Illustrations of Character.
“The same rains rain from heaven on all the forest trees;
Yet those bring forth sweet fruits, and pois’nous berries these.”
TRENCH.
IN my first visit to the Potteries, I was accompanied by the City
Missionary, who introduced me to some fourteen or sixteen families
residing there.
I was, as usual, at once impressed with the great deficiency of home
comforts; and the miserable countenances of many of the children told of
neglect and bad management more forcibly than words could have done.
I told them I had just come to reside near them, and I hoped we should be
good neighbours. Like them, I was so occupied with my home duties, that
I feared I should not be able to visit them frequently; but it had
occurred to me, that if they could spare an hour one evening in the week,
I would try to do so also, and we would spend it together in conversing
over our various duties and difficulties, more especially those relating
to our children, and by this means I hoped we might mutually benefit each
other, as well as get more intimately acquainted.
This invitation was by no means warmly responded to at first, but it was
the first step taken towards the formation of the Kensington Potteries
Mothers’ Society.
One morning, a very decent elderly woman, whom I had seen at the Mothers’
Meetings, asked me to call upon her husband, who had not been able to
leave his house for some weeks, and was too ill to read. In the
afternoon I went to the Potteries. Fortunately, I met a boy of my
acquaintance in the street, and he conducted me to the dwelling, which,
with the direction given me that “it was in no street in particular,”
would have proved difficult to find. I had to pass through a kind of
shed to reach the room in which this old couple lived; it was filled with
feeding-troughs, tubs, old hoops, and wheel-barrows. I managed to steer
safely through all this, and ascended two or three steps into the one
chamber which served at once for bed-room, kitchen, and living-room. The
man was sitting in a comfortable arm-chair by a neat little fire, and the
room was very clean. His hair was perfectly white, and scantily covered
one of the finest-formed heads I have ever seen. The features of his
face were of a very uncommon order, and everything marked him as one of
nature’s “men of power.” He scarcely noticed me when I entered; but his
wife said, “This is the lady, John, as has the meeting.” He said, “Oh,”
and gave me a kind of nod. The woman seemed annoyed at his want of
cordiality, and said again, “John, I have told you about the lady often,
and I went myself this morning to ask her to come and see you.”
“I know,” was the laconic answer.
I saw the first advances must come from me, so I took a seat by him, and
said, “I am sorry to hear you have been suffering from illness so long.”
“I am seventy-five years old; I have hardly had any illness all my life;
I have done a deal of work, and God has been very good to me, and I am
not going to grumble at Him now for shutting me up a few months.”
“Your wife tells me you cannot read much, on account of your eyes; I
suppose you find the time a little tedious after the active life you have
led?”
“I shouldn’t find the time tedious at all, if we were only left to
ourselves.” I looked to the wife for an explanation, and she said, “He
means, ma’am, that the neighbours hereabout annoy him so by their ways of
going on.” This touched a theme upon which he could be eloquent. He
began to tell me a great deal about the wickedness of his neighbours;
their desecration of the Sabbath seemed to vex him exceedingly. He
complained that he could get no peace on the Sunday for the cries of
those who went about selling things; while the swarms of children that
came out to spend their halfpence that day shewed how wicked their
parents must be. As I generally avoid talking of the faults of other
persons when visiting the poor, I said, wishing to change the subject,
“Well, we have so much to do with ourselves that we must not judge our
neighbours harshly.” The old man looked indignantly at me, and
exclaimed, “Do you think if God was to call me away this instant, and I
had to go to be judged before His throne, and He was to tell me of all
the wicked ways I have seen going on before my eyes, and He was to say to
me, ‘Why did you see all that sin, and not reprove it?’ do you think He’d
take for excuse my saying, ‘that I oughtn’t to judge my neighbours
harshly?’ No; depend upon it, He’d hold me guilty for it. He’d say,
‘You know’d better, and you ought to have cared for their souls, and told
’em of it.’ I have always been in the habit of reproving sin when I have
seen it, and I always shall.”
The character of Nehemiah came so forcibly into my mind while he was
speaking, that when he had ended I could not help remarking, “If you had
lived in the days of Nehemiah, I suppose you would not have disapproved
of what he did? You know, he not only reproved the people, but he smote
certain of them, and plucked out their hair.”
“Ah!” said the old man, “he was in the right of it. Whenever I reads
that, I always says, ‘Sarved ’em right.’ We want Nehemiahs bad enough
now-a-days,—people, I mean, as has got the courage to call things by
their right names.”
“But,” I replied, “we have a later example than Nehemiah to go by, and a
more perfect one. Jesus did not reprove sin in this way.”—“He made a
whip of small cords and drove them all out of the temple, I know,” said
the old man.—“So He did once,” I said; “but a whip of small cords in the
hands of Jesus is a very different thing from what it would be in our
hands.”—“I don’t understand you,” was the rejoinder.—I explained, “Jesus
would only use it where and when it ought to be used, because He would
know the extent of the evil in every heart He had to do with; but we, who
can judge only after the outward appearance, might make mistakes, and
inflict a wound where we ought rather to have bound one up.”
He was silent a minute, and then, as if unable to keep in any longer what
had evidently been in his thoughts throughout, he said, “Ma’am, I’ve
often heard from my old ’ooman and the rest of ’em what you says to ’em
at the meetings, and it has been upon my mind, when I did see you, to
tell you I think, if you know’d more about some of ’em you get there, you
would be rather more sharp upon ’em than you are.”
“You mean, I suppose, that when I know of anything particularly wrong in
any of them, I ought to reprove them?”
“Why, yes. You see, they look up to you a good deal; and, it seems to
me, you might do a power of good this way.”
“I think you do not take quite the right view of my position. I do not
profess to come amongst them as a reprover of sin, and just to preach to
them about their duties; I really have no right to take such an office on
myself. I want to help them, knowing that many of their mistakes arise
from ignorance. Most of them come in after a hard day’s work, and much
suffering in body and mind from fatigue and anxiety; and while I know
much of that fatigue and anxiety might have been prevented, if they had
set about things in a right way instead of a wrong one, I feel the best
use I can make of the little time we have together is, to try to shew
them ‘a better way.’ We always begin with reading God’s holy Word, and
that is the best reprover of sin; for Paul says, you know, ‘I had not
known sin, except by the law.’ It was the _law_ that made sin appear to
him ‘exceeding sinful;’ and that is the effect I hope and pray it may
have upon us.”
“Well,” said the old man, “some of ’em is a deal better for going, I must
confess; but it ’pears to me you say things to them as if they were all
alike, whereas some of them is a deal wickeder than others.”
I saw it would be quite impossible to separate in the mind of this
veteran the offices of teacher of righteousness, and reprover of sin, or
to make him comprehend how many enemies I should make, and what confusion
there would be, if I adopted the course which he recommended. So I just
remarked, “Well, you know I always ask God to give me a wise and
understanding heart before I go amongst them, and I hope I shall be
guided to do what is right. If I could see into the heart as God can, I
might be able to adapt myself to individual cases; but as it is, I think
it would be a worse mistake to distress and vex, by unjust comments,
those already sufficiently weary and heavy laden. Encouragement in a
right course will often do much more than finding fault with what is
wrong. I believe, that whatever good has been done, has arisen from the
reading together of God’s Word; whether comfort, counsel, or reproof has
been wanted, they have come in this way, and the promise has been
fulfilled, ‘My word shall not return unto me void.’”
“Ah!” said he, “that blessed book! I have lived in this place through a
dark time, and I am sure I can say that it has been ‘a light to my feet,
and a lamp to my path.’” Just then a sad fit of coughing came on, which
seemed almost to deprive him of the power of breathing. When it was
over, I said, “Do you often cough like that?” “I often do in the night,”
he replied. “I can never quite lie down; for if the cough were to come
on suddenly, I might be choked before I could be got up. The doctor says
I shall go off in one of these fits some night.”
I asked the wife if any one was with them at night: she said, “Oh, no,
John isn’t never afraid.” “The last thing that I and my old ’ooman does
at night,” added John, “is to kneel down and commend ourselves to God’s
keeping. I said to her last night, after we had been praying, ‘Jane, if
I am sent for to-night, I am ready;’ and what it will be to leave this
poor place, and go right off at once to the mansion my Saviour has
provided for me!”
“Can you feel as trustful as your husband?” I asked Jane.
“Why, ma’am, I do try to, and I am as happy to think about heaven as he
is; but you see, ma’am, the thing I feel is, that we must die first
before we can go there, and death may be an awfuller thing than we think
for.”
“Jane,” cried her husband, in a reproving tone of voice, “how often I
have told you, that if death is to be a great trouble, then God is going
to send us great help for it. He took care of me and helped me when I
was a strong man, and now that I am as feeble as a child, He will be
strength to me; and, Jane, I wish you would mind, that it isn’t any more
hard to God to help us out of great troubles than out of little uns. You
wouldn’t believe, ma’am,” he continued, “how happy I am at night,
sometimes, when I am lying awake. He makes me to feel that love and
trust in Him, that as sure as David I can say, ‘I fear no evil.’”
Blessed old man! The little room, with its close atmosphere, and many
discomforts, seemed to me like the gate of heaven; and had he lived in
Old Testament days, his name might have ranked with them of whom it is
said, “These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but
having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them,
and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
A few months after I had established the Mothers’ Society, one of the
women brought a message from her husband, expressing his great wish to
see me. I promised to call in the course of the week, and the next
afternoon I found my way to a little low dwelling, which was pointed out
to me as the residence I was seeking. It consisted of only two rooms—one
in front, where the family seemed to live during the day, while that
behind served as a bed-room. Three or four children were playing on the
floor; the mother was busy at her washing-tub; and near the fire sat the
husband, who, I saw, from his leather apron and the boot he held in his
hand, was a shoemaker. The reception here was very different from the
one previously described. When the wife announced me, the man rose from
his seat; and, as his height exceeded six feet, his head scarcely cleared
the ceiling. His fine figure, the form of his head, and the expression
of his countenance, conveyed the idea that, had the man been born in a
different position, he might have risen to be Lord Chancellor. After the
usual greeting, he said (still standing)—
“Madam, I have wanted to see you for some time past, to thank you for
what you have begun to do for us. You have thought of what we want done
for us more than anything, and I hope, madam, you will go on with it; and
God will bless you for this work, and so shall many of us; for we often
think we might do better, if somebody would take the trouble to put us in
the way of it.”
I told him that I was quite rewarded for any trouble which I was taking,
by the pleasant friends I made. When I was living in the country, I had
always been accustomed to a large number of poor friends; and since
coming to London, I had missed them very much. I told him of a book
society that my brother and I had established in the village near our
house. Twelve men, like himself, (I believe, four out of the twelve were
shoemakers,) each brought a book, and on the first day of the month each
man passed on his book to the member next on the list; and thus all had
the benefit of reading twelve books at the cost of one. We had quarterly
meetings with these men, to converse about the books; I repeated to him
some of the observations they used to make, and I saw my listener was
much amused.
“Ah!” said he, “I lived in the country, too, before I came here; but
there was nothing of that sort going on there. I wish there had; it
would have kept me out of a deal of mischief. I have blessed God that
ever I came to this place; for though it is poor and dirty enough, I have
met the best friends here that I ever knew.”
He then gave me a long and interesting account of his previous life; how
he had early imbibed infidel principles from some of his companions, and
had gone on for years rather wishing them to be true than actually
believing them to be so.
“I couldn’t bear,” he said, “to think there was a God, or another life to
come after this; it made me so miserable. I was obliged to try and get
rid of the thoughts as fast as they came; and then there was the people
as called themselves religious; I really couldn’t see that they were
better than those as didn’t say anything about it. They liked eating,
and drinking, and pleasuring, just as much in their way as any one else;
and though we often heard that they talked about us in a way that shewed
they despised us, and thought themselves a deal better, that only made us
feel worse. But since we have been here, some of the ladies as bring
round the tracts has stopped and talked to us sometimes in quite a
different sort of way, you know, ma’am. One of them left me a tract to
read some time ago. I couldn’t get this tract out of my mind after I had
read it. There, whilst I was at work, it was lying on the bench, and I
kept looking into it again and again. One day, while I was puzzling
about it, the missionary came in. I soon saw he wasn’t like them
religious people I knew before, and I told him all that was in my mind:
and ’twas the best day of my life when I met with him; for he has helped
me to see things very different; and I bless God that ever he came here,
and so does many others beside me.”
“Well,” I said, “you can say you are a happier man now than ever you were
before, cannot you?”
“Yes, ma’am, thank God, I can trust Him for this life, and through my
blessed Saviour I have hope of a better life to come.”
I saw, by the thoughtful and earnest expression of his face, that the man
had still something on his mind; so I did not reply, but waited a minute.
“Do you know, ma’am,” he continued, “though God has been so good to me,
and has made me to see how He can and will save me, sinner though I am,
it do trouble me, and I can’t help it, to see so much confusion, like, in
this world. Some people as isn’t worse than others, nor yet so bad,
seems to be always a-suffering; and little children too, it do grieve me
to see them suffer: and then you see, ma’am, what a place this very
‘Potteries’ is, to be in God’s world.”
“But,” I replied, “God did not make the Potteries what they are. Some
sixty years ago, before any one lived here, the air was fresh and sweet;
flowers and trees were growing here; and it was altogether as pleasant a
place as any other portion of God’s dominions.”
“Well,” he said, “that’s true:” but the shade had not passed away from
his countenance.
“Do you know,” I continued, “it is one of the greatest troubles of my
life that I so often feel just what you describe. It was only a short
time ago, I was walking in London; and as I turned into one of the back
streets, I saw a little boy sitting on a doorstep, with a baby in his
arms about five or six months old; as I passed by, the baby began to cry,
and the miserable expression of its little face, and the hopeless look of
its nurse, feeling so powerless to do anything to comfort it,—both little
faces looking already old from hunger, cold, and neglect,—so troubled me
that I could scarcely look at or enjoy anything while I was out. In the
evening, after my own healthy, happy children were gone to bed, I was
sitting in my comfortable room by the cheerful fire, surrounded by
everything to make life comfortable and desirable; but instead of feeling
thankful for so many mercies, I sat and cried at the recollection of
those unhappy little children.”
“And did ye sure, ma’am?” said the man. “Law! now, how we do feel alike
after all, when we come to know! But I suppose, ma’am, that sort of
thing does not last long with you?”
“I remember, that evening at family prayer,” I continued, “the chapter
which was read had this verse in it: ‘Even so it is not the will of your
Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.’
I thought it was not my will, either; but there was this great
difference,—whatever God _willed_ He had the _power_ to do; that He had
sent His Son to die for the world, and these little creatures were part
of His world, and He would do with them just what is right.”
“Do you think, ma’am,” said the man, “that God is altogether angry with
us for this sort of feeling? He must know that it is very difficult for
us to see so much misery, and not be troubled about it.”
“I do not think that is quite so clear,” I said, “as that He is pleased
with us for trusting Him entirely. I think He has great sympathy with us
in the difficulty we have to contend with in this respect. He says, ‘And
blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.’ Though He did not
blame Thomas for his unbelief, He said, ‘Blessed are they who have not
seen me, and yet have believed.’ Even a grain of faith is commended, and
spoken of as having much reward connected with it: and the apostle tells
us, ‘Cast not away, therefore, your confidence, which hath _great
recompense of reward_.’”
“Well, ma’am,” he replied, “I do pray for faith. I do think it is a
glorious thing to be able to trust everything with God. I says to myself
often, ‘There, wait a bit, and you’ll know.’”
I answered, “I once heard my dear mother talking to a person who troubled
himself very much about the management of God’s world. She said, ‘I have
often compared our present condition to that of servants who might be
called into a great house to assist in performing some important work;
but instead of the same servants being employed throughout, each was
expected to work only one hour, and then to give place to others. Of
course, from this circumstance, no one of them would be able to
understand the object and design of the work; these would only be known
to the master. All that he required of them was, to do his bidding a
little while, and then to receive a great reward. How foolish it would
be of those servants to go fretfully through their short period of
service, and dishonour their master by evil reports of what they could
not understand, and lose their reward at last!’”
“O ma’am,” said the man, “that is beautiful: it was never so plain to me
before.”
Just then the children, who had been sent out by their mother to play,
that they might not interrupt our conversation, returned; and, after
making a little acquaintance with them, I took my leave. As I returned
home, I hoped that this pleasant interview might be the beginning of a
long friendship; but I never saw my friend again. Only about a week from
that time, he was taken ill, and died a few days afterwards. I did not
hear of his sickness in time to see him; but I heard that he died in
peace, trusting wholly in the Saviour. How soon was the mystery, with
him, exchanged for perfect knowledge! How soon was he admitted where
every tear shed, either for himself or others, was for ever wiped away;
while we, who tried even out of our own dimness and sorrow to enlighten
and comfort him, are still left to wonder and weep!
Foster, after the death of his wife, when writing to a friend, says,
referring to the years that may elapse before he may be permitted to join
her, “Does that to her appear a long time in prospect, or has she begun
to account of duration according to the great laws of eternity? Earnest
imaginings and questionings like these arise without end, and still,
still there is no answer, no revelation. The mind comes again and again
up closer to the thick black veil; but there is no perforation, no
glimpse. She that loved me, and, I trust, loves me still, will not, must
not, cannot answer me. I can only imagine her to say, ‘Come and see.
Serve our God, so that you shall come and share at no distant time.’”
And again, in another letter, he says, “How striking to think that _she_,
so long and so recently with me here, so beloved, but now so totally
withdrawn and absent, that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain
inquiring.”
The cottage of the communicative little old woman, to whom I am indebted
for so much of my information, was amongst the earliest erected in the
Potteries. It must have been a picturesque object when the smoke first
curled from the low chimney across the verdant plain, where neither
villa, terrace, nor steeple were to be seen. The Hippodrome was then on
the spot where the graceful church of Saint John’s now stands.
Travellers, who were in the habit of coming this way, tell us _that_ was
then the waymark, just as the church now seems to be the town-mark.
Not far from the Hippodrome stood “Tucker’s Cottage,” which an artist
thought sufficiently picturesque to transfer to his sketch-book. The
reader may confirm this opinion on reference to my frontispiece. This
interesting dwelling consisted of one floor, divided into two apartments,
one for the family, the other for domestic purposes and such animals as
were thought indispensable to the general welfare. Before and behind was
an ample plot of ground, enclosed by a thick mound of earth that
resembled the outworks of a fortification. The ground front was the
domain of poultry, pigs, and the donkey; in the rear stagnated a lake,
into which flowed the foul streams of the province. The pond was
overhung with willow stumps, that assumed the title of trees. Like a sea
far more famous, it had “no outlet but the ambient air.” As years
passed, and the events previously described took place, this primeval
cottage was fast advancing to decay. The roof and walls had been often
repaired with old pieces of board, condemned teatrays, plaster, and
similar rubbish; the windows had become opaque, and the chimney
transparent. Various means had been adopted to prevent the downfall of
the whole house. After a “stiffer breeze” than common, the little old
man might have been seen doctoring Jenny’s (the donkey’s) apartment, and
his own also. But all his trouble and pains were unavailing. The little
dwelling, which he and his “guidwife” had helped to rear with their own
hands, laughed at by the world, but endeared to them by the associations
of a lifetime, was sentenced by the Commissioners to be taken down; and
thus, just five years before the expiration of their lease, the venerable
pair were compelled, at a cost to themselves of thirty shillings (which
they could very ill afford), to pull down what remained of the old
fabric. “Some natural tears they shed, but wiped them soon.” Yes,
literally, they “wiped them soon;” for the poor old couple belonged to
the company of the faithful, who believe that “here they have no
continuing city, but seek one to come.” It was “the Lord’s will,” they
said. “He ordered all for the best.” “The Master would soon call them
to a house not made with hands;” and so, without repining, they rented an
adjoining cottage. Here the principal inconvenience was, that “grannie,”
in her old age, had scarcely room to stretch her weary limbs: so narrow
was the new domicile, that the chain of the faithful dog had to be
shortened, against his wishes; and the poor ducks and hens, accustomed to
a more ample domain, could scarcely find a roosting-place.
There is yet another member of this little family who must not be
forgotten. A deaf and blind sister has long received shelter in this
humble home, where no charitable aid has entered, or parochial relief
intrudes. Though feeling is the only avenue of access to this afflicted
one, she shares their family devotions. The Bible is brought to her, and
she passes her hands over it, and then places them in the attitude of
prayer, in which she always keeps them a certain time. After they
removed to their present habitation, this poor creature was much
perplexed at the loss of the old familiar turns and corners by which she
had been accustomed to feel her way about. The only way in which they
could comfort her, was to bring to her the Word that “endureth for ever,”
pass her hands over it, and lift them up to heaven.
It is not unusual to find persons of determined character holding
peculiar sentiments, and very dogmatical in the expression of them. With
significant nods and wise shakes of the head, you may frequently hear
this worthy couple saying, that “man can do nothing towards converting
himself—no, nothing. You may as well tell me to mount up to the sky, as
that man can think one good thought of himself, or do one right action.”
The old woman entertains a very high respect for the excellent curate we
have before mentioned. Once, on detecting herself speaking more highly
of him and his work than was consistent with her principles of the
“creature being nothing,” she qualified her praise by saying, “He was
able to do all this, because the Lord’s time was come; he wouldn’t have
done nothing without that, d’ye see, ma’am.”
I spoke to her once about some plans of my own, by which I hoped to
effect some improvement. “Well, ma’am,” she said, “if the Lord’s time is
come for it, you’ll do it; and if it isn’t, you won’t. He’ll stop you
up, or let you go on, just as He sees fit. I don’t trouble so much as
some people do about trying to alter things, and make ’em better; for I
know the Lord have planned it all out, and He’ll do it just as He likes.”
Although they have the greatest respect for the whole of God’s Word, yet
some portions of it are much more frequently quoted and dwelt upon than
others. “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me
draw him,” seems to have made a greater impression than, “Him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out.”
Divine grace sanctifies the natural disposition, but it does not entirely
alter it; and we can often trace an intimate connexion between character
and creed. The opposition which these good people had experienced had
tended to strengthen a severity natural to them. How different were
these impressions of truth from those of the kind-hearted man previously
described, who “would have all men to be saved,” and could scarcely bring
his mind to acquiesce in any wish short of that. There are few
Christians to be met with who are not more deeply impressed with one form
or phase of truth than another. Nor is this to be regretted, if we can
only meet on the common ground of “love to Him who has died for us.” In
the words of one of the most popular preachers of the present day,
“Supposing the Spirit of truth to descend upon the earth, would He
anywhere find a temple erected to Himself, of which He could take
possession and say, ‘This is mine?’ No; but He would go from one
building to another, and see here a _stone_ that He could claim as His
own, and there another, and we should hear Him saying, ‘The materials for
my temple are now scattered, though most of them are to be found even
here; but the day is coming when I will collect them together, and _My
temple shall stand upon the earth_.’”
In the sketches of character thus presented, there is no intention of
conveying the idea that the inhabitants of the Potteries generally answer
to this description. The object has been to shew that, in the midst of
every disadvantage, and surrounded by all incentives to evil, God has had
His own people, and has given them grace to persevere to the end.
To such as have accustomed themselves to look down upon this place as a
plague-spot—a pest that we should be well rid of, this narrative will
shew that there is good material to be picked out of the rubbish, and
that even the rubbish itself may be capable of conversion into good
material. In talking to policemen, I have more than once heard them say,
“We hardly ever take up any of the Pottery people for theft; they are
known amongst us to be honest and industrious. Our work lies among the
Irish. We have very little to do with the Pottery people; and if it were
not for the DRINK, we should have _nothing_ to do with them.”