a good citizen. Several men knelt at
-the altar that night, so when 9.30 P.M., the time for dismissal, came,
-the men were permitted to go to the dormitories while one or two workers
-prayed with the penitents.
-
-Mr. Mann retired, but he could distinctly hear the praying. He declared
-that a voice said, “_Mann, now or never_.” He tried to go to sleep, the
-inward voice persisted, “Now or never.” He put on his clothes, went back
-to the chapel, threw himself down at the altar and cried to God for
-mercy for himself.
-
-The workers gathered about him, he told God his story of sin and shame,
-and God heard his cry for mercy, and he rose a forgiven sinner. His kit
-of burglar tools were thrown into the Potomac River. He had come to
-Washington to burglarize in the northwest section of the city during the
-time when Mr. Taft was being inaugurated. His portrait could have been
-seen in the rogues' gallery in every large city of the country, but in a
-few weeks God so changed his face that the man could not have been
-recognized by the old portrait.
-
-We told Major Sylvester, Chief of Police, of the case, and Mann was put
-on the special police force at the Union Station at inauguration time,
-and never before nor since was there ever such a quick nabbing of the
-noted thieves as at the Taft inaugural occasion.
-
-Mr. Mann's mother came on from her western home. She is a sincere
-Christian woman. It was doubtless the answering of her prayers which
-brought conviction, then salvation to that dangerous man. Once she said,
-“James, I never heard of you for two whole years; where were you then?”
-He made an evasive answer, but we knew that he had spent them behind
-bars.
-
-After the inauguration the special police were discharged, and Mr. Mann
-went to work as a carpenter. He made a good assistant carpenter. About
-six months after that one of the Northern States was making a search for
-large men for their mounted police. Major Sylvester recommended Mann, as
-he was six feet four inches tall, and from that day to this he has been
-on the mounted constabulary of a great State, engaged in enforcing the
-law, rather than breaking the laws of his country.
-
-Now, is not that real service to the State? This man was restored to his
-family, to society, to God. He became a factor for righteousness,
-instead of an element of danger to the commonwealth.
-
-We are not always fortunate enough to see men of that class seek God. On
-one occasion three young thieves came into the Mission, they were of the
-traveling men of their base business. After I returned to my home I
-called up the police and told them my suspicion, and asked them to watch
-the Mission very closely from eleven o'clock until morning. They were
-all captured between twelve and one o'clock midnight as they were
-leaving the building and escorted to the station and told to leave town,
-which, of course, they did immediately.
-
-[Illustration: FREE SUPPER SERVICE]
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER VI
- HOW WE GOT A NEW MISSION BUILDING
-
-
- (A CHAPTER ON FAITH)
-
-Although by January 1, 1911, we had eighty-four beds filled nearly every
-night with homeless men, we felt ourselves very much hampered for room.
-We turned many away. Many a poor fellow that winter walked the streets
-all night to keep from freezing.
-
-When we pray for a thing which we think the work of the Lord requires,
-we begin at once to arrange for it, as if the money to do the work were
-already at hand. Our paper, _The Gospel Tidings_, of January, 1911,
-said, “Our Mission now does business in three different localities, and
-will soon be obliged to rent two more places for the wood cutting
-department and for opening a penny lunch-room.”
-
-We were so sure that the Lord's work needed enlarging that we went to
-the very best architects we knew, Gregg & Leisenring, and told them our
-plans and needs, and they prepared with the greatest care, drawings for
-a building costing at the very least $50,000, besides the cost of the
-land. Then the writer visited the seats of the mighty in New York City
-with the best introductions that the District Commissioners and leading
-statesmen could give. While I was received with great kindness and
-courtesy, I was distinctly told by one magnate that he helped only the
-young and those starting in life; by another that his charity could
-never take a local form, that he gave along the line of research for
-causes and remedies of diseases. The women, whose secretaries I met,
-themselves not being visible to plain people, I was assured had planned
-all their surplus income for five to eight years ahead, so that I came
-back convinced that God's way for the Gospel Mission was not by way of
-New York City.
-
-About that time a great fire occurred in an eastern city, and many men
-and women lost their lives, and the order went out in Washington that
-every building where a large number of people worked or slept must have
-plenty of fire-escapes.
-
-We found to put fire-escapes on the Gospel Mission would cost $125, an
-immense sum to us, but we were preparing to put up the fire-escapes when
-the owner refused his permission. We told the police, and asked time to
-relocate, but were peremptorily ordered out of 1230 Pennsylvania Avenue,
-N. W. We could find no suitable building obtainable within our means.
-
-
- A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
-
-was called at my house for prayer. There were thirteen members present.
-The object of the meeting was stated by President Wheeler, a few of
-God's promises read from His word, and we went on our knees for prayer.
-
-Each one asked for a suitable home to do the Master's work as seen and
-done by the Gospel Mission. It was noticeable that after the eighth
-person had prayed, each prayer took more and more the form of
-thanksgiving, as if we already had received the building, or money to
-build it.
-
-There had been offered to us a very large double building which had once
-been used as the District Building, and upon which it was claimed that
-the government of the United States had once put $60,000 to make it
-fireproof. It is situated at 214-216 John Marshall Place, N. W., not far
-from the foot of Capitol Hill. After having the distinct answer to
-prayer that God was working with us, a letter was written to Mrs. John
-Hay, wife of the deceased great Secretary of State, asking her to
-purchase that building for $25,000 for us and to permit us to pay her a
-fair interest and pay the principal in annual payments. The letter was
-written about the first of March. Almost by return mail Mrs. Hay replied
-that she did not care to make so large an investment, but if we cared to
-go forward and purchase the building ourselves, that on April 1 she
-would give us $5000 on the first payment. Never will I forget the scene
-when that letter was read.
-
-Mr. H. D. Gordon had received the letter just as he was starting for the
-Board meeting, his face was radiant. When Mr. Wheeler came in the letter
-was put in his hands without comment. As soon as he read the words, “I
-will give you $5000 on the first payment,” without waiting to finish the
-letter, he said, “Let us pray.” We, on our knees, each one thanked God
-for the gift dictated by His Spirit, and asked God's blessing on the
-magnanimous woman who had obeyed the Spirit's order.
-
-The Building Committee eventually secured the property for $22,000, of
-which $5000 was to be a cash payment, and by agreeing to pay $1750
-annually, and to pay semi-annually a 5½ per cent interest.
-
-Think of the growth in spiritual power of a little organization which in
-September, 1908, shuddered at a bill of $25, in the early spring of 1911
-joyously making itself responsible for $17,000 bearing a semi-annual
-interest amounting in the year to $850!
-
-Since that time we have made three annual payments of $1750 each, and we
-have met all interest to date.
-
-Probably in no civilized country was there ever a dirtier house. The
-building had been occupied by some foreigners until it had become so
-vile that the police condemned it and obliged them to move out. They
-took with them all gas fixtures, all sewerage, heating and water pipes;
-in fact, wrecked the building, but a mission band is brave, and went
-valiantly to work.
-
-More than one hundred wagon loads of dirt were taken from the cellars.
-We know, for we paid ten cents a load to the dump. When we had put in
-$100 in glass, it scarcely made a mark, so large is the building. It has
-sixty-six rooms, some of them as large as the chapel of an ordinary
-church.
-
-The walls have been scraped and calcimined and whitewashed; the entire
-woodwork inside and all the outside has been painted; new gas pipes and
-gas fixtures have been placed; new sewerage and bath-rooms have been
-prepared. Four new fire-escapes and an electric fire-alarm system
-installed; a splendid French steel range has been set in the kitchen;
-hot and cold water supplied to various parts of the building, etc.
-
-The first meeting was held in our new building, 216 John Marshall Place,
-N. W., on the evening of April 15, 1911, Mr. Wheeler presiding.
-
-We found the roof leaked so badly that in case of storm some rooms
-became uninhabitable. Again I was obliged to personally guarantee the
-payment of $500 for a new roof. Again, Mr. Ernest Gichner came to my
-help. He put on a good roof, built up and pointed the thirteen chimneys,
-put ventilators in many chimneys, saw to resetting, reglazed all
-skylights, and permitted us to pay him $25 per month till the debt was
-paid off.
-
-When the possibility of completing the first cleaning seemed most
-hopeless, when heat, water and gas pipes had to be replaced, several
-members of the Board pledged $100 each. To some of us that meant great
-self-denial. Mrs. Richard Butler gave $500 and Mrs. Spindle $200; in all
-we spent $5000 in repairing and cleaning that building. Every step was
-made in faith.
-
-It was wonderful how our people sacrificed to get all this done; women
-who do not do such work at home came and scrubbed and cleaned; many a
-poor man gave a day's work. Three men who readily command $3 per day,
-worked three months each at $1 a day with room and board. The people of
-Washington sent us piles of old furniture, for which we were deeply
-grateful. Then Superintendent Kline got a great quantity of furniture
-and many feet of piping for conducting heat, and secondhand radiators at
-the sale of the old Riggs Hotel. We secured a good mechanic, and with
-our mechanics at the Mission, installed the heating plant. The expenses
-during that time were at least $200 per week. At our Board meeting one
-Tuesday, Treasurer Gordon reported $4.84 on hand. All business was
-stopped immediately and we went to prayer telling our Father that we had
-but $4.84 and the bills of the week would be due on Saturday. We had
-each of us done all we could afford. The following Tuesday the Treasurer
-reported all bills paid and $284 in the treasury. Thus God not only
-supplied all our wants, but graciously relieved our anxiety.
-
-
- SPEAKER CHAMP CLARK
-
-Rather an amusing incident occurred when our cleaning was most
-strenuous. We have a large number of good women who will do good work if
-I lead, so on one occasion I took a tin bucket with rags, soap,
-scrub-brush, etc., and went to help on work rather out of my line. I
-started to return with the bucket in hand. When I came to the car I saw
-the Hon. Champ Clark, who had then very recently been elected Speaker,
-at the front of the car. I was careful to take the back seat, hoping he
-would not see me. I had barely got seated when he came back and took a
-seat beside me. I tried to apologize for my appearance and impedimenta.
-He said, “Oh, bother! Never mind. What fault are you Republicans finding
-with me now?” and we went at the Reciprocity Bill, then before the
-House, with hammer and tongs. When I got off at Second Street, S. E.,
-the Speaker carried the bucket and handed it to me in his gallant way,
-still talking of the measure before Congress. I doubt if he recognized
-whether it was an old tin bucket or a jewel case which he transferred to
-me.
-
-As long as this is a faith chapter, I shall here insert a statement of
-how God sent the last $300 on our annual payment and semi-annual
-interest due and paid May 7, 1913.
-
-This is from the June, 1913, number of _Gospel Tidings_:
-
-
- HOW THE LORD PAID THE DEBT
-
-Mrs. Monroe's Letter in _Lutheran Observer_ of May 16:
-
-“On May 1 (1913), we were owing at the Gospel Mission on the building
-$15,500 with $406 semi-annual interest. We have agreed to pay $1750 each
-year, so we were responsible for $2156 on May 1; by special agreement it
-was not paid until the 7th. I want to tell my friends who have prayed
-with me in this struggle how the Lord led us.
-
-“At the Board meeting, Tuesday, April 29, we had $1140 in the treasury.
-By Wednesday morning we had $1200. Thursday we had $1300, and on Friday,
-at Dr. Stearns's class, I reported $1400 in the treasury and requested
-God's children to ask for the $756 yet due. By Sunday, May 4, we had
-$1659, when Hon. B. H. Warner subscribed $200, bringing our fund to
-$1859. A small bill reduced it to $1856.
-
-“The gentleman who held the note telephoned from Baltimore that he would
-not come for his money until Wednesday, May 7. At the Tuesday evening
-meeting five of us prayed definitely for $300. On Wednesday morning,
-just after breakfast, a friend telephoned, 'Please come up at once.'
-Now, that is my writing day, and I felt I could hardly go, but my times
-are in His hands, and if He said 'Go,' then that was my orders. I went
-at once, and my friend said, 'I feel you are needing $300 on your debt,
-and the Lord woke me up to tell me to hand you $300, and I am prepared
-to pay it.'
-
-“To say how grateful we all are cannot be put into words. But at this
-time, when the city was being scoured for $300,000 for the Emergency
-Hospital, when the Ohio sufferers had claimed all we thought we could
-spare, for the Board of a little mission, dependent mostly on the poor,
-as the poor man's church, to pray down from heaven $2156 of a special
-fund, besides the running expenses, which are always very heavy, means
-more than money to us. It seems to be the divine seal of God's approval
-on our work. I had subscribed $500 for myself and friends. He graciously
-paid through me $656, and now, with the $300, He has made my share $956.
-
-“Some of the readers of the _Observer_ sent me money, but more prayed
-for our work. Now, join with us in praising God for a message straight
-from the throne of our dear, loving heavenly Father.
-
-“To everyone who helped, even to the amount of five cents; to those who
-denied themselves usual comforts to help the Mission; to those who gave
-to help provide shelter for the poor—to each of us He sends, I am sure,
-this dear message, 'I glorify you in order that your faith may be
-strengthened and that you may glorify me.' If any of us has ever had any
-doubt of God's special providence to His children, let this concrete
-example be a permanent love-message of assurance to every such doubter.”
-
-
- NEXT STEP OF FAITH
-
-By June, 1913, we found that nearly every Sunday night more than one
-hundred persons had to be denied entrance on account of lack of room. We
-saw by taking down a partition on the north side of the chapel between
-chapel and hall, we could seat at least one hundred more. We were just
-over the strain of the last payment, and we were loath to ask our
-friends for more help, but as God continues to each of His children the
-blessings which they daily enjoy, so each child of God must continue to
-help in His work, and relying on Him “who worketh with us,” we ordered
-the wall taken out at a cost of about $900, which afterward proved to be
-$1300. Again I had to make myself responsible for the payment of that
-amount. It was all paid on time.
-
-In this faith chapter I desire to insert the following from the _Gospel
-Tidings_ of June, 1913:
-
-
- MR. WHEELER'S STORY
-
-“At the Sunday evening service, December 18, 1912, Mr. Wheeler said:
-'When I was in charge of religious work at the United States jail some
-years ago, one Sunday, after service, I went round, as was my custom, to
-shake hands with the men behind the bars. I came to a fine-looking man,
-to whom I said, “Why are you here? I have often seen you on the street,
-and I have thought of you as a good citizen.” “O Mr. Wheeler, I have
-been a good citizen. My wife and I have a little store in Georgetown,
-where we sell oysters in the winter and ice cream in the summer. My wife
-gave me $65 to settle our bill with the wholesale oyster man, and I took
-a number of drinks, and finally went into the marble saloon and took a
-drink with some strangers, and as surely as I tell you I do not remember
-another thing until I found myself in a cell at the station house.”'
-
-“On further inquiry Mr. Wheeler found that the prisoner was charged with
-passing counterfeit money. It appeared that after he came out of the
-saloon a Jew was crying clothing on D Street. This man went into the
-Jew's clothing store, bought a suit of clothes, for which he offered a
-$50 bill in payment. The Jew could not make change, so took it to a
-neighbor, who assured him the bill was bad, and the man's arrest
-immediately followed.
-
-“Mr. Wheeler went often to the cell to pray with and for the poor
-prisoner, who devoted his time to the study of the Gospels. He was
-soundly converted. Mr. Wheeler said, 'Do not trust alone to your lawyer.
-Appeal to Jesus Christ now to clear you, for, as far as I can see, man
-cannot.'
-
-“His lawyer told Mr. Wheeler that the court would surely send the
-prisoner to the penitentiary. On the morning of the trial several
-Christian men met together and prayed over the case. The court convened
-at 10 A.M., and the case was immediately called. A stranger asked to be
-sworn as a witness. He said about this: 'I was in Washington on the day
-this affair occurred. I do not often take a drink, but I happened to be
-in the saloon when this man came in. He took a drink with two young
-fellows who happened to be there, and the liquor made him drunk at once,
-when one of the young fellows said, “It is my turn to treat, and I will,
-if any of you can change a $50 bill.” This man brought out lots of
-money, and got the $50 bill in exchange. I left Washington the next day,
-that is how I was fortunate enough to remember the date. I got back
-yesterday, and happened to see a statement of this case in the evening's
-paper, and I felt simply compelled to come and give my testimony.'”
-
-The prisoner was reprimanded (which was unnecessary, as he was a new
-creature in Christ Jesus), but the case against him was dismissed, as it
-was apparent there was no intent to defraud the Jew. His family nearly
-smothered him with kisses and embraces, and he walked out a free man.
-
-Skeptics may say this was mere chance. But how did it happen that the
-man came back on that day, saw that account in the paper, felt compelled
-to testify? No, God directed the case after it was committed to Him.
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER VII
- VARIETIES OF WORK IN A GOSPEL MISSION
-
-
-We are apt to think that all persons who accept the hospitality of the
-Mission are low-born people; we have not found it so. There have knelt
-at the altar of the Gospel Mission, priests and preachers, lawyers,
-doctors, merchants, engineers, college men and poor chaps who have had
-no education but that of the street.
-
-I remember one night when we were located at 1230 Pennsylvania Avenue,
-there knelt at the altar three men, one an ex-preacher, one a graduate
-of the University of Virginia, and one the nephew of an ex-President of
-the United States. We believed they were all converted. The preacher was
-in bad physical condition, and we felt it necessary to put him into a
-Christian institution for such as he for medical treatment. The taste
-for liquor had gone, but the ulcerated stomach and bowels remained, also
-his nerves were in a dangerous condition. How we ever obtained money
-enough to pay that man's bills for six weeks is yet a marvel, but we did
-it. He came out a redeemed, humble man. He went to the pastor of a large
-church in Brooklyn, whom he had known at college, and before that large
-church he acknowledged his sin with shame and deep contrition. The
-church had grace enough to accept him. The congregation opened a rescue
-mission, supported entirely by that church, where for five years he has
-preached the gospel and has saved a hundredfold more souls than the big
-church which supports the mission.
-
-The Virginian never again crossed our path, but Mr. Buchanan died after
-three years of a good life, an honored member of an Episcopal church in
-Washington.
-
-Men who have been dissipated, even when redeemed and reformed do not, as
-a usual thing, live to old age. The wages of sin is death to the body,
-though the soul may enter upon eternal life.
-
-Among the sorrowful who nightly are to be found at the missions of this
-city either pensioned by their family or the government, but not
-permitted to return to their homes, is one man who was once one of the
-_best_ mail agents between Washington and New York City. Another, the
-son of an ex-cabinet officer. Another has been Chief Mathematician in a
-government bureau, besides about twenty wrecks of various government
-departments.
-
-I remember the case of a well-known man in Philadelphia. He was
-converted one extremely cold night at the Breakfast Association. No
-provision is made there for beds, so that poor fellow started “to carry
-the banner”—that is to walk the streets all night. About three o'clock
-in the morning he was taken with a congestive chill. A kind policeman,
-seeing the man was ill and not drunk, sent him at once to that blessed
-little Presbyterian hospital in West Philadelphia.
-
-It happened that one of the Board of Directors of the Breakfast
-Association, Mr. Tibbals, had given the poor fellow his card. The
-authorities, finding the card, sent for Mr. Tibbals. The sick man had
-revived enough when Mr. Tibbals arrived, to give his true name and the
-address of his parents, which was a number on Fifth Avenue, New York
-City. That street was then a residence street for very wealthy people.
-Just as soon as it could be done, a telegram for $100 was received in
-reply and we were directed to do all we could for him. But the man died
-before night, and Mr. Tibbals was asked to take the body to New York.
-The coffin was carried into one of the handsomest brown-stone residences
-on that handsome avenue.
-
-The mother and father met Mr. Tibbals, and in the parlor the coffin was
-opened for identification. It was the body of the only son of that proud
-family. The father gave one look, one great sob, then seized his hat and
-fled. The mother said, “O Mr. Tibbals, you think I am grief-stricken
-over his death! But I am not even sorry. This son has been a drunkard
-from childhood. We could not keep him at home, for he would steal
-everything he could carry away and sell it for whisky. Since we lost
-sight of him, I have never opened a paper without fearing I should read
-his name in connection with some awful crime. No, I am relieved. I shall
-know where he is. I have often gotten into my carriage and have had the
-driver go up and down this street (which was then covered with
-cobblestones) as fast as the law permitted him to drive, and I have
-screamed and screamed my heart out. I have gone to the seashore to
-scream to let off my nervous strain. Had I given just one such scream in
-my own house, I would this day be in a mad house. Oh, no, for this
-death, after what you hope was a conversion, I am deeply grateful to
-God!”
-
-And yet people wonder at Carrie Nation. It is a wonder that grief like
-that does not make iconoclasts of all mothers whose sons go down the
-Jericho road.
-
-The following testimony, given in the winter of 1911, by one who had
-stood on many rounds of the social ladder, a man who accepted
-redemption, and is now kept by the power of God:
-
-
- A REMARKABLE TESTIMONY
-
-“When Brother Wheeler requested me to address this meeting, I felt
-somewhat nervous, for the simple reason that I had never in my life
-addressed a religious meeting before, and I so stated to Mr. Wheeler.
-However, I could not refuse him, and here I am.
-
-“True, in years gone by, while down South, I have spoken to political
-gatherings. Since I got religion, I stopped that. If I should ever make
-a political address again, it will be in the interest of the Prohibition
-party. I regret that I have no experience in addressing a religious
-meeting, and I, therefore, ask you to be patient with me, especially as,
-due to previous engagements, I was unable to prepare myself, except in
-so far that I have decided to make a few remarks on personal salvation,
-and by the term personal I have my own in mind.
-
-“I want to tell you something about my own experience, how I had lost my
-God and found Him again. A man born and reared on the Bowery or any of
-its side streets in New York City, a man who from his childhood on has
-been influenced by evil-minded and sinful people, has never heard of
-Christ, and in the course of time becomes a hardened criminal, such a
-man may be condemned by mankind, but never by God.
-
-“A man born and raised in a comfortable, refined home, who has been
-taught the doctrines of Christ, has confessed his belief that Christ is
-His Saviour, has a full knowledge of right and wrong and of the duties
-he owes his fellow-man—if such a man becomes a willing victim to sensual
-pleasures, he may not be condemned by mankind, but God will condemn him,
-unless he repents and starts to lead a new, clean life.
-
-“Only too often men are so completely wrapped up in their personal
-matters, as, for instance, in their business affairs, that they
-absolutely lose sight of the obligations they owe God, and also their
-fellow-men, and, as a natural result, neglect their souls.
-
-“I honestly believe that such a man is more to be pitied than the ones
-who, either through their own fault or being victims of circumstances,
-have lost their hold in life and finally found themselves 'down and
-out.' A man may temporarily be without food and shelter, but this is
-nothing compared to trying to live without God. However, a man who is a
-wanderer on the face of the earth and who has lost his God, is indeed a
-wretched being. I am speaking from experience.
-
-“For years I had violated the divine laws. I had been what is generally
-termed a society man, 'way down South. I enjoyed a large income, but I
-spent everything for worldly pleasures. Finally, I became disgusted with
-my surroundings; but, better still, I became disgusted with myself. I
-drifted to New York City, determined to live a new life. This occurred
-about fourteen years ago. Up to that time I had not been within or even
-near a church for seven years. The New York atmosphere apparently did
-not agree with me. Instead of leading a clean, moral life—by that I
-understood at that time a life simply conforming to the requirements of
-the social laws (the divine laws did not exist for me)—I became worse
-than I had ever been.
-
-“Although I made good money, as the saying is, I was, nevertheless,
-broke all the time. I voluntarily gave up several splendid positions
-because objections had been made to my reporting late in the morning for
-duty, and, having become rather nervous, I practically found it
-impossible to get along with anyone. I had become a slave to my habits,
-and finally associated with the 'has beens,' as they are sometimes
-called.
-
-“There is not a man in this room who knows more about the life on the
-east side of New York than I do. I know full well what it means to be
-hungry and homeless. I have worked as a longshoreman, newspaperman,
-cook, bookkeeper and correspondent. I have been running hot frankfurter
-stands, etc., sometimes I had two jobs in one day. I was given a
-wonderful taste of the ups and downs in New York City, especially the
-downs. I certainly am grateful to Providence for subjecting me to that
-awful experience in New York City, for in that way I learned to know
-human nature. I learned to know that the so-called submerged masses were
-composed of human beings, not brainless individuals; that, as a matter
-of fact, there are better people, especially morally, among the poor
-than among the so-called society people.
-
-“I might be asked why it was that I did not find God again, when I was
-down and out in New York City. Christ was knocking, knocking all the
-time to enter my heart, but I had become a cynic and would not let Him
-in. I used to think in those times that if there was a just God I would
-not be in such a sorrowful plight. The trouble with me was, I did not
-have enough sense to admit that my condition was simply due to my own
-faults and to nothing else.
-
-“During my stay in New York I have met many saintly people, men and
-women who devoted their time, energy and money to the uplift of the
-homeless and the friendless. Those good people tried their best to have
-me converted. They did not succeed because I was not willing and because
-I actually believed most of my friends who were in charge of the several
-missions that I was in the habit of attending were suffering from
-hallucinations, although perfectly honest in their self-imposed task.
-
-[Illustration: PENNY LUNCH ROOM]
-
-“The greatest evil in New York City is, as everywhere, the saloon. The
-majority of you men present here this evening must admit if it were not
-for the saloon you would not be here as applicants for bodily
-assistance. There are evil spirits in us and around us to lead us
-astray; the devil's worst temptation is whisky or any other intoxicating
-drink. Man was made in the image of God; when a man gets drunk he is
-worse than a beast. A man will get drunk again and again, a beast will
-not, having seemingly more sense than a man. The saloon is the greatest
-foe to the spread of the gospel. In most cases the saloon-keeper knows
-quite well that he is a highway robber, that his business is ruining
-untold thousands of men, women and children, but as his so-called
-business is a legalized one, he may continue indirectly committing
-murder.
-
-“Really I have more respect for the highwayman and robber than for a
-saloon-keeper. During my voluntary and involuntary observations in New
-York and elsewhere, I have come to the conclusion that Christ would
-conquer the world in much less time if only the awful saloon and dive
-could be eliminated.
-
-“In my travels in this country and in the foreign countries, I have met
-many people who by word and deed were spreading the gospel. Some of them
-naturally inquired of me whether I had been converted. My answer was
-'No,' because, as a matter of fact, I did not know the meaning of the
-word converted. I was told to seek Christ and the meaning would be made
-plain to me. Evidently I was not sufficiently willing to meet Christ
-half way, and thus I wasted years of my life before I finally submitted
-to the pleadings of the Saviour.
-
-“While I was in the Philippine Islands, twelve years ago, I was deeply
-impressed with the different attitudes of the officers and enlisted men
-when on the firing line. It was plain, even to the casual observer, that
-the men who were thoroughly devout Christians—and there are many
-thousands of Christians in our army—were not afraid to face the bullets,
-but the men who were agnostics and unbelievers, whatever that may mean,
-were so nervous and excited that they hardly knew what they were doing,
-or they were downright cowards.
-
-“In my own case I was not afraid of death, as I had given very little
-thought to such a possibility; besides I had become more or less
-indifferent to life and possible death. One hot summer day, while
-fighting the Filipinos, I was shot through the head. An army surgeon
-bandaged me up as best he could and then assured me I was very likely
-not to live through the day.
-
-“If I ever got scared, it was then, and if ever I prayed, it was then,
-in spite of the excruciating pains I suffered. The words of a comrade,
-who was a fine soldier, though not a thorough Christian, uttered by him
-shortly before I was wounded, were constantly ringing in my ears,
-namely, 'A man may possibly live without Christ, but he cannot die
-without Christ.'
-
-“For a month or so the doctors and nurses did not think I would live,
-but God spared my life, and no doubt for a purpose. For six months I was
-unable to utter a word, as the bullet had passed through my tongue. It
-was well for me I could not talk to any human being, but I could talk to
-God. During those months I lived my entire life over again. I promised
-God to become a better man. True, I became more earnest in my views of
-life, I realized the value of the golden rule, but I was not converted.
-I could not yet understand the meaning of the word.
-
-“The Red Cross nurses, who at the beginning of the trouble in the
-Philippines were in charge of the hospital, were not only experts in
-their profession, but were splendid types of self-sacrificing
-Christians, and their presence alone made the patients think of their
-mothers or sisters or other dear ones at home, thousands of miles away,
-and thus unconsciously these nurses, noble representatives of womanhood,
-frequently wrought a change for the better in the hearts of the wounded
-soldiers.
-
-“While I was a patient at Manilla I saw many a man pass out of this
-life. The man with Christ in his heart died with a smile on his lips,
-knowing he had done his duty and that Christ would meet him. The
-unbeliever suffered agonies.
-
-“I was wounded almost twelve years ago, not a day has passed without my
-communicating with God, and God was always willing to talk with me, when
-I addressed Him. As a result of my experience in the Philippines I spent
-almost three years in the hospital. I thank God He made me suffer, it
-was the only possible way for me to find Him again. My conversion did
-not take place all at once, it took place gradually. God used different
-means and ways in recalling me. I cannot mention them here without
-baring my life to you, which may be of no interest to you. Let me assure
-you no man can succeed without Christ. A man may amass a fortune, but if
-he neglects his soul his life is of little value.
-
-“Among the applicants at different missions, I have met men who claimed
-the good people in charge were nothing but hypocrites. It is certainly
-strange that those fellows apply to hypocrites for help. Why don't they
-go to the agnostic or to the unbeliever?
-
-“Follow my advice, first seek Christ; He is always ready and willing to
-accept you; the rest is easy. A drunkard cannot become sober by taking
-the Keeley cure or anything like that. The desire for drink is often
-inherited, medicine will not cure the sufferer, only God's grace can
-cure him.
-
-“Why is it that the man who lives with Christ is always happy, even
-under adverse circumstances, and the man without Him is, as a rule,
-nothing but an egotist? You can easily find the answer yourself. Come to
-Christ, and, if you are willing to come, why not now?”
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER VIII
- THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK
-
-
-As early as the fall of 1909 we put out this call:
-
-
- CENTRAL BUREAU OF LABOR
-
- “The District of Columbia needs a Labor Bureau to which our Mission
- and the Associated Charities can send men and women out of
- employment. The Bureau, being a government affair, should know where
- labor is needed and should furnish transportation to such places,
- whether it be to the cotton fields of the South, the harvest fields
- of the West, or the manufactories of New England.
-
- “Such a Bureau should secure from the railroads concessions, such as
- they give to immigrants, in sending our unemployed to the fields of
- labor.
-
- “Unless Society, with a big 'S,' reaches a hand to the unemployed
- these people will surely become a menace to our great cities, and on
- some sad day they will dynamite our public buildings.
-
- “We, who work among them, know their sorrow, their anguish, their
- despair, which will end in desperation, unless relief is furnished.
-
- “Use your influence to secure a Central National Bureau of Labor for
- the unemployed. The strong and wealthy can care for themselves, but
- a good government should concern itself with its weaker members.”
-
-_The Survey_ (published in New York) is now (1913) steadily advocating
-something of this kind, and now Congress (October, 1913,) is considering
-the matter.
-
-
- FOR THE UNEMPLOYED
-
-An organization or industrial army of the United States was provided for
-in a bill presented to the Senate by Senator Poindexter, upon the
-request of R. A. Dague, of Creston, Iowa. Eligible to membership in the
-army would be any unemployed man more than sixteen years old. The
-Secretary of Labor would be the recruiting officer, but an “industrial
-general,” at a salary of $250 a month, would command the forces. The
-army, according to the bill, would not bear side arms or fight bloody
-battles, but would be employed in labor at harbors, forts, government
-buildings, irrigation ditches, canals and other public works of the
-nation, state and municipality. Residents in the United States who
-become members would receive $2 a day, “together with board and
-lodging,” while those who have been in America less than five years
-would receive only $1.50. Foreigners who hereafter come to America would
-receive only 25 cents a day, which would be wrong. We expect from the
-United States government that ideal justice, even to a foreign workman,
-which we shall each receive when we stand in the presence of Eternal
-Justice.
-
-All this shows that the idea of a Bureau of Labor which will help the
-laborer is steadily growing.
-
-
- AN INCIDENT OF THE WINTER OF 1910
-
-One day Mrs. Kline, the wife of the Superintendent of the Gospel
-Mission, phoned me, “We have a man here so covered with vermin that I
-cannot let him into the house, yet he seems to be an educated man. [This
-was at the Industrial Department on Fourteenth Street, before we had our
-new building.] What shall I do now?” “Call Donavan, Hall and Happy, and
-take him to the woodshed and have a tub of warm water; let the men give
-him a thorough bath, barber him and wrap him in blankets, till we can
-get clothes for him.” That was done. We found Taylor an educated man, a
-graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, the editor of a paper in a
-suburb of Philadelphia. He claimed that he had been “shanghaied,” that
-is, drugged and carried on board an oyster boat as a common laborer. He
-had gone to Baltimore to go on a drunk, hoping his friends would not
-find him out, but his Nemesis was there waiting for him.
-
-He had been kept six weeks on the oyster boat, had been forced to bunk
-with negroes and common roustabouts. After he became sober, I fancy the
-owners of the boat saw that they had captured the wrong man, and would
-gladly have gotten rid of him. They did not dare approach land lest
-their entire crew escape; at last he was put aboard a passing boat and
-sent to Washington. He was over six feet high, of fine physique, about
-thirty-two years of age. We did not find it easy to get clothing
-suitable for such a person. The day came when he was able to attend the
-services at the Mission. He kneeled at the altar, and we hoped he was
-converted. We greatly wanted him to bring suit against the oyster men,
-but that would have made his case public, and he did not desire that. He
-readily secured a place on one of our city papers as the purveyor of
-automobile news, but when pay day came he got drunk and fell down the
-stairs and broke his arm. His system was in bad condition and he was
-obliged to go to the free ward of Providence Hospital. We now wrote to
-his family, and his mother came for him in a big touring car from
-Philadelphia and took him home, but the exposure and dissipation had
-done their perfect work, and he only lived a few months. He seemed, from
-all accounts, a truly penitent man, but only at the judgment day shall
-we know whether he entered into the rest prepared for the children of
-God only.
-
-Another experience in the winter of 1911 gave us a still lower opinion
-of the oyster men of the lower Chesapeake Bay. Mr. Hall telephoned me,
-one cold slippery day, “Do come down at once, the oyster men are in. Mr.
-Kline is away, and the men are in bad condition.” I went at once. The
-halls were full of them; many had only overalls, shirt and shoes without
-stockings; they looked frozen. I ordered coffee and rolls at my expense
-till I could call help. I feared if I opened the clothing room they
-would raid it, so great were their needs.
-
-It was too slippery for women to venture out, so I began phoning to
-members of the Lutheran Church whom I believed would come. One man in a
-bank said, “I am not a clerk. I can't go out this kind of weather for
-that class of men.” I replied, “I saw you at communion last Sunday, and
-I venture you promised your God to serve wherever you were needed; here
-is your first call.” “I shall come at once and bring three other members
-of the church with me.”
-
-That winter the Luther Memorial Church, of Erie, Pa., had sent us a
-large box of men's clothing, every article mended, clean and in good
-condition, and just the week before a charitable organization, at Chevy
-Chase, Md., had sent us two large barrels of men's clothing, and a full
-half bushel of socks nicely darned and every article clean.
-
-So we put trousers on one pile, coats on another, vests on another,
-underclothes on another, a churchman at each pile. I had charge of the
-socks, then Mr. Ifft, of the Luther Memorial Church, in the next room
-superintended the trying on, fitting and exchanging garments. As we
-handed each garment we said about this, “The ladies of the different
-churches send you these garments with their love and sympathy.” Many a
-poor fellow, all unused to blessing, said, “God bless the churches for
-remembering such as us.” In an hour's time we clothed over seventy-five
-men. A few did not need complete outfits. We never supposed we had that
-many garments on hand, but that day cleared out all we had in reserve.
-
-Among these men were two Welsh boys, both Christians, not long in this
-country. They had not known the strength of American liquors (which were
-doubtless drugged); they were very contrite and were at once put to
-work, one as a furnaceman, the other in the wood yard. We hear the
-United States revenue cutters have been after the oyster men and
-shanghaiing is no longer a common crime.
-
-When a friend looked in on that crowd of superior business men helping
-distribute clothing and saying words of consolation to the broken men,
-he said, “I believe in my soul you would order in the President of the
-United States to help at the Gospel Mission.” “Oh, no!” I replied,
-“President Taft, good man as he is, would not be permitted to drive so
-much as a tack at the Gospel Mission. He does not recognize Jesus as His
-Saviour; only orthodox Christians who can tell the sinner of the
-redeeming power of Jesus the Christ can successfully work in a rescue
-mission like this.”
-
-
- THE HOLIDAYS
-
-are a sore trial to the homeless or to the recently bereaved. Often
-women of the highest social rank come to the Gospel Mission on
-Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's, when we give a good dinner to
-everyone who applies. (These women forget their own woes as they serve
-others.) The subjoined newspaper letter will give you a good picture of
-one such occasion:
-
-
- THANKSGIVING DAY AT THE MISSION OF 1910
-
-“It is a very curious thing to say, that while I saw no relative of
-mine, being far separated from all of my kindred, while I had no time to
-accept the hospitality of friends, but ate my dinner at my boarding
-house, so as to be at the Mission for service, yet it was one of the
-happiest days of my life. It is wonderful the kindness God puts into the
-hearts of His people at this season. Not a member of the Mission has
-wealth, yet God gave us means through His children to feed between three
-and four hundred people. A little Ohio Joint Synod Lutheran church at
-Fulton, Md., sent us a dozen chickens, two bushels of potatoes, some
-fine apples, turnips, beets, cabbage, etc. We bought fifteen turkeys, a
-lot of hams, then the New Willard Hotel prepared our fowls and other
-meats, and the Raleigh Hotel prepared and cooked all our vegetables,
-adding enormous pans of baked beans, and all this they did free of
-charge.
-
-“Bakers sent us bread and pies, florists sent us great quantities of
-flowers, so that we were able to feed all comers and send out a number
-of baskets to poor families. This was the bodily side; the spiritual
-side was even better.
-
-“The services began at twelve o'clock noon, and lasted until ten at
-night, with a change of leaders, musicians and varying audiences each
-hour.
-
-“Two boys, about sixteen and eighteen years old, had walked all the way
-from Richmond, Va. As they fed their famished bodies, one said, 'O Jim,
-did you ever before hear of such a place where one can really get all he
-wants to eat, can get a hot bath, can get one night's lodging all for
-nothing? I am so tired I just couldn't walk any more!'
-
-“One man, about thirty years of age, simply prostrated himself at the
-altar, and cried aloud to God for pardon. After he rose he said about
-this, 'I came from the workhouse this morning an angry, outraged man,
-after thirty days' sentence. I felt my punishment was a great injustice.
-My hand was against every man, for I felt every man's hand was against
-me. I was ready for any crime. Someone met me and said, “Go to the
-Gospel Mission.” I answered, 'I prefer to go to the saloon and get drunk
-and forget for a few hours my sorrows and loneliness.' But the friend
-brought me here. You have given me a good dinner, but that is the least,
-you have reached the friendly hand. Brother Wheeler says I can make this
-my headquarters till I get work. I am a skilled mechanic, and I can soon
-get my place back again, and now I want to say God has forgiven me my
-sins, and they are so black and so many. I was a Christian in my early
-life, so I know what I am talking about when I promise my God and all
-you, my friends, that, God helping me, I, this day, take Christ for my
-Saviour and I will love and serve Him all the days of my life.' That of
-itself paid me for all I could do.
-
-“From three to five people came to the altar for prayer each hour, and
-the last hour saw nine young men pleading for forgiveness, and promising
-a new life. In all, I should say, that about fifty people asked for
-prayers and twenty-five people sought pardon.
-
-“We had a great singer, Mrs. Fitch, whose singing was greatly used of
-God to call men to repentance. Thanksgiving Day was a great day on
-earth, at the Gospel Mission, and a great day among the angels of heaven
-who saw sinners redeemed.”
-
-
- CHRISTMAS AT THE GOSPEL MISSION
-
-of 1909 was described by the writer in the following sketch of the
-January, 1910, _Gospel Tidings_:
-
-“Christmas at a mission takes on a great element of thanksgiving; first
-for the great gift of God—and no anthems sound so sweet, so deep,
-reaching into the deep places of the soul as, 'Now, when Jesus was born
-in Bethlehem.'
-
-“The first thing on Christmas Day was to remember our brothers in bonds.
-Down at the barracks in the guard-house, we have two converted men. One
-a soldier whom we believe is receiving four times the punishment for
-neglect of target practice which he ought to receive; we can only
-counsel patience, comfort by our visits and send him a good dinner.
-
-“Then a dear Jewish brother is there. He had been in the army two years
-ago, but he was baited, tormented and outraged in his poetic soul until
-he deserted. After that he was converted, and felt with us that he must
-go back and take whatever the United States had for him. One of our
-workers went with him to the Secretary of War, who said, 'Why, man,
-don't come to me; take a carriage for fear you be arrested on the
-street.' Mr. Ellison, our helper, took a carriage and went directly to
-the Commandant at the barracks. The Commandant said, 'We are sorry for
-Mr. L., but he will get two years in the penitentiary at hard labor.'
-
-“Mr. Ellison said, 'Commander, this man is the servant of the living
-God; you will give to this Jew that mercy you yourself will at the last
-expect from the Judge of all the earth, who came to this world as a
-Jew.' Well, it would be a long story to tell of the court-martial, but,
-in answer to prayer, the Jew got only six months in the guard house, and
-that time will expire this month.
-
-“Then two poor workmen are in the hospital, and four sinners who
-promised reformation in the workhouse, must have a remembrance. Kindness
-in shame often leads men to Christ.
-
-“But the great event of the day was the service from twelve to one
-o'clock, followed by a dinner at which from two hundred to three hundred
-lonely men were fed. In the evening a service, at which the old, old
-story of love is told, heart-broken men are redeemed, and we all go home
-wondering at the never-ending miracle of the gospel, which takes tongues
-which blaspheme and makes them sing God's praises, feet that walk in the
-ways of sin and makes them run in the ways of righteousness, hands that
-steal and makes them do God's service. Oh, it is a wonderful gospel, and
-a wonderful Saviour!
-
-“'O ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him
-above all forever. O ye servants of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise
-and exalt Him above all forever. O ye spirits and souls of the
-righteous, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever. O
-ye that are holy and humble of heart, bless ye the Lord, and praise and
-exalt Him above all forever.'”
-
-
- NEW YEAR'S EVE
-
-And New Year's at a Rescue Mission is an interesting time. Men have
-wandered the streets for a week, when it seemed to them every other
-human being on earth was happy but themselves; they see happiness in
-every passing face, they have caught glimpses of Christmas trees through
-open doors, they have sensed the appetizing smells of good dinners, they
-have witnessed at the railroad stations and even on the streets the
-reunion of families, they have heard the deep-toned organs from
-churches, they have heard the ragtime music of happy people about the
-home piano, and they only unloved, unloving, uncomforted, lonely men
-walk the lonely streets of our great cities.
-
-Is it any wonder that memory calls up the time when they too were in
-happy homes, when mothers' arms encircled them, when a father's
-benediction was on their young heads, and, like the prodigal son, they
-say, “I will arise and go to my Father”?
-
-Every one of them knows that sin is the cause of his downfall, and they
-also know that they must get right with God before they can forsake evil
-habits. Scarcely one of them but what has tried again and again to leave
-off their grosser sins but have failed, but when at the watch-night
-service they are told of a Saviour mighty to save, hope comes again to
-the broken-hearted.
-
-I remember one occasion at the Breakfast Association, Philadelphia, at
-the twilight service, New Year's Eve, I saw five hundred men stand for
-prayer at one time. Our Mission is much smaller, but on New Year's Eve
-and during New Year's Day, when we have a continuous service from 12
-o'clock midday to 9.30 P.M., with an entire change of leaders and
-musicians each hour, I have seen your nominal Christian, the toper, the
-criminal, all so overcome by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit
-that social differences melted away and they knelt side by side at the
-mercy seat; we have seen fifty people enter into covenant relations with
-God in that pivotal period of the year, and we have seen most of them
-keep the faith.
-
-Think of a church holding a meeting nine and a half hours long; in most
-churches the pastor and the elders would have the last three hours or
-more all alone. But at the Mission the interest deepens so that it is
-hard to dismiss even at a late hour.
-
-
- THE FORGER FROM NEW HAVEN
-
-It was at one of those long services I saw a New England man brought
-under deep conviction, and at last yield to the Spirit, make confession
-and receive Christ.
-
-It was about 4 P.M. when he arose to tell his story of sin. He said, “I
-have committed a crime against the State, and I want to know if I can be
-forgiven before that is made good. I want to see three members of the
-Board alone.” Three of the men went into consultation with him. It
-proved that he had forged a check at New Haven for $300, had collected
-the money and had escaped.
-
-He was told, “God will forgive you now and undertake for you in case you
-promise full restitution.” He kneeled at the altar, began to pray out
-loud, promised restitution and promised to bear patiently any punishment
-the State demanded.
-
-A worker was sent with him to New Haven. He went first to his own
-father, who said, “John, I never want to see your face here; you had no
-business to come back, for you will be sent to prison and disgrace us
-all.” “But, father, I am converted, I mean to take my punishment, then
-live a true man ever after.” “Oh! that is different; in that case, I
-will help you all I can.”
-
-They went at once to the man whose name had been forged. They found him
-very bitter at first, but when John told his story of how ashamed and
-sorry he was, and added, “I have come back to take my punishment, then I
-want to be a good man and a good citizen all the rest of my life.” At
-this point the father said, “Mr. Percy, I will gladly pay back the $300
-and interest if you think you can forgive John.” That was done and the
-prosecution withdrawn.
-
-The episode had a little after-clap. John came back to Washington, and
-came at once to the writer. He said, “Mrs. Monroe, I want you to ask
-Miss Stanislaus if she will marry me.” “Why, ask her yourself, man; I am
-not in practice in handling love matters.” “No, you see my red head and
-freckled face and freckled hands make me so homely I am afraid to ask.
-Do see her for me.” This I did. She accepted him, and he obtained a
-situation in the mountains of North Carolina as a school teacher. He
-preaches on Sunday and they both teach all week and seem to be doing
-good work.
-
-The _Gospel Tidings_, of December, 1910, had this notice:
-
- WHAT WILL YOU DO, FELLOW-CHRISTIANS?
-
- “Eleven men, cold, hungry and friendless, the night of December 5,
- said, 'Mr. Kline, for God's sake, give us work!' He replied, 'We do
- not have the work to give until we get wood-cutting machines.' Mrs.
- Monroe said, 'I shall trust God's people to help me on that, even
- though the horse and wagon are not yet paid for.' So she personally
- took the risk of the 50 needed to put in the machinery. Her friends
- will remember that a great fire three years ago not only destroyed
- her property, but also her means of making money.
-
-[Illustration: 10 AND 15 CENT DORMITORIES]
-
- “'Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will deliver him
- in the time of trouble.'
-
- “The Gospel Mission Board feel that when the necessities of men are
- so great as in this call that it is God's call to help by giving
- them means to help themselves. Maybe in these suffering men your
- Saviour passes by.”
-
-The Christian people of Washington made a generous response to that
-call, and by the next issue of the _Tidings_ we announced that we could
-give fifty cents a day for six hours' work, leaving time to hunt a
-better place, and yet pay lodgings and food.
-
-The October _Tidings_ of 1910 said:
-
- A MENACE
-
- “What is the most important question now in Washington? From our
- standpoint it is the care of the unfortunate and the sinful. Why? In
- order to protect your home. When a man walks the streets hungry,
- cold and friendless, and looks through the window of your happy home
- and he sees you surrounded with the comforts he lacks, do you know
- you are in danger? Unless the unfortunate are comforted, they will
- surely dynamite our great cities.
-
- “The Gospel Mission stands between you and this danger. We make
- these sons of sorrow realize that they need be only temporarily
- sidetracked from the great highway of success, that the grace of
- God, their renewed will power and our friendly hand may yet restore
- them to home, friends and society, and make them useful men.”
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER IX
- THE PENNY LUNCH AND FREE DISPENSARY
-
-
-The following is a letter written by Mr. George W. Wheeler, which was
-published in our _Gospel Tidings_, of February, 1911:
-
-
- PENNY LUNCH
-
- “In an experience of twenty-six years in active, earnest, aggressive
- Rescue Mission work in this city, the writer cannot recall that any
- line of secular work taken up for the amelioration of the poor has
- ever called forth such universal expressions of interest, sympathy
- and co-operation as the 'Penny Lunch and Newsboys' Waiting Room,'
- opened by the Gospel Mission, at 304 Fourteenth Street, on Saturday,
- February 4. The city papers published pictures of the interior and
- exterior, and a portrait of our Superintendent, Mr. Kline, and were
- most generous in their endorsement of the enterprise, while the _New
- York Times_ and other papers spread the news far and wide that the
- cost of living had been solved in Washington by the Gospel Mission
- '_Penny Lunch_.'
-
- “The opening of this lunch-room was made possible by a noble
- Christian woman of wealth, who was born, reared and now resides in
- this city. Her interest was aroused by reading a statement of the
- work and needs of the Gospel Mission, prepared by our
- Superintendent, and she came to see about the matter, learned its
- approximate cost, and sent a check to pay the expenses.
-
- “For two weeks or more Mr. Kline and his assistants were busy
- papering, painting, etc., and finally the steam table and coffee
- urns, with many other essentials of a twentieth century up-to-date
- lunch-room were installed and the doors were opened to a waiting
- crowd. Mrs. Kline oversees the cooking, and everything is as clean
- and neat as in one's home.
-
- “The menu consists of the following articles: Coffee, 1 penny; bread
- or rolls, 1 penny; beans, 1 penny; doughnuts, 1 penny; sour, 1
- penny; beef stew, 3 pennies; one-half pie, 3 pennies. A lunch,
- consisting of soup, meat, vegetables, bread and coffee, 5 cents.
- This brings a well-cooked, clean, nourishing meal within the reach
- of all who have any income whatever.
-
- “It was amusing to see the class of men and boys who came to have
- their appetites satisfied at the lowest cost. Newsboys, messenger
- boys, laboring men, teamsters, and all kinds of indescribables came,
- and they appeared greatly surprised to find such an attractive room
- with all the 'latest improvements' found in a lunch-room. And how
- they did eat! A big soup plate filled to the brim with bean soup, a
- big china cup filled with steaming hot coffee, a big brown roll or
- three slices of Corby's 'Mother's Bread.' These were good, and
- 'mighty filling at the price.'
-
- “Well, the 'Penny Lunch' is launched, and whether the prices charged
- will pay the cost of the material, cooking and serving, or not, we
- feel certain that any little deficiency that may occur will be
- cheerfully met by the well-to-do of our community.
-
- “A coffee-roasting firm has pledged five pounds of good coffee each
- week for use at the 'Penny Lunch' room, and we are sure dealers in
- other lines will be glad to assist. Corby Brothers have been
- furnishing from fifty to seventy-five loaves of bread for our 'bread
- line' for many months, and Browning & Baines, coffee dealers, have
- supplied six pounds of coffee a week for a long time past.
-
- “We greatly appreciate the generous co-operation of all these dear
- friends, who help us to help others to help themselves.”
-
-The benefits of the Penny Lunch can never be told till the books of
-eternity are opened, but some idea may be gathered when we state that
-the report of the bread line from May 12, 1911, to May 12, 1912, was
-41,750, but the report from May 12, 1912, to May 12, 1913, was 18,950.
-The Bread Line is the name of a service at 6 A.M., the year round, when
-bread and black coffee is served to all who come for it. If people will
-come before daylight in the winter, or at that early hour in the summer
-for coffee, without cream or sugar, and a quarter of a loaf of bread, we
-believe they need it, and we gladly give it, not as a charity, but as a
-visible token of our sympathy. Now, the fact that 22,800 fewer people
-took bread and coffee free in the year 1912 to 1913, compared with the
-preceding year, can only be accounted for that when a man has a few
-pennies in his pocket he could buy a satisfactory breakfast, and gladly
-did so rather than to line up for an unrequited kindness.
-
-How shamed many men were to take food in the bread line, but the loving
-word sweetened many a bitter cup. Once a hand so unusually white and
-well-kept reached for the cup of coffee. Mrs. Kline looked up and saw
-the face of a man who had been a minister of the gospel. She said,
-“Brother, take only the coffee, we want you to take breakfast at our
-family table this morning.” He sat down to drink the coffee with bitter
-tears coursing down his shamed face. Of course, every kindness was shown
-him, “for need has its right, and necessity its claim,” then the blessed
-Spirit came in and lo, he prayed, and God received back to a useful life
-a man who had found sorrow and sin bitter and the tears of remorse salt.
-
-
-WHAT DR. HALLIMOND, OF THE NEW YORK BOWERY MISSION, SAYS ABOUT THE BREAD
- LINE
-
-“There are in the Bowery men who never sleep in a lodging house because
-they have not the price, and they get their bed either by stealing or
-begging, and eat out of the garbage boxes. You who have never been to
-the Bowery know nothing of the agony or remorse that these men feel.
-Now, what are we to do with them? There is not anybody to look after
-them but us. Oh, the horrors of the homeless man! It is the many little
-comforts that go to make our comfortable life. They cannot keep clean.
-They cannot brush their clothes or comb their hair, they cannot take
-their shoes off their poor tired feet. These men gather there in the
-great meetings, and among them are many that are in the last stages of
-physical weakness. Many of them ought to be in the hospital instead of
-walking the street day and night. Many of them are dying of hunger.
-Sometimes we cannot get men to understand that we have people in our
-meetings that are dying of hunger. I am not using any figure of speech.
-It is not an unheard-of thing for men to drop dead in our meetings. That
-is why we have the 'bread line.' We dare not fail to help these people.
-People sometimes come to us with the very best of intentions, talking to
-us of the sin of indiscriminate charity; but, bless your life! is not
-God indiscriminate, for does not He cause the rain to fall on the just
-and unjust? Did Jesus Christ ever go through the hungry crowds and find
-out who was worthy and who was unworthy? Did He not spend His life to
-help just such men? These dear people some of them are spending
-seventy-five cents to find out where the other twenty-five cents is to
-go. I have made up my mind that if I ever find a man dying on my
-doorstep of hunger, and I can do anything to save him, I am going to do
-it, whether he deserves it or whether he does not.
-
-“That is the origin of our bread line about which you have heard so
-much. We cannot help but have a bread line. In fact, I refuse to allow
-our work to be called a charity. It is not a charity, it is brotherly
-kindness. It is not a charity, but a kind hospitality, just a little
-evidence, just a little token, that there is somebody who cares for
-their poor weary hearts which these destitute brothers of ours possess.
-As long as the bread line exists, and God helping, it shall exist as
-long as there is need for it, people must know that there is something
-wrong with our social system, a problem that we cannot solve but that is
-up to the politician. As long as we are in this great, rich country with
-all the extravagances of wealth, then the bread line shall tell that
-there is something wrong, and that our Declaration of Independence,
-declaring, as it does, for 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,'
-is but a delusion and a snare.”
-
-This seems a long interlude to the Penny Lunch chapter, but you can see
-the lunch counter where five cents can buy beans, bread and coffee,
-saves many a man from feeling that he takes charity. The bread line was
-instituted to fortify a man's stomach against needing to go to the
-saloon in the morning for the free lunch, also to give strength to a
-poor fellow so he could search for work.
-
-The bread line food given each morning will not of itself sustain life,
-as we found out to our sorrow. One Tuesday night, as the writer entered
-the Mission for the purpose of conducting the service, I found the men
-at the door excited. On inquiry, I found a man lying on the front seat
-dying. The Emergency Hospital ambulance had already been called. I found
-a man who twenty years ago had been a leading patent attorney of this
-city. I saw the soul was about to depart. I said, “Mr. West, say, 'Lord
-Jesus, receive my spirit.'” “No, I have lived wicked, I shall die
-wicked.” “O son, say, 'Lord Jesus, forgive me.'” “Too late, too late; I
-have heard you all, night after night, and I have rejected Christ. I
-must die as I have lived.”
-
-I motioned the choir to sing softly, “Jesus receiveth sinful men.” I
-bent over him, urging repentance; the ambulance men were at my side,
-they picked him up and laid him carefully on the stretcher. I said,
-“Dear Mr. West, we are praying for you, pray for yourself.” I kept my
-hand tenderly on his head as the stretcher was slowly carried out, but
-he continued to say, “Too late, too late for me.”
-
-He died within an hour, and the post-mortem showed he had died of
-inanition caused by slow starvation. We found he had tried to live on
-the bread and coffee of the bread line alone; he was too poor to buy
-food, too proud to tell his needs, and we were too stupid and too busy
-to realize his awful need. We thereby learned a good lesson, and the
-Superintendent and helpers now all look more carefully after the man who
-sits down claiming either exhaustion or sickness.
-
-No man, woman or child is ever refused food because without money, but
-if a man can buy whisky, we think he ought to be able to buy food,
-though even then we look after him.
-
-We cannot leave the granting of food to employees, so when the
-Superintendent and his wife are absent we have some pathetic cases. Mr.
-Gordon found a little fellow crying at the door. “What is the matter,
-little man?” said the big man. “Mother gave me ten cents to buy food for
-our family, and I have lost the money.” You may be sure Mr. Gordon
-obtained much more than ten cents' worth of food for the child. Very
-many families live in one furnished room and get all their food at the
-penny lunch counter. Seamstresses, all the dollar a day men for many
-squares, girls from the Agricultural Seed Bureau, come in and buy at
-cost the luncheon at the middle of the day. Many well-to-do people come
-in and take luncheon to watch the various grades of humanity who solve
-the cost of high living by taking meals at the Mission. All the street
-peddlers, the umbrella man, the shoestring and pencil man, the rag
-gatherers, eat at the counter, the better class sit at the tables.
-
-Mr. Gordon saw a little altercation between a waiter and a customer, the
-waiter demanding four cents while the man had but three cents. “But you
-should not have ordered food unless you could pay for it.” The poor man
-looked dreadfully embarrassed, at last he looked up and said, “Will you
-lend me a cent, sir?” which was gladly done.
-
-Many who come only for the cheap meal are induced by the kindness shown
-and by the good music and bright lights in the chapel, to go in to the
-services. There some song, some word from the speaker, some devout
-prayer, touches the chord of memory of what a mother, a faithful teacher
-or almost forgotten preacher has taught years ago, and, backed by the
-Holy Spirit, a prodigal son or a prodigal daughter returns to the
-Father's house.
-
-Mr. Kline reports the meals furnished in the Penny Lunch Room from May
-12, 1912, to May, 1913, to be 87,856, at an average cost of four and
-one-third cents per meal.
-
-
- THE DISPENSARY
-
-was opened February 1, 1912, after the need was very apparent, and
-further neglect of this branch of work seemed impossible.
-
-Never will I forget the day when I first called up Dr. C. H. Bowker, one
-of the leading physicians of the city, living on Massachusetts Avenue,
-near Thomas Circle, the very heart of the city, and told him of a man
-who had pneumonia, and of a woman in the shelter with a severe cold, and
-asked him to go to the Mission free of charge. I waited with bated
-breath for the reply. It was, “I am an exceedingly busy man, but I shall
-try to go within an hour.” Very much emboldened, I said, “Could you stop
-in once a day to see if anyone there has a contagious disease, or if
-anyone should be sent immediately to the hospital?”
-
-The answer seemed very slow, and I fairly trembled, for our need was so
-great. At last he said, “Well, I have noticed if I put a duty on my
-daily program, I manage in some way to get it in.” From that day to this
-that blessed doctor has been at the beck and call of the Mission day and
-night; only God knows what a help and a comfort he has been to broken
-men and sorrowful women in that part of the city.
-
-The February _Gospel Tidings_, of 1912, had the following:
-
-
- GOSPEL MISSION DISPENSARY
-
-“For several months we have had a house physician, and the use and need
-for him has steadily increased. The establishment of regular hours at
-which patients could see the doctor, and a proper place for
-consultation, naturally suggested the establishment of a dispensary.
-This appeared feasible to the Executive Committee, and Mrs. Monroe,
-Superintendent Kline and Dr. Bowker were appointed a committee to study
-the advisability of such an addition to our work. The report from this
-committee was favorable to the project, and active steps were at once
-taken to the establishment of a free general dispensary for the
-treatment of all classes of cases, or their reference, where necessary,
-to special institutions.
-
-“The location of the Mission for dispensary work could not be better
-from any point of view. It is accessible to the hundreds needing its
-help. There is no conflict in its field by any other institution doing
-this class of work. Four rooms on the first floor of the Mission, with
-the chapel for a waiting-room, will serve admirably for dispensary needs
-at present. And these rooms are rapidly being put in shape by carpenters
-and painters. Shelves are being made for the pharmacy, a door cut
-through the partition, and running water is to be installed.
-
-“Our printing plant will again demonstrate its usefulness by furnishing
-the necessary record blanks, labels, treatment cards, etc.
-
-“The Executive Committee has placed Dr. Charles Harvey Bowker, 1204
-Massachusetts Avenue, in full charge of the Gospel Mission Dispensary,
-and he will have associated with him at first Dr. O. C. Cox, 1320
-Eleventh Street, N. W. A number of leading physicians and surgeons have
-evinced an interest and willingness to give their services, and Dr.
-Bowker will add them to the dispensary staff and assign them work as the
-clinic grows and they are needed.
-
-“Dr. Bowker's experience in managing a hospital in his home city, and
-his hospital and dispensary work in Washington, assure us a businesslike
-management of this new branch of our work.
-
-“Our need at present is for drugs and surgical dressing, and it is hoped
-that the druggists of the city may contribute.
-
-“The dispensary opened Thursday, February 1, 1912, at 10 A.M., which
-will be the regular daily hour, and all those who are interested are
-invited to inspect the new rooms.”
-
-You notice that we opened February 1, 1912, and our annual report in May
-_Tidings_, 1913, shows the following:
-
- THE MISSION FREE DISPENSARY
-
- _Staff_
-
- Physician in charge, Dr. Charles H. Bowker, 1204 Massachusetts
- Avenue, N. W.
-
- _Associates_
-
- Dr. Oliver C. Cox, 1320 Eleventh Street, N. W.
- Dr. W. O. Owen, Southern Building.
- Dr. William F. Hemler, 706 Eighth Street, N. W.
- Dr. C. A. Simpson, 1217 Connecticut Avenue, N. W.
- Dr. C. F. Dufour, 1347 L Street, N. W.
- Dr. Adam Kemble, Cecil Apartments, Fifteenth and L Streets, N. W.
- Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh, The Portner.
-
- _Hours for Treatment_
-
- Medical and surgical cases treated daily, 11 to 12 A.M.
- Diseases of Women—Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
- Diseases of Men—Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
- Diseases of Children—Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
- Diseases of Ear, Eye, Nose and Throat—Monday and Thursday.
-
- _Report for the Year Ending April 30, 1913_
-
- Cases treated 2500
- Referred to Hospital 80
- Treated at homes 80
-
-The dispensary is in need of a sterilizer and a special fund for medical
-supplies for those too poor to pay.
-
- * * * * *
-
-The sterilizer later was the gift of Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh, and we have a
-complete set of lenses for testing the eyes of school children.
-
-It would break your heart to see the women with babies, the aged on
-crutches, the hosts of children, the aged victims of every vice, now
-broken and often repentant, seek the aid of these good men. Often we run
-short of remedies. “What do they do then?” you ask. Well, they simply go
-down in their own pockets and buy the necessities, and no one is turned
-empty away.
-
-Think of a procession of sick and needy persons, 2500 human beings in
-line, and you will see in your mind what that blessed dispensary has
-done for the sorrowful of this city in one year.
-
-I wish I dare to tell you the particulars of one of these great
-physicians who had not been living close to God, seeing our work of
-faith, seeing how the Mission people lay their many needs before a
-patient God, who meets every demand in answer to their prayer, and
-possibly feeling that in a mission he could not minister to a mind
-diseased without himself being in touch with the living God, was led to
-revise his views, make public confession of his faith and enlist in
-God's organized method of evangelizing the world by joining the church.
-We all need God, but the hand that reaches down to help sinful men must
-have the other hand clasped close in God's strong hand if he would do
-effective work.
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER X
- THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL
-
-
-St. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the
-_power_ of God unto salvation.”
-
-Yes, the gospel is the _power_. The soul is as dead as a street car with
-the power gone, till it is touched by that special power. I could kneel
-at the side of a sinner and quote the very best things of Shakespeare or
-Milton, and the soul would step to no higher ground; but when the right
-verse of God's word is shown with the New Testament in hand, and the
-Holy Spirit makes that soul see that the passage before him is God's
-recorded wireless message for his soul alone, the power comes on and
-that verse again proves true, “But as many as received Him, to them gave
-He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His
-name,” and a soul is born into the kingdom of God. Dan Crawford, the
-great missionary to Africa, says not Livingstone, not Taylor, not Dan
-Crawford, are the real pioneer missionaries, but the Spirit of God
-Himself, and when the word is brought to a prepared soul it is a spark
-of powder. He tells of one besotted Negro who read John's Gospel. The
-Negro said, “I was startled that Christ could speak Chulba; I heard Him
-speak out of the printed page, and what He said to me was, 'Follow me.'”
-Mr. Crawford says, “When the guncotton of John's Gospel came in contact
-with the tinder of his rebellion, he was literally exploded into the
-kingdom,” and by continuing to study St. John's Gospel the transforming
-power of the gospel made him a good earnest Christian man, fit for the
-companionship of good people.
-
-At a rescue mission we have such scenes almost every night of the year.
-In our case it is usually the word first implanted in the human heart
-either at a mother's knee or by some Sunday school teacher, or by a
-faithful preacher in early life, then the very room of the Mission is
-filled with the Holy Spirit in answer to the prayers of God's people.
-Now, when a heart-broken, world-buffeted sinner comes into the room, the
-words or music of some song, or the presentation of God's word, is used
-by God's Spirit to bring to memory all the sinner has known of these
-things; he hears redeemed men tell how God cured them of lust, of
-alcoholism, of gambling, of profane language, of all sin; he sees these
-men well clothed, radiantly happy, and sees and feels his own
-degradation; is it any wonder he drops on his knees and cries out, “Men
-and brethren, what shall I do to be saved”? When he wants God more than
-he wants deliverance from his besetting sin, when he wants God more than
-he wants his deserted wife and children, when he wants God for what God
-can do for his poor soul, the God of his soul comes down, and at that
-second the soul passes from death unto life eternal, for that soul the
-decisions of the judgment day have been settled, for Jesus said,
-“Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my words and believeth
-on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
-condemnation, but is passed from death unto life.”
-
-That verse comprehended and lived has power enough to carry a soul
-through all besetments into the very presence of God.
-
-
- THE CASE OF MR. ABBOTT
-
-During the winter of 1910, there came into the Gospel Mission a man,
-ragged, soiled, blear-eyed, doped and utterly down and out; he came only
-for the coffee and rolls given Sunday night. Before coming up the steps
-he had said to a friend, “I don't want to hear any of their blank
-sermons, but I am starving.” He heard no sermon, instead he received a
-warm hand-shake, he heard bright singing, but, best of all, he heard
-redeemed men tell how God had saved them from the alcohol habit, till he
-cried out, “If God has power to save me from the sin of drink, I want
-God!” He kneeled and poured out his soul in prayer. As soon as he began
-to pray aloud, we saw he was an educated man. The Spirit came upon him
-in great power, he really had the searchlight of God on his soul, and he
-saw himself for a short time as God saw him. Then God forgave him, he
-rose justified, strong, happy, a new man in Christ Jesus. The Mission
-gave him a bed for the night, and the next morning this man, who had not
-worked or desired work for two years, begged that we should find a place
-for him to earn his way. He obtained a situation to solicit business for
-a laundry, about as hard work as one can imagine, but he made good, and
-in six months he was made foreman of the laundry in which he was
-employed. He modernized its methods and doubled its business by the end
-of the year, and the company made him a present of five hundred shares
-of stock and elected him president of the company. Then he received
-$3000 a year salary, besides his percentage of all gains made by the
-house. His friends claim his income is now about $5000 a year. In the
-meantime, after he had been redeemed, probably four months, his wife, a
-most beautiful and accomplished Philadelphia woman, brought their lovely
-son, aged about eight, and they began housekeeping again. The home has
-given needed physical comfort, the companionship has given the mental
-and the spiritual help needed to make this former tramp into a
-first-class citizen. At night, during the last winter, he has been
-studying law in one of the university law schools, and on Sunday he acts
-as usher and vestryman in one of the largest Protestant Episcopal
-churches. As a child he had been a choir boy in a church in
-Philadelphia. Doubtless the knowledge gained there as a child made him
-able to understand his duty to God and man after his conversion better
-far than an ignorant, uninstructed person could have done after months
-of instruction.
-
-[Illustration: CHILDREN OF ALL NATIONS]
-
-[Illustration: SETTLEMENT HOUSE]
-
-
- THE PSYCHOLOGY
-
-of just this case is worth considering. This man was spiritually dead,
-so far as we could see. He did not desire to live. The people of the
-Mission had been more or less in prayer from three o'clock to eight when
-this man came in. He saw religion in action in the person and speech of
-redeemed men. But even if these testimonies were factors it was the Holy
-Spirit that did the work. It was the divine spark to human tinder, or,
-as Henry Drummond better puts it, “The spiritual world reached down and
-carried this worldly soul into the world above it.” “He that hath the
-Son hath life, he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Life
-depends upon contact with life, it cannot develop out of anything that
-is not life.
-
-Even as the physiologist cannot explain how the human seed generates in
-a human body eventually becoming a new-born man child, neither can
-theology fully explain how the Holy Spirit can touch a human soul out of
-which will be born another soul in the same body with marks of its
-divine parentage in every line, or, as St. Paul says, a new creature in
-Christ Jesus.
-
-I heard a distinguished man who had long been in official connection
-with prisons and reformatories, say, “A reformed man is always in
-danger; he may stand twenty years and then fall back into sin, but a
-regenerated man is as safe from his sinful besetments as if they had not
-been the weakness of his life.”
-
-I fancy I can hear some preacher say, “If it is the word and the Holy
-Spirit do the work, why does not the church have as many conversions as
-a mission?” The very first element of spiritual power is lacking in most
-churches. If the preacher, the official members, then every member of
-the church first sought God's special blessing in private, then came
-together offering first praise, then united prayer to God from the very
-depths of their hearts, there would be conversions every Sunday in every
-church.
-
-Spurgeon and Moody expected conversions every Sunday, and they had them.
-
-In presenting a soul to Christ no perfunctory Christian can do it and
-have that soul received. To present a person to the King of England, let
-us say, the presenter needs to be acquainted with the king; so a person
-unacquainted with God has no power at the throne; he even impedes the
-soul coming into the light. I have seen many a dancing, card-playing
-Christian at the side of the penitent, praying earnestly, then rise
-baffled, troubled, helpless; not able to reach the throne, they had no
-access to God.
-
-Often people from the States write me to present such and such a paper
-in person to the President of the United States. I am obliged to reply,
-“I have no access to the President of the United States,” but I daily
-thank God that I have access to the throne, for I am acquainted with
-God.
-
-
- RELIGION WITH THE DEFECTIVE DELINQUENT
-
-I venture to take the two following short articles from the November
-numbers of 1913 of the _Survey_, the most valuable weekly magazine which
-comes to my desk on all social questions:
-
- “WHAT ABOUT JEFF?”
-
- “Jeff is a white boy sixteen years old. I am estimating this, as
- Jeff says he doesn't know how old he is and doesn't know his
- surname. He has every appearance of being a little less than half
- witted.
-
- “I found Jeff this morning working, with two other white boys and
- ten or twelve Negro boys, as an inmate of the County Workhouse. He
- was carrying stone on a public hitch-lot. One of the white boys and
- two of the Negro boys were in chains.
-
- “Jeff has been in the workhouse for sixty days. He was placed there
- for beating a ride on a railroad train. Next Monday Jeff will be
- released. He will have not a cent to his name, not very good
- clothes, not a relative in the country, no place to sleep and
- nothing to eat.
-
- “I have put this predicament before our city inter-church
- organization, and we have seen no solution. About the best thing we
- can see for this half-witted boy is that he will do something that
- will again bring him within the clutches of the law in order that he
- may be immediately sent back to the workhouse. At the age of sixteen
- he is a human derelict, yet he has capacity to work, to love, to
- respect, to enjoy, and to feel sorrow.
-
- “There is another mentally weak boy in this same gang. If we knew
- what to do with Jeff we might be able to do more for the other one.
- What do you suggest?”—_W. H. Swift, Greensboro, N. C._
-
- “SUE AND JEFF”
-
- “'What about Jeff?' was shown to a New York settlement worker.
- 'Print it,' he said, 'in the hope that someone may stir up the
- inter-church organizations of Greensboro to find another solution.
- The question is: What about that organization? rather than poor
- Jeff. He is a victim of wrong social conditions, plus his weak head;
- but if there is no one in his neighborhood who can see any other
- solution than the workhouse for a lad who has the “capacity to work,
- to love, to respect, to enjoy and to feel sorrow,” then I suggest
- that the community is worse off, a good deal, than poor Jeff. To
- begin with, why don't the inter-church organization take him under
- its own wing?'
-
- “Now, it would be very easy for the inter-church organization of
- Greensboro to take care of Jeff if there were only one of him.
- Unfortunately, there are many hundreds of him. How many of the boys
- of sixteen sent to the island from the New York City courts are of
- Jeff's class? Nobody knows for certain, because nobody tries to find
- out. Those of us who have lived for years among defectives and have
- visited reform schools know that the number is large. Yet the
- inter-church organizations of New York City do not take them under
- their wings.
-
- “The proportion of the feeble-minded Jeffs in various reformatories
- has been to range from twenty to fifty per cent of all the inmates.
- Every intelligent worker with prisoners knows there are many
- weak-minded among them; yet the usual method of treating the
- defective-delinquent (and every defective is a potential delinquent)
- throughout the United States is to do with them just what our
- Greensboro friend hopes to do with Jeff—send him to the workhouse as
- soon as he commits his next petty crime. And we keep on doing it
- over and over and over again.
-
- “Meanwhile the proper method with the Jeffs and the Sues is so
- simple and plain, so patently economical in this generation, and so
- tremendously profitable for the next, that its very simplicity makes
- it neglected. The colony at Templeton, Mass.; the one just organized
- at Menantico, N. J.; the farm colonies at Fort Wayne, Ind.; Lincoln,
- Ill.; Faribault, Minn.; Columbus, Ohio; and Letchworth Village, N.
- Y., all point the way with greater or less success.
-
- “Yet Letchworth Village was enacted by the legislature of New York
- nearly five years ago. Its first commission reported 29,000 suitable
- inmates pressing for care. To-day it has only 100 inmates; and the
- Inter-church Federation says nothing.
-
- “It is not worth while to get all stirred up and excited about Jeffs
- in North Carolina. What have we to say about the defectives in
- jails, workhouses, penitentiaries, reformatories, and prisons under
- our noses in New York? Is our beam so big that we cannot see
- it?”—_Alexander Johnson, Director Department of Extension, Vineland,
- N. J._
-
-Now, that was the churches' opportunity. Federation work should see that
-a religious school should be started in each community for its Jeffs and
-Sues. A city rescue mission could easily find work for Jeff.
-
-I saw a Jeff come into the Sunday school of my own church. He was a
-great lumbering chap of eighteen years of age, he was not quite clean,
-there was the odor of the unwashed about him. He immediately went to the
-class of about thirty young men of his own age. I was gratified to see
-that youth seek the society of the church people rather than the saloon,
-but he was not welcome with the young men. The teacher visited his home,
-there was no help to be expected from the home, so the teacher, or the
-class, whether by actual request or by treatment, caused Jeff to stay
-away. Now, in the great day of accounts, of whom will that soul be
-required? If the defective intellect, what there is of it, can be turned
-to believe God, the defective is prevented from becoming a criminal. We
-have them at the Gospel Mission. The very first thing is to have the
-physician talk to Jeff of the sacredness of his own body to absolutely
-prevent all secret habits which injure the body and brain, and the
-motive of self-restraint both for physical habits and for drink must be
-that these things offend a loving Saviour who walks with each one of us.
-
-Each year I meet Dr. H. M. Freas, of Philadelphia, at Northfield. His
-work as a physician frequently takes him to the asylum for the insane.
-He feels most keenly that these institutions should be in the hands of
-Christian people only. Many a brilliant intellect could be restored to
-perfect sanity if the loving care of some saintly Protestant sisterhood
-or brotherhood were in charge to bring the human love, which even the
-sanest of us need, to bear on the tottering brain. These human
-deficients are found in the public schools; as soon as discovered they
-should be transferred to a religious school where they can be
-scientifically studied, what intellect they have developed, and the
-religious side of each one fostered. If then they are found permanently
-deficient, especially in the moral sense, or in physical self-control,
-then they should be segregated on farms for the sake of the race. People
-of deficient brains become fanatics; now, if these unbalanced people
-become filled with an enthusiasm of righteousness they absolutely do
-much good. They constitute three-fourths of the street preachers, and
-they reach many a soul who never enters a church. Religion prevents
-insanity. There is no doubt that fanaticism run riot leads to the
-asylum. We had one man who was insufficiently fed, badly clothed, who
-spent the entire night in prayer, two or three nights of the week. Of
-course, he was brought up in the insane asylum, but when he had food
-enough at the asylum where he was not permitted to pray aloud, he soon
-became normal, and was set free. It taught him a needed lesson.
-
-But religion sustains us through the breaking ties of life, through the
-loss of fortune, through the defection of friends, through blasted
-hopes, through the anguish of children going wrong, and their punishment
-by the State which follows.
-
-Religion holds many a woman whose son is a wanderer, either criminal or
-otherwise, from insanity. I know a woman who has not looked into the
-face of her wandering son for six years. She stands up and sings with
-radiant face, “I am going through whatever others do, I am going through
-with Jesus,” and in spite of what looks an unbearable sorrow, leads a
-useful and apparently happy life. A mission is a blessed thing for
-enthusiasts. It sends them with flowers and literature to hospitals and
-jails, it sends food to private families in need, it gives the
-enthusiasts tracts to distribute, it puts musical instruments into their
-hands and says, “Praise the Lord with pleasant sounds,” it sets women to
-repairing clothing for the poor, to caring for little children, while
-mothers earn money for food. As we do these things we talk religion, we
-tell of Jesus, the friend of sinners, we make a steady effort in very
-many directions to have each soul brought into harmony with God. In
-almost every instance where sorrow in a family has been the result of
-sin; and Jesus is allowed to become to each of them a personal Saviour;
-the home is electrified by a new enthusiasm; the parents become
-efficient, self-supporting, happy; the children become self-respecting;
-are taken from the class needing help; and become helpers. Religion
-eases the burden of life and heals the welts of adversity.
-
-We have in Washington a club known as “The Monday Evening Club,” a
-clearing house for all forms of philanthropy. At the different banquets
-and at their monthly meetings all forms of reforms, from purely a
-humanitarian standpoint, are discussed, but we, who go at the open sores
-of the world with the only sure cure earth has yet received, the
-religion of Jesus Christ, we receive no recognition, we are given no
-hearing at banquets, and are never spoken of as part of the city's force
-for betterment, yet we comfort the prisoner, we bring hope to the
-hopeless, and we are the real protection of the city. No hungry man is
-turned from our door unsatisfied. A hungry man is a danger, a man with a
-hungry family is a menace. He will get food even if it costs a life to
-obtain it. Like Him whom we serve we are rejected of men. We work amid
-the social dynamite of a great city. Unless the religious part of this
-nation assumes its rightful place as arbiter in all labor troubles,
-saying to the rich man, “Thou shalt not defraud,” and to the poor man,
-“Thou shalt do no violence”; unless Christian people see to it that
-remunerative labor can be had by every person willing to work; unless
-Christian people close the saloons (the author of seventy-five per cent
-of the sufferings of the poor), on some sad day our great cities will be
-systematically dynamited. As Christians we must go down among them and
-make the broken man feel that he is only temporarily sidetracked from
-the great highway of success. That the grace of God and his own will can
-and will bring him back to the great highway of prosperity.
-
-The Church is waking up to its full duty in social service. Bishop
-Simpson, even in his day, eloquently described the mission of the Church
-in the world: “The Church must grope her way into the alleys and courts
-and purlieus of the city, and up the broken staircase, and into the bare
-room and beside the loathsome sufferer; she must go down into the pit
-with the miner, into the forecastle with the sailor, into the tent with
-the soldier, into the shop with the mechanic, into the factory with the
-operative, into the field with the farmer, into the counting-room with
-the merchant. Like the air, the Church must press equally on all the
-surfaces of society; like the sea, flow into every nook of the shoreline
-of humanity, and, like the sun, shine on things foul and low, as well as
-fair and high, for she was organized, commissioned and equipped for the
-moral renovation of the world.”
-
-In closing this chapter we cannot do better than to quote from the
-fourth volume of the Jewish Encyclopedia, which pays this remarkable
-tribute to Christianity:
-
-“Christianity, following the matchless ideals of its Christ, redeemed
-the despised and outcast, and ennobled suffering. It checked
-infanticide, and founded asylums for the young. It removed the curse of
-slavery by making the humblest bondsmen proud of being a child of God.
-It fought against the cruelties of the arena, it invested the home with
-purity and proclaimed the value of each human soul as a treasure in the
-eyes of God, and it so leavens the great masses of the empire as to
-render the cross of Christ the sign of victory for its legions in place
-of the Roman eagle.
-
-“The Galilean entered the world as a conqueror. The Church became the
-educator of pagan nations; and one race after another was brought under
-her tutorship. The Latin races were followed by the Celt, the Teuton and
-the Slav. The same burning enthusiasm which sent forth the first
-Apostles, also set the missionaries aglow, and brought all Europe and
-Africa, and finally the American continent, under the scepter of an
-omnipotent Church. Christianity is not an end, but the means to an end,
-the establishment of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.”
-
-
-
-
- CHAPTER XI
- HEREDITARY SIN
-
-
-It was an exceedingly cold night when Jake Grossman burst into the
-mission, having on the apparel of a hotel cook. He did not take a seat,
-but marched to the front and prostrated himself at the altar, crying,
-“God be merciful to me, a sinner.” In such cases, no difference what we
-are doing, all formal program is suspended and we go at once to prayer.
-Jake was in deep earnest, men and women acquainted with God kneeled all
-about him, presenting his case to the Saviour of men. We did not then
-know his special need, but a soul in the depth of conviction wanted God,
-not for one sin, but he needed cleansing from all the sins of his past
-life. It must have been an hour before that soul received light. The
-choir had sung softly, “I'm coming home to-night,” and like melodies;
-others had come to the altar, been forgiven and gone to their seats,
-when Jake Grossman rose to his feet and rejoiced that he had found peace
-and pardon through the blood of Christ.
-
-We found afterwards that Grossman was the son of the great Swiss
-engineer, who had planned the great tunnel through the Alps, whose
-genius had built bridges over roaring, impassable canyons, who had
-planned the electric roads in all parts of Switzerland, until he was
-wined and dined by scientists not only in his own country but in many
-countries, so that he had acquired the alcoholic habit, after which his
-brain became sluggish and at last he fell from his high estate, became a
-common drunkard and died poor. The memory of the wicked shall perish.
-
-While he was yet prosperous, using expensive wines, his only legitimate
-son was born. The mother noticed that, as a child of six or seven, Jake
-wanted a sip every time wine was used on the table; by twelve he could
-drink a large glass of wine and not show drunkenness. By his twentieth
-year Jake was a drunkard, the father dead, the mother poor and
-heart-broken. Friends and relatives all advised sending Jake to America,
-where wine is not used on the table, and also to get Jake away from old
-companions.
-
-He came with letters to good people, but alcoholism is not baffled by
-change of location. His money gave out, the people to whom he had been
-introduced refused to receive him. Fortunately his mother had taught him
-to cook, so he obtained a place as an assistant cook in a Washington
-hotel; later he developed into a first-class chef. When he came to the
-Mission he had been discharged for drunkenness, and now, being a
-redeemed man, he went back to the hotel, gave up his white clothing,
-gathered up his belongings, and sought other work.
-
-That was five years ago. Jake has often been asked by the hotels of this
-city to cook for them at a salary of $100 or more a month, but Jake
-daily prays, “Lead us not into temptation,” and he does not knowingly
-walk into it. He shovels coal at a wage of $10 per week. He says, “You
-see, it keeps me in the open air; I do not have to taste wine or smell
-it; I get black on the outside, but I keep white within, which was more
-than I did as a cook.”
-
-All the heroes are not in high places. “He that ruleth his spirit is
-better than he that taketh a city.” We believe God cleansed Jake
-Grossman from inherited sin.
-
-
- HEREDITY
-
-I see that scientists are now claiming that a tendency to use alcohol is
-not hereditary. We who work among alcoholics know that it is. God says
-that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children unto the
-third and fourth generation, and they are. God gives a high premium for
-virtue to all who would take the responsibility of bringing another life
-into the world.
-
-I remember a man converted at the Breakfast Association, Philadelphia. I
-had spoken on the power of God to take away even inherited tendencies of
-sin from our souls. A young chap in the audience sent an usher to ask me
-to see him in the after meeting. I went down the aisle till I stood by
-his side. He said, “Can God save me from drink? My father was a
-saloon-keeper and died drunk. My mother died a drunkard; she fed me beer
-as an infant. I am now twenty-two years old; I do not remember a day in
-my life that I have not used beer.” Looking over that blear-eyed crowd,
-he said, “I do not want an old age like these wretches. Do you know that
-I recognize among these bloats at least twenty men who are the sons of
-saloon-keepers? You Christians have not yet discovered that no man puts
-liquor to his neighbor's lips without destroying his own family. Now,
-can God save me from the sin and shame of the old age of an alcoholic
-paralytic?”
-
-“Well, let us go to the altar and ask Him.” We knelt long at the altar.
-At last he claimed that he had been accepted of God. As he started to
-leave the hall he came back and said, “Do pray for me; I am afraid of
-the smells of the street; I am afraid of my old companions. Pray for
-me.”
-
-“Well,” I said, “you come home with me, you are young enough to be my
-son. If you were, I would want some good woman to mother you.” The next
-day I took him to Lancaster, Pa., where at that time I had a number of
-acquaintances among business men. I took him to quite a number before I
-came to a man who would take him at all, and to a number who would take
-him but not agree to help save a soul. At last I came to a Christian man
-in the leather business, who agreed to take him into his family,
-instruct him in the very rudiments of religion, take him to church and
-Sunday school with him; in fact, to nourish this new-born soul in
-Christ. We prayed together, then I left him. For a very short time I
-received a postal-card each week, which I failed to answer; then, amid
-the cares of a very busy life, I forgot him. About three years after
-that I was walking along a street in Lancaster when a fine-looking chap
-came rushing from behind me, and, placing his arm over my shoulder,
-said, “Oh, God bless you! God bless you!”
-
-I turned and found a fine-looking man with tear-dimmed eyes blessing me.
-“Son,” I said, “what is your name?”
-
-“Oh! do you not know me? I have prayed for you every day for three
-years, and you have forgotten me.”
-
-“Well,” I said, “I fancy you are so much better looking to-day than you
-were then so that your own mother might not know you now.”
-
-I walked back to the leather store with him and found my friend behind
-the counter. “Mr. S.” I said, “is John Schmidt a good man?”
-
-He did not wait to go around the counter, but, coming right over it, he
-placed a hand on each of John's shoulders as he said, “I am glad to bear
-witness that John is a true, good man. At first he was sorely tried to
-associate only with our kind of people, but he has worked all day, gone
-to school at night, gone to church and Sunday school every Sunday, and
-he is about to marry one of the best young women of our church.” God had
-done a perfect work of grace, and the hereditary drunkard became a good
-man and a useful citizen. It must be so, for the word says the blood of
-Christ Jesus cleanses from _all_ sin.
-
-
- MR. KLINE'S TESTIMONY
-
-On the evening of September 16, 1913, Mr. Kline, our Superintendent of
-the Gospel Mission, gave, in substance, the following:
-
-“It is ten years ago to-night since God, for Christ's sake, forgave my
-sins. It was a day like this has been, a perfect day in September. I had
-become a confirmed drunkard, so that every waking moment I kept myself
-under the influence of whisky. I was a good workman, but I was conscious
-that my strength had gone. Three days before I had been attacked with a
-trembling which seemed like palsy. As I looked in the glass I saw the
-face of a dying man. The barkeeper saw it. He said, 'Kline, take a
-drink; you will shake to pieces.' It took four or five drinks to make my
-hand steady enough to work. Then the barkeeper said, 'Now you need work
-to bring you to strength. You may paper and fix up this bar-room.' I
-went to a paper house, selected my paper, and had the man make a bill
-four times what it should have been. The bill was paid and I went back
-to the paper store and got my rake-off. You see, I had become dishonest
-as well as a drunkard. I had been brought up in a Lutheran household in
-Harrisburg by a Christian aunt, who was a member of old Zion Lutheran
-Church.
-
-“My mother had died in my infancy. I never saw her to remember her
-appearance; I never saw a likeness of her, a lock of hair or a garment
-which she had worn; but when dying she left a message with my aunt, a
-message which never left me, even when I was farthest from God. It was
-these words, 'Bring up my boy to meet me in heaven.' It was those words
-which really brought me back to my mother's God.
-
-“When I quit work in that saloon that 16th day of September, 1903, I was
-all in. I saw my face in the mirror over the bar, and when I am dead I
-shall not be more colorless. The barkeeper filled my bottle, and instead
-of going, as usual, to my home in the southwest, I made my way up
-Four-and-a-half Street. I was simply impelled by an unseen force. Behind
-every tree I took a nip from the bottle, till I came to Pennsylvania
-Avenue. Then I knew I dared not drink where a policeman would see me;
-so, hardly knowing where I was or what I was doing, I staggered to the
-old bank corner at Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. They tell me
-I disturbed the meeting, but when they adjourned to the Mission Hall I
-followed weeping and crying, 'I shall not go out of this hall till I am
-dead or saved.'
-
-“I have been told by Brothers Gordon and Wheeler that no drunkard we
-have ever seen disgrace himself in this mission ever behaved worse than
-I did. God gave them that night the grace of patience.
-
-[Illustration: BOY SCOUTS]
-
-[Illustration: CAMP FIRE GIRLS]
-
-“I cried to God, 'This poor man cried, and God heard him.' I rose to my
-feet, sobered and in my right mind. I gave the bottle to Brother Bratz,
-and when I got out on the street I threw away my cigarettes and tobacco,
-and from that day to this I have not touched or tasted either liquor or
-tobacco. The next morning my hand was as steady as it is this minute.
-While I was wondering what to do, a rap came to the door. It was the
-saloon man's messenger, telling me to come and finish my job. I was
-weak, but I was praying. In the meantime Satan was giving me the battle
-of my life. The devil is a hard loser. He said, 'Well, if God could keep
-Daniel in the lions' den, and the Hebrews in the fiery furnace, He could
-surely keep you in the saloon.'
-
-“But God has done better than that for me. He has kept me out of the
-saloon. In my distress of mind as to whether I should finish that job or
-go for my tools, I picked up my wife's Bible and I opened at these
-words, 'Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy
-name, thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters I will be with
-thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou
-walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the
-flame kindle upon thee.' It was a message straight from heaven to my
-soul. I so accepted it.
-
-“I never finished the job. I never went after my tools, and from that
-day to this I have not entered a saloon. Satan has camped on my trail
-many times. I have had trials and temptations, but God has delivered me
-from the sins of the flesh, whisky, tobacco and their accompanying sins.
-No man who has been a drunkard can ever again safely use tobacco. An
-experience of ten years in mission work, where I have seen thousands of
-souls born into the kingdom, convinces me that the convert who retains
-tobacco will surely slip back. Christ's redeeming blood cleanses from
-all sin.
-
-“I was a good workman and I soon had permanent work. I never failed to
-make the arrangement before I entered into a contract that I was not to
-be expected to enter a saloon or any other disreputable place.”
-
-That was Mr. Kline's testimony, and I would like to say for him that God
-greatly uses him and his testimony to bring fallen men back to God. He
-is an acceptable preacher of righteousness in almost any pulpit in this
-city, and he has done acceptable evangelistic work in many large eastern
-cities. His presence in the Gospel Mission, we believe, is helpful to
-all the men who come under its roof. He is an honored member of the
-Luther Memorial Church.
-
-I reaffirm, as long as one man dead in sin can be transformed into a
-living, active, aggressive Christian, the words of the Scripture are as
-true to-day as when the angel said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for
-He shall save His people from their sins.” Nothing now known to science
-can accomplish what happened to Mr. H. W. Kline that night; that is, as
-Prof. James so pertinently says, “Conversion is the only means by which
-a radically bad person can be changed into a radically good person.”
-
-Harold Begbie, as a psychologist, says: “Whatever we may think of the
-phenomenon itself, the fact stands clear and unassailable that by this
-thing called conversion, men consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy,
-become consciously right, superior and happy. It produces not a change
-but a revolution. It creates a new personality.” We would say a new
-creature in Christ Jesus.
-
-The religion of Christ differs from all other religions. They take the
-rich, the happy, the successful, as their expositors, but Christ takes
-the broken, the sorrowful, the beaten in the race, and makes them the
-rich, the successful and the happy expositors of His religion.
-
-
- EMOTION IN RELIGION
-
-Prof. H. W. Wynn, D.D., one of the great writers of the _Lutheran
-Observer_, has these wise words concerning the elements of emotion in
-religion:
-
-“We have discovered that religion as a purely emotional experience may
-have no religion in it at all, though kindled by the emotional stimuli
-that religion commands. There is an emotional element in religion, of
-course, deep, powerful, pervasive; and when you give way to it,
-enveloping your whole being as in an atmosphere of flame. Those tender
-feelings which enter so largely into the deeper currents of our domestic
-and social life—love, pity, joy, hope, the striking of the glad hand,
-comradeship locking arms under the same great banner to do deeds of
-heroism in the same great cause—religion calls them all up, and fires
-them all with a conquering zeal.
-
-“But, manifestly, the zeal may burn out before the deeds of heroism have
-been begun. We have learned to know that the same emotional fires may be
-kindled when religion is not the theme. A great crowd, an orator of
-fluent and persuasive speech, music filling the air with the imaginary
-shouts of an “Io triumphe” come to stay—it matters very little what may
-be the occasion that has called these people together, the emotional
-part of their campaign has been achieved. But, whether in religion or in
-politics, it would be stupidly unwise to conclude that the excitement
-itself was the end to be attained—emotion being set down as the deed
-itself; or, in some way, an assured equivalent of the deed.
-
-“In all such cases fanaticism is the result, and fanaticism has never
-been an aid, but always, in the long run, an embarrassment to any great
-cause. Fanaticism stops with the excitement—absurdly confounds
-excitement with the cause to be maintained.
-
-“In religion, especially, this unhappy 'transvaluation of value' is
-likely to be made. For long ages it has been systematically taught that
-the emotional element in religion either summed it all up or was an
-unmistakable token that, then and there, it had been all summed up for
-us in the exchequer of the skies. The great transaction had passed, the
-thing was done when your religious ecstasy swelled to the highest, and
-you found yourself, as you confidently believed, borne on its billows to
-the bosom of God.”
-
-Now, we all recognize this emotional element only as a helpful factor in
-religion, but not a permanent element. I have seen a few men accept
-Christ without any emotion whatever. I remember a blue-eyed, fair
-complexioned man saying, “I have no especial emotion. I am truly sorry
-for my sins. I confess them now and here, and I claim 1 John 1:9, 'If we
-confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
-cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' I ask God to cleanse me. I need it
-and accept it, because He has said so.” Tracy lived all right as long as
-we knew of him. If converts made in evangelistic meetings were taken
-into careful Bible school, they would develop into useful Christians,
-and there would be no backsliding.
-
-Now, religion, in the sense in which we use it, is a “building” process,
-not “inflation,” as the aeronaut would inflate his balloon. We all know
-the class of religionists who hop, jump and shout in religious meetings;
-they are so busy they do not see the basket as it passes; they give no
-money, they do nothing that the world would call religious except these
-physical manifestations. They are intolerant to all who do not believe
-as they do, they are simply to be tolerated and petted along as
-deficients who mean well but cannot be counted as part of the great
-organized force of believers which God is using to bring about the
-kingdom of God until by training and experience they can be used among
-their own class. But, among these, every now and then there comes a man
-of good mentality but without education, whom God can use. His church
-has no room for him, yet he has the same orders that Jesus gave to the
-eleven, “Go ye and preach the gospel to every nation,” and we find him
-preaching on the side streets, later a hall or church is hired, and we
-have a new sect.
-
-You remember Jane Addams tells of the young college graduate who had
-taken a course in a Bible training school and in a school of
-philanthropy, who, on her return home, asked the rector for religious
-work, and he replied, “You might arrange the flowers on the pulpit each
-Sunday.” Think of that to a soul aflame with God!
-
-Macaulay touches off this kind of blindness in his essay on “Ranke's
-History of the Popes,” in this way: “Far different is the policy of
-Rome. The ignorant enthusiasts whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy,
-and, whatever the learned and polite may think, a most dangerous enemy,
-the Catholic Church makes a champion; she bids him nurse his beard,
-covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope around
-his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He costs her
-nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her beneficed
-clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual
-character and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches not exactly
-in the style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of the
-uneducated hearers, and all his influence is employed to strengthen the
-church of which he is a minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly
-attached as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet carriages and liveries
-crowd the entrance of the palace on the Quirinal. In this way the Church
-of Rome unites in herself all the strength of establishment, and all the
-strength of dissent. Even for female agencies there is a place in her
-system for devout women; she assigns them spiritual functions, dignities
-and magistracies.”
-
-How different from these enthusiasts who have not entered a church for
-years; their stock in trade is largely vituperation of the churches
-until they are trained into a better understanding of relative social
-service. The Church is doing the real Christian work of the world in
-keeping people from going wrong. Missions and their branches only hope
-to catch the driftwood of humanity before it floats out into the great
-ocean of eternity.
-
-But every church in the land should have an investment in money or
-personal representatives in the nearest city rescue mission. The young
-people of the churches should be the choirs of the missions. They will
-get inspiration as to how to do work for God in securing the conversion
-of every soul committed to their care in the church and community work.
-
-
-
-
- TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
-
-
- 1. On p. 51, interest on $17,000 at 5.5% would be $935 instead of $850.
- 2. Added “was” between he and brought on p. 103.
- 3. Silently corrected typographical errors.
- 4. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
- 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
-
-
-
-
-
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-Harriet Earhart Monroe
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-<pre>
-
-Project Gutenberg's Twice-born Men in America, by Harriet Earhart Monroe
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: Twice-born Men in America
- or The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a Christian
- Psychologist in Rescue Mission Work
-
-Author: Harriet Earhart Monroe
-
-Release Date: September 8, 2016 [EBook #53014]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWICE-BORN MEN IN AMERICA ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
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-</pre>
-
-
-<div class='tnotes covernote'>
-
-<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber's Note:</strong></p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_001.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <h1 class='c001'>Twice-Born Men in America<br /> <span class='small'>OR</span><br /> <span class='large'>The Psychology of Conversion as Seen by a Christian Psychologist in Rescue Mission Work</span></h1>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c002'>
- <div>BY</div>
- <div class='c002'><span class='xlarge'>HARRIET EARHART MONROE</span></div>
- <div class='c002'><span class='sc'>Also Author of “Conversation as a Science and an Art,” “Heroine of the Mining Camp,” “Historical Lutheranism,” “The Life of Gustavus Adolphus,” and “Washington—Its Sights and Insights”</span></div>
- <div class='c003'>PHILADELPHIA, PA.:</div>
- <div class='c002'>THE LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div><span class='sc'>Copyright, 1914, by</span></div>
- <div>HARRIET EARHART MONROE</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_iii'>iii</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>PREFACE</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>I taught psychology for fifteen years at the Atchison
-Institute, the predecessor of Midland College, located at
-Atchison, Kan. I was there greatly impressed by the
-fact that the books gave no adequate analysis of the
-psychology of the greatest mental and moral change
-which can come to the human mind, namely, conversion
-and regeneration; yet these changes make the great difference
-which we see between men and nations.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>A Rescue Mission gives a great opportunity to study
-mental and moral changes, and my observations and conclusions,
-made from years of study, are herein embodied.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>This book is sent forth with the earnest hope and
-prayer that it will lead many souls to Christ; also that it
-will show earnest laymen just how to bring about that
-psychological change which we call conversion. A Sunday
-school teacher who brings only ninety per cent of
-her students through the process of conversion and regeneration
-is ninety per cent a success and ten per cent
-failure. The same is true of a pastor with a class of catechumens.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Ye must be born again,” is just as true to-day as it
-ever was, and if we believed it as Paul believed it,
-what live wires we would be.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>This book is to remind us that Jesus saves to the uttermost
-in our day, just as He did when He visibly walked
-this earth.</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-r'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in17'><span class='sc'>Harriet E. Monroe</span>,</div>
- <div class='line'>204 A Street, S. E., Washington, D. C.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-l'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='sc'>July 29, 1914.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table0' summary='CONTENTS'>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER I</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <th class='c008'></th>
- <th class='c009'>PAGE</th>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>How I Happened to Become Interested in Rescue Mission Work</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_7'>7</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER II</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>Rescue Mission Work</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_22'>22</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER III</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>Incidents Showing the Power of God to Save</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IV</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>An Element of Humor in Rescue Work</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_36'>36</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER V</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>Big Feet</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_44'>44</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VI</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>How We Got a New Mission Building</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_49'>49</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VII</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>Varieties of Work in a Gospel Mission</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_59'>59</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER VIII</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>The Need of Rescue Work</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_69'>69</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER IX</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>The Penny Lunch and Free Dispensary</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_82'>82</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>CHAPTER X</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>The Power of the Gospel</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_94'>94</a></td>
- </tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr><td class='c007' colspan='2'>CHAPTER XI</td></tr>
- <tr><td>&nbsp;</td></tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'><span class='sc'>Hereditary Sin</span></td>
- <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_107'>107</a></td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<div class='ph1'>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c004'>
- <div>Twice-Born Men in America</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER I<br /> <span class='sc'>How I Happened to Become Interested in Rescue Mission Work</span></h2>
-</div>
-<p class='c006'>In January, 1908, a great calamity came to me in the
-form of destruction by fire of most of my earthly property
-and the death in the fire of a loved sister. The event
-had in it some other elements of great pain not necessary
-to mention here. If my soul had not been anchored in
-Jesus, the combination of sorrows would have broken
-down my mentality and sent me to the asylum. As it
-was, I stood steadily trusting God, knowing that all
-things worked together for good to those who love God.
-I was sure I was a lover of God, and so, while every fiber
-of my body and soul ached with unspeakable pain, I never
-doubted God's love, care and sympathy.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In the midst of this grief I received a letter from Mr.
-George W. Wheeler, the President of the Executive
-Board of the Gospel Mission, saying about this, “Come
-down to the Gospel Mission, look it over and see if you
-care to come in with us in the work of saving souls. Unless
-we secure a woman of large executive ability, our
-work can scarcely go forward.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I answered that I would be glad to join them, and the
-next week, the first week of September, 1908, I received
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>a letter from the Secretary, S. M. Croft, saying I had
-been elected to the Executive Board of the Gospel Mission,
-which met once every week.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The following Monday I met with the Board, where I
-heard a letter from Mr. Tyson, saying that he withdrew
-from the Board because the dormitories were badly kept.
-Then followed a letter of the same kind from a Mr.
-Fritz, and another from Mr. Sidell. As soon as the session,
-which was largely a prayer service, was closed, Mr.
-Wheeler accompanied me to look over the dormitories.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I never saw or dreamed of such conditions. The
-very walls were alive with vermin. In the story above
-the chapel were fifteen vile beds, and on the third story
-above us we saw a floor covered with dirty, wrinkled
-newspapers. I said, “Where do the men sleep?” “On
-the beds you saw in the third floor and on these newspapers.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In my heart I said, “Dear Lord, surely not here, amid
-this vileness?” The answer was as sharp and distinct
-as though spoken through a trumpet, “Prepare ye the
-way of the Lord.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Mr. Wheeler,” I said, “I see conditions, and I take
-charge.” He left for his work in the United States
-Treasury, and I went to the street and hired a force of
-cleaners, whitewash men, scrubbers, sweepers, etc., and
-called up Mrs. Claude Myers, the wife of a Presbyterian
-minister, and two other fully consecrated women who
-were not afraid of work. I asked them to come at once
-and bring with them buckets, scrub brushes, rags, soap,
-etc., while I put in a supply of chemicals for the vermin.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Those women helped to burn the bedding and to send
-away some as trash. They helped me clean the beds; the
-whitewashers even entered into the spirit of it, and every
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>crack was filled with plaster of paris; they went over
-the walls three times with lime and carbolic acid. The
-Health Bureau in the Municipal Building gave me a
-preparation used on floors in jails and in hospitals for
-contagious diseases. Some redeemed men came to our
-help, and by Saturday night we turned over a clean
-house.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Every one of us cleaners was obliged to go to the Turkish
-bath and have our clothing brushed and fumigated
-before we could go to our own homes.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>On Saturday evening I told Mr. Wheeler and Mr.
-Gordon that besides the good men and women who had
-helped us for the cause for five days, we had spent
-twenty-five dollars. Never will I forget the dismay of
-those two good men. “What! Twenty-five dollars!
-Where do you think we will get that?” I answered,
-“Fortunately I belong to a church that lives and works
-by faith, and to-morrow, being Sunday, I shall tell the
-Sunday school of the Luther Memorial Church, and
-we'll see about that twenty-five dollars.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The next morning I went to the pastor, Rev. J. G.
-Butler, D.D., and he secured permission from the superintendent
-of the Sunday school for me to speak three
-minutes. The superintendent hated innovations, but I
-can say a lot in three minutes, especially when I state
-the needs of the lost men of the community. After the
-school was dismissed nearly every teacher and grown
-student gave me something, and in less than five minutes
-I had twenty-seven dollars.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Sunday night I told what the Lord had done for us,
-and I began to ask all persons present to contribute
-sheets and pillow-cases. I did this so much and so often
-that season that a little four-year-old girl of Mrs. Claude
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>Myers upset the gravity of an entire meeting by saying
-out loud one Sunday evening, “There comes Mrs. Sheets
-and Pillow-cases again.” Well, before winter was over
-we had about fifty clean, well-equipped beds for which,
-when they had it, men gladly paid ten cents per night. If
-they did not have it, the beds were given as long as they
-lasted; but, after the beds were filled, often fifty men
-slept on the floor with only the boards under them and
-no covers.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We had no heat in the dormitories, but one day Mrs.
-Richard Butler, a wealthy woman of the city, was ordered
-by the Spirit to visit the Mission. She came by
-Mr. Gordon's office in her carriage and he took her
-through our building. She saw our first need was heat.
-She sent immediately to a hardware store and ordered a
-large stove for the third floor with a drum for the fourth
-story, and through her kindness the men were given heat,
-but not until after two deaths, caused by cold, hunger
-and wet clothing, had about broken our hearts.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remember a young, fair-haired man from Virginia,
-evidently well born and bred, coming in one night,
-slightly under the influence of liquor. It was a rainy,
-snowy night; his clothing was wet and he was suffering
-from a severe cold. When the meeting was over he
-started to go up stairs, which had nearly a zero temperature.
-I begged him to stay by the fire and sleep on a
-bench, if needed, but he petulantly refused. He was
-dead by nine o'clock next morning. I had wept all the
-way home, for I feared just what happened.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mrs. Butler's stove put an end to that. She furnished
-coal for the entire winter.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Now that we had beds and heat, I saw we could not
-keep the beds clean without bathing facilities. So at our
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>next Board meeting I said, “Brethren, we need a good
-shower-bath with warm and cold water so that men
-soiled and weary can have the comfort of a warm bath.”
-All the members of the Board demurred on account of
-the expense. Then I said, “Brethren, if I make myself responsible
-for the eighty-five dollars needed and you are in
-no way held for it, may I have the bath put in at once?”
-Of course, they wanted the bath, as they saw how much
-it was needed, and gave cordial consent. I purchased a
-rubber stamp, and on the outside of our first circulars
-which we issued I stamped the words, “I have made myself
-personally responsible for the cost of a shower-bath.
-Help a little.” And with my own contributions the bath
-was paid for as per contract.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>That fall we put out a circular folder, of which the
-following is the open letter, and is introduced only to
-give the continuity of this work so that my friends may
-know the aim, object and history of the Mission from the
-beginning:</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-r c010'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line in12'><span class='sc'>Gospel Mission,</span></div>
- <div class='line'><span class='sc'>1230 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.</span></div>
- <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>Washington, D. C.</span></div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-l c010'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Dear Friend</span>:</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c011'>Under the blessing of God and the guidance of the Holy
-Spirit, a Rescue Mission has been opened at No. 1230 Pennsylvania
-Avenue, N. W., where nightly gospel services will be conducted
-and the Lord Christ held up to view as a Saviour “mighty
-to save and strong to deliver.”</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>Our corps of workers is composed of consecrated and Spirit-filled
-men and women, many of whom have had long experience
-in efforts of this character. On the occasion of the opening
-service (Saturday evening, May 12) God set His seal to the
-work by drawing seven earnest seekers to our altar for prayer.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>Street meetings will be held nightly, and an earnest and aggressive
-work carried forward for the betterment of society and
-the salvation of lost men and women.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>Our hall is well located on the south side of Pennsylvania
-Avenue, N. W., in the midst of saloons and pool-rooms and in
-close proximity to that section of the city almost wholly given
-up to evil, and it will be the constant effort of the Mission and
-its workers to seek out and rescue the erring girls and reckless
-men who are found in large numbers in this immediate neighborhood.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>The management is determined that the expenses of this work
-shall be kept at the minimum figures—not exceeding $100 per
-month—and they confidently appeal to their Christian brethren
-and friends and to the public for such funds as shall be found
-necessary to carry forward this work. Can you, will you, aid us?</p>
-
-<div class='lg-container-r c010'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>With great respect,</div>
- <div class='line in4'><span class='sc'>G. W. Wheeler</span>, <em>Chairman</em>,</div>
- <div class='line in4'><span class='sc'>J. S. Mewshaw</span>, <em>Secretary</em>,</div>
- <div class='line in4'><span class='sc'>H. D. Gordon</span>, <em>Treasurer</em>,</div>
- <div class='line in10'><em>Executive Committee</em>.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c000'>These good men are at this writing (1913) yet connected
-with the work. Mr. Mewshaw is an employee of
-the Pennsylvania Railroad, and has charge of a station
-some distance from Washington, but contributes and
-comes with us occasionally. But no organization was
-ever more fortunate than the Gospel Mission in its
-officers.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>TREASURER, MR. H. D. GORDON</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>is a prominent lawyer of the city. He really gives more
-time to the Mission than his business can afford. When
-we are under strain to make a payment on the building,
-he and Mr. Wheeler can go to their friends and raise
-$1000 more readily than the remainder of the Board
-can raise $100. They ask largely of their friends. The
-others of us ask for one dollar monthly contributions,
-and we each receive as we ask. Mr. Gordon's devotion
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>cannot better be illustrated than by the following: Mr.
-Gordon is a most effective singer. I have heard many
-singing evangelists, but none with a finer pathos of voice
-than Mr. Gordon's. One evening in the fall of 1909,
-when each evening we were privileged to hold our outdoor
-meetings in front of the city post-office, I was passing
-on the street car when I saw Mr. Gordon with his
-guitar standing all alone, trying to sing salvation to some
-passing sinners. I found the tears coursing down my
-cheeks, so I got off at the next corner and went back
-to help him, but by that time other workers were on hand
-and it was less sacrifice for me to speak for him. I
-acknowledge here a mean pride (which the Lord has
-had to thrash out of me with many hard knocks) against
-speaking on the street. I have had to remember many
-times that Jesus was an outdoor preacher all His days,
-and all the Apostles, and who am I that I am ashamed
-to follow where He has led! But Brother Gordon can
-stand alone anywhere for Christ. He is greatly in demand
-in other cities as a successful evangelist.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I want to here bear testimony to the great good done
-by outdoor meetings. If all evangelical churches who believe
-in conversion and regeneration would hold their
-meetings outdoors in the summer, they would bring many
-souls, for which they will be held responsible, to Christ.
-If young people would hold alley meetings in the alley
-nearest their church they would bring sinners to Christ,
-there would be no slums and the young Christians would
-grow in grace.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>PRESIDENT, GEORGE W. WHEELER</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>President, George W. Wheeler, of the Executive
-Board, is one of God's best gifts to the city of Washington.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>He is the very best City Rescue Mission worker
-I have ever seen, and I have seen most of the city missions
-of the United States and Europe. In the summer
-of 1910, in company with Mrs. M. P. Spindle, I visited
-all the great cities of Europe, especially Glasgow,
-Edinburgh, London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, to obtain
-suggestions for improving our work, as we thought, at
-that time, to plan for erecting a great mission building
-unequaled in all the world. Most mission buildings are
-mere adaptations of old buildings. We hoped to do
-better, but God ordered otherwise. Among all these
-great mission workers I have seen none superior to
-George W. Wheeler in Rescue Mission work and in conducting
-an interdenominational organized work for God.
-First, his consecration is marvelous. He had been thirty
-or more years in government service, to lose time means
-not only loss of money, but even endangers a man's
-tenure of office.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>But when Mr. Wheeler is called to see a soldier, a
-sailor, a sick man in the hospital, who must be seen in
-business hours, he never, as all other government members
-of the Board do, pleads loss of any kind, but goes at
-once on the errand of love and mercy. Then he gets on
-well with his Board of Directors; if debate runs high and
-a measure is carried without his favor, he holds no
-grudge, he is universally kind. That means much. Then
-his acquaintance is so large he can secure good talent for
-helpers in every line; he has the absolute confidence of
-the community (which he richly deserves), and by the
-blessing of God secures funds for our great work; and,
-best of all, he leads many souls to Christ. He has probably
-seen more souls born into the kingdom of God than
-any other living rescue worker.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>(Mr. Wheeler died January 19, 1914. “He buries the
-workers, but the work goes on.”)</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>MRS. M. P. SPINDLE</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>is a Christian woman whom I found connected with the
-Mission when I went there. My attention was first attracted
-toward her by her liberality when I made the calls
-for bedding, so now I borrowed $85 from her and put in
-the bath. She was kind enough to let me pay it back in
-driblets, and from that day to this she has given more
-money than any other worker. She has loaned or given
-the money to go forward in each venture of mine, and,
-above all, I have had the benefit of her counsel and her
-favor in every form, and together we have prayed
-through many an obstruction which seemed an impassable
-barrier.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE FUMIGATOR</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>No sooner did we get the bath in place than I saw the
-necessity for a fumigator, not only that men should have
-their clothing purified from disease and from vermin, but
-for the sake of the beds. I found that they could not be
-kept clean without the men bathed and had their clothing
-fumigated.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Board again did not feel able to put in the fumigator,
-which cost $125. In this work I found a friend in
-Mr. Ernest Gichner, who invented a sheet-iron room
-with suitable fire-box and chimneys, which he anchored
-on the roof of the building.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It did good service and added to the comfort of the
-men and the cleanliness of the house, not only while
-there, but later he moved it over to our new building.
-Mr. Gichner permitted me to make payments in installments
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>of $25, which I was able to collect mostly from my
-friends in the Luther Memorial Church and the Mission
-workers themselves, who are always liberal even beyond
-their means.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>ENLARGEMENT</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>I became Chairman of the House Committee in September,
-1908, and the following December Mr. H. W.
-Kline was made Superintendent. As soon as we had
-nice beds to offer for ten cents a night, we had a steadily
-increased patronage, so that by the fall of 1909 we were
-obliged to rent a large room back of us. That winter we
-had eighty-four beds filled nearly every night.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>A friend in California sent me $25 as a Christmas
-present, and I put white spreads on the twenty-five best
-beds. Some members of the Board laughed at me so
-much that I was obliged to remind them that the money
-of the Mission was not used. Long ago they have come
-to see that a white bed is a necessity if we are to keep
-a clean house.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>By October, 1909, our expenses for rent, fuel and
-necessities had increased from $100 to $150 each month.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Our statistics for 1908, as shown by our circular, were
-as follows:</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
- <div class='nf-center'>
- <div><em>Statistics of the year and of the last quarter—From January, 1908, to January, 1909</em></div>
- <div class='c002'><em>Statistics of three months of 1908, as follows</em>:</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table1' summary=''>
- <tr>
- <th class='c014'></th>
- <th class='c015'>Attendance</th>
- <th class='c015'>Req. for Prayer</th>
- <th class='c015'>Seekers</th>
- <th class='c015'>Conversions</th>
- <th class='c016'>Services</th>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c014'>&nbsp;</td>
- <td class='c014'>&nbsp;</td>
- <td class='c014'>&nbsp;</td>
- <td class='c014'>&nbsp;</td>
- <td class='c014'>&nbsp;</td>
- <td class='c009'>&nbsp;</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c014'>Dec. 1908</td>
- <td class='c014'>1961</td>
- <td class='c014'>165</td>
- <td class='c014'>86</td>
- <td class='c014'>14</td>
- <td class='c009'>41</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c014'>Jan. 1909</td>
- <td class='c014'>2487</td>
- <td class='c014'>217</td>
- <td class='c014'>73</td>
- <td class='c014'>37</td>
- <td class='c009'>46</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c014'>Feb. 1909</td>
- <td class='c014'>1245</td>
- <td class='c014'>51</td>
- <td class='c014'>34</td>
- <td class='c014'>13</td>
- <td class='c009'>28</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c014'>&nbsp;</td>
- <td class='c014'><hr class='division' /></td>
- <td class='c014'><hr class='division' /></td>
- <td class='c014'><hr class='division' /></td>
- <td class='c014'><hr class='division' /></td>
- <td class='c009'><hr class='division' /></td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c014'>Total</td>
- <td class='c014'>5693</td>
- <td class='c014'>433</td>
- <td class='c014'>193</td>
- <td class='c014'>64</td>
- <td class='c009'>115</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>(Now we care for over 50,000 persons a year.)</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>During the year employment was found for probably
-300 men.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We accept it as a great privilege to have presented the
-gospel of Jesus Christ to this number of people.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Our little circular of that period thus sets forth:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE NEED OF RESCUE WORK</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>“Washington is a dreadful place for a man out of work.
-The city having no manufactories, and all rough work,
-such as excavating, is let by contract to men who prefer
-Italians or Negroes as diggers, while stores and offices
-have room for only the efficient young person, so that,
-when from age, inefficiency or lack of political influence,
-people are dropped from the government service, we are
-often at our wit's end to provide means of subsistence
-for these worthy persons most anxious to labor. We
-have some old men whose working days are over. These
-are for the most part good men, for the wicked do not
-live out half their days. A few immigrants from northern
-Europe, sick men who are able to walk about, but could
-not work if they had it; the shoestring man, the umbrella
-man, the sandwich man, the men who are half insane for
-lack of food and enforced lack of sleep, for they have
-no place to sleep oftener than once a week. Then we
-have the criminal classes, which must be touched with the
-Spirit of God, or they will become the dynamite which
-will destroy our cities, also the men just out of prison.
-These are the special thought of the Mission, for unless
-they are made to feel that they are but temporarily sidetracked
-from the great highway of success, they will become
-an ever-increasing menace to society.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Above all, we have the drunkard, who has lost his grip,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>lost family, lost place in society, lost business and has
-become a mass of putrid flesh, utterly abhorrent to his
-fellow-men. When we look at these people, whose weary
-eyes have looked long into unspeakable sorrow, our very
-souls rejoice that we have proven beyond possibility of
-doubt that 'the blood of Jesus Christ, His son, cleanses
-from all sin; that if we confess our sins, He is faithful
-and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
-unrighteousness,' for we have seen some of every class
-mentioned redeemed, placed back in society, among the
-producing power of the nation.”</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>“OUR GOSPEL MISSION TIDINGS”</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>(a monthly paper) was issued first in October, 1909. All
-members of the Executive Committee have helped in
-some measure on it, but the responsibility has fallen
-heaviest on Mr. G. W. Wheeler and myself. Our entire
-income is the result of our paper, it is our means of communicating
-with the public.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE INDUSTRIAL PLANT</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>was really brought about by two tragedies. One cold day
-I went to the Mission, and on the outside I saw a man,
-whom I shall call Kelly, shivering at the door. He looked
-like death, pale, trembling, the lips and nostrils drawn as
-if in extreme pain. “What is the matter, Kelly?” I said.
-“I am starving to death; amid all these happy people I
-am left out. I have walked the streets hunting work till
-I can walk no more.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>At that time we did not provide food of any kind, but
-I said, “Let us go up stairs to the Mission,” where Mr.
-Proctor, then acting as Superintendent, provided bread
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>and coffee. I set the man to re-whitewashing the dormitories,
-and we kept him till he secured work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The other was the case of a young man just released
-from Moundsville Penitentiary. After I had given the
-lesson one Tuesday night, I was led to tell in detail the
-story of Valentine Burke, a man converted in the St.
-Louis jail, from reading one of Mr. Moody's sermons
-in a city newspaper. Mr. Burke afterward became a valuable
-citizen, held the position of assistant warden, and
-led hundreds of lost men into the clear light of the gospel.
-When I had finished, a well-dressed man on the front
-seat said, “I am just out of Moundsville; no one has
-spoken a kind word to me, I have had nothing to eat
-to-day, I see no way but to steal again.” He was only
-about twenty-two years of age. I put my arm over his
-shoulder and said, “Son, we will take care of you and get
-you work.” The Superintendent took him up stairs, gave
-him bread and coffee, then a warm bath, but he was so
-weary the men had to help him to get to bed. We all
-tried to get that boy work, but as soon as the word penitentiary
-was mentioned every door was closed. I remember
-walking up Capitol Hill, crying aloud to God,
-“Give us an industrial plant or the sorrows of homeless,
-workless men will take my life.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I paid for the food for a week. He tried also to obtain
-work, but I think the sight of my anxious face worried
-him—I have learned not to carry sorrow in my face since
-then. That boy slipped through our fingers and went
-back to crime. Now, at whose hands will that soul, anxious
-for better things, be required?</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Before I went for my summer vacation I urged before
-the Board an industrial plant. Mr. Kline strenuously objected.
-During that vacation I laid the matter very fully
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>before God in prayer and felt constrained to urge the
-starting of an industrial work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>At our first meeting in September Mr. Kline said,
-“Brethren, I have come to see the need of an industrial
-plant, not only so that men can earn lodging, but where,
-after conversion, we can keep a man a few days to
-teach him the way of life.” A Mission worker often
-prays himself into light.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Again I was forced to borrow money with which to
-purchase a horse and wagon. Mrs. Spindle loaned me
-the $150 needed. That fall my little book, called “The
-Life of Gustavus Adolphus,” published by The Lutheran
-Publication Society, Philadelphia, came out. The house
-gave me $25 in cash, if I remember correctly, and 100
-copies of the book, which I sold at 40 cents a copy. So I
-gave the $65 of my own on the horse and wagon in paying
-back Mrs. Spindle for the loan.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In some way we also secured a paper baler, thus we
-gave two men work in collecting books, newspapers, etc.,
-and two men at the baler. In the November <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite>
-we announced that the wagon from the Gospel Mission
-would call on the first and fifteenth of the month, and
-would accept papers, rags, clothes, bottles, etc., saying,
-“We have old men who separate these things and label
-and bale this material.” The money was used to feed
-and care for these unfortunates.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The city people responded most generously, and in this
-way our industrial branch was started, and greatly benefited
-the Mission for two and a half years.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Later we obtained a wood-saw run by a gasoline engine,
-and we started the penny bundling industry, where
-we could use eight or ten men and make the double purpose
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>of work for unfortunate men and yet make the industry
-self-supporting.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>When the United States granted wood pulp to be
-brought into the country free of duty, our paper industry
-was destroyed, as we could not sell the paper, and the
-government took our woodyard and killed our wood industry,
-but they both did much good in their day.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Gospel Mission in the fall of 1914 will again open
-a laundry, wood cutting, rope-making, printing, and chair
-caning in the line of industries for men who will gladly
-work rather than eat the bread of charity.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER II<br /> <span class='sc'>Rescue Mission Work</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>When I was called to assist in the Gospel Mission, I
-was not a novice in rescue work, having been among the
-workers of the Sunday Breakfast Association in Philadelphia,
-Pa., for twelve years under the direction of Mr.
-Lewis Bean, probably one of the ablest mission workers
-of this or any other country. The Sunday Breakfast is,
-so far as I know, the largest Rescue Mission of this country.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>HOW GOD CALLED ME</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>When I moved from Washington to Philadelphia, I
-found myself very lonely. I had been President of a
-Collegiate Institute at Atchison, Kan., from 1870 to 1885,
-when, because of failure of health, I came East, and took
-up literary work. At Washington, where I lived from
-1885 to 1888, I soon came in contact with literary people,
-and belonged to both literary and scientific clubs, some
-of whose members are to this day strong personal friends.
-But in the twelve years in Philadelphia I never became
-much acquainted with university people, authors' clubs,
-Browning or Shakespeare clubs, although I knew they
-were all there. God had to break me loose from too
-great devotion to that side of life in order to use me for
-more spiritual work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>One evening, in the summer of 1888, I came along
-Arch Street where, in a basement room at Broad and
-Arch, some women were holding a prayer service. I
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>entered and joined with them. Three poor, ragged,
-soiled men were converted. I saw the women were even
-more inexperienced with the phenomena of sudden conversions
-than I was. So I stepped forward and pledged
-the converts to a Christian life. Then I appealed to the
-good men present to see that the converts had a good
-meal that night, and asked for work for them. Good
-men at once promised both.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>When the meeting was dismissed a gentleman came to
-me and said, “We need you at the Sunday Breakfast
-Association to speak next Sunday night. We shall have
-over 1000 men present, all needing to find God. You
-are one of the women who can speak without any of
-the Little Johnny death-bed scenes, and we need you.”
-I replied, “If you asked me to talk on Dickens, Shakespeare,
-or any literary character, I could easily do it, but
-to win souls to Christ, I am not at all sure I could do it.”
-He did not argue, he simply said, “I give you your opportunity.”
-That startled me, and I said, “I will try.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>So the next Sunday evening at the Breakfast Association
-I made my first talk before an audience largely of
-the submerged tenth. The galleries and the platform
-were filled with well-dressed people, and, instead of trying
-to save some soul, I tried to make a fine speech. My
-rhetoric was perfect, my periods nicely rounded, my
-illustrations pertinent, and I sat down pretty well satisfied
-with my fine self. Mr. Bean saw what I had done,
-so he shook a few grains out of all the chaff I had given
-them, made the application, and let me down as easily as
-he could.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>But while I sat there God's Spirit dealt with me.
-“What if a mother of one of these lost men had had
-your opportunity,” said God's Spirit, “would she have
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>talked platitudes to the galleries and the platform?
-Would she? Would she?” I saw my sin. As I fled
-from the house I nearly cried aloud in my shamefaced
-grief. When I got to my room I went to my knees and I
-cried to God my deep shame, “Dear Father, I have sinned.
-I know now that is not my work. My business is to instruct
-the intellect. I will leave the winning of souls to
-preachers and mothers. Help me to bear the testimony
-of a well-ordered Christian life, speaking for you in my
-own social set, but I am not equal to facing those who
-have looked long into the eyes of sin and suffering and
-sorrow, and are uncomforted with a knowledge of Thy
-grace.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>So I felt I had disposed of that, and determined to
-keep to literature forevermore. The next day the card
-of a woman whom I had met in the highest social circles
-of Washington was sent to my room. As I came down
-through the hall I saw in front of the house her carriage
-with footman and driver and team of Kentucky-bred
-horses. When I entered she broke out in a sort of
-wail, “I hear you spoke at the Breakfast Association last
-night.” “Yes, and made a great guy of myself. I do not
-expect to ever go there again, except as a spectator. I
-fear I am more literary than religious.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I wish I could describe the next few minutes. Her
-face blazed. “You, you!” she said; “why you had a
-father a minister, your mother a praying woman, and
-you not to go there to speak to lost men, if you have the
-opportunity! You have had everything which training
-can give, and you refuse to reach a hand to lost men.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Well, what does that concern you?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>She sat down. The agony in her face became anguish.
-She turned white, then red, then back to white, till I
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>feared for her heart. “What does it concern me! What!
-What! Well, I must tell you. I have a son who sits
-down in that awful crowd!”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It was my turn now to be moved. “You?” I said,
-“why, you live in a white marble palace, and can it be
-that your son is a homeless, friendless man?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Yes,” she said, “I live in a white marble palace and I
-hate it from turret to foundation stone, because my oldest
-son is not allowed under its roof. He is a drunkard,
-and will steal everything he can lay his hands on and
-sell it for drink, so that his father forbids me to see him
-or to give him money. The last time I saw him he was
-shoveling coal into a manhole; he looked the part.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Here she tried to give me a large roll of money, as
-she said, “Take this, and please go to the Breakfast Association
-and find my darling boy.” “Madam, I am not
-authorized to take money for the Association. Dr. Henderson
-is the Treasurer, do see him!” “I will not. Will
-know who you are. I told him much of meeting you
-in Washington. I want you to take this money and find
-and clothe my sorrowful son; and oh, say what I would
-like to say if I could talk like you! Tell him when he
-sees a light at the top of the house that his mother is in
-the attic praying for him, and will you pray for me that
-I shall not die under this? Will you pray for my son?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Then we two kneeled and poured into the heart of a
-loving Saviour that story of woe. How she wailed over her
-own frivolous life, and promised her God a life for Him.
-Nearly all the persons referred to have died, so, though
-the parties may be recognized in Philadelphia, it cannot
-now harm anyone.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I took the money offered. The next Sunday evening
-I went to the Association, and my face must have told
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>the story, for when I said to Mr. Bean, “I have a message,”
-he let me speak. I selected the words, “Son, behold
-thy mother!” I told many incidents of heart-broken
-mothers because of the sins of their sons, and then I told
-of Mrs. W., nearly in the above language. Probably
-two hundred men requested prayer that night, and I saw
-God could use me for other than literary work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. Bean said, “That man will not show up till the
-others have gone,” so I sat down and waited.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>When nearly everyone had left the room a poor, blear-eyed
-youth came to the platform. He said, “Mrs. Monroe,
-I am Will W. Do give me some money.” I said,
-“Will, do you intend to break your mother's heart? Do
-you intend to keep on drinking?” “Now, see here, Mrs.
-Monroe, I have honestly tried to quit.” Then, pushing
-up his sleeve, he showed me scars. “There I have signed
-the pledge with my own blood, and I cannot quit.”
-Howard McMasters, one of the Breakfast Association
-workers, pointed the way to Christ far better than I
-could. Then he gave him tickets where he could get
-lodging. I met him the next day at a Turkish bath
-house. At first they refused to take him, and only by
-paying a high price could I secure him a bath and proper
-barbering. I gave him a complete outfit of clothes, and
-he looked very respectable. Mr. McMasters put a good
-man on the case to talk with him, to read the New Testament
-with him, to explain salvation and to help him find
-God, and to keep at his side whenever possible.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>My business took me out of town for several weeks;
-when I came back to the city, I went, of course, the first
-Sunday evening to the Breakfast Association. After
-the meeting was over Will W. came slouching up to the
-platform as vile as when I first saw him. He had sold
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>every article I had given him for drink. This sorrowful
-experience was repeated about five times, but as good is
-stronger than evil, the prayers of God's people prevailed,
-and Mr. McMasters brought him forward to the altar
-and God met him.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>His mother's prayers, the word of God as shown by
-Howard McMasters and that wonderful Divine Spirit
-made a clean work, and a soul was born to God. We
-kept him as well guarded as we could. The smells of the
-street troubled him, for that reason I went to his father's
-wholesale house on Market Street. I had met Mr. W.
-with his wife in Washington, and he met me cordially, till
-I said, “Mr. W., I have come to talk to you about your
-oldest son.” He blazed at me, “Don't you dare to speak
-to me of my oldest son. He has broken my heart, his
-mother's heart, and disgraced my name. I will not permit
-even my wife to speak of him, much less a friend.”
-“But he is converted, Mr. W. It will be different now.”
-“Oh! he has a new dodge, has he?” “Mr. W., you must
-talk to me fairly about this wrecked young life or refer
-me to someone who can act in your behalf.” “Well, see
-his brother,” and a clerk showed me to the brother's
-counting-room. He heard my story with sympathy.
-After stating the case, I said, “I want you to put him on
-a truck farm down near Media, and get him away from
-the smells of Philadelphia.” This was done, though it
-took several weeks to bring it about.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The next Sunday night Will sat on the platform, and
-testified to the power of God to save. When the meeting
-had closed, a handsome young woman, wearing a costly
-tailor-made gown and with the stamp of the patrician in
-every line of her dainty person, said to me, “Mrs. Monroe,
-I am going to marry Will W. this week.” “Oh, my
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>dear girl, do not risk it till he has proved himself for two
-years! Do not risk it!” “You believe he is converted,
-do you not?” “Why, yes; but we should see the transforming
-power of the gospel before you risk your happiness.”
-“Will needs me now to help him keep straight.
-You have not as much faith as you ought to have yourself,
-or you would believe he will hold out.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>What more could I say? They were married. His
-mother was present at the ceremony, and they went to
-the farm to live. Will was held by the power of God,
-and, after much blundering, they made a fair success
-with a truck farm.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III<br /> <span class='sc'>Incidents Showing the Power of God to Save</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>Among the many other impressive cases of the power
-of God to suddenly change a human life from evil to
-good occurred at the Breakfast Association in Philadelphia
-about the year 1898, and although fifteen years
-have passed, every incident, every word is indelibly
-written on my memory.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I was coming off the platform one evening when I met
-a large, fierce-looking, scowling man, who looked as if he
-wanted to strike me. I stopped at once. “Friend,” I
-said, “you are in trouble.” “What is that to you and such
-as you?” “It is much to me. You look like an employer
-of men, yet here you have been taking the bread and
-coffee of charity.” “Well, I have been an employer of
-men, but now I cannot even get employment. I have
-been behind bars; now what hope in life is there for
-me?” “Many men who have been behind bars have afterward
-made good citizens and even made fortunes. Let us
-go down to the Board room and talk this out.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>As he went along growling that there was no hope
-for him, I motioned to Mr. McMasters and another
-worker to come with us. When we were seated, he said,
-“Now, all I want of you people is to help me get work
-so that I do not wander like a stray dog through the
-streets of the city where I was born. My wife and family
-have deserted me and I am a desperate man.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Yes,” I said, “brother, no woman could live with you
-as you are now, one would as soon live with a wolf; your
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>hand is against every man and every man's hand is
-against you. But God can again make you an employer
-of men. He can make you a good husband and father,
-but you must find God first. Where is your mother?”
-I saw him shrink, and I knew then I had the key. “My
-going to prison killed my mother. I had a mill in a
-suburb of Philadelphia, and sometimes, after the day's
-work was done, I would step into a saloon and take a
-glass of beer with my foreman. I was not what you
-would call a drinking man. One evening we got into a
-dispute about something concerning the mill, and I picked
-up a monkey wrench and struck my foreman just one
-blow, but I killed him. All our property went for lawyer
-fees, all to no purpose, for I was sent to prison for
-ten years. I have just been pardoned,” and he drew the
-governor's pardon from his pocket. “When I went to
-my home I found strangers in it, but at last I found my
-wife and my children now nearly grown, but they would
-not let me live with them.” I knew perfectly well from
-other experiences that he had gone in violence and had
-been met with violence.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. McMasters now took the case. He said, “If your
-mother were now living, do you believe she would have
-received you?” “I am sure she would. The warden
-often told us that our mothers would stay by us, that
-children grew ashamed of a father in prison, wives persuaded
-themselves that it only kept up their grief, but a
-mother's love is like that of the God above, it remains.
-But mother died.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Well, you want to meet her again, do you not?” “Yes,
-but my mother was a Christian.” “That is it; let us kneel
-and talk to your mother's God.” Reluctantly, growling
-that God cared nothing for a poor devil like him, he
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>kneeled, and with the three of us kneeling about him,
-we each one presented the case to God, calling on the
-“God whom this man's mother loved and served, asking
-mercy for a broken life, a broken home and a broken
-heart.” By the time the last one prayed his head was
-on the chair and he was sobbing. Then he prayed for
-himself, and God came down and the old alchemy of
-God turned the heart of stone to a heart of flesh, and
-George Gneiss was born into the kingdom of God. It
-was not difficult to get him a place as a skilled miller, and
-from that day to this he has made good.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The transforming power of the gospel was plainly seen
-within a week in his face, in his clothing, in his bearing
-at every meeting. After a few Sundays I was called out
-of town for six weeks. When I came home, I went to
-the Breakfast Association and there, from the gallery,
-Mr. Gneiss looked down on me. At his side was a
-Quaker woman in the plain dress of her Church, and
-with them was a manly boy of seventeen. After the
-services, they all came to me (I motioned to others to
-come), and they told us the story of their reunion. Tears
-stood in her eyes as she said, “We have family prayers
-now, and we pray for you every day. God is blessing
-us in every way. Pray for us.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>After that they came to see me, either at the Breakfast
-Association or at my home, as often as three or four
-times a year as long as I remained in Philadelphia.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE GOSPEL MISSION</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>After telling about those two incidents connected with
-my small share of rescue work in Philadelphia, it is time
-now to resume the story of our Gospel Mission. It is
-only because we see souls converted almost every night
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>that makes it possible for us to bear the sight and the foul
-smell of unclean bodies, of dead whisky and tobacco,
-and the revolting drunkenness, then the remonstrances
-of one's own kindred and church people are trying, unless
-God gave great recompense, first in one's own enlarged
-spiritual life, in order to fit us for the work, and
-almost daily gave us the joy of seeing souls converted,
-it would be an impossible work.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>CONVERSIONS AND REGENERATION</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>Conversion seems to me to be largely man's share in
-the greater fact of regeneration, which is entirely God's
-work in a human soul.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>At a Rescue Mission the theologian could get a new
-and practical knowledge of the gospel he preaches; the
-professor of psychology sees how spiritual powers, unseen
-to mortal eye, can grip the entire machinery of the
-mind, and by a supernatural application of God's Spirit
-and the word of God make a man over again.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Hundreds of times have I seen the alchemy of God
-make men who steal to do God's service; feet that have
-been in the way of the transgressor to walk in the paths
-of righteousness, and tongues accustomed to blaspheme
-to sing God's praises.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Professor James defines conversion thus: “To be converted,
-to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience
-religion, to gain assurance, are so many phrases which
-denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self
-hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy,
-becomes unified and consciously right, superior
-and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold on religious
-realities.”</p>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_035.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>“REMEMBER ME”: HANDS UP FOR PRAYER</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span><em>The first element in conversion is first an influence from
-the Holy Spirit brought about by prayer.</em> Now, that
-prayer may have been sent up years ago by a mother now
-dead, but is usually the result of a prayer atmosphere in
-the meeting.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Holy Spirit acts like a searchlight on the human
-soul, and the sinner for an instant sees himself as God
-sees him. I have seen men rush through the door, and,
-without taking a seat, come straight to the altar, because
-God's Spirit had met them. That is not the usual way,
-and it is usually some immediate message of His word,
-rendered in song or spoken word to the sinner's heart, by
-which he catches a glimpse of his lost condition.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Let no parent be discouraged concerning a wandering
-child. Delayed answer to prayer is not a denial. I know
-a minister whom God greatly uses who was a wild youth
-when his mother died, but God answered her prayer. He
-will answer yours.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It is important who presents the sinner to God. A
-perfunctory church member who plays cards, dances,
-tipples or smells of tobacco, cannot acceptably bring a
-soul to God. God often accepts a soul without an intermediary,
-but the wrong person keeps a soul from God.
-It makes a difference. You remember Ezekiel 14:20,
-“Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, they shall
-but deliver their own souls by their righteousness,” showing
-that as we abide in Him, God answers prayers accordingly.
-Then the word of God comes in. The helper
-tries to make the seeker lay hold of the promises. I have
-seen many conversions on Romans 10:13, “For whosoever
-shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
-It comes like a wireless message from on high. It becomes
-personal as the praying sinner cries to God, he
-believes he is heard, he believes he is forgiven, he accepts
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>the pardon and rises to his feet a redeemed man. A
-supernatural power has come into his soul. Another
-verse which brings men through is 1 John 1:9, “If we
-confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
-sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The religion of Christ has two elements in it—a destructive
-element and a constructive element. The destructive
-element is what we figuratively call “the blood
-of Christ.” It not only pardons or washes away the past
-sins, but it takes out of the soul lying, drinking, lust, laziness,
-deceit, fraud of any kind, and with the constructive
-element it puts into the soul honor, truth, industry, integrity
-or wholeness. It creates in the soul the desire to
-walk in companionship with Christ.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The recognition of sins forgiven and the conscious
-presence of God is what in emotional natures makes
-some shout, some weep, some tremble as with an ague,
-but regeneration in all souls brings unspeakable joy. It
-not only energizes for action, but it puts into the soul the
-power of endurance before unknown.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>One cold night in November, 1908, the writer had
-charge of the Gospel Mission service. In the testimony
-meeting a fine looking young man arose and said about
-this: “I am a graduate of a college in Maine, also of a
-medical department of a college of this city. I have had
-a good practice and a good home. I have lost all of
-these from hard drink. Last spring I was converted in
-a street meeting held by this Mission at the post-office
-corner. Soon after that I obtained a situation in a large
-department store in this city, where I did good work, but
-I lost my temper at the inefficiency of a driver. I learned
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>then and there that only proprietors have the right to
-lose their tempers, and I lost my place. I have had a
-hard time since. God only knows the suffering of a man
-without money, friends, or even acquaintances in a great
-city.” And with a wail, like a cry of anguish, he said,
-“But I've kept the faith! I've kept the faith!”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>After the close of the meeting, a worker said, “I fear
-that man has had no food to-day.” I went to him and
-said, “Son, when did you eat last?” He answered, “Yesterday
-morning.” I slipped into his hand a dollar bill
-and my card, and said, “Come and see me to-morrow
-morning.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We had no difficulty in getting him back into the department
-store where his quick and clear penmanship, his
-great executive ability, have been most highly appreciated
-for nearly five years.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IV<br /> <span class='sc'>An Element of Humor in Rescue Work</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>Unless one can see the humor in rescue work, the tragedy
-of it all would break the heart, ruin one's health, and
-keep one's mind all the time on the sorrowful stories
-that we hear daily.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>A part of successful rescue work is the ability to bring
-each sorrowful case to God, lay it on His altar, and leave
-it behind us when we leave the Mission.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>AUNT MARY</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>One very cold night, a few years ago, we had present
-among our visitors a wealthy lady and gentleman from
-Pittsburgh. We were most anxious that the Mission
-should make a good impression on them, hoping a donation
-of at least $25. It was a very cold night. Soon
-after the services opened a person, whom I shall call
-Charles Winters, son of an old Virginia family, came in.
-He was much under the influence of liquor, and began
-at once to make a disturbance.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remembered his dear old gray-haired mother and his
-accomplished sister, and knew in a moment that if he
-were put out he would freeze to death or be placed in
-prison. Two of the helpers started to put him out; that
-was the easy way, and there were my guests and that
-prospective donation.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The men already had hold of him, when I said, “Stop,
-men; please let me speak to him.” Laying my hand
-kindly on his shoulder, I said, “Charles, sit down and behave
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>yourself.” With a drunken laugh, he said, “I'll sit
-down for you, Aunt Mary, but not for these toughs.”
-All evening I had to go back every few minutes to quiet
-him, much to the amusement of my friends, who frequently
-to this day call me Aunt Mary. But I saved a
-family from shame and my donation came all right.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In most businesses old age is a handicap, but every gray
-hair of my white head is an asset. Nearly every evening
-some poor, vanquished soldier of fortune, ragged, unshaven
-and unshorn, comes to me and says with quivering
-lips, “You look just like my mother, to-night, will
-you care a little for me?” And I lay my arm across the
-soiled coat and say, “Son, the trail of every sin is on your
-poor soiled body; you have tried some by yourself to be
-good, now let us ask Jesus to help. But I shall send you
-up stairs under guard and to the bath-room, where you
-must take a very warm bath while I go to the workroom
-and get you clean clothes from the skin out; your
-clothing will go into the fumigator over night; you shall
-have enough to eat and be physically comforted, then we
-will try again with Jesus as yoke-fellow. You and
-I will talk to Him about it and we will try again, shall
-we?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>There is no use talking salvation to a hungry man or a
-man physically uncomfortable. We usually help a poor
-fellow several days before anything more than the above
-is said, then we show him the tendencies of his life; he
-sees them in the wrecks all around him. He hears the
-testimony of redeemed drunkards, thieves and gamblers,
-and sees them clothed and in their right minds; then the
-teachings of some Christian mother, Sunday school
-teacher, or preacher comes back, and lo! he prays. God's
-Holy Spirit acts as a searchlight, and he sees his abhorrent
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>self as God sees him, and he cries for mercy.
-God comes down when the sinner calls for redeeming
-power, and a great psychological change takes place. If
-a soul really agrees to give up every sin, to take Jesus
-Christ as pattern and friend, Christ Himself enters into
-covenant relations with that soul and the man is born
-again. He usually lays hold mentally of some one verse
-of Scripture, which becomes to him a personal message
-from on high. I have seen many take the verse, “Seek ye
-first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all
-these things shall be added unto you,” and use it as the
-stepping stone into the higher life. They seek God and
-live His righteousness. Take the case of</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>MR. E. C. CONNAUGHT</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>as an example. One very cold morning in January, 1912,
-Mr. Kline received a telephone message like this, “There
-is a drunken man with a wife and four children set out
-on the street at so and so. Bring coffee and food at
-once.” Just as quickly as they could get the food, Mr.
-and Mrs. Kline hastened to the relief of that family.
-The wind was blowing snow and sleet, though it seemed
-too cold for either. The family, including the drunken
-father, were brought immediately to the Mission, though
-their household stuff was left standing on the street,
-where it remained four days. It was such a miserable
-collection that even the colored people did not steal any
-of it. Then it was brought to the Mission and stored in
-the cellar.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>One child was in the hospital from a blow from the
-father. They were physically comforted and put in the
-“Shelter,” a place reserved for stranded women and children.
-By night the father was fairly sober and they were
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>all taken to the religious services in the chapel, where
-Mr. Connaught heard man after man rise and testify
-that God had saved him and taken away the appetite for
-drink. At first there was a sneer on his face, but gradually,
-as one well dressed man after another bore the same
-testimony, he cried out, “I have been an infidel, not believing
-in God or immortality, but if the God you worship
-can cure me of this awful appetite, I want Him.” He
-kneeled at one of the front benches, and an awful spectacle
-of rags and dirt and bloated flesh he was.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remember thinking, “Surely this case is beyond help,”
-but God is better than we even dare hope. Several
-prayers were offered in his behalf, then he prayed for
-himself, and lo! he prayed with the tongue of the learned.
-He said, “O God, if there be a God, hear the prayer of
-the very lowest of Thy children. I need Thee, I am
-totally undone, I put myself in Thy hands for forgiveness
-and for discipline. O Lord, save me!”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He kneeled a moment longer, then rose to his feet with
-a clear brain, and, looking about like one dazed, said,
-“What has happened, you all look different?” Mr. Kline
-laid his arm lovingly over the man's shoulders as he
-said, “Brother Connaught, you have received your sight.
-The Lord Jesus has come into your soul.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The next morning the Associated Charities had him
-arrested for non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy,
-a good man, was on the bench. One of our workers said
-to the judge, “This man was converted last night, and if
-you will give him a chance he will now support his family.”
-“Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather
-than go to Occoquan” (name of the workhouse). “But,
-judge, this is no fake case; try him.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>and the judge sent him up for eleven weeks. The little
-woman and her children were sent to her relatives in
-North Carolina by the Board of Charities and Children's
-Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, reminding
-him that he had put himself in God's hands for
-discipline, and assuring him that if he could stand true,
-God had a useful life in store for him. A marked New
-Testament was given him when he left for down the
-river. There his head was shaved in the very cold
-weather, his clothing changed, so that he took a severe
-cold which came near carrying him off with pneumonia.
-It took about two weeks to bring political and social influence
-to bear to have him paroled and sent back to the
-Mission.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>January and February of 1912 were very cold months,
-it was hard to get any kind of work for men to do, and
-the only thing we could secure for Connaught was passing
-circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to $3.60
-per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3,
-to be sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline
-phoned me, “Connaught is trying to live on the rolls and
-coffee given in the bread line at six o'clock in the morning.”
-I replied, “Connaught must have oatmeal with
-cream—real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must
-have eggs and meat and strong coffee, or he will lose his
-religion.” “Well, who is going to provide all that?”
-“The Lord has money enough for that.” “Well, suppose
-you bring some of it right along,” which of course I
-did.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>About the tenth day after he began circulating papers,
-the work gave out. We really prayed night and day, for
-we feared he would be rearrested and we had no money
-to support him. In a few days he secured work at digging
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been
-accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with
-him on his poor blistered hands, he said, “I am so glad
-to get the work that the hurt is nothing.” Think of that
-for a man who had not done a lick of work, physically or
-mentally, for months and months.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Long before this we had found that he was a graduate
-of an English university, had lived in good style, keeping
-servants, he had possessed a nice home when he was
-first married, but when he found the habit of drink had
-fastened itself upon him, he came to this country hoping
-to break away from old companions and surroundings,
-and thus get away from the sin which bound him.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He tried all the cures; in fact, all his property not
-spent in drink went to the cures, but nothing cured him.
-We found he had been a first-class bookkeeper for one
-of the great railroads centering at Washington, so we
-applied to them. I am glad to say they took an immediate
-interest in the case.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>A man was sent to see him, then Mr. Connaught was
-put in charge of an office building at $40 per month, and
-at once he wanted his family back. They came first to
-the Mission, for we desired to keep him attending services
-every night till he would understand better the word of
-God and grow strong in faith. The railroad now pays
-him $80 a month, for he is a good executive, and he has
-bought a little home in the suburbs on which he is paying
-monthly; a home where he can have a garden, an
-orchard and chickens. About once a week the father,
-the mother, and children come to the Mission. No better
-looking or happier looking people enter that building.
-He comes, as he says, to bear testimony to the saving
-and keeping power of the dear Lord Jesus.</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>PSYCHOLOGY</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Now, science could not cure this case; all that science
-could do had been done for him. He had become so
-low that if he saw his children starving and he had ten
-cents, the money went to the saloon and not for bread.
-It is, as Professor James says, that “Conversion is the
-only means by which a radically bad man can be changed
-into a radically good person.” The agencies in any conversion
-are first prayer, then the Holy Spirit and the
-word of God. This man was so far gone that he did not
-believe in the existence of God. But the sympathy of the
-workers made them pray most earnestly for God's Spirit,
-which came with convicting power. The verse of
-Scripture which came like a wireless message to his soul
-was, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
-forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
-He claimed and still claims the last clause
-as a message to him personally.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The reason that hundreds of sermons fail to comfort a
-saint or convert a sinner is because they fall on prayerless
-pews. You remember how what is known as the Great
-New England Revival came about. Dr. Jonathan Edwards
-was accustomed to go to his church every Saturday
-afternoon to think and to pray for his people.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>On one occasion a beggar, known in the town as Old
-Betty, sat unseen in a back pew. The great preacher
-put his head down on the Bible and sobbed. As he came
-out Old Betty said, “What is it, Dr. Edwards, that so
-troubles you?” “Betty, I have not seen a soul converted
-in this church for a year. Why is it?” “It is because
-these pews are prayerless.” “Will you pray till you
-get the answer that God will come in power to this
-church?” “I will.” Betty hid when the janitor came
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>to close the church, and the answer to her soul did not
-come till the dawning of the morning.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The following day Dr. Edwards started as usual to
-read his sermon, but he soon put it away and began a
-straight evangelistic talk, professed Christians stood in
-their places and asked for prayers, elders and deacons
-prostrated themselves before God, the whole town became
-a prayer circle, and the New England Revival had
-begun.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER V<br /> <span class='sc'>Big Feet</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>One day a very large man, well over sixty years, and
-with three fingers off each hand, in a very modest way
-said to me, “I am so ashamed to tell a lady my needs,”
-and he turned up his foot and showed me where the sole
-was worn out, so that at every step he made he left a
-track in blood. “You poor fellow, you need not be
-ashamed to tell me of need like that. I shall arrange for
-you to stay at the Mission till I get shoes for you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He was of the class who sell shoestrings and pencils,
-but in very cold weather people do not stop to buy from
-street merchants. That night, after the midweek service
-of my church, I rose in my place and asked for a pair of
-shoes number 9½ or 10. The men hooted, no one of
-them ever wore that size, declaring, of course, that I
-wanted them to wear myself.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Well,” I said, “whether you wear them or not, you
-get them for me,” and I told the story of the bleeding
-feet. I did the same at my boarding house. By the next
-day one of the elders of the church came with two pairs
-of shoes which looked nearly big enough for boats, also
-one of the men of the boarding house sent to Annapolis
-to his father, a very large man, for a pair of shoes,
-which came to me by express. I put the three pairs into
-a basket and rushed to the Mission, when lo! the poor
-man could barely get his toes into the shoes. With trembling
-lip, he said, “It is simply disgraceful to be old and
-poor and so awful big that even one's friends cannot help
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>a fellow.” “Indeed, it is no disgrace to be old, poor and
-big, but it is a disgrace to be a bad man of any size or
-age. Don't you worry, I shall find the shoes.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>That afternoon I met a Board composed mostly of
-men eminent in city affairs, among them was a distinguished
-lawyer, a very large man. He sat with his
-foot across one knee, when I leaned over and said,
-“Brother, would you mind walking home in your hose,
-and giving me those shoes for a poor chap as large as
-you are?” “Do you really mean it?” “Yes, I do; only
-I will let you wear them home, then send them to me
-with hose, under clothes, and any other clothing you
-can spare.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>By the next morning I had clothing for the poor fellow,
-and Mr. G.'s number 11 shoes fit as if made to order.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>If the poor man had successfully sold pencils and shoestrings
-all winter he could not have been so well clothed
-as he was that day. But, best of all, while he was obliged
-to wait he read the four Gospels through several times,
-and he sought and found salvation in Jesus Christ. That
-was November, 1911. Since that he has gotten a place
-as night watchman in a large building, and he is a good
-and faithful man.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In Missions we have a large number of deserted wives
-with children, whom we clothe. By that help they can
-by their own labor keep their little families together, and
-then on every holiday, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving,
-etc., we bring them all to the Mission for reunion and
-a big dinner. The joyous seasons for the rich are the
-saddest times for the poor and the bereaved. It is such a
-privilege to be the administrators of the church people
-who send money and clothing for these purposes. In
-return, the Missions are the real protection of the city.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>A hungry man is dangerous, and a man with a hungry
-family is a menace.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>My maid told me, one extreme cold day, that a man
-was at the door to see me. I found there one of the most
-dangerous housebreakers in the country. “Murphy,” I
-said, “I do not want to see any of you men at my home.
-What do you want?” “I am starving.” “Well, go to the
-Mission, we never turn a man away there.” “I wouldn't
-be caught dead there.” “Why not?” “Well, I hate Kline
-(the Superintendent) and the whole outfit, but I am
-starving, I tell you.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I knew by that he had been stealing at the Mission.
-Thieves fold up the sheets and pillow-cases, even when
-they have been entertaining free, put the bedding under
-their coats and get away with it. In time we get to know
-them and will not put them in the dormitories, but only in
-the barracks fitted with shelving but with no pillows or
-covers, but fire is kept all night. The bath and toilet-room
-adjoins or is part of the barracks, so that men are
-made comfortable. I took Murphy to an eating house
-near by and filled him up, but at the same time warning
-him to get out of town as soon as possible or change his
-course and become a good man. Now, if that man had
-not been given food he would surely have gotten it, if it
-cost a human life. Bad as he was, he would have been
-fed had he gone to the Mission. I feared he would not
-go, but would commit some depredation. Speaking of
-thieves, reminds me of the case of a man whom I shall
-call</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>JAMES MANN.</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>One evening a tall, fine-looking man came into the
-Mission chapel. One gets to know thieves somewhat as
-you know an Englishman, a German, an Italian, by the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>marks environment have left on the person. I knew on
-sight that he was a thief. We had a Salvation Army
-man at the Mission that night from West Virginia, who
-gave the message. His subject was, “Be sure thy sin will
-find thee out.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He had been a thief, had served time, but now he told
-how happy and safe he felt serving God and in being a
-good citizen. Several men knelt at the altar that night,
-so when 9.30 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, the time for dismissal, came, the men
-were permitted to go to the dormitories while one or two
-workers prayed with the penitents.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. Mann retired, but he could distinctly hear the
-praying. He declared that a voice said, “<em>Mann, now or
-never</em>.” He tried to go to sleep, the inward voice persisted,
-“Now or never.” He put on his clothes, went
-back to the chapel, threw himself down at the altar and
-cried to God for mercy for himself.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The workers gathered about him, he told God his story
-of sin and shame, and God heard his cry for mercy, and
-he rose a forgiven sinner. His kit of burglar tools were
-thrown into the Potomac River. He had come to Washington
-to burglarize in the northwest section of the city
-during the time when Mr. Taft was being inaugurated.
-His portrait could have been seen in the rogues' gallery
-in every large city of the country, but in a few weeks God
-so changed his face that the man could not have been
-recognized by the old portrait.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We told Major Sylvester, Chief of Police, of the case,
-and Mann was put on the special police force at the
-Union Station at inauguration time, and never before nor
-since was there ever such a quick nabbing of the noted
-thieves as at the Taft inaugural occasion.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. Mann's mother came on from her western home.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>She is a sincere Christian woman. It was doubtless the
-answering of her prayers which brought conviction, then
-salvation to that dangerous man. Once she said, “James,
-I never heard of you for two whole years; where were
-you then?” He made an evasive answer, but we knew
-that he had spent them behind bars.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>After the inauguration the special police were discharged,
-and Mr. Mann went to work as a carpenter.
-He made a good assistant carpenter. About six months
-after that one of the Northern States was making a
-search for large men for their mounted police. Major
-Sylvester recommended Mann, as he was six feet four
-inches tall, and from that day to this he has been on the
-mounted constabulary of a great State, engaged in enforcing
-the law, rather than breaking the laws of his
-country.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Now, is not that real service to the State? This man
-was restored to his family, to society, to God. He became
-a factor for righteousness, instead of an element
-of danger to the commonwealth.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We are not always fortunate enough to see men of
-that class seek God. On one occasion three young thieves
-came into the Mission, they were of the traveling men of
-their base business. After I returned to my home I
-called up the police and told them my suspicion, and
-asked them to watch the Mission very closely from
-eleven o'clock until morning. They were all captured
-between twelve and one o'clock midnight as they were
-leaving the building and escorted to the station and told
-to leave town, which, of course, they did immediately.</p>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_053.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>FREE SUPPER SERVICE</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VI<br /> <span class='sc'>How We Got a New Mission Building</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>(A CHAPTER ON FAITH)</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>Although by January 1, 1911, we had eighty-four beds
-filled nearly every night with homeless men, we felt ourselves
-very much hampered for room. We turned many
-away. Many a poor fellow that winter walked the
-streets all night to keep from freezing.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>When we pray for a thing which we think the work of
-the Lord requires, we begin at once to arrange for it,
-as if the money to do the work were already at hand.
-Our paper, <cite>The Gospel Tidings</cite>, of January, 1911, said,
-“Our Mission now does business in three different localities,
-and will soon be obliged to rent two more places
-for the wood cutting department and for opening a penny
-lunch-room.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We were so sure that the Lord's work needed enlarging
-that we went to the very best architects we knew,
-Gregg &amp; Leisenring, and told them our plans and needs,
-and they prepared with the greatest care, drawings for
-a building costing at the very least $50,000, besides the
-cost of the land. Then the writer visited the seats of the
-mighty in New York City with the best introductions that
-the District Commissioners and leading statesmen could
-give. While I was received with great kindness and
-courtesy, I was distinctly told by one magnate that he
-helped only the young and those starting in life; by
-another that his charity could never take a local form,
-that he gave along the line of research for causes and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>remedies of diseases. The women, whose secretaries I
-met, themselves not being visible to plain people, I was
-assured had planned all their surplus income for five to
-eight years ahead, so that I came back convinced that
-God's way for the Gospel Mission was not by way of
-New York City.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>About that time a great fire occurred in an eastern city,
-and many men and women lost their lives, and the order
-went out in Washington that every building where a
-large number of people worked or slept must have plenty
-of fire-escapes.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We found to put fire-escapes on the Gospel Mission
-would cost $125, an immense sum to us, but we were
-preparing to put up the fire-escapes when the owner refused
-his permission. We told the police, and asked time
-to relocate, but were peremptorily ordered out of 1230
-Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. We could find no suitable
-building obtainable within our means.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>A MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>was called at my house for prayer. There were thirteen
-members present. The object of the meeting was stated
-by President Wheeler, a few of God's promises read
-from His word, and we went on our knees for prayer.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Each one asked for a suitable home to do the Master's
-work as seen and done by the Gospel Mission. It was
-noticeable that after the eighth person had prayed, each
-prayer took more and more the form of thanksgiving, as
-if we already had received the building, or money to
-build it.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>There had been offered to us a very large double building
-which had once been used as the District Building,
-and upon which it was claimed that the government of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>the United States had once put $60,000 to make it fireproof.
-It is situated at 214-216 John Marshall Place,
-N. W., not far from the foot of Capitol Hill. After having
-the distinct answer to prayer that God was working
-with us, a letter was written to Mrs. John Hay, wife of
-the deceased great Secretary of State, asking her to purchase
-that building for $25,000 for us and to permit us to
-pay her a fair interest and pay the principal in annual
-payments. The letter was written about the first of
-March. Almost by return mail Mrs. Hay replied that
-she did not care to make so large an investment, but if
-we cared to go forward and purchase the building ourselves,
-that on April 1 she would give us $5000 on the
-first payment. Never will I forget the scene when that
-letter was read.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. H. D. Gordon had received the letter just as he
-was starting for the Board meeting, his face was radiant.
-When Mr. Wheeler came in the letter was put in his
-hands without comment. As soon as he read the words,
-“I will give you $5000 on the first payment,” without
-waiting to finish the letter, he said, “Let us pray.” We,
-on our knees, each one thanked God for the gift dictated
-by His Spirit, and asked God's blessing on the magnanimous
-woman who had obeyed the Spirit's order.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Building Committee eventually secured the property
-for $22,000, of which $5000 was to be a cash payment,
-and by agreeing to pay $1750 annually, and to pay
-semi-annually a 5½ per cent interest.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Think of the growth in spiritual power of a little organization
-which in September, 1908, shuddered at a bill
-of $25, in the early spring of 1911 joyously making itself
-responsible for $17,000 bearing a semi-annual interest
-amounting in the year to $850!<a id='p51'></a></p>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>Since that time we have made three annual payments
-of $1750 each, and we have met all interest to date.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Probably in no civilized country was there ever a
-dirtier house. The building had been occupied by some
-foreigners until it had become so vile that the police condemned
-it and obliged them to move out. They took with
-them all gas fixtures, all sewerage, heating and water
-pipes; in fact, wrecked the building, but a mission band is
-brave, and went valiantly to work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>More than one hundred wagon loads of dirt were taken
-from the cellars. We know, for we paid ten cents a load to
-the dump. When we had put in $100 in glass, it scarcely
-made a mark, so large is the building. It has sixty-six
-rooms, some of them as large as the chapel of an ordinary
-church.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The walls have been scraped and calcimined and whitewashed;
-the entire woodwork inside and all the outside
-has been painted; new gas pipes and gas fixtures have
-been placed; new sewerage and bath-rooms have been
-prepared. Four new fire-escapes and an electric fire-alarm
-system installed; a splendid French steel range has
-been set in the kitchen; hot and cold water supplied to
-various parts of the building, etc.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The first meeting was held in our new building, 216
-John Marshall Place, N. W., on the evening of April 15,
-1911, Mr. Wheeler presiding.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We found the roof leaked so badly that in case of
-storm some rooms became uninhabitable. Again I was
-obliged to personally guarantee the payment of $500 for
-a new roof. Again, Mr. Ernest Gichner came to my
-help. He put on a good roof, built up and pointed the
-thirteen chimneys, put ventilators in many chimneys, saw
-to resetting, reglazed all skylights, and permitted us to
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>pay him $25 per month till the debt was paid off.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>When the possibility of completing the first cleaning
-seemed most hopeless, when heat, water and gas pipes
-had to be replaced, several members of the Board pledged
-$100 each. To some of us that meant great self-denial.
-Mrs. Richard Butler gave $500 and Mrs. Spindle $200;
-in all we spent $5000 in repairing and cleaning that building.
-Every step was made in faith.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It was wonderful how our people sacrificed to get all
-this done; women who do not do such work at home
-came and scrubbed and cleaned; many a poor man gave
-a day's work. Three men who readily command $3 per
-day, worked three months each at $1 a day with room
-and board. The people of Washington sent us piles of
-old furniture, for which we were deeply grateful. Then
-Superintendent Kline got a great quantity of furniture
-and many feet of piping for conducting heat, and secondhand
-radiators at the sale of the old Riggs Hotel. We
-secured a good mechanic, and with our mechanics at the
-Mission, installed the heating plant. The expenses during
-that time were at least $200 per week. At our Board
-meeting one Tuesday, Treasurer Gordon reported $4.84
-on hand. All business was stopped immediately and we
-went to prayer telling our Father that we had but $4.84
-and the bills of the week would be due on Saturday.
-We had each of us done all we could afford. The following
-Tuesday the Treasurer reported all bills paid and
-$284 in the treasury. Thus God not only supplied all our
-wants, but graciously relieved our anxiety.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>SPEAKER CHAMP CLARK</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>Rather an amusing incident occurred when our cleaning
-was most strenuous. We have a large number of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>good women who will do good work if I lead, so on one
-occasion I took a tin bucket with rags, soap, scrub-brush,
-etc., and went to help on work rather out of my line.
-I started to return with the bucket in hand. When I came
-to the car I saw the Hon. Champ Clark, who had then
-very recently been elected Speaker, at the front of the
-car. I was careful to take the back seat, hoping he would
-not see me. I had barely got seated when he came back
-and took a seat beside me. I tried to apologize for my
-appearance and impedimenta. He said, “Oh, bother!
-Never mind. What fault are you Republicans finding
-with me now?” and we went at the Reciprocity Bill, then
-before the House, with hammer and tongs. When I got
-off at Second Street, S. E., the Speaker carried the
-bucket and handed it to me in his gallant way, still talking
-of the measure before Congress. I doubt if he recognized
-whether it was an old tin bucket or a jewel case
-which he transferred to me.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>As long as this is a faith chapter, I shall here insert a
-statement of how God sent the last $300 on our annual
-payment and semi-annual interest due and paid May 7,
-1913.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>This is from the June, 1913, number of <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite>:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>HOW THE LORD PAID THE DEBT</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>Mrs. Monroe's Letter in <cite>Lutheran Observer</cite> of May 16:</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“On May 1 (1913), we were owing at the Gospel Mission
-on the building $15,500 with $406 semi-annual interest.
-We have agreed to pay $1750 each year, so we
-were responsible for $2156 on May 1; by special agreement
-it was not paid until the 7th. I want to tell my
-friends who have prayed with me in this struggle how
-the Lord led us.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>“At the Board meeting, Tuesday, April 29, we had
-$1140 in the treasury. By Wednesday morning we had
-$1200. Thursday we had $1300, and on Friday, at Dr.
-Stearns's class, I reported $1400 in the treasury and requested
-God's children to ask for the $756 yet due. By
-Sunday, May 4, we had $1659, when Hon. B. H. Warner
-subscribed $200, bringing our fund to $1859. A small
-bill reduced it to $1856.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The gentleman who held the note telephoned from
-Baltimore that he would not come for his money until
-Wednesday, May 7. At the Tuesday evening meeting
-five of us prayed definitely for $300. On Wednesday
-morning, just after breakfast, a friend telephoned,
-'Please come up at once.' Now, that is my writing day,
-and I felt I could hardly go, but my times are in His
-hands, and if He said 'Go,' then that was my orders. I
-went at once, and my friend said, 'I feel you are needing
-$300 on your debt, and the Lord woke me up to tell
-me to hand you $300, and I am prepared to pay it.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“To say how grateful we all are cannot be put into
-words. But at this time, when the city was being scoured
-for $300,000 for the Emergency Hospital, when the Ohio
-sufferers had claimed all we thought we could spare, for
-the Board of a little mission, dependent mostly on the
-poor, as the poor man's church, to pray down from
-heaven $2156 of a special fund, besides the running expenses,
-which are always very heavy, means more than
-money to us. It seems to be the divine seal of God's
-approval on our work. I had subscribed $500 for myself
-and friends. He graciously paid through me $656,
-and now, with the $300, He has made my share $956.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Some of the readers of the <cite>Observer</cite> sent me money,
-but more prayed for our work. Now, join with us in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>praising God for a message straight from the throne of
-our dear, loving heavenly Father.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“To everyone who helped, even to the amount of five
-cents; to those who denied themselves usual comforts
-to help the Mission; to those who gave to help provide
-shelter for the poor—to each of us He sends, I am sure,
-this dear message, 'I glorify you in order that your faith
-may be strengthened and that you may glorify me.' If
-any of us has ever had any doubt of God's special providence
-to His children, let this concrete example be a permanent
-love-message of assurance to every such
-doubter.”</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>NEXT STEP OF FAITH</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>By June, 1913, we found that nearly every Sunday
-night more than one hundred persons had to be denied
-entrance on account of lack of room. We saw by taking
-down a partition on the north side of the chapel between
-chapel and hall, we could seat at least one hundred more.
-We were just over the strain of the last payment, and we
-were loath to ask our friends for more help, but as God
-continues to each of His children the blessings which
-they daily enjoy, so each child of God must continue to
-help in His work, and relying on Him “who worketh with
-us,” we ordered the wall taken out at a cost of about
-$900, which afterward proved to be $1300. Again I had
-to make myself responsible for the payment of that
-amount. It was all paid on time.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In this faith chapter I desire to insert the following
-from the <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite> of June, 1913:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>MR. WHEELER'S STORY</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>“At the Sunday evening service, December 18, 1912,
-Mr. Wheeler said: 'When I was in charge of religious
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>work at the United States jail some years ago, one Sunday,
-after service, I went round, as was my custom, to
-shake hands with the men behind the bars. I came to a
-fine-looking man, to whom I said, “Why are you here?
-I have often seen you on the street, and I have thought
-of you as a good citizen.” “O Mr. Wheeler, I have been
-a good citizen. My wife and I have a little store in
-Georgetown, where we sell oysters in the winter and
-ice cream in the summer. My wife gave me $65 to settle
-our bill with the wholesale oyster man, and I took a
-number of drinks, and finally went into the marble
-saloon and took a drink with some strangers, and as
-surely as I tell you I do not remember another thing
-until I found myself in a cell at the station house.”'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“On further inquiry Mr. Wheeler found that the prisoner
-was charged with passing counterfeit money. It
-appeared that after he came out of the saloon a Jew was
-crying clothing on D Street. This man went into the
-Jew's clothing store, bought a suit of clothes, for which
-he offered a $50 bill in payment. The Jew could not
-make change, so took it to a neighbor, who assured him
-the bill was bad, and the man's arrest immediately followed.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Mr. Wheeler went often to the cell to pray with and
-for the poor prisoner, who devoted his time to the study
-of the Gospels. He was soundly converted. Mr. Wheeler
-said, 'Do not trust alone to your lawyer. Appeal to Jesus
-Christ now to clear you, for, as far as I can see, man
-cannot.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“His lawyer told Mr. Wheeler that the court would
-surely send the prisoner to the penitentiary. On the
-morning of the trial several Christian men met together
-and prayed over the case. The court convened at 10
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span><span class='fss'>A.M.</span>, and the case was immediately called. A stranger
-asked to be sworn as a witness. He said about this:
-'I was in Washington on the day this affair occurred. I
-do not often take a drink, but I happened to be in the
-saloon when this man came in. He took a drink with two
-young fellows who happened to be there, and the liquor
-made him drunk at once, when one of the young fellows
-said, “It is my turn to treat, and I will, if any of you
-can change a $50 bill.” This man brought out lots of
-money, and got the $50 bill in exchange. I left Washington
-the next day, that is how I was fortunate enough to
-remember the date. I got back yesterday, and happened
-to see a statement of this case in the evening's paper, and
-I felt simply compelled to come and give my testimony.'”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The prisoner was reprimanded (which was unnecessary,
-as he was a new creature in Christ Jesus), but the
-case against him was dismissed, as it was apparent there
-was no intent to defraud the Jew. His family nearly
-smothered him with kisses and embraces, and he walked
-out a free man.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Skeptics may say this was mere chance. But how did
-it happen that the man came back on that day, saw that
-account in the paper, felt compelled to testify? No, God
-directed the case after it was committed to Him.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VII<br /> <span class='sc'>Varieties of Work in a Gospel Mission</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>We are apt to think that all persons who accept the
-hospitality of the Mission are low-born people; we have
-not found it so. There have knelt at the altar of the Gospel
-Mission, priests and preachers, lawyers, doctors, merchants,
-engineers, college men and poor chaps who have
-had no education but that of the street.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remember one night when we were located at 1230
-Pennsylvania Avenue, there knelt at the altar three men,
-one an ex-preacher, one a graduate of the University of
-Virginia, and one the nephew of an ex-President of the
-United States. We believed they were all converted.
-The preacher was in bad physical condition, and we felt
-it necessary to put him into a Christian institution for
-such as he for medical treatment. The taste for liquor
-had gone, but the ulcerated stomach and bowels remained,
-also his nerves were in a dangerous condition.
-How we ever obtained money enough to pay that man's
-bills for six weeks is yet a marvel, but we did it. He
-came out a redeemed, humble man. He went to the
-pastor of a large church in Brooklyn, whom he had
-known at college, and before that large church he acknowledged
-his sin with shame and deep contrition. The
-church had grace enough to accept him. The congregation
-opened a rescue mission, supported entirely by that
-church, where for five years he has preached the gospel
-and has saved a hundredfold more souls than the big
-church which supports the mission.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Virginian never again crossed our path, but Mr.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Buchanan died after three years of a good life, an honored
-member of an Episcopal church in Washington.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Men who have been dissipated, even when redeemed
-and reformed do not, as a usual thing, live to old age.
-The wages of sin is death to the body, though the soul
-may enter upon eternal life.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Among the sorrowful who nightly are to be found at
-the missions of this city either pensioned by their family
-or the government, but not permitted to return to their
-homes, is one man who was once one of the <em>best</em> mail
-agents between Washington and New York City.
-Another, the son of an ex-cabinet officer. Another has
-been Chief Mathematician in a government bureau, besides
-about twenty wrecks of various government departments.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remember the case of a well-known man in Philadelphia.
-He was converted one extremely cold night at the
-Breakfast Association. No provision is made there for
-beds, so that poor fellow started “to carry the banner”—that
-is to walk the streets all night. About three o'clock
-in the morning he was taken with a congestive chill. A
-kind policeman, seeing the man was ill and not drunk,
-sent him at once to that blessed little Presbyterian hospital
-in West Philadelphia.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It happened that one of the Board of Directors of the
-Breakfast Association, Mr. Tibbals, had given the poor
-fellow his card. The authorities, finding the card, sent
-for Mr. Tibbals. The sick man had revived enough when
-Mr. Tibbals arrived, to give his true name and the address
-of his parents, which was a number on Fifth Avenue,
-New York City. That street was then a residence
-street for very wealthy people. Just as soon as it could
-be done, a telegram for $100 was received in reply and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>we were directed to do all we could for him. But the
-man died before night, and Mr. Tibbals was asked to
-take the body to New York. The coffin was carried into
-one of the handsomest brown-stone residences on that
-handsome avenue.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The mother and father met Mr. Tibbals, and in the
-parlor the coffin was opened for identification. It was
-the body of the only son of that proud family. The
-father gave one look, one great sob, then seized his hat
-and fled. The mother said, “O Mr. Tibbals, you think I
-am grief-stricken over his death! But I am not even
-sorry. This son has been a drunkard from childhood.
-We could not keep him at home, for he would steal
-everything he could carry away and sell it for whisky.
-Since we lost sight of him, I have never opened a paper
-without fearing I should read his name in connection
-with some awful crime. No, I am relieved. I shall know
-where he is. I have often gotten into my carriage and
-have had the driver go up and down this street (which
-was then covered with cobblestones) as fast as the law
-permitted him to drive, and I have screamed and
-screamed my heart out. I have gone to the seashore
-to scream to let off my nervous strain. Had I given just
-one such scream in my own house, I would this day be
-in a mad house. Oh, no, for this death, after what you
-hope was a conversion, I am deeply grateful to God!”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>And yet people wonder at Carrie Nation. It is a wonder
-that grief like that does not make iconoclasts of all
-mothers whose sons go down the Jericho road.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The following testimony, given in the winter of 1911,
-by one who had stood on many rounds of the social ladder,
-a man who accepted redemption, and is now kept by
-the power of God:</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>A REMARKABLE TESTIMONY</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>“When Brother Wheeler requested me to address this
-meeting, I felt somewhat nervous, for the simple reason
-that I had never in my life addressed a religious meeting
-before, and I so stated to Mr. Wheeler. However, I
-could not refuse him, and here I am.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“True, in years gone by, while down South, I have
-spoken to political gatherings. Since I got religion, I
-stopped that. If I should ever make a political address
-again, it will be in the interest of the Prohibition party.
-I regret that I have no experience in addressing a religious
-meeting, and I, therefore, ask you to be patient
-with me, especially as, due to previous engagements, I
-was unable to prepare myself, except in so far that I have
-decided to make a few remarks on personal salvation,
-and by the term personal I have my own in mind.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I want to tell you something about my own experience,
-how I had lost my God and found Him again. A man
-born and reared on the Bowery or any of its side streets
-in New York City, a man who from his childhood on
-has been influenced by evil-minded and sinful people, has
-never heard of Christ, and in the course of time becomes
-a hardened criminal, such a man may be condemned by
-mankind, but never by God.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“A man born and raised in a comfortable, refined
-home, who has been taught the doctrines of Christ, has
-confessed his belief that Christ is His Saviour, has a full
-knowledge of right and wrong and of the duties he owes
-his fellow-man—if such a man becomes a willing victim
-to sensual pleasures, he may not be condemned by mankind,
-but God will condemn him, unless he repents and
-starts to lead a new, clean life.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Only too often men are so completely wrapped up in
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>their personal matters, as, for instance, in their business
-affairs, that they absolutely lose sight of the obligations
-they owe God, and also their fellow-men, and, as a
-natural result, neglect their souls.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I honestly believe that such a man is more to be
-pitied than the ones who, either through their own fault
-or being victims of circumstances, have lost their hold
-in life and finally found themselves 'down and out.' A
-man may temporarily be without food and shelter, but this
-is nothing compared to trying to live without God. However,
-a man who is a wanderer on the face of the earth
-and who has lost his God, is indeed a wretched being. I
-am speaking from experience.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“For years I had violated the divine laws. I had been
-what is generally termed a society man, 'way down South.
-I enjoyed a large income, but I spent everything for
-worldly pleasures. Finally, I became disgusted with my
-surroundings; but, better still, I became disgusted with
-myself. I drifted to New York City, determined to live
-a new life. This occurred about fourteen years ago. Up
-to that time I had not been within or even near a church
-for seven years. The New York atmosphere apparently
-did not agree with me. Instead of leading a clean, moral
-life—by that I understood at that time a life simply conforming
-to the requirements of the social laws (the
-divine laws did not exist for me)—I became worse than I
-had ever been.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Although I made good money, as the saying is, I was,
-nevertheless, broke all the time. I voluntarily gave up
-several splendid positions because objections had been
-made to my reporting late in the morning for duty, and,
-having become rather nervous, I practically found it impossible
-to get along with anyone. I had become a slave
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>to my habits, and finally associated with the 'has beens,'
-as they are sometimes called.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“There is not a man in this room who knows more
-about the life on the east side of New York than I do.
-I know full well what it means to be hungry and homeless.
-I have worked as a longshoreman, newspaperman, cook,
-bookkeeper and correspondent. I have been running hot
-frankfurter stands, etc., sometimes I had two jobs in one
-day. I was given a wonderful taste of the ups and downs
-in New York City, especially the downs. I certainly am
-grateful to Providence for subjecting me to that awful
-experience in New York City, for in that way I learned
-to know human nature. I learned to know that the so-called
-submerged masses were composed of human beings,
-not brainless individuals; that, as a matter of fact,
-there are better people, especially morally, among the
-poor than among the so-called society people.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I might be asked why it was that I did not find God
-again, when I was down and out in New York City.
-Christ was knocking, knocking all the time to enter my
-heart, but I had become a cynic and would not let Him in.
-I used to think in those times that if there was a just
-God I would not be in such a sorrowful plight. The
-trouble with me was, I did not have enough sense to admit
-that my condition was simply due to my own faults
-and to nothing else.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“During my stay in New York I have met many
-saintly people, men and women who devoted their time,
-energy and money to the uplift of the homeless and the
-friendless. Those good people tried their best to have
-me converted. They did not succeed because I was not
-willing and because I actually believed most of my
-friends who were in charge of the several missions that
-I was in the habit of attending were suffering from hallucinations,
-although perfectly honest in their self-imposed
-task.</p>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_071.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>PENNY LUNCH ROOM</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>“The greatest evil in New York City is, as everywhere,
-the saloon. The majority of you men present here this
-evening must admit if it were not for the saloon you
-would not be here as applicants for bodily assistance.
-There are evil spirits in us and around us to lead us
-astray; the devil's worst temptation is whisky or any
-other intoxicating drink. Man was made in the image of
-God; when a man gets drunk he is worse than a beast.
-A man will get drunk again and again, a beast will not,
-having seemingly more sense than a man. The saloon
-is the greatest foe to the spread of the gospel. In most
-cases the saloon-keeper knows quite well that he is a
-highway robber, that his business is ruining untold
-thousands of men, women and children, but as his so-called
-business is a legalized one, he may continue indirectly
-committing murder.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Really I have more respect for the highwayman and
-robber than for a saloon-keeper. During my voluntary
-and involuntary observations in New York and elsewhere,
-I have come to the conclusion that Christ would
-conquer the world in much less time if only the awful
-saloon and dive could be eliminated.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“In my travels in this country and in the foreign
-countries, I have met many people who by word and
-deed were spreading the gospel. Some of them naturally
-inquired of me whether I had been converted. My
-answer was 'No,' because, as a matter of fact, I did not
-know the meaning of the word converted. I was told
-to seek Christ and the meaning would be made plain to
-me. Evidently I was not sufficiently willing to meet
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>Christ half way, and thus I wasted years of my life
-before I finally submitted to the pleadings of the Saviour.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“While I was in the Philippine Islands, twelve years
-ago, I was deeply impressed with the different attitudes
-of the officers and enlisted men when on the firing line.
-It was plain, even to the casual observer, that the men
-who were thoroughly devout Christians—and there are
-many thousands of Christians in our army—were not
-afraid to face the bullets, but the men who were agnostics
-and unbelievers, whatever that may mean, were so
-nervous and excited that they hardly knew what they
-were doing, or they were downright cowards.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“In my own case I was not afraid of death, as I had
-given very little thought to such a possibility; besides I
-had become more or less indifferent to life and possible
-death. One hot summer day, while fighting the Filipinos,
-I was shot through the head. An army surgeon bandaged
-me up as best he could and then assured me I was
-very likely not to live through the day.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“If I ever got scared, it was then, and if ever I prayed,
-it was then, in spite of the excruciating pains I suffered.
-The words of a comrade, who was a fine soldier, though
-not a thorough Christian, uttered by him shortly before
-I was wounded, were constantly ringing in my ears,
-namely, 'A man may possibly live without Christ, but
-he cannot die without Christ.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“For a month or so the doctors and nurses did not
-think I would live, but God spared my life, and no doubt
-for a purpose. For six months I was unable to utter a
-word, as the bullet had passed through my tongue. It
-was well for me I could not talk to any human being,
-but I could talk to God. During those months I lived
-my entire life over again. I promised God to become a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>better man. True, I became more earnest in my views
-of life, I realized the value of the golden rule, but I was
-not converted. I could not yet understand the meaning
-of the word.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The Red Cross nurses, who at the beginning of the
-trouble in the Philippines were in charge of the hospital,
-were not only experts in their profession, but were
-splendid types of self-sacrificing Christians, and their
-presence alone made the patients think of their mothers
-or sisters or other dear ones at home, thousands of miles
-away, and thus unconsciously these nurses, noble representatives
-of womanhood, frequently wrought a change
-for the better in the hearts of the wounded soldiers.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“While I was a patient at Manilla I saw many a man
-pass out of this life. The man with Christ in his heart
-died with a smile on his lips, knowing he had done his
-duty and that Christ would meet him. The unbeliever
-suffered agonies.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I was wounded almost twelve years ago, not a day
-has passed without my communicating with God, and
-God was always willing to talk with me, when I addressed
-Him. As a result of my experience in the Philippines
-I spent almost three years in the hospital. I
-thank God He made me suffer, it was the only possible
-way for me to find Him again. My conversion did not
-take place all at once, it took place gradually. God used
-different means and ways in recalling me. I cannot mention
-them here without baring my life to you, which may
-be of no interest to you. Let me assure you no man can
-succeed without Christ. A man may amass a fortune,
-but if he neglects his soul his life is of little value.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Among the applicants at different missions, I have
-met men who claimed the good people in charge were
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>nothing but hypocrites. It is certainly strange that those
-fellows apply to hypocrites for help. Why don't they go
-to the agnostic or to the unbeliever?</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Follow my advice, first seek Christ; He is always
-ready and willing to accept you; the rest is easy. A
-drunkard cannot become sober by taking the Keeley
-cure or anything like that. The desire for drink is often
-inherited, medicine will not cure the sufferer, only God's
-grace can cure him.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Why is it that the man who lives with Christ is always
-happy, even under adverse circumstances, and the man
-without Him is, as a rule, nothing but an egotist? You
-can easily find the answer yourself. Come to Christ, and,
-if you are willing to come, why not now?”</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER VIII<br /> <span class='sc'>The Need of Rescue Work</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>As early as the fall of 1909 we put out this call:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>CENTRAL BUREAU OF LABOR</h3>
-
-<p class='c017'>“The District of Columbia needs a Labor Bureau to
-which our Mission and the Associated Charities can send
-men and women out of employment. The Bureau, being
-a government affair, should know where labor is needed
-and should furnish transportation to such places, whether
-it be to the cotton fields of the South, the harvest fields of
-the West, or the manufactories of New England.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Such a Bureau should secure from the railroads concessions,
-such as they give to immigrants, in sending our
-unemployed to the fields of labor.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Unless Society, with a big 'S,' reaches a hand to the
-unemployed these people will surely become a menace
-to our great cities, and on some sad day they will dynamite
-our public buildings.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“We, who work among them, know their sorrow, their
-anguish, their despair, which will end in desperation, unless
-relief is furnished.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Use your influence to secure a Central National
-Bureau of Labor for the unemployed. The strong and
-wealthy can care for themselves, but a good government
-should concern itself with its weaker members.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'><cite>The Survey</cite> (published in New York) is now (1913)
-steadily advocating something of this kind, and now Congress
-(October, 1913,) is considering the matter.</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>FOR THE UNEMPLOYED</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>An organization or industrial army of the United
-States was provided for in a bill presented to the Senate
-by Senator Poindexter, upon the request of R. A. Dague,
-of Creston, Iowa. Eligible to membership in the army
-would be any unemployed man more than sixteen years
-old. The Secretary of Labor would be the recruiting
-officer, but an “industrial general,” at a salary of $250
-a month, would command the forces. The army, according
-to the bill, would not bear side arms or fight bloody
-battles, but would be employed in labor at harbors, forts,
-government buildings, irrigation ditches, canals and other
-public works of the nation, state and municipality. Residents
-in the United States who become members would
-receive $2 a day, “together with board and lodging,”
-while those who have been in America less than five
-years would receive only $1.50. Foreigners who hereafter
-come to America would receive only 25 cents a day,
-which would be wrong. We expect from the United
-States government that ideal justice, even to a foreign
-workman, which we shall each receive when we stand in
-the presence of Eternal Justice.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>All this shows that the idea of a Bureau of Labor
-which will help the laborer is steadily growing.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>AN INCIDENT OF THE WINTER OF 1910</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>One day Mrs. Kline, the wife of the Superintendent
-of the Gospel Mission, phoned me, “We have a man here
-so covered with vermin that I cannot let him into the
-house, yet he seems to be an educated man. [This was at
-the Industrial Department on Fourteenth Street, before
-we had our new building.] What shall I do now?” “Call
-Donavan, Hall and Happy, and take him to the woodshed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>and have a tub of warm water; let the men give
-him a thorough bath, barber him and wrap him in blankets,
-till we can get clothes for him.” That was done. We found
-Taylor an educated man, a graduate of the University
-of Pennsylvania, the editor of a paper in a suburb of
-Philadelphia. He claimed that he had been “shanghaied,”
-that is, drugged and carried on board an oyster
-boat as a common laborer. He had gone to Baltimore
-to go on a drunk, hoping his friends would not find him
-out, but his Nemesis was there waiting for him.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He had been kept six weeks on the oyster boat, had
-been forced to bunk with negroes and common roustabouts.
-After he became sober, I fancy the owners of
-the boat saw that they had captured the wrong man, and
-would gladly have gotten rid of him. They did not dare approach
-land lest their entire crew escape; at last he was
-put aboard a passing boat and sent to Washington. He
-was over six feet high, of fine physique, about thirty-two
-years of age. We did not find it easy to get clothing
-suitable for such a person. The day came when he was
-able to attend the services at the Mission. He kneeled
-at the altar, and we hoped he was converted. We greatly
-wanted him to bring suit against the oyster men, but that
-would have made his case public, and he did not desire
-that. He readily secured a place on one of our city
-papers as the purveyor of automobile news, but when
-pay day came he got drunk and fell down the stairs and
-broke his arm. His system was in bad condition and he
-was obliged to go to the free ward of Providence Hospital.
-We now wrote to his family, and his mother came
-for him in a big touring car from Philadelphia and took
-him home, but the exposure and dissipation had done
-their perfect work, and he only lived a few months. He
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>seemed, from all accounts, a truly penitent man, but only
-at the judgment day shall we know whether he entered
-into the rest prepared for the children of God only.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Another experience in the winter of 1911 gave us a
-still lower opinion of the oyster men of the lower Chesapeake
-Bay. Mr. Hall telephoned me, one cold slippery
-day, “Do come down at once, the oyster men are in.
-Mr. Kline is away, and the men are in bad condition.”
-I went at once. The halls were full of them; many had
-only overalls, shirt and shoes without stockings; they
-looked frozen. I ordered coffee and rolls at my expense
-till I could call help. I feared if I opened the clothing
-room they would raid it, so great were their needs.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It was too slippery for women to venture out, so I
-began phoning to members of the Lutheran Church
-whom I believed would come. One man in a bank said,
-“I am not a clerk. I can't go out this kind of weather
-for that class of men.” I replied, “I saw you at communion
-last Sunday, and I venture you promised your
-God to serve wherever you were needed; here is your
-first call.” “I shall come at once and bring three other
-members of the church with me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>That winter the Luther Memorial Church, of Erie,
-Pa., had sent us a large box of men's clothing, every
-article mended, clean and in good condition, and just the
-week before a charitable organization, at Chevy Chase,
-Md., had sent us two large barrels of men's clothing, and
-a full half bushel of socks nicely darned and every article
-clean.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>So we put trousers on one pile, coats on another, vests
-on another, underclothes on another, a churchman at each
-pile. I had charge of the socks, then Mr. Ifft, of the
-Luther Memorial Church, in the next room superintended
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>the trying on, fitting and exchanging garments.
-As we handed each garment we said about this, “The
-ladies of the different churches send you these garments
-with their love and sympathy.” Many a poor fellow,
-all unused to blessing, said, “God bless the churches for
-remembering such as us.” In an hour's time we clothed
-over seventy-five men. A few did not need complete
-outfits. We never supposed we had that many garments
-on hand, but that day cleared out all we had in reserve.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Among these men were two Welsh boys, both Christians,
-not long in this country. They had not known the
-strength of American liquors (which were doubtless
-drugged); they were very contrite and were at once put
-to work, one as a furnaceman, the other in the wood
-yard. We hear the United States revenue cutters have
-been after the oyster men and shanghaiing is no longer a
-common crime.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>When a friend looked in on that crowd of superior
-business men helping distribute clothing and saying
-words of consolation to the broken men, he said, “I believe
-in my soul you would order in the President of the
-United States to help at the Gospel Mission.” “Oh, no!”
-I replied, “President Taft, good man as he is, would not
-be permitted to drive so much as a tack at the Gospel
-Mission. He does not recognize Jesus as His Saviour;
-only orthodox Christians who can tell the sinner of the
-redeeming power of Jesus the Christ can successfully
-work in a rescue mission like this.”</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE HOLIDAYS</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>are a sore trial to the homeless or to the recently bereaved.
-Often women of the highest social rank come
-to the Gospel Mission on Thanksgiving, Christmas and
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>New Year's, when we give a good dinner to everyone
-who applies. (These women forget their own woes as
-they serve others.) The subjoined newspaper letter will
-give you a good picture of one such occasion:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THANKSGIVING DAY AT THE MISSION OF 1910</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>“It is a very curious thing to say, that while I saw no
-relative of mine, being far separated from all of my kindred,
-while I had no time to accept the hospitality of
-friends, but ate my dinner at my boarding house, so as to
-be at the Mission for service, yet it was one of the happiest
-days of my life. It is wonderful the kindness God
-puts into the hearts of His people at this season. Not a
-member of the Mission has wealth, yet God gave us
-means through His children to feed between three and
-four hundred people. A little Ohio Joint Synod Lutheran
-church at Fulton, Md., sent us a dozen chickens, two
-bushels of potatoes, some fine apples, turnips, beets, cabbage,
-etc. We bought fifteen turkeys, a lot of hams, then
-the New Willard Hotel prepared our fowls and other
-meats, and the Raleigh Hotel prepared and cooked all
-our vegetables, adding enormous pans of baked beans,
-and all this they did free of charge.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Bakers sent us bread and pies, florists sent us great
-quantities of flowers, so that we were able to feed all
-comers and send out a number of baskets to poor families.
-This was the bodily side; the spiritual side was even
-better.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The services began at twelve o'clock noon, and lasted
-until ten at night, with a change of leaders, musicians and
-varying audiences each hour.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Two boys, about sixteen and eighteen years old, had
-walked all the way from Richmond, Va. As they fed
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>their famished bodies, one said, 'O Jim, did you ever before
-hear of such a place where one can really get all he
-wants to eat, can get a hot bath, can get one night's lodging
-all for nothing? I am so tired I just couldn't walk
-any more!'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“One man, about thirty years of age, simply prostrated
-himself at the altar, and cried aloud to God for pardon.
-After he rose he said about this, 'I came from the workhouse
-this morning an angry, outraged man, after thirty
-days' sentence. I felt my punishment was a great injustice.
-My hand was against every man, for I felt every
-man's hand was against me. I was ready for any crime.
-Someone met me and said, “Go to the Gospel Mission.”
-I answered, 'I prefer to go to the saloon and get drunk
-and forget for a few hours my sorrows and loneliness.'
-But the friend brought me here. You have given me a
-good dinner, but that is the least, you have reached the
-friendly hand. Brother Wheeler says I can make this my
-headquarters till I get work. I am a skilled mechanic,
-and I can soon get my place back again, and now I want
-to say God has forgiven me my sins, and they are so black
-and so many. I was a Christian in my early life, so I
-know what I am talking about when I promise my God
-and all you, my friends, that, God helping me, I, this day,
-take Christ for my Saviour and I will love and serve Him
-all the days of my life.' That of itself paid me for all I
-could do.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“From three to five people came to the altar for
-prayer each hour, and the last hour saw nine young men
-pleading for forgiveness, and promising a new life. In
-all, I should say, that about fifty people asked for prayers
-and twenty-five people sought pardon.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“We had a great singer, Mrs. Fitch, whose singing was
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>greatly used of God to call men to repentance. Thanksgiving
-Day was a great day on earth, at the Gospel Mission,
-and a great day among the angels of heaven who
-saw sinners redeemed.”</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>CHRISTMAS AT THE GOSPEL MISSION</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>of 1909 was described by the writer in the following
-sketch of the January, 1910, <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite>:</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Christmas at a mission takes on a great element of
-thanksgiving; first for the great gift of God—and no
-anthems sound so sweet, so deep, reaching into the deep
-places of the soul as, 'Now, when Jesus was born in
-Bethlehem.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The first thing on Christmas Day was to remember
-our brothers in bonds. Down at the barracks in the
-guard-house, we have two converted men. One a soldier
-whom we believe is receiving four times the punishment
-for neglect of target practice which he ought to receive;
-we can only counsel patience, comfort by our visits and
-send him a good dinner.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Then a dear Jewish brother is there. He had been
-in the army two years ago, but he was baited, tormented
-and outraged in his poetic soul until he deserted. After
-that he was converted, and felt with us that he must go
-back and take whatever the United States had for him.
-One of our workers went with him to the Secretary of
-War, who said, 'Why, man, don't come to me; take a carriage
-for fear you be arrested on the street.' Mr. Ellison,
-our helper, took a carriage and went directly to the
-Commandant at the barracks. The Commandant said,
-'We are sorry for Mr. L., but he will get two years in the
-penitentiary at hard labor.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Mr. Ellison said, 'Commander, this man is the servant
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>of the living God; you will give to this Jew that mercy
-you yourself will at the last expect from the Judge of all
-the earth, who came to this world as a Jew.' Well, it
-would be a long story to tell of the court-martial, but, in
-answer to prayer, the Jew got only six months in the
-guard house, and that time will expire this month.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Then two poor workmen are in the hospital, and four
-sinners who promised reformation in the workhouse,
-must have a remembrance. Kindness in shame often
-leads men to Christ.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“But the great event of the day was the service from
-twelve to one o'clock, followed by a dinner at which from
-two hundred to three hundred lonely men were fed. In
-the evening a service, at which the old, old story of love is
-told, heart-broken men are redeemed, and we all go home
-wondering at the never-ending miracle of the gospel,
-which takes tongues which blaspheme and makes them
-sing God's praises, feet that walk in the ways of sin and
-makes them run in the ways of righteousness, hands that
-steal and makes them do God's service. Oh, it is a wonderful
-gospel, and a wonderful Saviour!</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“'O ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise
-and exalt Him above all forever. O ye servants of the
-Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all
-forever. O ye spirits and souls of the righteous, bless ye
-the Lord, praise and exalt Him above all forever. O ye
-that are holy and humble of heart, bless ye the Lord, and
-praise and exalt Him above all forever.'”</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>NEW YEAR'S EVE</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>And New Year's at a Rescue Mission is an interesting
-time. Men have wandered the streets for a week, when
-it seemed to them every other human being on earth was
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>happy but themselves; they see happiness in every passing
-face, they have caught glimpses of Christmas trees
-through open doors, they have sensed the appetizing
-smells of good dinners, they have witnessed at the railroad
-stations and even on the streets the reunion of
-families, they have heard the deep-toned organs from
-churches, they have heard the ragtime music of happy
-people about the home piano, and they only unloved, unloving,
-uncomforted, lonely men walk the lonely streets
-of our great cities.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Is it any wonder that memory calls up the time when
-they too were in happy homes, when mothers' arms encircled
-them, when a father's benediction was on their
-young heads, and, like the prodigal son, they say, “I will
-arise and go to my Father”?</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Every one of them knows that sin is the cause of his
-downfall, and they also know that they must get right
-with God before they can forsake evil habits. Scarcely
-one of them but what has tried again and again to leave
-off their grosser sins but have failed, but when at the
-watch-night service they are told of a Saviour mighty to
-save, hope comes again to the broken-hearted.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remember one occasion at the Breakfast Association,
-Philadelphia, at the twilight service, New Year's Eve, I
-saw five hundred men stand for prayer at one time. Our
-Mission is much smaller, but on New Year's Eve and
-during New Year's Day, when we have a continuous
-service from 12 o'clock midday to 9.30 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span>, with an
-entire change of leaders and musicians each hour, I have
-seen your nominal Christian, the toper, the criminal, all
-so overcome by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit
-that social differences melted away and they knelt side
-by side at the mercy seat; we have seen fifty people enter
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>into covenant relations with God in that pivotal period
-of the year, and we have seen most of them keep the
-faith.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Think of a church holding a meeting nine and a half
-hours long; in most churches the pastor and the elders
-would have the last three hours or more all alone. But
-at the Mission the interest deepens so that it is hard to
-dismiss even at a late hour.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE FORGER FROM NEW HAVEN</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>It was at one of those long services I saw a New
-England man brought under deep conviction, and at last
-yield to the Spirit, make confession and receive Christ.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It was about 4 <span class='fss'>P.M.</span> when he arose to tell his story of
-sin. He said, “I have committed a crime against the
-State, and I want to know if I can be forgiven before
-that is made good. I want to see three members of the
-Board alone.” Three of the men went into consultation
-with him. It proved that he had forged a check at New
-Haven for $300, had collected the money and had escaped.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He was told, “God will forgive you now and undertake
-for you in case you promise full restitution.” He
-kneeled at the altar, began to pray out loud, promised
-restitution and promised to bear patiently any punishment
-the State demanded.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>A worker was sent with him to New Haven. He went
-first to his own father, who said, “John, I never want
-to see your face here; you had no business to come back,
-for you will be sent to prison and disgrace us all.” “But,
-father, I am converted, I mean to take my punishment,
-then live a true man ever after.” “Oh! that is different;
-in that case, I will help you all I can.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>They went at once to the man whose name had been
-forged. They found him very bitter at first, but when
-John told his story of how ashamed and sorry he was,
-and added, “I have come back to take my punishment,
-then I want to be a good man and a good citizen all the
-rest of my life.” At this point the father said, “Mr.
-Percy, I will gladly pay back the $300 and interest if you
-think you can forgive John.” That was done and the
-prosecution withdrawn.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The episode had a little after-clap. John came back to
-Washington, and came at once to the writer. He said,
-“Mrs. Monroe, I want you to ask Miss Stanislaus if she
-will marry me.” “Why, ask her yourself, man; I am not
-in practice in handling love matters.” “No, you see my
-red head and freckled face and freckled hands make me
-so homely I am afraid to ask. Do see her for me.” This
-I did. She accepted him, and he obtained a situation in
-the mountains of North Carolina as a school teacher.
-He preaches on Sunday and they both teach all week and
-seem to be doing good work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite>, of December, 1910, had this
-notice:</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>WHAT WILL YOU DO, FELLOW-CHRISTIANS?</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Eleven men, cold, hungry and friendless, the night of
-December 5, said, 'Mr. Kline, for God's sake, give us
-work!' He replied, 'We do not have the work to give
-until we get wood-cutting machines.' Mrs. Monroe said,
-'I shall trust God's people to help me on that, even though
-the horse and wagon are not yet paid for.' So she personally
-took the risk of the
-50 needed to put in the machinery.
-Her friends will remember that a great fire three
-years ago not only destroyed her property, but also her
-means of making money.</p>
-
-<div class='figcenter id003'>
-<img src='images/i_089.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>10 AND 15 CENT DORMITORIES</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c011'><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>“'Blessed is he that considereth the poor, the Lord will
-deliver him in the time of trouble.'</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The Gospel Mission Board feel that when the necessities
-of men are so great as in this call that it is God's
-call to help by giving them means to help themselves.
-Maybe in these suffering men your Saviour passes by.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Christian people of Washington made a generous
-response to that call, and by the next issue of the <cite>Tidings</cite>
-we announced that we could give fifty cents a day for
-six hours' work, leaving time to hunt a better place, and
-yet pay lodgings and food.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The October <cite>Tidings</cite> of 1910 said:</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div>A MENACE</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c011'>“What is the most important question now in Washington?
-From our standpoint it is the care of the unfortunate
-and the sinful. Why? In order to protect
-your home. When a man walks the streets hungry, cold
-and friendless, and looks through the window of your
-happy home and he sees you surrounded with the comforts
-he lacks, do you know you are in danger? Unless
-the unfortunate are comforted, they will surely dynamite
-our great cities.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The Gospel Mission stands between you and this danger.
-We make these sons of sorrow realize that they
-need be only temporarily sidetracked from the great highway
-of success, that the grace of God, their renewed will
-power and our friendly hand may yet restore them to
-home, friends and society, and make them useful men.”</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER IX<br /> <span class='sc'>The Penny Lunch and Free Dispensary</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>The following is a letter written by Mr. George W.
-Wheeler, which was published in our <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite>, of
-February, 1911:</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>PENNY LUNCH</h3>
-
-<p class='c017'>“In an experience of twenty-six years in active, earnest,
-aggressive Rescue Mission work in this city, the writer
-cannot recall that any line of secular work taken up for
-the amelioration of the poor has ever called forth such
-universal expressions of interest, sympathy and co-operation
-as the 'Penny Lunch and Newsboys' Waiting
-Room,' opened by the Gospel Mission, at 304 Fourteenth
-Street, on Saturday, February 4. The city papers published
-pictures of the interior and exterior, and a portrait
-of our Superintendent, Mr. Kline, and were most generous
-in their endorsement of the enterprise, while the
-<cite>New York Times</cite> and other papers spread the news far
-and wide that the cost of living had been solved in Washington
-by the Gospel Mission '<em>Penny Lunch</em>.'</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The opening of this lunch-room was made possible
-by a noble Christian woman of wealth, who was born,
-reared and now resides in this city. Her interest was
-aroused by reading a statement of the work and needs
-of the Gospel Mission, prepared by our Superintendent,
-and she came to see about the matter, learned its approximate
-cost, and sent a check to pay the expenses.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“For two weeks or more Mr. Kline and his assistants
-were busy papering, painting, etc., and finally the steam
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>table and coffee urns, with many other essentials of a
-twentieth century up-to-date lunch-room were installed
-and the doors were opened to a waiting crowd. Mrs.
-Kline oversees the cooking, and everything is as clean
-and neat as in one's home.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The menu consists of the following articles: Coffee,
-1 penny; bread or rolls, 1 penny; beans, 1 penny; doughnuts,
-1 penny; sour, 1 penny; beef stew, 3 pennies; one-half
-pie, 3 pennies. A lunch, consisting of soup, meat,
-vegetables, bread and coffee, 5 cents. This brings a well-cooked,
-clean, nourishing meal within the reach of all
-who have any income whatever.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“It was amusing to see the class of men and boys who
-came to have their appetites satisfied at the lowest cost.
-Newsboys, messenger boys, laboring men, teamsters, and
-all kinds of indescribables came, and they appeared
-greatly surprised to find such an attractive room with
-all the 'latest improvements' found in a lunch-room. And
-how they did eat! A big soup plate filled to the brim
-with bean soup, a big china cup filled with steaming hot
-coffee, a big brown roll or three slices of Corby's 'Mother's
-Bread.' These were good, and 'mighty filling at the
-price.'</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Well, the 'Penny Lunch' is launched, and whether the
-prices charged will pay the cost of the material, cooking
-and serving, or not, we feel certain that any little deficiency
-that may occur will be cheerfully met by the well-to-do
-of our community.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“A coffee-roasting firm has pledged five pounds of
-good coffee each week for use at the 'Penny Lunch' room,
-and we are sure dealers in other lines will be glad to
-assist. Corby Brothers have been furnishing from fifty
-to seventy-five loaves of bread for our 'bread line' for
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>many months, and Browning &amp; Baines, coffee dealers,
-have supplied six pounds of coffee a week for a long time
-past.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“We greatly appreciate the generous co-operation of
-all these dear friends, who help us to help others to help
-themselves.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The benefits of the Penny Lunch can never be told till
-the books of eternity are opened, but some idea may be
-gathered when we state that the report of the bread line
-from May 12, 1911, to May 12, 1912, was 41,750, but the
-report from May 12, 1912, to May 12, 1913, was 18,950.
-The Bread Line is the name of a service at 6 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span>, the
-year round, when bread and black coffee is served to all
-who come for it. If people will come before daylight in
-the winter, or at that early hour in the summer for coffee,
-without cream or sugar, and a quarter of a loaf of bread,
-we believe they need it, and we gladly give it, not as a
-charity, but as a visible token of our sympathy. Now,
-the fact that 22,800 fewer people took bread and coffee
-free in the year 1912 to 1913, compared with the preceding
-year, can only be accounted for that when a man has
-a few pennies in his pocket he could buy a satisfactory
-breakfast, and gladly did so rather than to line up for an
-unrequited kindness.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>How shamed many men were to take food in the bread
-line, but the loving word sweetened many a bitter cup.
-Once a hand so unusually white and well-kept reached
-for the cup of coffee. Mrs. Kline looked up and saw the
-face of a man who had been a minister of the gospel.
-She said, “Brother, take only the coffee, we want you to
-take breakfast at our family table this morning.” He sat
-down to drink the coffee with bitter tears coursing down
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>his shamed face. Of course, every kindness was shown
-him, “for need has its right, and necessity its claim,” then
-the blessed Spirit came in and lo, he prayed, and God
-received back to a useful life a man who had found sorrow
-and sin bitter and the tears of remorse salt.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>WHAT DR. HALLIMOND, OF THE NEW YORK BOWERY MISSION, SAYS ABOUT THE BREAD LINE</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>“There are in the Bowery men who never sleep in a
-lodging house because they have not the price, and they
-get their bed either by stealing or begging, and eat out of
-the garbage boxes. You who have never been to the
-Bowery know nothing of the agony or remorse that these
-men feel. Now, what are we to do with them? There is
-not anybody to look after them but us. Oh, the horrors
-of the homeless man! It is the many little comforts that
-go to make our comfortable life. They cannot keep clean.
-They cannot brush their clothes or comb their hair, they
-cannot take their shoes off their poor tired feet. These
-men gather there in the great meetings, and among them
-are many that are in the last stages of physical weakness.
-Many of them ought to be in the hospital instead of walking
-the street day and night. Many of them are dying of
-hunger. Sometimes we cannot get men to understand
-that we have people in our meetings that are dying of
-hunger. I am not using any figure of speech. It is not
-an unheard-of thing for men to drop dead in our meetings.
-That is why we have the 'bread line.' We dare not
-fail to help these people. People sometimes come to us
-with the very best of intentions, talking to us of the sin
-of indiscriminate charity; but, bless your life! is not God
-indiscriminate, for does not He cause the rain to fall on
-the just and unjust? Did Jesus Christ ever go through
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>the hungry crowds and find out who was worthy and who
-was unworthy? Did He not spend His life to help just
-such men? These dear people some of them are spending
-seventy-five cents to find out where the other twenty-five
-cents is to go. I have made up my mind that if I ever
-find a man dying on my doorstep of hunger, and I can
-do anything to save him, I am going to do it, whether he
-deserves it or whether he does not.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“That is the origin of our bread line about which you
-have heard so much. We cannot help but have a bread
-line. In fact, I refuse to allow our work to be called a
-charity. It is not a charity, it is brotherly kindness. It
-is not a charity, but a kind hospitality, just a little evidence,
-just a little token, that there is somebody who
-cares for their poor weary hearts which these destitute
-brothers of ours possess. As long as the bread line exists,
-and God helping, it shall exist as long as there is
-need for it, people must know that there is something
-wrong with our social system, a problem that we cannot
-solve but that is up to the politician. As long as we are
-in this great, rich country with all the extravagances of
-wealth, then the bread line shall tell that there is something
-wrong, and that our Declaration of Independence,
-declaring, as it does, for 'life, liberty and the pursuit of
-happiness,' is but a delusion and a snare.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>This seems a long interlude to the Penny Lunch chapter,
-but you can see the lunch counter where five cents
-can buy beans, bread and coffee, saves many a man from
-feeling that he takes charity. The bread line was instituted
-to fortify a man's stomach against needing to go
-to the saloon in the morning for the free lunch, also to
-give strength to a poor fellow so he could search for
-work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>The bread line food given each morning will not of
-itself sustain life, as we found out to our sorrow. One
-Tuesday night, as the writer entered the Mission for the
-purpose of conducting the service, I found the men at
-the door excited. On inquiry, I found a man lying on the
-front seat dying. The Emergency Hospital ambulance
-had already been called. I found a man who twenty
-years ago had been a leading patent attorney of this city.
-I saw the soul was about to depart. I said, “Mr. West,
-say, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.'” “No, I have lived
-wicked, I shall die wicked.” “O son, say, 'Lord Jesus,
-forgive me.'” “Too late, too late; I have heard you all,
-night after night, and I have rejected Christ. I must
-die as I have lived.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I motioned the choir to sing softly, “Jesus receiveth
-sinful men.” I bent over him, urging repentance; the
-ambulance men were at my side, they picked him up and
-laid him carefully on the stretcher. I said, “Dear Mr.
-West, we are praying for you, pray for yourself.” I kept
-my hand tenderly on his head as the stretcher was slowly
-carried out, but he continued to say, “Too late, too late
-for me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He died within an hour, and the post-mortem showed
-he had died of inanition caused by slow starvation. We
-found he had tried to live on the bread and coffee of the
-bread line alone; he was too poor to buy food, too proud
-to tell his needs, and we were too stupid and too busy
-to realize his awful need. We thereby learned a good
-lesson, and the Superintendent and helpers now all look
-more carefully after the man who sits down claiming
-either exhaustion or sickness.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>No man, woman or child is ever refused food because
-without money, but if a man can buy whisky, we think
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>he ought to be able to buy food, though even then we look
-after him.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We cannot leave the granting of food to employees,
-so when the Superintendent and his wife are absent we
-have some pathetic cases. Mr. Gordon found a little fellow
-crying at the door. “What is the matter, little man?”
-said the big man. “Mother gave me ten cents to buy
-food for our family, and I have lost the money.” You
-may be sure Mr. Gordon obtained much more than ten
-cents' worth of food for the child. Very many families
-live in one furnished room and get all their food at the
-penny lunch counter. Seamstresses, all the dollar a day
-men for many squares, girls from the Agricultural Seed
-Bureau, come in and buy at cost the luncheon at the middle
-of the day. Many well-to-do people come in and
-take luncheon to watch the various grades of humanity
-who solve the cost of high living by taking meals at the
-Mission. All the street peddlers, the umbrella man, the
-shoestring and pencil man, the rag gatherers, eat at the
-counter, the better class sit at the tables.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. Gordon saw a little altercation between a waiter
-and a customer, the waiter demanding four cents while
-the man had but three cents. “But you should not have
-ordered food unless you could pay for it.” The poor
-man looked dreadfully embarrassed, at last he looked up
-and said, “Will you lend me a cent, sir?” which was
-gladly done.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Many who come only for the cheap meal are induced
-by the kindness shown and by the good music and bright
-lights in the chapel, to go in to the services. There some
-song, some word from the speaker, some devout prayer,
-touches the chord of memory of what a mother, a faithful
-teacher or almost forgotten preacher has taught years
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>ago, and, backed by the Holy Spirit, a prodigal son or a
-prodigal daughter returns to the Father's house.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Mr. Kline reports the meals furnished in the Penny
-Lunch Room from May 12, 1912, to May, 1913, to be
-87,856, at an average cost of four and one-third cents per
-meal.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>THE DISPENSARY</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>was opened February 1, 1912, after the need was very
-apparent, and further neglect of this branch of work
-seemed impossible.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Never will I forget the day when I first called up Dr.
-C. H. Bowker, one of the leading physicians of the city,
-living on Massachusetts Avenue, near Thomas Circle, the
-very heart of the city, and told him of a man who had
-pneumonia, and of a woman in the shelter with a severe
-cold, and asked him to go to the Mission free of charge.
-I waited with bated breath for the reply. It was, “I am
-an exceedingly busy man, but I shall try to go within an
-hour.” Very much emboldened, I said, “Could you stop
-in once a day to see if anyone there has a contagious
-disease, or if anyone should be sent immediately to the
-hospital?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The answer seemed very slow, and I fairly trembled,
-for our need was so great. At last he said, “Well, I
-have noticed if I put a duty on my daily program, I
-manage in some way to get it in.” From that day to this
-that blessed doctor has been at the beck and call of the
-Mission day and night; only God knows what a help
-and a comfort he has been to broken men and sorrowful
-women in that part of the city.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The February <cite>Gospel Tidings</cite>, of 1912, had the following:</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>GOSPEL MISSION DISPENSARY</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>“For several months we have had a house physician,
-and the use and need for him has steadily increased. The
-establishment of regular hours at which patients could
-see the doctor, and a proper place for consultation, naturally
-suggested the establishment of a dispensary. This
-appeared feasible to the Executive Committee, and Mrs.
-Monroe, Superintendent Kline and Dr. Bowker were appointed
-a committee to study the advisability of such an
-addition to our work. The report from this committee
-was favorable to the project, and active steps were at
-once taken to the establishment of a free general dispensary
-for the treatment of all classes of cases, or their
-reference, where necessary, to special institutions.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The location of the Mission for dispensary work
-could not be better from any point of view. It is accessible
-to the hundreds needing its help. There is no conflict
-in its field by any other institution doing this class
-of work. Four rooms on the first floor of the Mission,
-with the chapel for a waiting-room, will serve admirably
-for dispensary needs at present. And these rooms are
-rapidly being put in shape by carpenters and painters.
-Shelves are being made for the pharmacy, a door cut
-through the partition, and running water is to be installed.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Our printing plant will again demonstrate its usefulness
-by furnishing the necessary record blanks, labels,
-treatment cards, etc.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The Executive Committee has placed Dr. Charles
-Harvey Bowker, 1204 Massachusetts Avenue, in full
-charge of the Gospel Mission Dispensary, and he will
-have associated with him at first Dr. O. C. Cox, 1320
-Eleventh Street, N. W. A number of leading physicians
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>and surgeons have evinced an interest and willingness to
-give their services, and Dr. Bowker will add them to the
-dispensary staff and assign them work as the clinic grows
-and they are needed.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Dr. Bowker's experience in managing a hospital in his
-home city, and his hospital and dispensary work in Washington,
-assure us a businesslike management of this new
-branch of our work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Our need at present is for drugs and surgical dressing,
-and it is hoped that the druggists of the city may
-contribute.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The dispensary opened Thursday, February 1, 1912,
-at 10 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span>, which will be the regular daily hour, and all
-those who are interested are invited to inspect the new
-rooms.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>You notice that we opened February 1, 1912, and our
-annual report in May <cite>Tidings</cite>, 1913, shows the following:</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div>THE MISSION FREE DISPENSARY</div>
- <div class='c002'><em>Staff</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Physician in charge, Dr. Charles H. Bowker, 1204 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div><em>Associates</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Dr. Oliver C. Cox, 1320 Eleventh Street, N. W.</div>
- <div class='line'>Dr. W. O. Owen, Southern Building.</div>
- <div class='line'>Dr. William F. Hemler, 706 Eighth Street, N. W.</div>
- <div class='line'>Dr. C. A. Simpson, 1217 Connecticut Avenue, N. W.</div>
- <div class='line'>Dr. C. F. Dufour, 1347 L Street, N. W.</div>
- <div class='line'>Dr. Adam Kemble, Cecil Apartments, Fifteenth and L Streets, N. W.</div>
- <div class='line'>Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh, The Portner.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div><em>Hours for Treatment</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='lg-container-b c010'>
- <div class='linegroup'>
- <div class='group'>
- <div class='line'>Medical and surgical cases treated daily, 11 to 12 <span class='fss'>A.M.</span></div>
- <div class='line'>Diseases of Women—Monday, Wednesday and Friday.</div>
- <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>Diseases of Men—Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.</div>
- <div class='line'>Diseases of Children—Monday, Wednesday and Friday.</div>
- <div class='line'>Diseases of Ear, Eye, Nose and Throat—Monday and Thursday.</div>
- </div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div><em>Report for the Year Ending April 30, 1913</em></div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<table class='table1' summary=''>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'>Cases treated</td>
- <td class='c009'>2500</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'>Referred to Hospital</td>
- <td class='c009'>80</td>
- </tr>
- <tr>
- <td class='c008'>Treated at homes</td>
- <td class='c009'>80</td>
- </tr>
-</table>
-
-<p class='c000'>The dispensary is in need of a sterilizer and a special
-fund for medical supplies for those too poor to pay.</p>
-
-<hr class='c018' />
-
-<p class='c000'>The sterilizer later was the gift of Dr. Jesse Ramsburgh,
-and we have a complete set of lenses for testing
-the eyes of school children.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>It would break your heart to see the women with
-babies, the aged on crutches, the hosts of children, the
-aged victims of every vice, now broken and often repentant,
-seek the aid of these good men. Often we run
-short of remedies. “What do they do then?” you ask.
-Well, they simply go down in their own pockets and buy
-the necessities, and no one is turned empty away.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Think of a procession of sick and needy persons, 2500
-human beings in line, and you will see in your mind
-what that blessed dispensary has done for the sorrowful
-of this city in one year.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I wish I dare to tell you the particulars of one of these
-great physicians who had not been living close to God,
-seeing our work of faith, seeing how the Mission people
-lay their many needs before a patient God, who meets
-every demand in answer to their prayer, and possibly
-feeling that in a mission he could not minister to a mind
-diseased without himself being in touch with the living
-God, was led to revise his views, make public confession
-of his faith and enlist in God's organized method of
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>evangelizing the world by joining the church. We all
-need God, but the hand that reaches down to help sinful
-men must have the other hand clasped close in God's
-strong hand if he would do effective work.</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER X<br /> <span class='sc'>The Power of the Gospel</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>St. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of
-Christ, for it is the <em>power</em> of God unto salvation.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Yes, the gospel is the <em>power</em>. The soul is as dead as a
-street car with the power gone, till it is touched by that
-special power. I could kneel at the side of a sinner and
-quote the very best things of Shakespeare or Milton,
-and the soul would step to no higher ground; but when
-the right verse of God's word is shown with the New
-Testament in hand, and the Holy Spirit makes that soul
-see that the passage before him is God's recorded wireless
-message for his soul alone, the power comes on and
-that verse again proves true, “But as many as received
-Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God,
-even to them that believe on His name,” and a soul is
-born into the kingdom of God. Dan Crawford, the great
-missionary to Africa, says not Livingstone, not Taylor,
-not Dan Crawford, are the real pioneer missionaries, but
-the Spirit of God Himself, and when the word is brought
-to a prepared soul it is a spark of powder. He tells of
-one besotted Negro who read John's Gospel. The Negro
-said, “I was startled that Christ could speak Chulba; I
-heard Him speak out of the printed page, and what He
-said to me was, 'Follow me.'” Mr. Crawford says,
-“When the guncotton of John's Gospel came in contact
-with the tinder of his rebellion, he was literally exploded
-into the kingdom,” and by continuing to study St. John's
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>Gospel the transforming power of the gospel made him
-a good earnest Christian man, fit for the companionship
-of good people.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>At a rescue mission we have such scenes almost every
-night of the year. In our case it is usually the word first
-implanted in the human heart either at a mother's knee
-or by some Sunday school teacher, or by a faithful
-preacher in early life, then the very room of the Mission
-is filled with the Holy Spirit in answer to the prayers of
-God's people. Now, when a heart-broken, world-buffeted
-sinner comes into the room, the words or music of some
-song, or the presentation of God's word, is used by God's
-Spirit to bring to memory all the sinner has known of
-these things; he hears redeemed men tell how God cured
-them of lust, of alcoholism, of gambling, of profane language,
-of all sin; he sees these men well clothed, radiantly
-happy, and sees and feels his own degradation; is
-it any wonder he drops on his knees and cries out, “Men
-and brethren, what shall I do to be saved”? When he
-wants God more than he wants deliverance from his besetting
-sin, when he wants God more than he wants his
-deserted wife and children, when he wants God for what
-God can do for his poor soul, the God of his soul comes
-down, and at that second the soul passes from death unto
-life eternal, for that soul the decisions of the judgment
-day have been settled, for Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I
-say unto you, he that heareth my words and believeth on
-Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not
-come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto
-life.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>That verse comprehended and lived has power enough
-to carry a soul through all besetments into the very presence
-of God.</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>THE CASE OF MR. ABBOTT</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>During the winter of 1910, there came into the Gospel
-Mission a man, ragged, soiled, blear-eyed, doped and
-utterly down and out; he came only for the coffee and
-rolls given Sunday night. Before coming up the steps
-he had said to a friend, “I don't want to hear any of their
-blank sermons, but I am starving.” He heard no sermon,
-instead he received a warm hand-shake, he heard bright
-singing, but, best of all, he heard redeemed men tell how
-God had saved them from the alcohol habit, till he cried
-out, “If God has power to save me from the sin of drink,
-I want God!” He kneeled and poured out his soul in
-prayer. As soon as he began to pray aloud, we saw he
-was an educated man. The Spirit came upon him in
-great power, he really had the searchlight of God on his
-soul, and he saw himself for a short time as God saw
-him. Then God forgave him, he rose justified, strong,
-happy, a new man in Christ Jesus. The Mission gave
-him a bed for the night, and the next morning this man,
-who had not worked or desired work for two years,
-begged that we should find a place for him to earn his
-way. He obtained a situation to solicit business for a
-laundry, about as hard work as one can imagine, but he
-made good, and in six months he was made foreman of
-the laundry in which he was employed. He modernized
-its methods and doubled its business by the end of the
-year, and the company made him a present of five
-hundred shares of stock and elected him president of the
-company. Then he received $3000 a year salary, besides
-his percentage of all gains made by the house. His
-friends claim his income is now about $5000 a year. In
-the meantime, after he had been redeemed, probably four
-months, his wife, a most beautiful and accomplished
-Philadelphia woman, brought their lovely son, aged about
-eight, and they began housekeeping again. The home
-has given needed physical comfort, the companionship
-has given the mental and the spiritual help needed to
-make this former tramp into a first-class citizen. At
-night, during the last winter, he has been studying law
-in one of the university law schools, and on Sunday he
-acts as usher and vestryman in one of the largest Protestant
-Episcopal churches. As a child he had been a
-choir boy in a church in Philadelphia. Doubtless the
-knowledge gained there as a child made him able to understand
-his duty to God and man after his conversion
-better far than an ignorant, uninstructed person could
-have done after months of instruction.</p>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_107a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>CHILDREN OF ALL NATIONS</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='figcenter id004'>
-<img src='images/i_107b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>SETTLEMENT HOUSE</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>THE PSYCHOLOGY</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>of just this case is worth considering. This man was
-spiritually dead, so far as we could see. He did not desire
-to live. The people of the Mission had been more
-or less in prayer from three o'clock to eight when this
-man came in. He saw religion in action in the person
-and speech of redeemed men. But even if these testimonies
-were factors it was the Holy Spirit that did the
-work. It was the divine spark to human tinder, or, as
-Henry Drummond better puts it, “The spiritual world
-reached down and carried this worldly soul into the
-world above it.” “He that hath the Son hath life, he
-that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” Life depends
-upon contact with life, it cannot develop out of
-anything that is not life.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Even as the physiologist cannot explain how the human
-seed generates in a human body eventually becoming a
-new-born man child, neither can theology fully explain
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>how the Holy Spirit can touch a human soul out of which
-will be born another soul in the same body with marks
-of its divine parentage in every line, or, as St. Paul says,
-a new creature in Christ Jesus.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I heard a distinguished man who had long been in official
-connection with prisons and reformatories, say, “A
-reformed man is always in danger; he may stand twenty
-years and then fall back into sin, but a regenerated man
-is as safe from his sinful besetments as if they had not
-been the weakness of his life.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I fancy I can hear some preacher say, “If it is the word
-and the Holy Spirit do the work, why does not the
-church have as many conversions as a mission?” The
-very first element of spiritual power is lacking in most
-churches. If the preacher, the official members, then
-every member of the church first sought God's special
-blessing in private, then came together offering first
-praise, then united prayer to God from the very depths
-of their hearts, there would be conversions every Sunday
-in every church.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Spurgeon and Moody expected conversions every Sunday,
-and they had them.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In presenting a soul to Christ no perfunctory Christian
-can do it and have that soul received. To present a person
-to the King of England, let us say, the presenter
-needs to be acquainted with the king; so a person unacquainted
-with God has no power at the throne; he even
-impedes the soul coming into the light. I have seen many
-a dancing, card-playing Christian at the side of the penitent,
-praying earnestly, then rise baffled, troubled, helpless;
-not able to reach the throne, they had no access to
-God.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Often people from the States write me to present such
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>and such a paper in person to the President of the United
-States. I am obliged to reply, “I have no access to the
-President of the United States,” but I daily thank God
-that I have access to the throne, for I am acquainted with
-God.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>RELIGION WITH THE DEFECTIVE DELINQUENT</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>I venture to take the two following short articles from
-the November numbers of 1913 of the <cite>Survey</cite>, the most
-valuable weekly magazine which comes to my desk on
-all social questions:</p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div>“WHAT ABOUT JEFF?”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Jeff is a white boy sixteen years old. I am estimating
-this, as Jeff says he doesn't know how old he is and
-doesn't know his surname. He has every appearance of
-being a little less than half witted.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“I found Jeff this morning working, with two other
-white boys and ten or twelve Negro boys, as an inmate
-of the County Workhouse. He was carrying stone on
-a public hitch-lot. One of the white boys and two of the
-Negro boys were in chains.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Jeff has been in the workhouse for sixty days. He
-was placed there for beating a ride on a railroad train.
-Next Monday Jeff will be released. He will have not a
-cent to his name, not very good clothes, not a relative in
-the country, no place to sleep and nothing to eat.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“I have put this predicament before our city inter-church
-organization, and we have seen no solution. About
-the best thing we can see for this half-witted boy is that
-he will do something that will again bring him within the
-clutches of the law in order that he may be immediately
-sent back to the workhouse. At the age of sixteen he is
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>a human derelict, yet he has capacity to work, to love, to
-respect, to enjoy, and to feel sorrow.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“There is another mentally weak boy in this same
-gang. If we knew what to do with Jeff we might be
-able to do more for the other one. What do you suggest?”—<em>W.
-H. Swift, Greensboro, N. C.</em></p>
-
-<div class='nf-center-c1'>
-<div class='nf-center c010'>
- <div>“SUE AND JEFF”</div>
- </div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c011'>“'What about Jeff?' was shown to a New York settlement
-worker. 'Print it,' he said, 'in the hope that
-someone may stir up the inter-church organizations of
-Greensboro to find another solution. The question is:
-What about that organization? rather than poor Jeff.
-He is a victim of wrong social conditions, plus his weak
-head; but if there is no one in his neighborhood who can
-see any other solution than the workhouse for a lad who
-has the “capacity to work, to love, to respect, to enjoy
-and to feel sorrow,” then I suggest that the community
-is worse off, a good deal, than poor Jeff. To begin with,
-why don't the inter-church organization take him under
-its own wing?'</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Now, it would be very easy for the inter-church organization
-of Greensboro to take care of Jeff if there
-were only one of him. Unfortunately, there are many
-hundreds of him. How many of the boys of sixteen sent
-to the island from the New York City courts are of
-Jeff's class? Nobody knows for certain, because nobody
-tries to find out. Those of us who have lived for years
-among defectives and have visited reform schools know
-that the number is large. Yet the inter-church organizations
-of New York City do not take them under their
-wings.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“The proportion of the feeble-minded Jeffs in various
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>reformatories has been to range from twenty to fifty per
-cent of all the inmates. Every intelligent worker with
-prisoners knows there are many weak-minded among
-them; yet the usual method of treating the defective-delinquent
-(and every defective is a potential delinquent)
-throughout the United States is to do with them just
-what our Greensboro friend hopes to do with Jeff—send
-him to the workhouse as soon as he commits his next
-petty crime. And we keep on doing it over and over and
-over again.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Meanwhile the proper method with the Jeffs and the
-Sues is so simple and plain, so patently economical in
-this generation, and so tremendously profitable for the
-next, that its very simplicity makes it neglected. The
-colony at Templeton, Mass.; the one just organized at
-Menantico, N. J.; the farm colonies at Fort Wayne,
-Ind.; Lincoln, Ill.; Faribault, Minn.; Columbus, Ohio;
-and Letchworth Village, N. Y., all point the way with
-greater or less success.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“Yet Letchworth Village was enacted by the legislature
-of New York nearly five years ago. Its first commission
-reported 29,000 suitable inmates pressing for
-care. To-day it has only 100 inmates; and the Inter-church
-Federation says nothing.</p>
-
-<p class='c011'>“It is not worth while to get all stirred up and excited
-about Jeffs in North Carolina. What have we to say
-about the defectives in jails, workhouses, penitentiaries,
-reformatories, and prisons under our noses in New
-York? Is our beam so big that we cannot see it?”—<em>Alexander
-Johnson, Director Department of Extension, Vineland,
-N. J.</em></p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Now, that was the churches' opportunity. Federation
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>work should see that a religious school should be started
-in each community for its Jeffs and Sues. A city rescue
-mission could easily find work for Jeff.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I saw a Jeff come into the Sunday school of my own
-church. He was a great lumbering chap of eighteen years
-of age, he was not quite clean, there was the odor of the
-unwashed about him. He immediately went to the class
-of about thirty young men of his own age. I was gratified
-to see that youth seek the society of the church people
-rather than the saloon, but he was not welcome with
-the young men. The teacher visited his home, there
-was no help to be expected from the home, so the teacher,
-or the class, whether by actual request or by treatment,
-caused Jeff to stay away. Now, in the great day of accounts,
-of whom will that soul be required? If the defective
-intellect, what there is of it, can be turned to believe
-God, the defective is prevented from becoming a
-criminal. We have them at the Gospel Mission. The
-very first thing is to have the physician talk to Jeff of the
-sacredness of his own body to absolutely prevent all
-secret habits which injure the body and brain, and the
-motive of self-restraint both for physical habits and for
-drink must be that these things offend a loving Saviour
-who walks with each one of us.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Each year I meet Dr. H. M. Freas, of Philadelphia, at
-Northfield. His work as a physician frequently takes
-him to the asylum for the insane. He feels most keenly
-that these institutions should be in the hands of Christian
-people only. Many a brilliant intellect could be restored
-to perfect sanity if the loving care of some saintly Protestant
-sisterhood or brotherhood were in charge to bring
-the human love, which even the sanest of us need, to
-bear on the tottering brain. These human deficients are
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>found in the public schools; as soon as discovered they
-should be transferred to a religious school where they
-can be scientifically studied, what intellect they have developed,
-and the religious side of each one fostered. If
-then they are found permanently deficient, especially in
-the moral sense, or in physical self-control, then they
-should be segregated on farms for the sake of the race.
-People of deficient brains become fanatics; now, if these
-unbalanced people become filled with an enthusiasm of
-righteousness they absolutely do much good. They constitute
-three-fourths of the street preachers, and they
-reach many a soul who never enters a church. Religion
-prevents insanity. There is no doubt that fanaticism run
-riot leads to the asylum. We had one man who was insufficiently
-fed, badly clothed, who spent the entire night
-in prayer, two or three nights of the week. Of course,
-he was<a id='p103'></a> brought up in the insane asylum, but when he had
-food enough at the asylum where he was not permitted
-to pray aloud, he soon became normal, and was set free.
-It taught him a needed lesson.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>But religion sustains us through the breaking ties of
-life, through the loss of fortune, through the defection
-of friends, through blasted hopes, through the anguish
-of children going wrong, and their punishment by
-the State which follows.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Religion holds many a woman whose son is a wanderer,
-either criminal or otherwise, from insanity. I
-know a woman who has not looked into the face of her
-wandering son for six years. She stands up and sings
-with radiant face, “I am going through whatever others
-do, I am going through with Jesus,” and in spite of what
-looks an unbearable sorrow, leads a useful and apparently
-happy life. A mission is a blessed thing for enthusiasts.
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>It sends them with flowers and literature to hospitals
-and jails, it sends food to private families in need,
-it gives the enthusiasts tracts to distribute, it puts musical
-instruments into their hands and says, “Praise the
-Lord with pleasant sounds,” it sets women to repairing
-clothing for the poor, to caring for little children, while
-mothers earn money for food. As we do these things
-we talk religion, we tell of Jesus, the friend of sinners,
-we make a steady effort in very many directions to have
-each soul brought into harmony with God. In almost
-every instance where sorrow in a family has been the
-result of sin; and Jesus is allowed to become to each of
-them a personal Saviour; the home is electrified by a new
-enthusiasm; the parents become efficient, self-supporting,
-happy; the children become self-respecting; are taken
-from the class needing help; and become helpers. Religion
-eases the burden of life and heals the welts of adversity.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We have in Washington a club known as “The Monday
-Evening Club,” a clearing house for all forms of philanthropy.
-At the different banquets and at their
-monthly meetings all forms of reforms, from purely a
-humanitarian standpoint, are discussed, but we, who go
-at the open sores of the world with the only sure cure
-earth has yet received, the religion of Jesus Christ, we
-receive no recognition, we are given no hearing at banquets,
-and are never spoken of as part of the city's force
-for betterment, yet we comfort the prisoner, we bring
-hope to the hopeless, and we are the real protection of
-the city. No hungry man is turned from our door unsatisfied.
-A hungry man is a danger, a man with a hungry
-family is a menace. He will get food even if it costs
-a life to obtain it. Like Him whom we serve we are rejected
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>of men. We work amid the social dynamite of a
-great city. Unless the religious part of this nation assumes
-its rightful place as arbiter in all labor troubles,
-saying to the rich man, “Thou shalt not defraud,” and
-to the poor man, “Thou shalt do no violence”; unless
-Christian people see to it that remunerative labor can be
-had by every person willing to work; unless Christian
-people close the saloons (the author of seventy-five per
-cent of the sufferings of the poor), on some sad day our
-great cities will be systematically dynamited. As Christians
-we must go down among them and make the broken
-man feel that he is only temporarily sidetracked from
-the great highway of success. That the grace of God
-and his own will can and will bring him back to the great
-highway of prosperity.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The Church is waking up to its full duty in social service.
-Bishop Simpson, even in his day, eloquently described
-the mission of the Church in the world: “The
-Church must grope her way into the alleys and courts
-and purlieus of the city, and up the broken staircase, and
-into the bare room and beside the loathsome sufferer;
-she must go down into the pit with the miner, into the
-forecastle with the sailor, into the tent with the soldier,
-into the shop with the mechanic, into the factory with the
-operative, into the field with the farmer, into the counting-room
-with the merchant. Like the air, the Church
-must press equally on all the surfaces of society; like the
-sea, flow into every nook of the shoreline of humanity,
-and, like the sun, shine on things foul and low, as well as
-fair and high, for she was organized, commissioned and
-equipped for the moral renovation of the world.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>In closing this chapter we cannot do better than to
-quote from the fourth volume of the Jewish Encyclopedia,
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>which pays this remarkable tribute to Christianity:</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Christianity, following the matchless ideals of its
-Christ, redeemed the despised and outcast, and ennobled
-suffering. It checked infanticide, and founded asylums
-for the young. It removed the curse of slavery by making
-the humblest bondsmen proud of being a child of
-God. It fought against the cruelties of the arena, it invested
-the home with purity and proclaimed the value of
-each human soul as a treasure in the eyes of God, and it
-so leavens the great masses of the empire as to render the
-cross of Christ the sign of victory for its legions in place
-of the Roman eagle.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“The Galilean entered the world as a conqueror. The
-Church became the educator of pagan nations; and one
-race after another was brought under her tutorship. The
-Latin races were followed by the Celt, the Teuton and the
-Slav. The same burning enthusiasm which sent forth
-the first Apostles, also set the missionaries aglow, and
-brought all Europe and Africa, and finally the American
-continent, under the scepter of an omnipotent Church.
-Christianity is not an end, but the means to an end, the
-establishment of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood
-of God.”</p>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>
- <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER XI<br /> <span class='sc'>Hereditary Sin</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c006'>It was an exceedingly cold night when Jake Grossman
-burst into the mission, having on the apparel of a hotel
-cook. He did not take a seat, but marched to the front
-and prostrated himself at the altar, crying, “God be merciful
-to me, a sinner.” In such cases, no difference what
-we are doing, all formal program is suspended and we go
-at once to prayer. Jake was in deep earnest, men and
-women acquainted with God kneeled all about him, presenting
-his case to the Saviour of men. We did not then
-know his special need, but a soul in the depth of conviction
-wanted God, not for one sin, but he needed
-cleansing from all the sins of his past life. It must have
-been an hour before that soul received light. The choir
-had sung softly, “I'm coming home to-night,” and like
-melodies; others had come to the altar, been forgiven
-and gone to their seats, when Jake Grossman rose to his
-feet and rejoiced that he had found peace and pardon
-through the blood of Christ.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>We found afterwards that Grossman was the son of
-the great Swiss engineer, who had planned the great tunnel
-through the Alps, whose genius had built bridges over
-roaring, impassable canyons, who had planned the electric
-roads in all parts of Switzerland, until he was wined
-and dined by scientists not only in his own country but in
-many countries, so that he had acquired the alcoholic
-habit, after which his brain became sluggish and at last
-he fell from his high estate, became a common drunkard
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>and died poor. The memory of the wicked shall perish.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>While he was yet prosperous, using expensive wines,
-his only legitimate son was born. The mother noticed
-that, as a child of six or seven, Jake wanted a sip every
-time wine was used on the table; by twelve he could drink
-a large glass of wine and not show drunkenness. By his
-twentieth year Jake was a drunkard, the father dead, the
-mother poor and heart-broken. Friends and relatives all
-advised sending Jake to America, where wine is not used
-on the table, and also to get Jake away from old companions.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He came with letters to good people, but alcoholism is
-not baffled by change of location. His money gave out,
-the people to whom he had been introduced refused to
-receive him. Fortunately his mother had taught him to
-cook, so he obtained a place as an assistant cook in a
-Washington hotel; later he developed into a first-class
-chef. When he came to the Mission he had been discharged
-for drunkenness, and now, being a redeemed
-man, he went back to the hotel, gave up his white clothing,
-gathered up his belongings, and sought other work.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>That was five years ago. Jake has often been asked
-by the hotels of this city to cook for them at a salary of
-$100 or more a month, but Jake daily prays, “Lead us
-not into temptation,” and he does not knowingly walk
-into it. He shovels coal at a wage of $10 per week. He
-says, “You see, it keeps me in the open air; I do not have
-to taste wine or smell it; I get black on the outside, but
-I keep white within, which was more than I did as a
-cook.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>All the heroes are not in high places. “He that ruleth
-his spirit is better than he that taketh a city.” We believe
-God cleansed Jake Grossman from inherited sin.</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>HEREDITY</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>I see that scientists are now claiming that a tendency
-to use alcohol is not hereditary. We who work among
-alcoholics know that it is. God says that the sins of the
-fathers shall be visited on the children unto the third
-and fourth generation, and they are. God gives a high
-premium for virtue to all who would take the responsibility
-of bringing another life into the world.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I remember a man converted at the Breakfast Association,
-Philadelphia. I had spoken on the power of God
-to take away even inherited tendencies of sin from our
-souls. A young chap in the audience sent an usher to ask
-me to see him in the after meeting. I went down the aisle
-till I stood by his side. He said, “Can God save me from
-drink? My father was a saloon-keeper and died drunk.
-My mother died a drunkard; she fed me beer as an infant.
-I am now twenty-two years old; I do not remember
-a day in my life that I have not used beer.” Looking
-over that blear-eyed crowd, he said, “I do not want
-an old age like these wretches. Do you know that I
-recognize among these bloats at least twenty men who
-are the sons of saloon-keepers? You Christians have not
-yet discovered that no man puts liquor to his neighbor's
-lips without destroying his own family. Now, can God
-save me from the sin and shame of the old age of an
-alcoholic paralytic?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Well, let us go to the altar and ask Him.” We knelt
-long at the altar. At last he claimed that he had been
-accepted of God. As he started to leave the hall he came
-back and said, “Do pray for me; I am afraid of the smells
-of the street; I am afraid of my old companions. Pray
-for me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Well,” I said, “you come home with me, you are
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>young enough to be my son. If you were, I would want
-some good woman to mother you.” The next day I took
-him to Lancaster, Pa., where at that time I had a number
-of acquaintances among business men. I took him
-to quite a number before I came to a man who
-would take him at all, and to a number who would
-take him but not agree to help save a soul. At
-last I came to a Christian man in the leather business,
-who agreed to take him into his family, instruct him in
-the very rudiments of religion, take him to church and
-Sunday school with him; in fact, to nourish this new-born
-soul in Christ. We prayed together, then I left him.
-For a very short time I received a postal-card each week,
-which I failed to answer; then, amid the cares of a very
-busy life, I forgot him. About three years after that I
-was walking along a street in Lancaster when a fine-looking
-chap came rushing from behind me, and, placing
-his arm over my shoulder, said, “Oh, God bless you!
-God bless you!”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I turned and found a fine-looking man with tear-dimmed
-eyes blessing me. “Son,” I said, “what is your
-name?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Oh! do you not know me? I have prayed for you
-every day for three years, and you have forgotten me.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“Well,” I said, “I fancy you are so much better looking
-to-day than you were then so that your own mother
-might not know you now.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I walked back to the leather store with him and found
-my friend behind the counter. “Mr. S.” I said, “is John
-Schmidt a good man?”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>He did not wait to go around the counter, but, coming
-right over it, he placed a hand on each of John's
-shoulders as he said, “I am glad to bear witness that
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>John is a true, good man. At first he was sorely tried
-to associate only with our kind of people, but he has
-worked all day, gone to school at night, gone to church
-and Sunday school every Sunday, and he is about to
-marry one of the best young women of our church.”
-God had done a perfect work of grace, and the hereditary
-drunkard became a good man and a useful citizen. It
-must be so, for the word says the blood of Christ Jesus
-cleanses from <em>all</em> sin.</p>
-
-<h3 class='c012'>MR. KLINE'S TESTIMONY</h3>
-
-<p class='c013'>On the evening of September 16, 1913, Mr. Kline, our
-Superintendent of the Gospel Mission, gave, in substance,
-the following:</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“It is ten years ago to-night since God, for Christ's sake,
-forgave my sins. It was a day like this has been, a perfect
-day in September. I had become a confirmed drunkard,
-so that every waking moment I kept myself under
-the influence of whisky. I was a good workman, but I
-was conscious that my strength had gone. Three days
-before I had been attacked with a trembling which
-seemed like palsy. As I looked in the glass I saw the
-face of a dying man. The barkeeper saw it. He said,
-'Kline, take a drink; you will shake to pieces.' It took
-four or five drinks to make my hand steady enough to
-work. Then the barkeeper said, 'Now you need work
-to bring you to strength. You may paper and fix up
-this bar-room.' I went to a paper house, selected my
-paper, and had the man make a bill four times what it
-should have been. The bill was paid and I went back to
-the paper store and got my rake-off. You see, I had become
-dishonest as well as a drunkard. I had been
-brought up in a Lutheran household in Harrisburg by a
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>Christian aunt, who was a member of old Zion Lutheran
-Church.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“My mother had died in my infancy. I never saw her
-to remember her appearance; I never saw a likeness of
-her, a lock of hair or a garment which she had worn; but
-when dying she left a message with my aunt, a message
-which never left me, even when I was farthest from
-God. It was these words, 'Bring up my boy to meet me
-in heaven.' It was those words which really brought me
-back to my mother's God.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“When I quit work in that saloon that 16th day of
-September, 1903, I was all in. I saw my face in the
-mirror over the bar, and when I am dead I shall not be
-more colorless. The barkeeper filled my bottle, and instead
-of going, as usual, to my home in the southwest,
-I made my way up Four-and-a-half Street. I was simply
-impelled by an unseen force. Behind every tree I took
-a nip from the bottle, till I came to Pennsylvania Avenue.
-Then I knew I dared not drink where a policeman
-would see me; so, hardly knowing where I was or what
-I was doing, I staggered to the old bank corner at
-Seventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. They tell me
-I disturbed the meeting, but when they adjourned to
-the Mission Hall I followed weeping and crying, 'I shall
-not go out of this hall till I am dead or saved.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I have been told by Brothers Gordon and Wheeler
-that no drunkard we have ever seen disgrace himself in
-this mission ever behaved worse than I did. God gave
-them that night the grace of patience.</p>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_125a.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>BOY SCOUTS</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class='figcenter id001'>
-<img src='images/i_125b.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' />
-<div class='ic002'>
-<p>CAMP FIRE GIRLS</p>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c000'><span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>“I cried to God, 'This poor man cried, and God heard
-him.' I rose to my feet, sobered and in my right mind.
-I gave the bottle to Brother Bratz, and when I got out on
-the street I threw away my cigarettes and tobacco, and
-from that day to this I have not touched or tasted either
-liquor or tobacco. The next morning my hand was as
-steady as it is this minute. While I was wondering what to
-do, a rap came to the door. It was the saloon man's messenger,
-telling me to come and finish my job. I was
-weak, but I was praying. In the meantime Satan was
-giving me the battle of my life. The devil is a hard loser.
-He said, 'Well, if God could keep Daniel in the lions'
-den, and the Hebrews in the fiery furnace, He could
-surely keep you in the saloon.'</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“But God has done better than that for me. He has
-kept me out of the saloon. In my distress of mind as to
-whether I should finish that job or go for my tools, I
-picked up my wife's Bible and I opened at these words,
-'Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee
-by thy name, thou art mine. When thou passest through
-the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers,
-they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through
-the fire thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame
-kindle upon thee.' It was a message straight from
-heaven to my soul. I so accepted it.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I never finished the job. I never went after my tools,
-and from that day to this I have not entered a saloon.
-Satan has camped on my trail many times. I have had
-trials and temptations, but God has delivered me from
-the sins of the flesh, whisky, tobacco and their accompanying
-sins. No man who has been a drunkard can ever
-again safely use tobacco. An experience of ten years in
-mission work, where I have seen thousands of souls born
-into the kingdom, convinces me that the convert who
-retains tobacco will surely slip back. Christ's redeeming
-blood cleanses from all sin.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“I was a good workman and I soon had permanent
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>work. I never failed to make the arrangement before I
-entered into a contract that I was not to be expected to
-enter a saloon or any other disreputable place.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>That was Mr. Kline's testimony, and I would like to
-say for him that God greatly uses him and his testimony
-to bring fallen men back to God. He is an acceptable
-preacher of righteousness in almost any pulpit in this
-city, and he has done acceptable evangelistic work in
-many large eastern cities. His presence in the Gospel
-Mission, we believe, is helpful to all the men who come
-under its roof. He is an honored member of the Luther
-Memorial Church.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>I reaffirm, as long as one man dead in sin can be transformed
-into a living, active, aggressive Christian, the
-words of the Scripture are as true to-day as when the
-angel said, “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He shall
-save His people from their sins.” Nothing now known
-to science can accomplish what happened to Mr. H. W.
-Kline that night; that is, as Prof. James so pertinently
-says, “Conversion is the only means by which a radically
-bad person can be changed into a radically good person.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Harold Begbie, as a psychologist, says: “Whatever
-we may think of the phenomenon itself, the fact stands
-clear and unassailable that by this thing called conversion,
-men consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, become
-consciously right, superior and happy. It produces
-not a change but a revolution. It creates a new personality.”
-We would say a new creature in Christ Jesus.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>The religion of Christ differs from all other religions.
-They take the rich, the happy, the successful, as their
-expositors, but Christ takes the broken, the sorrowful,
-the beaten in the race, and makes them the rich, the successful
-and the happy expositors of His religion.</p>
-
-<div>
- <span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>
- <h3 class='c012'>EMOTION IN RELIGION</h3>
-</div>
-
-<p class='c013'>Prof. H. W. Wynn, D.D., one of the great writers of
-the <cite>Lutheran Observer</cite>, has these wise words concerning
-the elements of emotion in religion:</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“We have discovered that religion as a purely emotional
-experience may have no religion in it at all, though
-kindled by the emotional stimuli that religion commands.
-There is an emotional element in religion, of course, deep,
-powerful, pervasive; and when you give way to it, enveloping
-your whole being as in an atmosphere of flame.
-Those tender feelings which enter so largely into the
-deeper currents of our domestic and social life—love,
-pity, joy, hope, the striking of the glad hand, comradeship
-locking arms under the same great banner to do
-deeds of heroism in the same great cause—religion calls
-them all up, and fires them all with a conquering zeal.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“But, manifestly, the zeal may burn out before the
-deeds of heroism have been begun. We have learned
-to know that the same emotional fires may be kindled
-when religion is not the theme. A great crowd, an
-orator of fluent and persuasive speech, music filling the
-air with the imaginary shouts of an “<span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Io triumphe</span>” come
-to stay—it matters very little what may be the occasion
-that has called these people together, the emotional part
-of their campaign has been achieved. But, whether in
-religion or in politics, it would be stupidly unwise to conclude
-that the excitement itself was the end to be attained—emotion
-being set down as the deed itself; or, in
-some way, an assured equivalent of the deed.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“In all such cases fanaticism is the result, and fanaticism
-has never been an aid, but always, in the long run,
-an embarrassment to any great cause. Fanaticism stops
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>with the excitement—absurdly confounds excitement
-with the cause to be maintained.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>“In religion, especially, this unhappy 'transvaluation of
-value' is likely to be made. For long ages it has been
-systematically taught that the emotional element in religion
-either summed it all up or was an unmistakable
-token that, then and there, it had been all summed up for
-us in the exchequer of the skies. The great transaction
-had passed, the thing was done when your religious
-ecstasy swelled to the highest, and you found yourself,
-as you confidently believed, borne on its billows to the
-bosom of God.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Now, we all recognize this emotional element only as a
-helpful factor in religion, but not a permanent element.
-I have seen a few men accept Christ without any emotion
-whatever. I remember a blue-eyed, fair complexioned
-man saying, “I have no especial emotion. I am
-truly sorry for my sins. I confess them now and here,
-and I claim 1 John 1:9, 'If we confess our sins He is
-faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse
-us from all unrighteousness.' I ask God to cleanse me.
-I need it and accept it, because He has said so.” Tracy
-lived all right as long as we knew of him. If converts
-made in evangelistic meetings were taken into careful
-Bible school, they would develop into useful Christians,
-and there would be no backsliding.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Now, religion, in the sense in which we use it, is a
-“building” process, not “inflation,” as the aeronaut would
-inflate his balloon. We all know the class of religionists
-who hop, jump and shout in religious meetings; they are
-so busy they do not see the basket as it passes; they give
-no money, they do nothing that the world would call
-religious except these physical manifestations. They are
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>intolerant to all who do not believe as they do, they are
-simply to be tolerated and petted along as deficients who
-mean well but cannot be counted as part of the great
-organized force of believers which God is using to bring
-about the kingdom of God until by training and experience
-they can be used among their own class. But,
-among these, every now and then there comes a man of
-good mentality but without education, whom God can
-use. His church has no room for him, yet he has the
-same orders that Jesus gave to the eleven, “Go ye and
-preach the gospel to every nation,” and we find him
-preaching on the side streets, later a hall or church is
-hired, and we have a new sect.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>You remember Jane Addams tells of the young college
-graduate who had taken a course in a Bible training
-school and in a school of philanthropy, who, on her return
-home, asked the rector for religious work, and he
-replied, “You might arrange the flowers on the pulpit
-each Sunday.” Think of that to a soul aflame with
-God!</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>Macaulay touches off this kind of blindness in his
-essay on “Ranke's History of the Popes,” in this way:
-“Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant enthusiasts
-whom the Anglican Church makes an enemy,
-and, whatever the learned and polite may think, a most
-dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion;
-she bids him nurse his beard, covers him with a
-gown and hood of coarse dark stuff, ties a rope around
-his waist, and sends him forth to teach in her name. He
-costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the
-revenues of her beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms
-of those who respect his spiritual character and are grateful
-for his instructions. He preaches not exactly in the
-<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions
-of the uneducated hearers, and all his influence is
-employed to strengthen the church of which he is a
-minister. To that Church he becomes as strongly attached
-as any of the cardinals, whose scarlet carriages
-and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace on the
-Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in herself
-all the strength of establishment, and all the strength
-of dissent. Even for female agencies there is a place in
-her system for devout women; she assigns them spiritual
-functions, dignities and magistracies.”</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>How different from these enthusiasts who have not
-entered a church for years; their stock in trade is largely
-vituperation of the churches until they are trained into
-a better understanding of relative social service. The
-Church is doing the real Christian work of the world in
-keeping people from going wrong. Missions and their
-branches only hope to catch the driftwood of humanity
-before it floats out into the great ocean of eternity.</p>
-
-<p class='c000'>But every church in the land should have an investment
-in money or personal representatives in the nearest
-city rescue mission. The young people of the churches
-should be the choirs of the missions. They will get inspiration
-as to how to do work for God in securing
-the conversion of every soul committed to their care in
-the church and community work.</p>
-
-<div class='tnotes'>
-
-<div class='chapter'>
- <h2 class='c005'>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2>
-</div>
- <ol class='ol_1 c003'>
- <li>On p. <a href='#p51'>51</a>, interest on $17,000 at 5.5% would be $935 instead of $850.
-
- </li>
- <li>Added “was” between he and brought on p. <a href='#p103'>103</a>.
-
- </li>
- <li>Silently corrected typographical errors.
-
- </li>
- <li>Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
- </li>
- </ol>
-
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<pre>
-
-
-
-
-
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