Such a little picture as this does more, by means of concrete

instances, to explain Mr. Charrington's methods than pages of

explanation could do.

I confess I laughed when I heard this story. I was sitting in the

drawing-room at Rivermere with the gentleman who told it me, and I was

still laughing when Mr. Charrington came in.

"I would give five pounds to see you chasing a policeman through

London, now," I said to him. "There is something, to my mind,

irresistibly funny in the idea."

He joined in my laughter--"Oh, I can tell you something funnier than

that," he said with a chuckle, and for an hour or more there came a

flow of reminiscences, all told with that merry smile, in that low,

deprecating voice, which nevertheless bubbles with quiet humour, which

is so marked a characteristic of my friend.

Throughout this life I have carefully avoided, as far as in me lies,

the phraseology and methods of many biographers of great religious

workers. I was told to write this story of Frederick Charrington just

as I wished. I was given a free hand, indeed, I may even say that the

reason why I _was_ chosen for the work was because, that in many

religious matters I take a diametrically opposite view to that of Mr.

Charrington and his friends, and have never been associated with any

evangelistic movements.

I have rather hesitated, therefore, as to whether I should include--at

this stage--any account of the numerous conversions which occurred at

the time of which I am writing. I have in my possession an astonishing

series of records, bearing witness to the spiritual value of Mr.

Charrington's unceasing warfare for our Lord. The unrecorded

conversions of this period, are, of course, countless. After some

consideration I have decided to include a few instances, taken at

random from the material I have.

It will be remembered that the words in which these instances are

recorded are not my own, but are the _ipsissima verba_ of one of Mr.

Charrington's helpers, to whose lot it fell to record them.

Mr. M----: "I used to work for a bad master--the devil. I

went to the Foresters' Music Hall--just out of

curiosity--and thank God! my curiosity was satisfied, but

not in the way I anticipated; for that night God laid hold

on my soul and saved me. Mr. Manton Smith was preaching, and

the words seemed all for me. I stayed to the after meeting,

but no one came and spoke to me. God was working mightily in

my soul, for the tears came stealing down my cheeks. I was

just going out when Mr. Charrington took hold of me and

spoke to me of Christ. And bless God he did! for if he had

not, I don't know where I might have been to-night. Ever

since then I have been doing all I can for my

fellow-sinners."

Mr. F---- said: "I have much to thank God for, especially

that He ever led me into this hall. I came in here swearing

on the first night it was opened. Mr. Charrington was

praying, and in the course of the prayer he said, "Where

will these spend their eternity?" The thought was an awful

one, and it affected me much; and it took something to

affect me, for I have been an awful bad 'un. I came next

night. The words I heard had not left me; I heard them

ringing in my ears over and over again. For twenty-five

years I worshipped a wooden god. I went to confession, and I

cannot tell you what I did; but, praise God! He led me away

from the Romish Church, and brought me into His fold, and

now I enjoy the glorious liberty of a child of God. There

are many in this hall to-night who, with me, can bless God

that ever this building was erected."

Mr. B----: "When I was in the world, my greatest pastime was

skittles. I have gone into the skittle ground at seven

o'clock in the morning, and not left it till late at night.

I often lost all my money, and, of course, my poor wife used

to suffer. One night I had no money, and I wanted some to go

to my usual place with. My wife said to me, 'Now, look here;

if you will go and hear Charley Inglis at Mr. Charrington's

Tent, I'll give you some money for skittling.' I said,

'Alright. I'll go and hear Charley Inglis, or Charley Irish,

if you like. Anything to get money to satisfy my appetite.'

After the service was over I thought, 'Well, he's a nice

sort of chap enough, but I suppose he makes a good thing out

of it, or else he wouldn't do it.' I was just off when Mr.

Kerwin tapped me on the shoulder, and taking hold of my arm

said, 'Are you safe for eternity?' and I believe I said,

'Yes.' I didn't care about any one talking to me, I wanted

to be off; but he would not let me go, and that night, bless

God! I gave my heart to Jesus, and ever since that I have

been working for my master."

Mr. B---- said: "I can remember when I was a little boy, my

dad taking me to a camp meeting. He was a preacher among the

Primitive Methodists. I remember him saying to me, 'Ah, my

boy, you'll remember one day, if you become a child of God,

how your father has prayed for you.' Bless God! he has

remembered me, and in this very hall I found Christ. The day

after, I went to work, and being in a little position I

wondered whether I should speak to all my workpeople. I

decided that I would not; not because I was ashamed to, but

I thought it would be better to let my walk show that there

was a change in me. I used to curse and swear at my men very

much. One day I said to one of them 'Tommy, do you know I

have been converted?' 'Ah,' he said, 'I thought there was

something up, because there is such a change in you.'"

Mr. G----: "I have been a downright bad 'un. When I was

about fourteen years of age, I ran away to sea. I never

found out the worth of a mother until she was taken away;

she died while I was in China. One night I came in here,

being attracted by the notice that a convict was to preach.

I sat and listened to what the preacher had to say, and the

words spoken by Henry Holloway went home to my soul. After

the meeting he came and spoke to me, and we went into the

inquiry room together, and, praise God! I found peace that

night. The next day I asked my wife to come, and she found

the Lord, and now we are both on the same road."

We have progressed a good deal in statements of spiritual experiences

since the above words were written, now nearly thirty years ago. We

have, for example, an acute and brilliant intellect, like that of Mr.

Harold Begbie, engaged upon the scientific psychology of

conversion--an accomplished literary man blessed with Christian

insight. Nevertheless, these simple records in their crude wording do

but state again the astonishing fact that the power of the Gospel can

and does change the whole course of men's and women's lives; that a

herald of Heaven, a man bearing news of the Lux Mundi, may have his

labours blessed and inspired by thousands of such results as these.

Once more, as I survey this period of Mr. Charrington's life, and

have, moreover, a knowledge of the more stirring and astonishing

incidents to come, I am lost in amazement at the power of the man's

personality.

We see him now, and the close of this chapter marks another definite

period in his life, at the head, as the central person in an enormous

and rapidly growing organisation accomplishing an incredible amount of

good.

This organisation was already definitely styled "The Tower Hamlets

Mission."

The collection of little villages which clustered round that great

stronghold of the English kings. The Tower, had been swept away so

utterly that no single trace remained. But the name still existed, and

that Sahara of crowded, pestilential dwellings, of narrow streets,

where vice and famine walked hand in hand, that unknown city of the

lost, still retained the pleasant title of the "Tower Hamlets," with

all its associations of village greens, sweet trees, and simple

homesteads.

The mission, while it never advertised itself, was, nevertheless,

looked upon by some of the most eminent Englishmen of that day as the

most noble, the most adequate effort ever made to Christianise the

heathen of the East End and bring them to a knowledge of God.

It was a _quiet_ work for God.

Not marked by noise, but by success alone;

Not known by bustle, but by useful deeds,

. . . . . . .

Making no needless noise, yet ever working

Hour after hour upon a needy world.

I do not intend here to quote lists of the celebrated people who were

interested in Mr. Charrington and his work at this time. I do,

however, want to emphasise the statement I have just made. And when I

say that that great and good Lord Shaftesbury, whose name is honoured

and revered in the history of our own times, and always will be so

honoured and revered, was the principal supporter of Mr. Charrington,

then I have said all that is necessary.

At one of the annual general meetings of the Tower Hamlets Mission,

Lord Shaftesbury was present, who till the time of his death was

president of the mission. He made a long and interesting speech. From

that speech, duly reported and preserved, I quote the following

passages. The Right Hon. The Earl of Shaftesbury said--

"It is necessary that if I should address you at all, I

should do so at this moment, for I cannot stay with you much

longer. I am afraid whatever I say will be scarcely audible.

My voice is very weak to-night, and it is not in my power to

throw it out to the end of the hall. I wish first to say

that I feel very much the kind reception you give me, and

to assure you that if I failed in my attendance two years

ago, it was not on account of any frail and feeble excuse,

because I have never, I think, broken an engagement, except

on a really good excuse. And I confess I am more astonished

at the assembly I see before me on such a night as this,

than that I should have kept my engagement who had the

advantage of coming here in a carriage. But the presence in

such numbers, and the enthusiasm you manifest, show to me

that the cause is in your hearts, and that by God's blessing

you duly appreciate the kindness and the mercies here

prepared for you. (Cheers.) For many years I have been in

the habit of coming to Whitechapel, and many people say to

me, 'Why do you go to Whitechapel so often?' My answer is,

'Because I always find very good people there; and if you

knew Whitechapel as well as I know it, you would find there

was a larger proportion of good people in Whitechapel than

in an equal number of people in the West End of London.' I

will tell you one thing which I like about Whitechapel

people; I like their hearty, open manner, and the general

enthusiasm of their demeanour; and I tell you fairly that

you put me in mind of a large body of people with whom I was

more conversant in earlier years than I am now, and my

friend Bardsley here will bear testimony that the people of

Whitechapel are, to my mind, more like the people of

Lancashire than any other people in the metropolis. If you

want to know what a Lancashire man is, look at our friend

Bardsley on the right (laughter). He is descended from one

of the noblest men I ever knew. His father was one of the

grandest men I ever knew--a grand old patriarch, who has

given some ten or eleven sons to the service of our Lord and

Saviour Jesus Christ. I entirely concur with the sentiments

of my friend Clifford, and I rejoice to see him here

to-night, and may his life be long spared to appear on this

platform. What you heard from your friend Mr. Charrington

and from Mr. Clifford is quite enough, and constitutes the

strongest appeal I could well imagine to the wealthy and the

powerful. What a manifestation of work is going on here day

by day, night by night, and hour by hour! See the effects

made for great ends, and apparently for small ends too: What

we call a small end, when we have to do with the working

classes, often constitutes the very turning point in the

man's existence. The only way to assist a working man is to

enable him to assist himself. Let me press on you seriously

the immense advantages you enjoy compared with your

forefathers. Time was, and not very long ago, when such a

meeting as this would have been impossible, and you could

not make such a thing intelligible to men's minds. Remember

how this mighty city has grown up; and all the Church of

England, and all the denominations, if they could be brought

to be of one mind would be wholly inadequate to the great

spiritual work of this metropolis. _Now I delight to see

these lay agents come forward and, like your friend, Mr.

Charrington, act as auxiliaries and subsidiaries to the

efforts of the ordained ministers to preach the word of

God._ It is a great blessing when you see how hundreds and

thousands are brought to come in the spirit of freedom and

choice, to hear the Word of God, who could never have been

coerced by any system of ecclesiastical discipline which

even the Pope might endeavour to institute. All these

considerations should impress on you a sense of the deep

obligations under which you are: first to God, and then to

these men whom God has raised up to conduct these various

missions, and to sustain all these manifold efforts to

propagate the Gospel. I am certain that I am within the

limit when I say that there are at least 400,000 persons at

the present time in this metropolis who would never have

heard the Word of God but for the agency of such missions.

Did these exist in former times? I recollect when we

propounded nineteen years ago that the theatres should be

opened for divine service on every successive Sunday, we

were treated by some with scorn, by some with doubt (very

sincere doubt), and by all with misgiving. What has been the

result? Such gatherings as these. Thus the Gospel of God has

been sounded out in the metropolis, and I, in going the

rounds of our great cities in the dark hours of the night,

have found that by such means as these many have come to

know of the Gospel.

"The grand leading principle is to deal out to the hundreds

and thousands of these districts a knowledge of the Lord

Jesus Christ. And let me tell you how low people may fall,

even as it were in the centre of religious light, unless

that truth is brought home to them personally and

individually. Some years ago, when our commissioners were

making inquiry into the mines and collieries of this

kingdom, one of the commissioners--a most excellent man, and

very anxious about the religious welfare of the

community--told me himself that in one of the largest

colliery districts of England, he descended into a pit, and

spoke to the man there--a hard-working man; and being

anxious to know something of his religious state, said to

him, 'Do you know Jesus Christ?' 'No,' was the reply; 'does

he work on the bank, or in the pit?' Such was the state of a

man in the middle of one of the most populous districts in

England, in the mines and collieries, the centre of hundreds

and thousands so utterly ignorant of the first elements of

religion that he had never heard the name of the Saviour of

mankind. But if none go forth to the highways and to the

hedges to gather them in; if there be none to invite them to

places such as these; none to reveal to them the nature of

sin and the fallen condition of man in his present state,

they will certainly not learn it by intuition. Man has to

preach the Gospel to man; and it is a sense of this duty

that is occupying such men as Mr. Charrington and others in

their endeavours to communicate to you the blessing God has

so abundantly imparted to them. I am delighted to see such a

meeting as this, because I see the enthusiasm with which you

come: and when you joined in those hymns, I saw that you

sang them from your hearts, that you knew what you were

singing, and that the hymns were not merely exercises of

music, but the expressions of true devotion. It is a mighty

thing to have achieved such results in the wild and remote

districts of the East of London, and would to God we had a

hundred halls such as this! _where men of God should stand

and daily preach the Word of God, and minister consolation

to those who come_. Mr. Charrington has said that he desires

a larger building, and so do you desire it, and so let every

one desire it, and pray for it heartily, and do what in him

lies to get it. Every person, I say, every woman, and every

child may be a centre of influence. And recollect what that

means. Your influence may be small, but if it be a centre it

makes a little ring of itself, and these concentric rings

one after another will at length cover the whole space of

London, and will produce a feeling that will issue in the

accomplishment of the prayer which Mr. Charrington has so

devoutly pronounced. I trust you will have that building,

and that it will be consecrated, as this one has been, to

the knowledge of God and the salvation of souls. I am afraid

I can say no more. I doubt whether you have heard what I

have said. I heartily pray God that blessing may descend on

you all, collectively and individually, in this great and

important district of Stepney and Whitechapel."

I have been tempted to give longer extracts than I at first intended.

Such words as these, however, definitely present the Tower Hamlets

Mission of those days to your mind, and they also have a real historic

value. I make no further apology for giving them.

They strike a note, however, which naturally leads me on to the next

period in Mr. Charrington's life. They are most fitting to conclude

this chapter, inasmuch as they definitely point to the movement which

resulted in the building of the largest mission hall in the world, and

establishing upon a firm and concrete basis the most successful

unsectarian mission ever known.

Only the other day the papers announced the death of General Booth.

The fame of that great leader of men and mighty warrior in God's cause

has penetrated to the utmost corners of the earth. Yet, it was pointed

out in a leading article in the _Daily Telegraph_ that there were

other organisations, no less wonderful in what they had accomplished,

no less deserving of reverence and support, which nevertheless were

hardly heard of--comparatively speaking--by the outside world.

Mr. Charrington's name was specially mentioned in this regard.

It is, perhaps, a whimsical fancy, but I like to think that--and

Frederick Charrington has said as much to me--I have, in some sense,

in this book, discovered him, from an unknown country. All this life

he has worked for God, seeking no personal fame, no undue

advertisement.

Comparisons very often lend themselves to the grotesque.

I am no Stanley, but, be that as it may, I have found another

Livingstone in a forest no less dark, impenetrable, and unknown, than

that tropic gloom where the great journalist of the New York newspaper

pressed the hand of the saintly missionary of Africa.

You are now to read three chapters which deal in detail with

adventures in the cause of Christ as thrilling as anything in modern

fiction. Afterwards we shall arrive at that glorious fruition of Mr.

Charrington's work, which resulted in the building of the Great

Assembly Hall.

But now--to the battles!

CHAPTER IV

DAVID AND JONATHAN

I suppose few eminent men of our time have been more blessed with

friends than Frederick Charrington.

From the highest to the lowest he has had, and has, troops of devoted

men and women who reverence and love him.

But there has been one friendship in his life which deserves to rank

with the great friendships of the world, so uninterrupted, so firm and

beautiful, was it. No life of the great evangelist would be complete

without an account of his friendship with the late Hon. Ion

Keith-Falconer, third son of the late Earl of Kintore.

This young man, who died at the untimely age of thirty-one, while

engaged in whole-hearted missionary work at Aden, was one of the most

remarkable intellects and personalities of his day. The beauty of his

character, the ardour of his missionary zeal, his great learning,

formed a combination rarely equalled. His life was one of true

nobility and unselfishness. In its harmonious beauty, and the rich

variety of its aspects, it was unique. That this man and Frederick

Charrington should have been more than brothers to each other, is one

of the most interesting and touching episodes in the latter's life.

"I count all things but loss for Christ" was the essence of

Keith-Falconer's career, and he found his truest inspiration, his

greatest opportunity for doing good, in his friendship for Frederick

Charrington. I have heard much of this association. Many things are

almost too intimate to be recorded here. But with all the information

placed at my disposal, and from the excellent _Memorials of the Hon.

Ion Keith-Falconer_, published nearly thirty years ago by the Rev.

Robert Sinker, D.D., librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge, I have

been able to reconstruct much of a friendship passing the love of

women, as firm, and true, as called forth from Lord Tennyson these

noble words when Hallam died--

"Of those that, eye to eye, shall look

On knowledge; under whose command

Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand

Is Nature like an open book;

No longer half akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did,

And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed

Of what in them is flower and fruit.

Whereof the man, that with me trod

This planet, was a noble type

Appearing ere the times were ripe,

That friend of mine who lives in God.

That God, which ever lives and loves,

One God, one law, one element

And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves."

Ion Grant Neville Keith-Falconer was born at Edinburgh on the 5th

July, 1856.

His earlier years were spent at Keith Hall, varied by long visits to

Brighton and elsewhere. His childhood was quite uneventful, though,

even in those early days, his mother afterwards spoke of his intense,

and, as it were, innate truthfulness, and his unvarying thoughtfulness

for others--not always prominent characteristics in children who may

afterwards develop into the best of men.

At the age of eleven he was sent to the large preparatory school of

Cheam in Surrey, where he gained a good many prizes, and seems to have

been thoroughly happy.

In 1869, when thirteen years of age, Ion Keith-Falconer went to Harrow

to compete for an Entrance Scholarship, which he was successful in

obtaining.

In July 1873, I find the first reference to Frederick Charrington in a

letter written by the young man of seventeen from Harrow. He had

already made Mr. Charrington's acquaintance, who was six years his

senior, in or about the year 1871, when Mr. Charrington was on a

walking tour in Aberdeenshire, and was invited by Lord Kintore to

Keith Hall. In later years, when Lord Kintore had passed to his rest

in 1880, Keith-Falconer wrote to Mr. E. H. Kerwin, the secretary of

the Tower Hamlets Mission: "It is pleasant to me to reflect that it

was my father who first introduced me to Charrington and his work, and

that he so cordially supported the Tower Hamlets Mission. I hope that

his sudden departure may be a means of blessing to the careless,

perhaps to some who heard him speak in the Great Assembly Hall."

The following is part of the letter I have referred to, written during

the closing days of Keith-Falconer's life.

"Charrington sent me a book yesterday which I have read. It is called

_Following Fully_ ... about a man who works among the cholera people

in London, so hard that he at length succumbs and dies. But every page

is full of Jesus Christ, so that I liked it. And I like Charrington,

because he is quite devoted to Him, and has really given up all for

His sake. I must go and do the same soon; how, I do not know."

There is another letter extant which was written from Mr.

Charrington's house upon Stepney Green, towards the end of that same

year.

It states that "after dinner we went the rounds to inspect the tent

for preaching, and Charrington lent it to a little missionary to hold

a midnight meeting in on Thursday. We also visited the Mission Hall,

where they were making a pool for baptising people in.... In the

evening a well-attended meeting at the tent; foul air. After the

meeting the speakers were Dr. Sharpe, an old but very energetic and

godly Scotchman, _broad accent_, a soldier from Wellington Barracks

and Mr. Kerwin. We went to have some tea and then to the hospital to

see a man supposed to be dying, but found to be recovering. I have

lots to do here. I did not get to bed till nearly one o'clock, having

been up nineteen hours. We visited the Boys' Homes, which I think a

capital place. The dormitaries were perfect; the ventilation,

cleanliness and comfort, could not have been better looked after."

At the end of the summer term of 1873, Keith-Falconer finally left

Harrow, it being decided he should spend the last year before entering

Cambridge with a tutor.

Even at this early age, the friendship between the two young men had

become fixed and immutable. The work in the East End to which Mr.

Charrington was now so fully committed, and was carrying out with such

success and blessing, was one which irresistibly appealed to Lord

Kintore's son. The needs, spiritual and other, of that part of London

were, and are, so great as to force attention from the most casual

observer. And it was what Mr. Charrington had seen at the very

beginning of his career, what he was one of the first evangelists to

realise, that thoroughly coincided with Keith-Falconer's frame of

mind. Charrington made it as the very basis of his work, that all

attempts should proceed uniformly throughout on what he justly felt

was the true principle of civilising by Christianising. Mr.

Charrington has never been one of those--and was not then--who start

with the idea that the religious life comes more readily when the

material conditions of life are improved. He knew, of course, that

there would often be great material need, but in such cases he saw his

duty as a teacher of the Gospel perfectly clear. He would not, of

course, offer Christian teaching to men and women in such dire bodily

need that they were unable to accept it, without making any effort to

meet those needs. But, on the other hand, he would not insist on first

civilising in every possible way save by religion--to attempt to

educate the masses by art, general education, and so forth--and then,

and only then, allow religion to be brought to bear and come into

their lives.

In due course Mr. Keith-Falconer proceeded to Cambridge. A don of

that University, speaking of him as he was at this period, and,

indeed, he altered but little from this time to the end of his short

life, says--

"His appearance at this time, his manner, his tastes, were

all strikingly like what they were in later times. He had a

remarkably tall, well-shaped figure, whose symmetry seemed

to take off from his height of six feet three inches.

Physically very strong he certainly was, in one sense, or

his wonderful feats of athletic endeavour would have been

impossible. Yet, for all those feats, which were partly due,

no doubt, to the sustaining power of a strong will, he could

not really be called robust.

"His kindly voice and genial smile will live in the

recollection of his friends; like good Bishop Hacket of

Lichfield, he might have taken as his motto, 'Serve God and

be cheerful.' Side by side, however, with his geniality,

there was in Keith-Falconer at all times the most perfect

and, so to speak, transparent simplicity. Never was a

character more free from any alloy of insincerity or

meanness. No undertone of veiled unkindness, or jealousy, or

selfishness, found place in his conversation. From the most

absolute truthfulness he would never waver; his frank, open

speech was genuine, the unmixed outcome of his feelings.

"A certain slight, very slight, deafness in one ear made him

at times seem absent to those who did not know this, and

unknowingly had sat or walked on the wrong side.

"A characteristic habit of his seemed now and then to give a

certain degree of irrelevance in his remarks. Sometimes,

when in conversation on a topic which interested him, he

would, after remaining silent for a short time, join again

in the conversation with a remark not altogether germane to

the point at issue. He had been following out a train of

thought suggested by some passing remark, and after working

out the idea on his own lines, as far as it would go, made

his comment on the result. Yet whenever the conversation had

to do with the interests or needs of those to whom he was

speaking, no one could throw himself more completely, heart

and mind, into the matter. Talk for talking's sake he

cordially abhorred, that talk which is simply made as though

silence were necessarily a bad thing in itself.

"This interest in widely different topics of conversation

was not, however, simply the result of mingled good-nature

and courtesy, a mere complaisance, where it was but a

careless good-nature that saved the courtesy from

hollowness. Far from it. No one who knew Keith-Falconer

well, needs to be told how thoroughly, how constantly, and

in what varying ways, he could make the business or cause of

another his own; whether it were a friend in need of help,

from the most trifling to the most momentous matters, or the

absolute stranger whom apparent chance had sent across his

path.

"Still, with all this, his kindliness was by no means one

lacking in its proper counterpoise of discretion; his

strong, clear-headed, Scotch common-sense was constantly

manifest, even in his schemes of beneficence. Yet even thus

it must be remembered that his was a character in which the

warm heart was guided in its action by the clear head, not

one in which the clear head did but allow itself to be

swayed more or less by the loving heart. Love was the

dominant power, discretion the corrective influence."

Mr. Charrington used to visit his friend at the University, and it was

there, as Mr. Richardson has informed me, that the evangelist obtained

a nickname which stuck to him for a long time. Special open-air

services used to be held upon "Parker's Piece" in the University city,

and on one occasion Keith-Falconer got his "gyp," as the men-servants

are called at Cambridge, to come and join in the meeting. At the close

Mr. Charrington was in the habit of speaking to those who had

attended, and in earnest expostulation with this man, not knowing who

he was, he said to him, "Down on your knees." After that, Charrington

was always known--in the University city, at any rate--as "Doyk."

[Illustration: DAVID AND JONATHAN

[_To face p. 90._]

In 1880 Mr. Keith-Falconer took a First Class in the Semitic Languages

Tripos. During the whole of his University career, not only was he one

of the most brilliant students of his time, but also a well-known

sportsman. There was no namby-pamby Christian about this young scion

of a great house. Everything he undertook he did well, and he became a

leading bicycle racer in England, scoring innumerable successes at

Cambridge, in the Inter-University meeting with Oxford, and defeating

the professional champion of England by five yards. All this time, and

I cannot give more than a mere outline of Keith-Falconer's career,

inasmuch as it is unconnected with the Tower Hamlets Mission and Mr.

Charrington, he was sitting for innumerable examinations, and building

up a record of scholarship which still survives. Yet he was most

actively connected with Mr. Charrington's work, and was, now very

shortly, to be more a part of it than ever. With his friend he

penetrated into the most miserable homes, he conducted many services,

and, as will be seen in further chapters, when the luridly exciting

story of the _Battle of the Music Halls_ is told, he was Mr.

Charrington's right-hand man.

One story of the earlier period was told me recently.

At the close of one of the meetings a little boy was found sobbing.

With some difficulty he was induced to tell his tale. It was simple.

His widowed mother, his sisters and he, all lived in one room.

Everything had been sold to buy bread except two white mice, the boy's

pets. Through all their poverty they had kept those two white mice,

but at last they, too, must go! With the proceeds he bought street

songs, which he retailed on the "waste," and so obtained the means of

getting more bread for his mother and sisters. Now they were

completely destitute. The boy was accompanied home. Home! It was a

wretched attic, in one of the most dilapidated houses. It was a

miserably cold and dismal day. In the broken-down grate the dead

embers of yesterday's fire remained. On the table, in a piece of

newspaper, a few crumbs. The air was close and the smell

insupportable. "My good woman," said Mr. Charrington, "why don't you

open the window?" "Oh," she replied, "you would not say that if you

had had nothing to eat, and had no fire to warm you." The family was

relieved.

He was intimately connected with the first beginnings of that famous

"feeding of the hungry," which has gone on under Mr. Charrington's

auspices for so many years, and is still one of the great living facts

of the East End of London.

_A-propos_ of this, Keith-Falconer wrote--

"During the hard times of the winter of 1879 (due to the

long frost and depression of trade), a work was forced on

our Mission which we had never contemplated taking up. The

difficulties and dangers of wholesale charity are very

great, and our desire has been to avoid them, except in

cases of extreme circumstances. But the distress of that

winter _was_ extreme, and for many weeks we opened our halls

and fed the literally starving multitudes with dry bread and

cocoa. The austere distress began in December. Hundreds of

men were waiting daily at the Docks in the hope (nearly

always a disappointed hope) of a job. Starving men were

found in several instances eating muddy orange-peel picked

off the road.

"Our feeding became a very public matter, as there was much

correspondence about it in the _Times_, the _Daily News_,

the _Echo_ and other leading papers, and many people came

from long distances to see for themselves. The public

supported us liberally with funds, and we were enabled to

give no less than twenty thousand meals from January 1st to

February 14th, besides which we assisted over three hundred

families every week in their homes. We look back to the time

as one of very great blessing."

Of this feeding I propose to give as graphic a description as I can in

its proper place, for I have attended at it myself, but I must pass on

now to the time when the young Professor--for Keith-Falconer was

shortly afterwards appointed examiner in the very Tripos where he had

so distinguished himself--threw his whole heart and soul into the

project for building the present Great Assembly Hall.

For a time had come when Mr. Charrington's success had become so

enormous, the whole machine so gigantic, that it was necessary to

erect a huge building commensurate with the needs of the mission.

Keith-Falconer was an invaluable helper. It is true that the great

mass of work devolving on Mr. Charrington required that there should

be also a secretary living in the midst of affairs and devoting his

whole attention to the work. Still, Mr. Keith-Falconer's post was far

from being a nominal one. In writing a business letter he was

exceedingly business-like; his facts were put in the clearest and most

methodical way. A letter from him asking for a subscription was no

effusive appeal; it was a quiet, sensible statement of facts, written

by a scholar and a master of English, all the more telling because the

writer had shown himself to take all possible pains to do justice to

his case.

An enormous sum of money was necessary, and at this juncture Mr.

Keith-Falconer made a direct appeal for help in the form of a

pamphlet.

This appeal, as his biographer points out, was so characteristic of

the writer, so thoroughly earnest, entertaining, as it did, no doubt

that the money would be forthcoming, and--as was his way in such

things--so quaintly methodical, that I give it here in full. It is

certainly one of the many historic documents in the archives of Mr.

Charrington's life work.

"We now appeal for funds in order to erect a new and larger

hall.

"The present one is altogether unsuitable.

(_a_) It is far too small. On Sunday nights

hundreds are turned away for want of room. When, during two

successive winters, the adjacent Lusby's Music Hall (one of

the largest in London) was opened on Sunday nights

simultaneously with our own hall, the united congregation

usually amounted to 5000 persons. These facts tend to show

that if we had a building sufficiently large, we could

gather as many persons as the human voice can reach.

(_b_) It is a temporary structure, which by the Metropolitan

Buildings Act must come down sooner or later.

(_c_) The corrugated iron is becoming dilapidated, and lets

in the rain, so that rows of umbrellas are often put up

during the service.

(_d_) The cold is intense.

(_e_) The acoustic properties are inferior.

"Please add to this that our site is the very best in all East London.

It ought surely to be utilised to the fullest extent. The present

building only half covers it.

"We have got the site, and we have got the people. May we not have a

hall to accommodate them? The willingness to hear is very remarkable,

and it is distressing to see hundreds and thousands turned away for

want of mere room.

"The guarantees which the public have that the work is a proper one,

and that the new hall will be properly used, are:--

1. The testimony of trustworthy persons who are

acquainted with the mission. Mr. Spurgeon has written a

warm letter. Lord Shaftesbury is an old friend of, and

worker in, the mission. He has delivered several addresses

in the hall. The late Lord Kintore was a warm and constant

friend of the work. Mr. R. C. L. Bevan has both promised

L2000 and consented to act as treasurer.

2. A trust deed has been drawn up and signed, transferring

the property to Trustees,--namely: F. A. Bevan, Esq.;

Richard Cory Esq.; Frederick N. Charrington, Esq.; Hon. Ion

Keith-Falconer; James Mathieson, Esq.; Samuel Morley, M.P.;

Hon. Hamilton Tollemache; Joseph Weatherly, Esq.--and

specifying the objects for which it is to be used.

"It may be objected that the East End ought to supply its own wants.

This is impossible. The population of the East End consists of the

working classes, who, though they furnish the sinews of wealth which

resides elsewhere, are poor themselves. Thus the East End has a double

right to look outside for help. It is poor and cannot help itself

adequately, and the wealthy are responsible for the well-being of

their servants, the toiling thousands through whose labour they derive

their incomes.

"The character of our Mission is evangelistic, unsectarian and sober.

I say sober, because of late years some have despaired of reaching the

masses except by using certain unseemly and sensational methods. Our

work is an emphatic protest against this practice, and a standing

disproof of its necessity.

"Finally, the building for which we plead will cost L20,000, a small

sum indeed when we consider what amounts many are willing to spend on

their own comforts and pleasures. This sum will not only build a

suitable Hall, but a Frontage in addition, embracing a coffee palace,

and a book saloon for the sale of pure literature. The site has

already been paid for."

A beautiful letter was written by Keith-Falconer to a private friend

during this period of his friendship with Mr. Charrington. It was

written from the house at Stepney Green, to which I have already

referred in an earlier part of the book. Nothing could more adequately

show the young man's personal spirituality, and also his enthusiastic

love for the friend whose own pure and self-sacrificing life was such

an example to his own.

"Stepney Green.

"It is overwhelming to think of the vastness of the

harvest-field, when compared with the indolence,

indifference and unwillingness on the part of the most

so-called Christians, to become, even in a moderate degree,

labourers in the same. I take the rebuke to myself.... To

enjoy the blessings and happiness God gives, and never to

stretch out a helping hand to the poor and wicked, is a most

horrible thing. When we come to die, it will be awful for

us, if we have to look back on a life spent purely on self,

but--believe me--if we are to spend our lives otherwise, we

must make up our minds to be thought 'odd' and 'eccentric'

and 'unsocial' and to be sneered at and avoided.

"For instance, how 'odd' and 'unsocial' of my heroic friend

(Mr. Charrington) to live in this dirty, smoky East End all

the year round, and instead of dining out with his friends

and relations, to go night after night to minister to the

poor and wretched!... But I like to live with him and to

watch the workings of the mighty hand of God and to catch a

spark of the fire of zeal which burns within him, in order

that I may be moved to greater willingness and earnestness

in the noblest cause which can occupy the thoughts of a man.

This is immeasurably better than spending my afternoons in

calling on people, my evenings in dinners and balls, and my

mornings in bed.... The usual centre is Self, the proper

centre is God. If, therefore, one lives for God, one is out

of centre or eccentric, with regard to the people who do

not."

In 1884 Mr. Keith-Falconer was married at Trinity Church, Cannes, to

Miss Gwendoline Bevan, daughter of Mr. R. C. L. Bevan, of Trent Park,

Hertfordshire. Mr. Charrington was present upon this occasion, and

acted as "best man" to his friend.

In 1885, together with his young wife, he sailed for Aden, resolving

to take up missionary work there, being peculiarly fitted for it owing

to his intimate acquaintance with Oriental languages. I am not going

to expatiate upon his life and work there. I am writing the biography

of his friend. In 1887 he passed away, and was reverently laid to rest

in the wild and dreary cemetery there, far from home and those he

loved, yet among those for whom he laboured, and for whom he counted

no loss too great, if only he might win them for Christ.

I may quote, perhaps, those words from _The Pilgrim's Progress_, which

describe the death of Valiant-for-Truth.

"'My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and

my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I

carry with me, to be a witness for me, that I have fought His battles,

Who will now be my Rewarder.'... So he passed over, and all the

trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

The loss to the Tower Hamlets Mission was incalculable, and it is

pathetically expressed on a certain page of _The Record_, Mr.

Charrington's official organ.

Mr. Edwin H. Kerwin wrote:--

"Another faithful soldier of Jesus Christ has fallen at his

post--the post of danger and honour. Those of us who knew

him are weighed down with sorrow to think we shall hear his

voice no more. We loved him from the first time we ever saw

him. My thoughts go back to the year 1873, when, as a young

man of seventeen, his beloved father, the late Earl of

Kintore, brought his son and interested him in Mr.

Charrington's work. From that date until the day of his

death he was devoted to the Tower Hamlets Mission. Amid his

arduous studies at Cambridge he delighted to break away from

them for a day, and run up to Mile End. In a letter before

me, dated July 1880, and written to me while his beloved

father was lying dead, he says, 'It is pleasant to me to

reflect that it was my father who first introduced me to

Charrington and his work, and that he so cordially supported

the Mission. I hope that his sudden departure may be the

means of blessing to the careless, perhaps to some who heard

him speak in the Assembly Hall.' How strange that the son

should also be struck down suddenly! May the prayer he

breathed at his father's death become a reality in his own

sudden departure. In another letter, written to me in 1879,

in answer to one I had addressed to him respecting some

young men who had been impressed with an address he had

given at Mile End, he said: 'I was so thankful about those

five young men. The best of this work is that so few of the

conversions are directly traceable to any particular person;

we all help.'

"About ten years ago he was staying at Mr. Charrington's

residence. I picked up his Bible, and found written upon the

fly-leaf this motto--

'Henceforth, Lord, I wish to be

Wholly given up to Thee,

That in life and walk I may

Glorify Thee day by day.'

"Surely those who were acquainted with him can testify that

he carried this out!

"His brilliant achievements at the University of Cambridge,

his linguistic proficiency, together with his exceptional

abilities, were all devoted to the cause of Christ. He

worked hard in the interests of purity and temperance. He

often spent nights with Mr. Charrington in watching the

music halls. I shall never forget the night when Mr.

Charrington was taken off by the police, falsely accused of

disturbance outside Lusby's Music Hall. I was not there,

but, hearing of the incident, I went off to the police

station, and, on nearing it, saw a large crowd. In the dark

I could see one tall man standing in the centre, head and

shoulders above every one else, and perfectly white; this

was Falconer, who had been covered with flour by the

frequenters of the music hall. He gave evidence on this

occasion, and it is within the recollection of many that he

was entered to run on this very day in the University

Champion Bicycle Race; also the stir he made in the sporting

world by telegraphing to the course--he was staying with Mr.

Charrington on Stepney Green at the time, and Mr.

Charrington suggested it--the following words: 'The race is

safe with Dodds. I have made up my mind not to run, having

started in the race spoken of in Hebrews, chap, xii, verses

1, 2.'

"He also gave evidence at Clerkenwell Sessions against the

character of Lusby's Music Hall. While at Cambridge he

interested himself in evangelistic work, and he was mainly

instrumental in converting the Theatre into a Mission.

Through his efforts the building was purchased, and ever

since the work has been carried on with great success. It is

with melancholy interest that I turn to the notes of the

conference on the evangelisation of the world held at the

Great Assembly Hall in May last year, and read his grand

speech on the work he and his devoted young wife had

commenced in Aden; and when I peruse his still grander

oration given before the Free Church Assembly in Scotland in

the same month, it impresses upon me how great is his loss

to the Church of God. He wound up that memorable speech with

an appeal which it will be well for all to take heed to. He

said: 'There must be some who, having the cause of Christ at

heart, have ample independent means, and are not fettered by

genuine home ties. Perhaps you are content with giving

annual subscriptions and occasional donations and taking a

weekly class? Why not give yourselves--money, time, and

all--to the foreign field? Ought you not to consider

seriously what your duty is? The heathen are in darkness and

we are asleep. By subscribing money, sitting on committees,

speaking at meetings, and praying for missions, you think

you are doing the most you can to spread the Gospel abroad.

Not so. By going yourself you will produce a tenfold more

powerful effect. You have wealth snugly invested in the

Funds; you are strong and healthy; you are at liberty to

live where you like, and occupy yourself as you like. While

vast continents are shrouded in almost utter darkness, and

hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of heathenism of

Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the

circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by Him

to keep you out of the mission field.' What force, what

irresistible urgency, does his death give to this solemn

appeal for dedication to the service of the kingdom of

Christ!

"He was a proficient phonographic shorthand writer. He was a

firm friend of the tonic sol-fa system, and took the

matriculation certificate. He provided a scholarship that

bears his name at the Tonic Sol-Fa College. His work on

earth has ceased; he has now gone to his reward. Though we

feel that we can ill spare him, yet we will not grudge him

the well-earned repose he is now enjoying. He rests from his

labours, and his works do follow him. He is a witness still

that the spirit of heroism and martyrdom is not extinct, and

while men who love their lives lose them, a man who gives

his life for the Lord's sake, 'keeps it to life eternal.'

"The great Assembly Hall was crowded to its utmost extent

the Sunday after the news reached England of the death of

the Hon. Ion Keith-Falconer. The announcements of a funeral

service brought friends from all parts.

"The platform was tastefully decorated in crape, and in the

centre facing the congregation, was displayed Mr. E.

Clifford's life-like portrait of the deceased gentleman,

which he had kindly lent for the occasion. Many of the late

Mr. Falconer's personal friends were present on the

platform, including his brother-in-law, Mr. Granville Smith,

Mr. F. N. Charrington, Hon. Superintendent of the Mission,

Mr. E. H. Kerwin, Secretary, Mr. C. H. Warry, and others.

Mr. W. R. Lane was the preacher. Upon the occupants of the

platform taking their places, and in response to the

invitation of Mr. F. N. Charrington, the organist of the

hall, Mr. Day Winter, played the Dead March in _Saul_, the

audience rising and remaining standing until its conclusion.

A special service of hymns was used upon the occasion, and

distributed to the congregation upon entering the building.

They were taken in the order named.

'Let saints on earth in concert sing,

With those whose work is done;

For all the servants of our King,

In heaven and earth are one.'

"'Home at last, thy labour done,' 'The Son of God goes forth

to war,' and 'For ever with the Lord.'

"During the evening the choir also sang McGranahan's anthem,

'I am the Resurrection and the Life.' Mr. F. N. Charrington,

who presided, made many touching references to the deceased

gentleman, and his well-known sympathy with the work carried

on by the Tower Hamlets Mission, notably his donation of

L2000 towards the building fund of the hall in which they

were then meeting. He also made references to his brilliant

achievements at the University of Cambridge, his linguistic

proficiency, etc. Yet in spite of the undoubted future which

was in store for him in England, had he (Mr. Falconer)

devoted his exceptional abilities to his own land, fired

with missionary zeal, and at the bidding of the voice of

God, he devoted his all to His cause, and proceeded to

sacrifice his future prospects to the welfare of his

brethren in lands beyond the sea. To this noble

self-abnegation had he devoted his life, and as truly as any

of old was he a martyr to his faith, for it was in the

discharge of his self-imposed duties as a missionary that

he contracted the fever which terminated a life that was all

but limitless in its possibilities.

"'He rests from his labours, and his works do follow him.'

Although inscrutable were God's ways, yet they could bow to

His ruling and say, 'Thy will be done.' He had but gone

before. Mr. G. H. Warry led the congregation again in

prayer, and after the singing of one of the hymns mentioned

above, Mr. E. H. Kerwin spoke, and then read the appropriate

Scripture to be found in 1 Corinthians, chap. xv, commencing

at the 26th verse. Mr. W. Lane followed with a very earnest

and solemn address."

Of Mr. Charrington's private loss what can I say here? I think those

who have followed me thus far will realise what a crushing blow it

was. I am loth to intrude upon the sanctities of private grief: I can

only say that from my conversations with the surviving member of that

happy, Christian brotherhood, I know that the loss is, even to-day,

after so many years, as fresh and keen as ever.

And I know that not one of the least of my friend's hopes and

anticipations is that of once more meeting in Heaven the man he loved

so well on earth.

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE OF THE MUSIC HALLS

There was a time when the name "Charrington" was, for quite a

considerable period, a household word in England.

The reason for this was not because the public had suddenly awakened

to the fact that among them was a man who had given up all that makes

life dear to ordinary people, who lived a remote and buried life in

the far East End, denying himself everything, and working for Christ

among folk as sordid and savage as those to be found in any distant

land, but because this same "Charrington" had presumed--actually

presumed!--to interfere with the immoral pleasures of London.

I have called this chapter THE BATTLE OF THE MUSIC HALLS, and well, I

think, does the title epitomise the story I have to tell.

It is a dual story. It shows Frederick Charrington himself going into

the gravest personal danger, and fighting the most tremendous of

fights with a few devoted adherents, and it also tells of efforts made

in the newly-constituted forum which was to rule the destinies of

London--the London County Council.

I will begin with the "Battle of the Music Halls" proper.

In connection with Mr. Charrington's campaign against the music-halls

of the East End, and one in particular, one of the most sensational

law cases upon record held the public mind for a considerable time.

I shall shortly quote from those legal proceedings, shall draw upon a

store of drama, unequalled in the history of Evangelism.

And, as an introduction, I shall tell certain facts of the inner

history of this affair which have never yet been published, and which

I have wrung from Mr. Charrington, with his reluctant consent to use

them.

Let me begin, then.

Mr. Charrington's attention was first called to the question of music

halls by something that a poor man, to whom he was speaking one day,

said to him.

This poor fellow was in great distress of mind, and in the course of

the conversation, he was asked if he was a married man.

His reply was, "No; those reptiles at ---- ruined my wife."

The man mentioned the name of a certain music hall, and his

earnestness of demeanour, his profound sorrow, gave Mr. Charrington

food for thought. He had known, of course, that the music halls of

those days were centres of evil. Now he came to think that the evil

might be even greater than he had previously imagined.

It must be remembered that I am writing of a time quite remote from

the present.

I know little of the music halls of to-day, though once or twice I

have watched a spectacle of shifting colour and extraordinary grace,

accompanied by lovely music, at a certain palace of amusement in the

West End.

I know nothing more than this--personally--but, from inquiries, I am

well aware that the music halls of to-day are very much improved for

the better. And, as I read in my daily paper that His Majesty the

King, accompanied by his court, has witnessed a performance at the

chief music hall of London, it seems obvious that these places are

nothing like what they used to be. So, in reading of this Homeric

contest made by Frederick Charrington, you must transport yourselves

into the past, and realise that I am speaking of old days.

While Mr. Charrington's attention was being drawn to the music halls

of the East End--by the incident previously referred to--an American

friend of his came into his house one evening, and said, in great

agitation, "I have just seen a horrible thing. I was passing the door

of a music hall when a man, with a girl upon his arm, was just

entering the gates. I saw a woman, evidently his wife--for she had a

wedding ring on her finger, and recognised him at once--rush up to

this man and cry out, 'Oh, John, whom have you got there?' The man

hesitated for a moment, and as he did so, the girl left his arm and

rushed inside the place.

"The man turned his head, looked at his wife with an evil expression,

and then hurried in after his companion. The poor wife naturally

attempted to follow them both, but the man in uniform at the door

stretched out both his arms and stopped her, saying, 'Oh, no, we don't

want you in here.'"

This new incident stirred Mr. Charrington's indignation afresh, and he

thought, "If this is a fair sample, these places ought to be called

music _hells_ instead of music halls."

He determined to see for himself whether this was an isolated case or

not. Further investigations proved that it was not so, as I shall

shortly show.

He soon found out what the character of these places really was, but,

believing that most people were ignorant of their horrible character,

he began active steps immediately.

The first thing he did was to see what powers the law could enforce in

cases of the kind. He found that the law _was_ quite strong enough to

deal with them, as a clause existed to the effect that _any person

could be dealt with who harboured prostitutes_; for the purpose of

prostitution or not.

This, Mr. Charrington thought, was quite enough, and after he had done

all he could, by personal influence, to deter respectable people from

going to a certain notorious East End hall, in due course he opposed

the license at the Quarter Sessions at Clerkenwell.

This, however, had but little result. Although in one year he actually

proved by witnesses prostitution to be going on in three parts of the

premises of the hall in question. To his horror and amazement, the

magistrates (with a few noble exceptions) allowed the license to

continue, although every minister of religion in East London,

including the Bishop of Bedford, and 1800 respectable inhabitants,

signed the protest against the house as "the nightly resort of

prostitutes."

Mr. Charrington's worst fears as to the evil results of music halls

were one morning more than confirmed by reading in the _Daily News_--

"On Saturday morning a young medical student named R---- shot himself

with a revolver while at a house in Brompton Crescent, Fulham Road,

where he had passed the night. It appears that he met a female outside

the Pavilion Music Hall on Friday night, and accompanied her to her

home. In the morning, during her absence to get some tea for him, the

report of firearms was heard. Police constable S----, of the B.

Division, was called in, and found the deceased lying on the bed,

bleeding from the forehead, with a six-chambered revolver fully loaded

under his leg, with the exception of one which had recently been

discharged. Dr. R---- saw the man soon afterwards and found life

extinct. A letter was found upon the deceased addressed to his mother

in Mildmay Park, Islington. The deceased was about twenty years of

age, and was a pupil to Dr. L----, of Kensington."

Now the mother of this unhappy young man had been previously asked to

assist him financially in his campaign against the music halls. She

was the only person Mr. Charrington _had_ ever asked to help him. She

was a very wealthy woman, but nevertheless she refused utterly!

Mr. Charrington's mind was made up. A definite campaign was determined

on, and the determination resulted in a battle which, for its sheer

fearlessness, audacity, and far-reaching consequences, is probably

unexampled in the chronicles of missionary effort in England.

In order that the personal testimony of Mr. Charrington may be

supplemented by public words, I quote what _Punch_ said in one of its

issues at that period.

"It is, however, in the disgraceful scenes enacted in the

drinking-bars and saloons attached to these halls that the

greatest evils exist--evils which cannot fail of exercising

a fatal influence upon the frequenters of these places, of

both sexes, who, in the first instance, go to hear a song,

but become initiated in vice and immorality, rendered more

easy and dangerous by the seductive influences by which they

are surrounded. The more respectable the hall, the more

prominent is this feature. These saloons are filled by men

about town of all ages and conditions, with and without

characters. There may be seen the young and inexperienced

clerk, the heartless skittle-sharp and blackleg, the

patrician _roue_ and the plebeian fancy-man. This mixed

crowd of folly and vice keep up a continued chattering,

composed of obscene and vulgar repartees, to the great

annoyance of the decent tradesman or working man who,

accompanied by his wife or sweetheart, may have visited the

hall with the delusive hope of hearing some good singing,

but whose ears are thus polluted with vulgarity and slang.

It is this sort of thing that has driven, and is driving,

the respectable portion of society from these halls; and it

is to provide attraction for the more spicy patrons that

comic ladies and other sensation performances have been

introduced. In these saloons the scenes that used to be

enacted in the lobbies and saloons of theatres are

reproduced, even in a worse and more offensive form."

The first definite step that Mr. Charrington took was to write a

tract, which he caused to be disseminated very largely.

I give extracts from it here. It is not a great literary effort by any

means--Frederick Charrington's life has been far too strenuous for any

dilettante toying with words. But it is, at any rate, a direct and

forcible appeal, written in language which those for whose ears it was

destined were well able to understand.

There was a picture in this tract--which I have before me as I write.

The art of reproduction in those days was in its infancy. The thing is

a rude wood-cut, of what we should think to-day appalling crudity. And

yet, the picture had its effect, no less than the strong words which

accompanied it.

I see, in faded ink, a young man, whose state of indecision is well

shown by the almost impossible puerility of his face. On one side of

him there is a very concrete devil, as horned and horrible as those

creations of the monkish mind in the middle ages which adorned--or

defaced--the pages of missals. The devil is offering this young man

the sinful pleasures of the world--the sinful pleasures being shown in

a few crude symbols--a large tankard, dice, and cards!

Upon the other side is an Angel of light, pointing to the Crown of

Life, and to that happiness which "hath the promise of the life that

now is, as well as that which is to come."

In our time such a thing would be laughed at. In those days it was

doubtless as good as many other efforts of its kind. Be that as it

may, who shall laugh or sneer at an earnest and well-meant effort to

engage the thoughts of the passer-by?

Engage the thoughts of the passer-by it certainly did--and the

accompanying words, from which I make extracts, were read all over

the East End of the Metropolis.

"This is a picture of you, reader. The devil is striving on

one side to lead you down to Hell, by the alluring

temptations of sinful indulgence. The Holy Spirit on the

other side is striving with your heart and conscience to

lead you up to Heaven; and God, by His word, is now saying,

'Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.' Nothing will avail

you but an entire change of heart, or conversion. Our Lord

says to you, 'Except a man be born again, he cannot see the

kingdom of God' (John iii. 3); and again in verse five he

says, 'Ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.' You can go

to the theatre or music hall, and there your eyes can gaze

upon the indecent dance, and there you can hear the filthy

song, but unless you are born again, you can never see the

glories of Heaven, and you will never hear the song of the

redeemed. You may enter the swinging doors of the

public-house, and take the intoxicating cup as you stand in

the way of sinners; you may enter that house (which is the

way to Hell, leading down to the chambers of death), but

unless you are born again, you will never enter through the

pearly gates of the city, and you will never meet with loved

ones gone before. In conclusion, 'the wages of sin is death;

but the gift of God is Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our

Lord.' God grant that you may accept the gift instead of

earning the wages; 'that as ye have yielded your members

servants unto uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity;

even so now yield your members servants unto holiness.'

"A time is coming when God will say, 'He which is filthy,

let him be filthy still; and he that is holy, let him be

holy still,' but 'Now is the accepted time, now is the day

of salvation.'

"'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God'

(Romans x. 17), therefore come and hear the Gospel at the

great Assembly Hall, Mile End Road, open every evening."

Thus the tract, which already began to create considerable interest,

and to agitate the neighbourhood in no small way.

Like a good general, Frederick Charrington followed up one blow with

another. He collected all his forces, and night after night outside

Lusby's Music Hall he was found distributing tracts, with his friend

Keith-Falconer and other helpers.

He stood at the very door of this music hall, and took every possible

opportunity of entering into conversation with such people as

responded to his tentative advances. Many and many a man and woman,

who were going to this place with nothing but sensual and material

thoughts, were given pause by the proffer of a tract, or, more often

still, by a few earnest words from the young evangelist and his

helpers.

The scenes at this time--outside the flaring front of the music

hall--were extraordinary. I do not propose to enter into many details,

simply because they will be well seen in the legal evidence which is

to follow. It is sufficient to say that the proprietors of the hall

brought an action against Mr. Charrington, and the records of that

_cause celebre_ tell their own story.

But there are certain incidents, as I said in an earlier part of this

chapter, which have never before been made public, and which I had

some difficulty in obtaining my friend's permission to record.

This Lusby's Music Hall was, without doubt, a sink of iniquity. It was

notorious in the locality, but it also spread its evil tentacles

westwards. The well-to-do, foolish, and drunken young "bloods" of the

period--I believe "masher" was their designation at the time--used to

drive down in cabs from Piccadilly and haunt Lusby's in pursuit of the

girls of the East End. It was a new sensation. It provided an

evening's amusement quite out of the common.

One night during Mr. Charrington's campaign, five young men arrived

from the West End in evening dress. As they were entering the music

hall, Mr. Charrington and his friends spoke to them in no uncertain

way. I have been told--and I feel quite sure--that the remonstrances

addressed to them were made in the most quiet, gentlemanly, and

unobtrusive manner. At any rate, these people were horribly enraged.

There are two things you must not do if you wish to be popular with

worldly men. You must not wound any man's vanity, and you must not

interfere with his guilty pleasures.

Charrington and Ion Keith-Falconer, both of them men of breeding and

position themselves, hit these young aristocrats from Piccadilly too

hard. A remonstrance from some earnest but illiterate tub-thumper

might have been passed by with a light laugh, or at most a sneer. In

this case an evil and malignant anger was aroused. These young men

were again accosted, and their resentment was thereby heightened to

fever heat.

With faces flushed with drink, their eyes blazing with anger, they

advanced to the young evangelist, loudly expressing their

determination to "do for him."

Then occurred, in an instant, one of the most pathetic and dramatic

things of which I have ever heard.

Several wretched girls, who had been with these young men, plying

their dreadful trade and hoping to reap a richer reward than usual,

turned round upon their patrons.

They made a ring round Frederick Charrington, snarling like tigresses,

and using--so Mr. Charrington has told me--the most appalling and

awful language it is possible to conceive.

They told the young men from the West End that they would tear them to

pieces rather than that they should touch a single hair of Mr.

Charrington's head.

It all occurred out in the public street, and only a Zola could

describe the occurrence as it really happened. What I myself have

heard from Mr. Charrington is horrible enough. These poor women must

indeed at that moment have been inspired by something beyond their

knowledge or understanding.

There is good in all of us. The latent good in these poor creatures

was stirred into activity, and they defended the man whom they

believed was doing his best to spoil their business and ruin their

trade, with the ferocity of wolves, and the shrieking courage of the

hyena at bay.

In the result, the young aristocrats were so taken aback that they

grew pallid with shame and fear. All thoughts of aggression left them,

and they simply turned tail and fled away down the flaring

thoroughfare of the Mile End Road.

They went back to their own place and concocted a scheme together--a

scheme which was to result in the "outing" of Frederick Charrington.

They engaged several low-class pugilists, sent them down to Lusby's

Music Hall in cabs, with the direction to thrash Charrington within an

inch of his life. They were to do him all possible bodily harm which

stopped short of actually killing him, and were each promised a five

pound note for the work.

These hired bullies went into the music hall and stood at the door.

They drank sufficiently to loosen their tongues, and the manager of

the hall heard, through one of his satellites, what was on foot. The

manager, a shrewd business man, at once saw that, if these fellows

were allowed to carry out their dastardly plan, such an uprising and

stir of public opinion would take place, that the hall would be swept

out of existence. He deputed an emissary to treat these prize-fighters

with champagne. This was done with such success that they became

helpless for any evil purpose, and were put into cabs and sent back

home.

Mr. Charrington knew nothing of this organised attempt until some time

afterwards.

All these incidents made it imperative for the proprietors of the

music hall to take some action if they were to keep the place open.

The armies of Christ were at their very doors, they must needs defend

their stronghold by every means in their power.

In the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, on February 12,

1885, before Mr. Justice Chitty, the case of CROWDER _versus_

CHARRINGTON was called.

"Mr. Ince, Q.C., and Mr. Francis Turner, instructed by Messrs.

Peckham, Maitland and Peckham, appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mr.

Romer, Q.C., with whom was Mr. Charles Mitchell, instructed by Messrs.

Shaen, Roscoe, Henderson and Co., appeared for the defendant.

"This action was brought by Messrs. Crowder and Payne, the owners of

Lusby's Tavern and Music Hall, in the Mile End Road, to restrain the

defendant, Mr. Charrington, who is carrying on a Mission Hall about a

hundred yards from plaintiffs' premises, from annoying them in their

business, and from making representations, by the distribution of

tracts or otherwise, to the plaintiffs' injury."

It is impossible to give more than certain extracts from these

celebrated proceedings, which are even now not forgotten. I must at

least print the testimony of two girls, who had been rescued by Mr.

Charrington from the dreadful life that they were leading. They were

rescued by him and placed in good situations. Their past life, with

all its shame and horror, seemed quite obliterated. No one, in their

new surroundings, had the slightest idea of what they had been. But

when Mr. Charrington was engaged in the lawsuit, both these girls came

forward and voluntarily gave testimony--surely one of the noblest

instances of gratitude, that rarest of qualities, upon record!

One girl deposed as follows--

"I am nearly twenty-one years of age. I remember being taken to the

hall one night in 1880. A young man took me. I had drink given me at

the bar of a public house. I had more than was good for me. The young

man then took me away and seduced me. After that I attended the hall

habitually.

"Sometimes I used to go by myself, and sometimes with other girls. I

used to go there for the purpose of prostitution.

"A great many other girls used to go there as well for the same

purpose. I have often met young men there, and taken them to houses of

ill-fame. I sometimes have returned to the hall. Sometimes I had to

pay for re-admission, but not always.

"Prostitutes were in the habit of drinking at the bars; they had been

in the habit of being treated at the bar. They frequently used to be

there in considerable numbers, and often got tipsy.

"The men at the hall door never objected to my going into it, and I

never saw other prostitutes objected to. I have now left that life. In

1881 I went into a home maintained by Lady ----. I am now in domestic

service and am leading a virtuous life.

"I used to attend the hall every night. I used to get my living by

attending the hall. I never walked the streets. I had been living a

modest life up to then. I have often been intoxicated in the music

hall itself. I used as a rule to hang about the bars."

The other young woman who had been rescued, also came forward and bore

her testimony--

She said she first went to ---- on Christmas Eve, 1880, with a young

man, and had too much to drink at the bar there, was taken away to a

house and seduced. She afterwards led an immoral life, and frequented

the music hall for the purposes of prostitution. Going in

unaccompanied by anybody, she used to get men in the hall to go home

with her. Many other girls attended it in the same way. She was

treated there by men. On one occasion was present in a box in the

music hall when an act of prostitution was committed, and knew another

girl who had done the same thing. After taking men out of the hall she

would go back again the same evening, and was on these occasions

readmitted without payment. Other prostitutes were allowed to do the

same. They were passed in by the man in uniform at the gate. Was never

refused admission to the hall, and did not know of other prostitutes

being stopped. Mentioned as attending the place, the keeper of the

brothel to which she used to take men. She led that life for a

twelvemonth, constantly attending at the music hall, except for about

two months. Eventually she was persuaded by Mr. Charrington to enter a

home. She had since lived a moral life, and was now a domestic

servant.

[Illustration: CHARRINGTON'S MORAL MICROSCOPE

A cartoon during the Music Hall Campaign

[_To face p. 118._]

Henry Ward Beecher describes the bitter experience of such an one, in

the following words--

"That one who gazed out at the window, calling for her mother and

weeping, was right tenderly and purely bred. She has been baptised

twice--once to God and once to the Devil. She sought this place in the

very vestments of God's House. 'Call not on thy mother! she is a saint

in Heaven, and cannot hear thee.' Yet, all night long she dreams of

home and childhood, and wakes to sigh and weep; and between her

sobs she cries, 'Mother! Mother!'"

And well may he exclaim--

"Oh, Prince of torment! if thou hast transforming power, give some

relief to this once innocent child, whom another has corrupted! Let

thy deepest damnation seize him who brought her hither! Let his

coronation be upon the very mount of torment, and the rain of fiery

hail be his salutation! He shall be crowned by thorns poisoned and

anguish-bearing; and every woe beat upon him, and every wave of hell

roll over the first risings of baffled hope. Thy guilty thoughts and

guilty deeds shall flit after thee with bows which never break, and

quivers for ever emptying but never exhausted. If Satan hath one dart

more poisoned than another; if God hath one bolt more transfixing and

blasting than another; if there be one hideous spirit more unrelenting

than others; they shall be thine, most execrable wretch, 'who led her

to forsake the guide of her youth, and to abandon the covenant of her

God.'"

I think I cannot do better now than give my readers the evidence Mr.

Charrington gave before Mr. Justice Chitty during the case.

"I am the Hon. Superintendent of the Tower Hamlets Mission, Mile End

Road. The Mission-house is about twenty or thirty houses off the music

hall. I am a guardian of the poor, and also a vestryman. I have been

Hon. Superintendent since the year 1869, and have devoted the whole of

that time to missionary work in the East End. I made considerable

sacrifices on leaving the brewery, in order to devote myself to the

work of the Mission. Since 1880 I have, amongst other things,

distributed tracts, etc., and endeavoured to persuade people not to go

to the music halls, and have also endeavoured to rescue prostitutes

from their evil courses. My efforts have not been solely confined to

the music halls. The three tracts produced were amongst others I have

given away. My ground for persuading people not to go to the music

hall was because I found it was the nightly resort of prostitutes. I

have watched the hall from the year 1880 up to the time of the fire,

and also to a certain extent since the fire. I used to go down night

after night as a rule, from about eleven o'clock till nearly one

o'clock in the morning. I occasionally went earlier in the evening

when the people were going into the hall. I used especially to speak

to and remonstrate with prostitutes who used to go in and out of the

house. I used to use an expression when I first went there, that the

place literally swarmed with prostitutes. Numbers of prostitutes went

into the hall unattended by men. I have seen brothel-keepers going

night after night into the house with their women with them. I may

mention especially a woman named Becky Hart. I have seen her with two

and three poor young girls. She was a most notorious brothel-keeper,

living in the Canal Road, Mile End Road. Another well-known

brothel-keeper with her girls was also there nightly. She was known by

the name of Fraser; no one could mistake her, she being excessively

stout. There were also two or three other brothel-keepers, whom I knew

very well by sight, who used to go to the hall regularly, and also

take their girls with them. Two of these brothel-keepers, a man and

his wife, kept a house in Cleveland Street, the very next turning to

the music hall. They used to go backwards and forwards continually

during the evening, from the brothel in Cleveland Street. This

brothel-keeper was thrown out of the hall one night, very drunk, and I

caught him in my arms to prevent him from falling on the pavement. He

then said to me, 'It's a great shame to treat me in this way, for I

bring my girls here constantly.' I used to see him and his girls going

into the hall night after night, and the girls leaving it after with

men. I persuaded the man and his wife to give up the brothel. I have

been requested by the man to visit one of the girls when she was

dying. I have seen them night after night go out from the music hall

with customers, sometimes with respectable-looking, well-dressed men,

apparently from the West End of London, the girls having previously

gone into the hall with their keepers. I have seen them go to the cabs

that usually stand in a rank outside the hall. I have heard them tell

the cabmen to drive to well-known brothel-houses. I have sent

messengers to follow them to the houses for my own satisfaction,

because I wanted to know positively if they did drive to the brothels.

I have seen a girl do this kind of thing twice during a night. I have

seen that on more than one occasion. I have seen them get into cabs; I

have heard the cabmen ask them where to drive to. I have said to the

cabmen, 'You know where you are going to drive them to. You know

perfectly well, cabman, the brothel to which they are attached. You

live by these wretched women's trade.' I have seen numbers of women

come out of the halls drunk. I have seen them when they have been

drunk behaving in a most disgraceful way, and using the foulest

language. On one occasion I saw three prostitutes take away with them

from the hall three seafaring men, apparently captains or mates of

vessels. They tried to get into a four-wheeled cab--all six of them.

While they were getting into the cab I remonstrated with them, and

told them they were ruining themselves, body and soul, going with such

women to such places. I made use of the words, 'her house is the way

to Hell, going down to the chambers of death.' One of the three men

said, 'I think I will be out of this.' Another one said, 'It is

getting rather hot for us.' They seemed to agree that what I said was

true, and the result was that they got out of the cab. The three

women, when the men walked away, turned round on one another, and

fought together on the pavement, in front of the hall. I went into the

midst of them, separated them, and persuaded them to leave off

fighting. They were using all the time most filthy language, and

causing a crowd to assemble. On another occasion I saw four

prostitutes bringing down from the hall a particularly gentlemanly-looking

young man, not only evidently a gentleman, but a well-bred one. He

undoubtedly belonged to a good family in the West End. He was a little

drunk. Those four prostitutes were half pulling and half dragging him

from the hall to one of the cabs standing, as usual, in front of the

hall. He struggled and tried to release himself from the grasp of the

women. I appealed to a policeman to rescue the man. I said to the

policeman, 'This is simply highway robbery,' the man being taken off

by force. I tried my best to rescue him when the police declined to

interfere. There were plenty of prostitutes' bullies about the hall.

These bullies used to frequent the hall nightly. They were

unfortunately too strong for me, and the result was that the women

took the young man off with them in a cab. I could multiply these

instances, which were constantly occurring night after night. I have

seen brothel-keepers come out with gentlemen, they having gone in

alone. I have seen them standing on a pavement persuading men to go

home with girls, and at the same time I have been persuading them not

to do so. On one occasion a seafaring man, apparently a captain or

mate of a vessel, came out of the hall so very drunk that he was

incapable of taking care of himself. Two prostitutes came out with him

partly holding him up and partly dragging him along. They got him

half-way across the pavement towards the cabs in front of the hall.

The cabmen, I found, as a rule, were only too anxious to help the

prostitutes and their customers. The cabman, in this instance, came

and helped the prostitutes, partly by pushing and partly by

persuasion, to get the man near the cab. I managed to stop him just

before he got to the cab, and endeavoured to persuade him not to go

with the women. The cabman and the women tried in the meantime to

persuade the man to go with them, the man hesitating. I then appealed

to a policeman who was standing near apparently on duty, to interfere.

I called his attention to the fact that the man was helplessly drunk,

wearing a gold chain, and no doubt having money in his pocket. I said

to the policeman, 'This is simply highway robbery.' The policeman

refused to interfere at all, and the result was that the two women,

aided by the cabman, took the man away. I said to the women and the

cabman, 'I'll run after you and get two policemen who will do their

duty.' The cabman drove his horse as fast as he could. I ran after him

till I came up to two policemen on duty a little farther up the road.

I appealed to them, and they did their duty, saying to the women, 'You

get out of this or we'll give you a night's lodging.' They said to the

cabman, 'You had better mind what you are about.' Signals were then

passed between the prostitutes and the cabman, which proved to me that

the cabman was only going round another street to meet them again. I

pursued the cab, followed by bullies from the hall. I outran the

bullies, overtook the cab, and succeeded in getting the man out of the

cab. I have seen prostitutes stopped going into the hall, but that was

not during the first eighteen months or two years I worked outside the

hall. After about that time a number of prostitutes came round me one

night outside the hall and said I was stopping them from getting a

living. I have seen prostitutes turned back from the hall on one

occasion, after about eighteen months from the time I had commenced

working. The prostitutes said to me, 'It is through you we are being

turned out of the hall, and are prevented from getting our living in

consequence, and you know we are getting our living there.' Great

disorder arose outside the hall when prostitutes came out drunk; upon

several occasions disorder took place. On one particular occasion a

prostitute came out drunk, marched up and down in front of the house,

shouting and causing a great disturbance. She said, 'It is by the

likes of us that Crowder and Payne get their living.' After the time I

have spoken of the prostitutes seemed to go in and out of the hall as

they liked. I used to take a number of tracts with me when I went

outside the hall. I used to offer them to people going in and out of

the hall and to passers-by on the pavement. If people refused to take

the tract offered I allowed them to pass on. Sometimes, however, they

would enter into conversation with me. I then used to draw them aside

to the waste ground between the road and the pavement. My doing this

did not cause a disturbance nor a mob to assemble. There were

occasions, however, on which disturbances took place; one occasion

when flour was thrown over me by some person from the direction of the

hall; on another occasion human filth was thrown on me from an upper

window of the hall. I have been assaulted on a great many occasions by

roughs from the music hall, prostitutes' bullies being amongst them.

On one occasion one of the roughs followed me and assaulted me. I gave

him into custody and he was sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment.

That was in June, 1883. I did not know the man who assaulted me. These

assaults caused mobs to assemble. I remember in October, 1883, I was

assaulted and driven across the road. The disturbance arose from an

angry mob of roughs coming out of the hall and surrounding me. They

asked me what I meant by trying to ruin the music hall, by taking

away its licence. That, of course, caused a large number of people to

crowd together and look on. I appealed in vain to the police who were

there for protection, but I did not get it. They said, 'If you like it

you can get mobbed.' I walked across the road and asked for protection

at the station house. I did nothing on that occasion to cause the

disturbance. It is not true that whenever I was in front of the hall

disturbances took place. I have been there scores and scores of nights

alone distributing tracts, and no disturbance has taken place.

Disturbances have not been caused by my missionary work. The largest

number of friends who ever accompanied me was eighteen, and out of

that number there would be two or three ladies. All these friends used

to be engaged in the missionary work. The average number accompanying

me was about three or four. Only on about twelve to twenty occasions a

dozen or more persons were with me. In one year I went to the hall

about a hundred nights. I have rescued several of the prostitutes who

used to regularly frequent the hall. It is not true that I and my

friends have ever tried to form a barrier round the door of the hall

to prevent people from going into it. It was in consequence of the

manager of the hall inciting the mob to assault me that a barrier was

formed round the door of the hall. I have never stopped any person

going into the hall by physical force. I have never followed a person

across the threshold of the hall. I have seen officials connected with

the hall incite people to attack me. A door-keeper named Young has

done so. The manager, Mr. Friend, on one particular occasion said to

the mob, 'Halloa, boys, make a row,' but they did not appear to be

very responsive. He has incited the people to attack me on more than

one occasion. He often stood in the entrance hall cursing and swearing

at me, and at times he would address the people from the hall. On one

occasion he said to a man, 'He is a very good advertisement for the

house.' He has used very foul and abusive language towards me. On one

occasion he so lost control of himself that the passers-by stood still

and looked at him in amazement. The wife of the shop-keeper next door

has also used foul language towards me. Mr. Friend's action has caused

great crowds to assemble. I am bound to say I have, as a rule, had

great sympathy from the crowd. Working men would say, 'Go it,

Charrington, and put an end to that den of iniquity.' Mr. Crowder has

assaulted me, and has also incited others to assault me. Mr. Crowder

used to walk beside me pushing me about, and causing a crowd to

assemble. On one occasion he stood on the box-seat of a carriage and

incited a mob against me, and on another he used a most horrible and

foul expression towards me, which I would not like to repeat. On a

Monday night in particular the roughs did rush out of the hall at a

signal from Mr. Crowder, and surrounded me. Crowder then said,

'Police, take him up for obstructing the thoroughfare.' I managed to

get away from the roughs on to the waste ground near the pavement. I

said to the police, 'I am not obstructing the thoroughfare.' Crowder,

however, gave me into custody, and Mr. Friend signed the charge

sheet. I was locked up all night, and the following morning the

magistrate dismissed the charge, observing that an action would lie

against the people who had given me into custody for false

imprisonment. I have been frequently threatened by roughs. From the

waste ground I have addressed people, but not from the pavement. None

of these addresses caused the pavement to be blocked. I have spoken to

a number of girls whom I have known to be prostitutes, urging them to

abandon their course of life. I have never called them by such a name;

I used to call them by their Christian names, because I knew most of

them. I have never called a woman a ---- because she would not take a

tract. I have never said that none but prostitutes went into the hall,

but I said that numbers of them went there. I was here when Mr.

Payne's father gave his evidence. I have said to him, 'You ought to be

ashamed of yourself to bring a young girl to such a place,' or words

to that effect. I meant just the opposite to what Mr. Payne implied,

because I could see that the young girl was respectable. I said

nothing on that occasion that could be construed into an imputation on

the girl's character. I heard Piggott give his evidence. On several

occasions he has threatened me. He seemed to be always at the hall; in

fact, he made it a custom to be there. He told me he supplied

plaintiff with wine and spirits. On one occasion he followed me about

with an oak stick. He shook it in my face and swore he would do for me

if he followed me all over London. He was so excited that I feared

every moment he would drop down in a fit. I have said that the hall

is the way to hell, because there were so many prostitutes attending

it. I have never said that it was hell itself. I deny that anything I

have done has caused a riot or disturbance. M----, H----, and C----are

three girls who gave evidence for me on a motion for injunction: C----

is not now in this country. These girls used to attend the music hall;

they were prostitutes. I rescued them from that life."

Mr. Charrington then left the box, having been in it four hours and a

half.

It is interesting, as throwing a light upon the character of Frederick

Charrington, and the way in which his efforts were viewed by the most

astute legal intellect of that day, to paraphrase the words of the

judge who decided the issue of the case. I simply use those sentences

from the bench which refer to the personal character of Mr.

Charrington.

"The plaintiffs have, for some years past, carried on the business of

a music hall, in the Mile End Road, the music hall being commonly

known as Lusby's Music Hall. The defendant is a gentleman, the son of

a well-known brewer, who has apparently given up a lucrative position

in the brewery for the purpose of devoting himself to missionary work,

and he has established a missionary hall in the neighbourhood.

"The question before me, then, is one of fact. Unquestionably on

several occasions, when the defendant has been present, considerable

disturbance has been caused by the crowds which have assembled. The

evidence is, that these crowds have been brought together, not by the

acts of the defendant, but by the conduct of the plaintiffs

themselves, and their agents, and other persons connected immediately

with the music hall.

"Lusby's Music Hall is, as I have said, situated in the Mile End Road;

and there is a paved footway in front of it of some thirty feet or so

in breadth, and then, between the paved footway and the carriage-road,

there is a piece of ground which some of the witnesses described as

waste ground, and others as roughly paved, of about ten feet or so in

breadth.

"The other witnesses, of whom Mr. Rainsford, who is a clergyman, I

will select as an example, spoke also to the defendant's demeanour.

His demeanour on these occasions is quiet and gentlemanly and

courteous; and one of the plaintiff's witnesses, Mr. Dale, spoke of

him, in cross-examination, in similar terms. Sometimes the person to

whom he offers a tract responds with a sharp word, but on the

evidence, as it stands, there is no ground for saying that the

offering of the tract brings him into any angry or noisy altercation

with any person to whom he is offering it, even those who have

rejected it. He said, about one-third of the times that he has been

there (he has been there on numerous occasions), he has been alone,

and sometimes he goes with two or three friends, who are also engaged

in missionary work, and occasionally, he said as many as from twelve

to eighteen. Mr. Grenfell, whom I have already mentioned, spoke of him

as having a _remarkable ascendancy over the persons whom he met on

this pathway_; sometimes he also was accompanied by ladies.

"In my opinion, as the result of the evidence, all these persons

conducted themselves in an orderly manner. They do not, as was alleged

on the part of the plaintiffs, and particularly by the plaintiff

Crowder, in his evidence, form a 'living barricade,' nor do they

cause, in my opinion, any obstruction to the highway.

"Now, the defendant says that plaintiffs and their servants, and

particularly their manager, have been the real cause of such

disturbances as have arisen. The principal offender is Mr. Friend, the

manager, whose testimony I cannot rely upon. Young stands on a level

with him. Young was the doorkeeper, and was not called as a witness.

Mr. Crowder and Mr. Payne have certainly, each of them, taken some

part in creating the disturbances, though in a less degree than Friend

and Young. Now, the witness Howes, who also gave his testimony,

amongst other witnesses, described what was done by some of these

persons whom I have named. They walk up and down with Mr. Charrington.

I should say that his beat, or his patrol, if I may use such a term,

appears to be a distance of about thirty yards each way from the music

hall; and they not only walk up and down with him, but, according to

Howes, they tread on his heels, and a mob accompanies them as they go.

"Mr. Mason, the shorthand writer, who also gave his evidence

admirably, was a witness to the same effect. As Mr. Kerwin, another

witness for the defendant, said (and I believe him rather than the

plaintiffs' witnesses on this point), if Mr. Charrington had been left

to himself, there would have been no crowd and no disturbance. What

they said is this: I mean, what Friend particularly does, and Young

also; they try to incite the passers-by, and those persons who are

coming from the music hall are irritated. Well, it is said, it is

natural they are irritated; I have no doubt, and it is a fair

observation to make, that they are, to some extent, naturally incited

against him. They look upon this as a crusade against the music hall;

but they have gone far beyond, in my opinion, what they were justified

in doing. They called on the mob to shout, and, on several occasions,

certainly, Friend has tried to incite them, by saying, 'Halloa, boys,

halloa!'

"They assail him with foul and filthy language and they have cursed

him and they have sworn at him; they have assailed him with flour and

with pease-pudding; they have knocked his hat off; they have kicked

him, and the roughs from the hall have certainly made a dead set upon

him. On one occasion he was assaulted, and the man was committed to

prison for three months. They have actually, some of them, thrown

human filth from the windows. On one occasion, particularly, there was

a violent attack made upon him; that is, in October 1883, and I am

satisfied that that was an organised attack. He was driven across the

road, and had to seek refuge in a police section house on the opposite

side. On one occasion they gave him in charge, and the magistrate

dismissed the case, making, I am satisfied on the result of the

evidence, observations which showed that the charge was wholly

groundless. Mr. Piggott, who was a witness for the plaintiffs (and who

denied what I am about to state, but I think he was in error; I think

Mr. Piggott was an excitable man, and a strong partisan), threatened

him with a stick. Besides this, the defendant has been kicked.

"On one occasion, Friend endeavoured to incite the mob in this way.

The witness was delivering some tracts, when Friend called on the

passers-by to assemble, and said, 'Come and see what this man is

calling your wives--nothing but common whores.' The people followed

him to a coffee house window, there were people in the street; he was

then going to read a tract, and found it was not what he wanted.

Friend, said the witness, and I am satisfied that he is right, caused

the crowd. There is some truth indeed in that metaphorical description

that Mr. Charrington in the witness box gave himself; he said he was

no more responsible than a target that is shot at. They have

maltreated his friends, or those who have assisted him. Alston, who

looks a respectable witness, was hit in the face for calling attention

to the man who had knocked in the hat of one of his friends, and the

man Young, the doorkeeper, actually committed the indignity of

spitting in his face. Kerwin, another respectable witness, was butted

in the stomach. Mr. Rainsford, the clergyman, was threatened to have a

knife put into him, and Mr. Grenfell himself was mobbed."

These are hard and definite records.

But you must picture to yourselves Frederick Charrington and Ion

Keith-Falconer accompanied by their friends, night after night--in all

weathers--conducting their campaign amid the jeers and obloquy of the

mob.

Often, from the upper windows of the music hall they were drenched

with flour, red ochre, and even more horrible things than these.

But Frederick Charrington stood there undaunted. His physical courage

was supreme. His moral courage was even greater than that. He was

determined upon the work which God had set him--he did not flinch nor

falter.

What he must have endured I only faintly hint at. It is not my design

to draw a lurid picture of that ascetic abnegation, that utter

throwing away of all that makes life sweet, which was his cheerful,

daily portion.

But I remember an old Cornish woman, whom I met on a wild,

heath-covered moor upon a windy Sunday afternoon, when we were both

leaving a little granite meeting-house, where a rugged, moorland

farmer had spoken of his spiritual experience, and his fresh-cheeked

daughters and their friends had sung hymns to the accompaniment of an

harmonium, hymns which were drowned by the rushing mighty winds.

The old lady, whom I helped over the rough tussocks of grass--she is

dead now, and, I am sure, in Heaven--turned to me, coughing and

spluttering, when we had for a moment some shelter from the wind.

"Ah!" she said, referring to the words of the preacher, "Jesus

belonged to have a brave, bad time! 'Twas a bitter nailing, sir, 'twas

a bitter nailing!"

That is the note--that is the right note in which, I think, we ought

to revere in memory those strenuous days when Frederick Charrington

dared everything for the Lord.

CHAPTER VI

THE FIGHT ON THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL

The personal campaign against Lusby's Music Hall, the astounding

details of which are found in the preceding chapter to this, was

complemented by Mr. Charrington's work upon the London County Council,

to which we find him elected as member for Mile End.

Some one has told me that after Mr. Charrington was returned to

London's local Parliament, one of his congregation at the Great

Assembly Hall remarked that he ought to be known from henceforth as

"the member for Religion." Certainly, Mr. Charrington immediately

recommenced his efforts to purify London, and these attempts--upon

such a public stage--made his name known to almost every one in

England in a very short space of time.

It was during the London Licensing Sessions that the world at large

first heard of him. It was his efforts to make the Empire, the

Aquarium, and other places of amusement, fit for the patronage of the

ordinary man or woman, that called down upon his head a tempest of

scorn, a tornado of obloquy, and induced the congratulation, the

prayers, of thousands of Christian men and women who thought with

him.

We have seen him endure personal violence of the most vindictive kind,

as he stood fighting for his convictions, outside the music halls of

the East End. We are to see him now, no less calm and dignified,

enduring the insults of the press, and the angry opposition of his

colleagues upon the Council.

Here is a little study in contrasts!

Upon one occasion, during the battle in the East End, Mr. Charrington

was arrested as causing an obstruction, and taken to the local police

court, where he was confined all night in a cell. He had his Bible

with him, and during the hours of his incarceration, he solaced

himself with the word of God. In the morning, he was accosted by a

fellow prisoner--as all the offenders of the night before were

marshalled in the passage outside the cells.

"What are you in for?" said his new friend.

"Oh, I am in for a little affair in connection with Lusby's Music

Hall," said Mr. Charrington with a smile.

The other chuckled. "Well, I never!" he said, "so am I! I sneaked a

'am from the bar of the same 'all."

There were others in that dismal company who recognised the young

evangelist who had worked so earnestly among them for so long. He

seized the opportunity. He prayed with these derelicts of the night,

and ere they were ushered into the court to stand their hurried

trials, they had all sung a hymn together, the police standing

reverently by in complete sympathy with what Mr. Charrington did. The

evangelist was liberated at once, the magistrate remarking that the

charge was perfectly unfounded, and that, if he wished. Mr.

Charrington would have his legal remedy for false imprisonment. It is

hardly necessary to say that the evangelist brought no action against

the police or their instigators. Of all the men I have ever met, he

has realised and applied the words of the Gospel to practical life. He

has always turned the other cheek.

Here is one picture. Come with me now into the debating-room of the

London County Council and see Frederick Charrington, well-dressed,

well-groomed, strikingly handsome, and with the manner of the polished

man of the world, quietly, but forcibly, combating the emissaries and

paid supporters of vice.

I believe that this, his first prominent appearance in the London

County Council, was the occasion of much surprise.

Although he had never advertised himself at all, his name was, of

course, familiar to his colleagues. Buried in the East End as he

was--and has always been--he was, nevertheless, not unknown by rumour.

The assembled members of London's parliament expected to see an

elderly, bearded man--the typical missionary among the poor. They saw,

instead, a slim and debonair gentleman, aristocratic in appearance,

and self-possessed in manner. Such shocks to preconceived notions are

not nearly so rare as people suppose. A type--of this or that

vocation--gets fixed in the public mind in some odd way. The reality

is often startlingly opposed to the expected.

Every one who looks at the photograph of Mr. Charrington in evening

clothes, which I made him have specially taken for this book, will

agree with what I say. Indeed, during his whole life in the East End,

people who have never met him before, have called upon him for

spiritual or material assistance, and have not left him without

expressing their surprise and wonder at his personal appearance. A man

once came to him who would hardly believe that he was "the" Mr.

Charrington.

"I thought I was going to see an old bloke," he mumbled in clumsy

apology, "you know, one of them old blokes with a white beard, seeing

as I'd 'eard of you for so many years."

So, when Frederick Charrington stood up to oppose the licenses of

certain notorious music halls in the West End in the London County

Council, his personal appearance and manner created a vast amount of

surprise, and, if what I have heard is true--and I have no reason to

doubt it--something of consternation also.

The Licensing Committee of the London County Council met in the

Clerkenwell Sessions House, to consider applications for music,

dancing, and theatre licenses. Mr. T. G. Fardell, Chairman of the

Committee, presided, and there was a very full attendance of members.

The Sessions House had just been under the hands of painters and

decorators. It looked quite bright and cheerful, but it proved quite

inadequate for the accommodation of those people directly interested,

and others who had gathered to hear Mr. Charrington give his evidence

and endeavour to purge London of so much that he felt inimical to

Christianity.

[Illustration: _Photo Elliot & Fry_]

FREDERICK CHARRINGTON IN 1912

[_To face p. 138._]

I have before me all the verbatim reports of that historic meeting.

The fairest and most unbiased seems to me that of the _Daily

Telegraph_, and it is from those columns that I reprint an epitome of

what occurred. I see no better way of presenting the scene as vividly

as possible than by doing this, but my readers must understand that I

have only made extracts, as the whole proceedings are far too long to

be incorporated in a book of this size.

And, moreover, I shall only print the record of Mr. Charrington's

opposition to the licenses of music halls known by name, then and now,

to the great mass of the public.

For months he had been obtaining evidence as to the character of these

places, and also of similar and less famous ones. In a general

picture, such as I wish to present, the cases of the less important

halls must be eliminated. It is sufficient to say that the opposition

to these minor licenses was as carefully considered, and as earnestly

presented, as the objection to the others.