told them that there was a way out of their troubles, and that
hundreds who had sat in that hall as they did, now blessed the day
which brought them there. He said: 'You came here this morning, you
scarcely knew how or why. You did not know the hand of God was leading
you, and that He will bless you if you will listen to His Voice. You
think you cannot escape from this wretched life; you think of the past
with all its failures. But do not trouble about the years that are
gone. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other
things shall be added unto you. Then there will be no more wandering
about without a friend, for I say to you that God lives, and this
morning you will hear from others, who once were in a similar
condition to yourself, what He has done for them.'
Next a man with a fine tenor voice, who, it seems, is nicknamed 'the
Yorkshire Canary,' sang the hymn beginning, 'God moves in a mysterious
way.' After this in plain, forcible language he told his own story. He
said that he was well brought up by a good father and mother, and lost
everything through his own sin. His voice was in a sense his ruin,
since he used to sing in public-houses and saloons and there learnt to
drink. At length he found himself upon the streets in London, and
tramped thence to Yorkshire to throw himself upon the mercy of his
parents. When he was quite close to his home, however, his courage
failed him, and he tramped back to London, where he was picked up by
the Salvation Army.
This man, a most respectable-looking person, is now a clerk in a
well-known business house. In his own words, 'I knelt down and gave my
heart to God, and am to-day in a good situation.'
Next a Salvation Army soldier spoke. Four years before he had attended
the Sunday morning meeting in this hall and 'found the friendship of
God. He has helped me to regain the manhood I had lost and to do my
duty. For two years now I have helped to support an invalid sister
instead of being a burden to every one I knew, as once I was.'
After the singing of the hymn, 'Rock of Ages,' another man addressed
the meeting. He had been a drunkard, a homeless wanderer, who slept
night after night on the Embankment till fortune brought him to this
service and to the Penitent-Form. Since that time, two and a half
years before, no drink had passed his lips, and once again, as he
declared, he had become 'a self-respecting, respectable citizen.'
Then a dwarf whom I had seen at work in the Spa Road Elevator, and who
once was taken about the country to be exhibited as a side show at
fairs and there fell a victim to drink, gave his testimony.
Another verse, 'Could my tears for ever flow,' and after it, in rapid
succession, spoke a man who had been a schoolmaster and fallen through
drink and gambling; a man who, or whose brother, I am not sure which,
had been a Wesleyan preacher, and who is now employed in a Life
Assurance Company; a man who had been a prisoner; a man who had been a
confirmed drunkard, and others.
Always it was the same earnest, simple tale of drink and degradation,
passed now for ever; of the Penitent-Form; of the building up of a new
self, and of position regained.
More singing and an eloquent prayer which seemed to move the audience
very much, some of them to tears; an address from a woman Salvation
Army Officer, who pleaded with the people in the name of their
mothers, and a brief but excellent sermon from Commissioner Sturgess,
based upon the parable of the Marriage of the King's Son as recorded
in the 22nd chapter of St. Matthew, and of the guests who were
collected from the highways and byways to attend the feast whence the
rich and worldly had excused themselves.
Then the great and final invocation to Heaven to move the hearts of
these men, and the invitation to them to present themselves at the
Penitent-Form. Lastly a mighty, thundering hymn, 'Jesu, Lover of my
soul,' and the ending of the long drama.
It was a wonderful thing to see the spiritually-faced man on the
platform pleading with his sordid audience, and to watch them stirring
beneath his words. To see, also, a uniformed woman flitting to and fro
among that audience, whispering, exhorting, invoking--a temptress to
Salvation, then to note the response and its manner that were stranger
still. Some poor wretch would seem to awaken, only to relapse into a
state of sullen, almost defiant torpor. A little while and the leaven
begins to work in him. He flushes, mutters something, half rises from
his seat, sits down again, rises once more and with a peculiar,
unwilling gait staggers to the Penitent-Form, and in an abandonment of
grief and repentance throws himself upon his knees and there begins to
sob. A watching Officer comes to him, kneels at his side and, I
suppose, confesses him. The tremendous hymn bursts out like a paean of
triumph--
Just as I am, without one plea,
it begins, the rest I forget or did not catch.
Now the ice is broken. Another comes and another, and another, till
there is no more room at the Penitent-Bench. They swarm on to the
platform which is cleared for them, and there kneel down, and I
observed the naked feet of some of them showing through the worn-out
boots.
So it goes on. At length the great audience rises and begins to
depart, filing one by one through a certain doorway. As they pass,
Officers who have appeared from somewhere wait for them with
outstretched arms. The most of them brush past shaking their heads and
muttering. Here and there one pauses, is lost--or rather won. The
Salvation Army has him in its net and he joins the crowd upon the
platform. Still the hymn swells and falls till all have departed save
those who remain for good--about 10 per cent of that sad company.
[Illustration: SEEKING THE HOMELESS AT MIDNIGHT.]
It is done and the catcher feels that he has witnessed the very
uttermost of tragedies, human and spiritual.
* * * * *
Mere common 'revivalism'! the critic will say, and it may be so. Still
such revivalism, if that is the term for it, must be judged by its
fruits. I am informed that of those who kneel here experience shows
that but a small percentage relapse. The most of them become what in
the Salvation Army cant--if one chooses so to name it--is known as
'saved.'
This means that from drunkards and wastrels stained with every sort of
human fault, or even crime, they are turned into God-fearing and
respectable men who henceforward, instead of being a pest to society
and a terror to all those who have the misfortune to be connected with
them, become props of society and a comfort and a support to their
relatives and friends.
Thus is the mesh of mercy spread, and such is its harvest.
The age of miracles is past, we are told; but I confess that while
watching this strange sight I wondered more than once that if this
were so, what that age of miracles had been like. Of one thing I was
sure, that it must have been to such as these that He who is
acknowledged even by sceptics to have been the very Master of mankind,
would have chosen to preach, had this been the age of His appearance,
He who came to call sinners to repentance. Probably, too, it was to
such as these that He did preach, for folk of this character are
common to the generations. Doubtless, Judea had its knaves and
drunkards, as we know it had its victims of sickness and misfortune.
The devils that were cast out in Jerusalem did not die; they reappear
in London and elsewhere to-day, and, it would seem, can still be cast
out.
I confess another thing, also; namely, that I found all this drama
curiously exciting. Most of us who have passed middle age and led a
full and varied life will be familiar with the great human emotions.
Yet I discovered here a new emotion, one quite foreign to a somewhat
extended experience, one that I cannot even attempt to define. The
contagion of revivalism! again it will be said. This may be so, or it
may not. But at least, so far as this branch of the Salvation Army
work is concerned, those engaged in it may fairly claim that the tree
should be judged by its fruits. Without doubt, in the main these
fruits are good and wholesome.
I have only to add to my description of this remarkable service, that
the number netted, namely, about 10 per cent of those present, was, I
am told, just normal, neither more nor less than the average. Some of
these doubtless will relapse; but if only _one_ of them remains really
reformed, surely the Salvation Army has vindicated its arguments and
all is proved to be well worth while. But to that one very many
ciphers must be added as the clear and proved result of the forty
years or so of its activity. Whatever may be doubtful, this is true
beyond all controversy, for it numbers its converts by the thousand.
* * * * *
The congregation which I saw on this particular occasion seemed to me
to consist for the most part of elderly men; in fact, some of them
were very old, and the average age of those who attended the
Penitent-Form I estimated at about thirty-five years. This, however,
varies. I am informed that at times they are mostly young persons. It
must be remembered--and the statement throws a lurid light upon the
conditions prevailing in London, as in other of our great cities--that
the population which week by week attends these Sunday morning
services is of an ever-shifting character. Doubtless, there are some
_habitués_ and others who reappear from time to time. But the most of
the audience is new. Every Saturday night the highways and the hedges,
or rather the streets and the railway arches yield a new crop of
homeless and quite destitute wanderers. These are gathered into the
Blackfriars Shelter, and go their bitter road again after the rest,
the breakfast, and the service. But as we have seen here a substantial
proportion, about 10 per cent, remain behind. These are all
interviewed separately and fed, and on the following morning as many
of them as vacancies can be found for in the Paper Works Elevator or
elsewhere are sent thither.
I saw plenty of these men, and with them others who had been rescued
previously; so many, indeed, that it is impossible to set out their
separate cases. Looking through my notes made at the time, I find
among them a schoolmaster, an Australian who fought in South Africa, a
publican who had lost £2,000 in speculation and been twelve months on
the streets, a sailor and two soldiers who between them had seen much
service abroad, and a University man who had tried to commit suicide
from London Bridge.
Also there was a person who was recently described in the newspapers
as the 'dirtiest man in London.' He was found sitting on the steps of
a large building in Queen Victoria Street, partly paralysed from
exposure. So filthy and verminous was he, that it was necessary to
scrape his body, which mere washing would not touch. When he was
picked up, a crowd of several hundred people followed him down the
street, attracted by his dreadful appearance. His pockets were full of
filth, amongst which were found 5s. in coppers. He had then been a
month in the Shelter, where he peels or peeled potatoes, etc., and
looked quite bright and clean.
Most of these people had been brought down by the accursed drink,
which is the bane of our nation, and some few by sheer misfortune.
Neither at the service, nor afterwards, did I see a single Jew, for
the fallen of that race seem to be looked after by their fellow
religionists. Moreover, the Jews do not drink to excess. Foreigners,
also, are comparatively scarce at Blackfriars and in the other
Shelters.
THE EX-CRIMINALS
On the afternoon of the Sunday on which I visited the Blackfriars
Shelter, I attended another service, conducted by Commissioner
Sturgess, at Quaker Street.
Here the room was filled by about 150 men, all of whom had been
rescued, and were then working in the various Shelters or elsewhere. I
may say that I have seldom seen a congregation of more respectable
appearance, and never one that joined with greater earnestness in a
religious service.
I will take this opportunity to observe that the Salvation Army
enforces no religious test upon those to whom it extends its
assistance. If a man is a member of the Church of England or a Roman
Catholic, for instance, and wishes to remain so, all that it tries to
do is to make him a good member of his Church. Its only _sine qua non_
is that the individual should show himself ready to work zealously at
any task which it may be able to find for him.
The rest of that afternoon I spent in interviewing ex-criminals who
were then in the charge of the Salvation Army. To give details of
their cases in this book is impossible. Here I will only say,
therefore, that some of these had been most desperate characters, who
had served as much as thirty or forty years in various prisons, or
even been condemned to death for murder. Indeed, the nineteen men whom
I interviewed had, between them, done 371 years of what is known as
'time.'
I cannot honestly report that I liked the looks of all these gentry,
or believed everything that they told me. For instance, when such
people swear that they have been wrongly convicted, an old lawyer and
magistrate like myself, who knows what pains are taken by every
English Court to safeguard the innocent, is apt to be sceptical.
Still, it should be added that many of these jailbirds are now to all
appearance quite reformed, while some of them are doing well in more
or less responsible positions, under the supervision of the Army.
The Salvation Army Officers have authority from the Home Office to
visit the various prisons, where the inmates are informed that those
who are desirous of seeing them must give in their names. Then on a
certain day, the Officer, who, under Commissioner Sturgess, is
responsible for the Prison work of the Army in England, appears at the
Wandsworth or the Pentonville Prison, or wherever it may be. There he
finds, perhaps, as many as 150 men waiting to see him, the total
number of ex-prisoners who pass through the hands of the Army in
England averaging at present about 1,000 per annum. He interviews
these men in their cells privately, the prison officials remaining
outside, and stops as long with each of them as he deems to be
needful, for the Governors of the prisons give him every opportunity
of attaining the object of his work. This Officer informed me that his
conversation with the prisoners is not restricted in any way. It may
be about their future or of spiritual matters, or it may have to do
with their family affairs.
The details of each case are carefully recorded in a book which I saw,
and when a convict is discharged and given over to the care of the
Army, a photograph and an official statement of his record is
furnished with him. This statement the Army finds a great help, as in
dealing with such people it is necessary to know their past in order
to be able to guard against their weak points.
The Government authorities have now begun to seek the aid of the Army
in certain special cases. If they feel that it is unnecessary to
retain a man any longer, they will sometimes hand him over, should the
Salvation Army Officers be willing to take him in and be responsible
for him. General Booth and his subordinates think that if this system
were enlarged and followed up, it would result in the mitigation or
the abbreviation of many sentences, without exposing the public to
danger.
In discussing this matter with them, I ventured to point out that it
would be a bad thing if the Army became in any way identified with the
prison Authorities, and began, at any rate in the mind of the criminal
classes, to wear the initials G.R. instead of those of the Army upon
their collars. This was not disputed by Commissioner Sturgess, with
whom I debated the question.
What the Army desires, however, is that the Government should
subsidize this work in order to enable it to support the ex-convicts
until it can find opportunity to place them in positions where they
can earn their own bread. The trouble with such folk is that,
naturally enough, few desire to employ them, and until they are
employed, which in the case of aged persons or of those with a very
bad record may be never, they must be fed, clothed, and housed.
After going into the whole subject at considerable length and in much
detail, the conclusion which I came to was that this work of the
visitation of prisoners by Salvation Army Officers, and the care of
them when released either on or before the completion of their
sentences, is one that might be usefully extended, should the Home
Office Authorities see fit so to do. There is no doubt, although it
cannot guarantee success in every case, that the Salvation Army is
peculiarly successful in its dealings with hardened criminals.
Why this is so is not easy to explain. I think, however, that there
are two main reasons for its success. The first is that the Army takes
great care never to break a promise which it may make through any of
its Officers. Thus, if a man in jail is told that his relatives will
be hunted up and communicated with, or that an application will be
made to the Authorities to have him committed to the care of the Army,
or that work will be found for him on his release, and the like, that
undertaking, whatever it may be, is noted in the book which I have
mentioned, and although years may pass before it can be fulfilled, is
in due course carried out to the letter. Now, convicts are shy birds,
who put little faith in promises. But when they find that these are
always kept they gain confidence in the makers of them, and often
learn to trust them entirely.
The second and more potent reason is to be found in the power of that
loving sympathy which the Army extends even to the vilest, to those
from whom the least puritanical of us would shrink. It shows such men
that they are not utterly lost, as these believe; that it, at any
rate, does not mark them with a figurative broad arrow and consign
them to a separate division of society; that it is able to give them
back the self-respect without which mankind is lower than the beast,
and to place them, regenerated, upon a path that, if it be steep and
thorny, still leads to those heights of peace and honour which they
never thought to tread again.
This is done not by physical care and comfort, though, of course,
these help towards the desired end, but by its own spiritual means, or
so it would appear. Its Officers pray with the man; they awake his
conscience, which is never dead in any of us; they pour the blessed
light of hope into the dark places of his soul; they cause him to hate
the past, and to desire to lead a new life. Once this desire is
established, the rest is comparatively simple, for where the heart
leads the feet will follow; but without it little or nothing can be
done. Such is the explanation I have to offer. At any rate, I believe
it remains a fact that among the worst criminals the Salvation Army
often succeeds where others have failed.
Another point that should not be overlooked in this connexion is that
it must be a great comfort to the sinner and an encouragement of the
most practical sort to find, as he sometimes will, that the hands
which are dragging him and his kind from the mire, had once been as
filthy as his own. When the worker can say to him, 'Look at me; in
bygone days I was as bad as or worse than you'; when he can point to
many others whose vices were formerly notorious, but who now fill
positions of trust in the Army or outside of it, and are honoured of
all men; then the lost one, emerging, perhaps, for the fifth or sixth
time from the darkness of his prison, sees by the light of these
concrete examples that the future has promise for us all. If _they_
have succeeded why should _he_ fail? That is the argument which comes
home to him.
There remains a matter to be considered. Let us suppose that as time
goes by the Authorities become more and more convinced of the value of
the Army's prison work, and pass over to its care criminals in
ever-increasing numbers, as they are doing in some other countries and
in the great Colonies, what will be the effect upon the Army itself?
Will not this mass of comparatively useless material clog the wheels
of the great machine by overlading it with a vast number of
ex-prisoners, some of whom, owing to their age or other circumstances,
are quite incapable of earning their livelihood, and therefore must be
carried till their deaths? When I put the query to those in command,
the answer given was that they did not think so, as they believed that
the Army would be able to turn the great majority of these men into
respectable, wage-earning members of society.
Thus of those who have been sent to it lately from the prisons, it
has, I understand, been forced to return only two, because these men
would not behave themselves, and proved to be a source of danger and
contamination to others. As regards the residuum who are incapacitated
by age or weakness of mind or body, General Booth and his Officers are
of opinion that the Government should contribute to their support in
such places as the Army may be able to find for them to dwell in under
its care.
I hope that these forecasts, which after all are made by men of great
experience who should know, may not prove to be over-sanguine. Still
it must be remembered that in England alone there are, I am told, some
30,000 confirmed criminals in the jails, not reckoning the 5,000 who
are classed as convicts. If even 20 per cent of these were passed over
to the care of the Army, with or without State grants in aid of their
support, this must in the nature of things prove a heavy burden upon
its resources. When all is said and done it is harder to find
employment for a jailbird, even if reformed, than for any other class
of man, because so damaged a human article has but little commercial
value in the Labour market.
If, however, the Salvation Army is prepared to face this gigantic
task, it may be hoped that it will be given an opportunity of showing
what it can do on a large scale, as it has already shown upon one more
restricted. Prison reform is in the air. The present system is
admitted more or less to have broken down. It has been shown to be
incompetent to attain the real end for which it is established; that
is, not punishment, as many still believe, for this hereditary idea is
hard to eradicate, but prevention and, still more, reformation.
The 'Vengeance of the Law' is a phrase not easy to forget; but among
humane and highly-civilized peoples the word Vengeance should be
replaced by another, the best that I can think of is--Regeneration.
The Law should not seek to avenge--that may be left to the savage
codes, civil and religious, of the dark ages. Except in the case of
the death sentence, which is not everywhere in favour, it should seek
to regenerate.
If, then, among other agencies, the Salvation Army is able to prove
beyond cavil that it can assist our criminal system to attain this
noble end, ought not opportunity to be given it in full measure? Is it
too much to hope that when the new Prison Act, of which the substance
has recently been outlined by the Home Secretary, comes to be
discussed, this object may be kept in view and the offer of the
Salvation Army to co-operate in the great endeavour may not be lightly
thrust aside? If its help is found so valuable in the solution of this
particular problem in other lands, why should it be rejected here, or,
rather, why should it not be more largely utilized, as I know from
their own lips, General Booth and his Officers hope and desire?[2]
THE MEN'S WORKSHOP
HANBURY STREET, WHITECHAPEL
This Salvation Army carpentering and joinery shop has been in
existence for about fifteen years, but it does not even now pay its
way. It was started by the Army in order to assist fallen mechanics by
giving them temporary work until they could find other situations.
The manager informed me that at the beginning they found work for
about thirty men. When I visited the place some fifty hands were
employed--bricklayers, painters, joiners, etc., none of whom need stop
an hour longer than they choose. From 100 to 150 men pass through this
Workshop in a year, but many of them being elderly and therefore
unable to obtain work elsewhere, stop for a long while, as the Army
cannot well get rid of them. All of these folk arrive in a state of
absolute destitution, having even sold their tools, the last
possessions with which a competent workman parts.