THE FEDERATION.
The year 1875 has few clear recollections for me personally, in direct
connection with our cause. Six years of work, and more especially
the winter months spent in very difficult work on the Continent, had
over-taxed my strength. My health gave way, and was only restored by
several months of rest, during which I heard only the distant echoes of
the conflict, while I remained at home.
* * * * *
During this autumn _Une Voix dans le Désert_ was ably edited by M. Aimé
Humbert, and brought out in French and German, and widely circulated.
It consisted of my addresses given on the Continent during the previous
winter. These addresses, spoken in French, were never published in
English, but were translated year by year into other languages—Italian,
German, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Russian. The
following letter refers to this work.
To M. Humbert.
1875.
I feel with you every day that some such _voice_ is needed just now.
It would perhaps have been better had we been able to bring out a
complete book as our first, a book which should contain all the
scientific and juridical arguments, as well as a complete review of
historical facts relating to this subject. But such a complete book
is at this moment impossible. I therefore beg you to communicate what
I now say to Messieurs Sandoz and Fischbacher (publishers). We want
statistics and facts—yes,—but would English statistics and facts
alone, drawn from a limited experience, be much or generally valued
in other countries? I think not, if they stood alone. Facts from a
larger area we must have later, and we shall have them, for, thank
God, they stand as indestructible witnesses everywhere of the folly
and futility of the attempt to regulate vice. How much more powerful,
how overwhelming in fact, would it be for our opponents, and how
strengthening for our cause, if we could show facts and statistics
gathered from every country, and over a larger period of time. This
is precisely what we are now aiming at. We have received all the most
recent reports from Italy, France, Germany, and other countries. On
every hand there is confession of the failure of regulation. Mireur,
Jeannell, Diday, Deprès, Pallasciano, Huet, Crocq, all confess to
hygienic failure. The proposals of some of these men to ensure future
success (a success which they confess they have never yet ensured)
are of such a wild and ghastly nature, that one has only to read
their books to see that the beginning of the end is at hand. From out
these statistics there appear, here and there, deeply pathetic facts,
such as these: that four-fifths of the poor girls subjected to this
tyranny (according to one writer) are orphans; many are foreigners
in the country of their enslavement; many are young widows. Does
not our God, who is the God of the Fatherless, of the Widow, and of
the Stranger, take note of these things? You see that in a year or
two we shall have a mass of evidence against this system which will
give the doctors and materialist legislators a hard task to refute.
I care little that men accuse me, as you say, of mere sentiment,
and of carrying away my hearers by feeling rather than by facts and
logic. Even while they are saying this they read my words, and they
are made uncomfortable! They feel that there is a truth of some sort
there, and that sentiment itself is after all a _fact_ and a power
when it expresses the deepest intuitions of the human soul. They
have had opportunity for many years past of looking at the question
in its material phases, of appreciating its hygienic results, and
of reading numberless books on the subject—statistical, medical,
and administrative. _Now_ for the first time they are asked to look
upon it as a question of human nature, of equal interest to man and
woman; as a question of the heart, the soul, the affections, the whole
moral being. As a simple assertion of one woman speaking for tens of
thousands of women, those two words “_we rebel_” are very necessary,
and very useful for them to hear. The cry of women, crushed under the
yoke of legalised vice, is not the cry of a statistician or a medical
expert; it is simply a cry of pain, a cry for justice, and for a
return to God’s laws in place of these brutally impure laws invented
and imposed by man. It is imperfect, no doubt, as an utterance, but
the cry of the revolted woman against her oppressor, and to her God,
is far more needful at this moment than any reasoned-out argument.
I think therefore, and my husband agrees with me, that it is better
to publish the _Voice in the Wilderness_ simply as the utterance
of a woman, and to do it quickly. It will rouse some consciences,
no matter how imperfect men may find it. On the eve of a war it
may be said that the sound of the trumpet is imperfect because it
only calls to the battle, and that we want to see the troops, their
arms, and the strength of muscle on either side. Yet the call to
battle is needed; the close grappling with the foe will follow. It
is only when the slave begins to move, to complain, to give signs
of life and resistance, either by his own voice, or by the voice of
one like himself speaking for him, that the struggle for freedom
truly begins. The slave now speaks. The enslaved women have found a
voice in one of themselves, who was raised up for no other end than
to sound the proclamation of an approaching deliverance. Never mind
the imperfection of the first voice. It is the voice of a woman who
has suffered, a voice calling to holy rebellion and to war. It will
penetrate. Then by and by we shall come down on our opponents with
the heavy artillery of facts and statistics and scientific arguments
on every side. We will not spare them, we will show them no mercy. We
shall tear to pieces their refuge of lies, and expose the ghastliness
of their covenant with death, and their agreement with hell. We and
our successors will continue to do this year after year until they
have no ground to stand upon.
Shortly after her return to England she had given an account of her
mission, at a conference held in London, “in the course of which she
showed that her own work abroad had had very little of a creative
character, but had rather served to bring out and give expression to
sentiments and convictions already existing in the various countries
she had visited.” It was resolved at this conference to form a
federation of the friends of the movement in all countries. “The
British, Continental and General Federation for the Abolition of
Government Regulation of Prostitution” was formally constituted at
a meeting in Liverpool on March 19th, Mr. Stansfeld being chosen as
President, Mr. W. Crossfield as Treasurer, and M. Aimé Humbert, of
Neuchâtel, as Continental Correspondent. Mrs. Butler was appointed
Hon. Secretary, with Mr. H. J. Wilson as co-Secretary _pro tem_. (he
was succeeded a few months later by Mr. Stuart, who this year became
Professor Stuart). The heavy work of correspondence connected with the
starting of the Federation, added to the fatigues of the preceding
winter’s work on the Continent, proved to be too much for her bodily
strength, and she was compelled to give up all work for several
months. The work however experienced no check, for during these months
Mr. Wilson in England and M. Humbert on the Continent, by their
untiring energy and earnestness, succeeded in gaining many adherents
to the Federation, which was thus early put on a firm foundation.
In the following April the late Rev. J. P. Gledstone and Mr. H. J.
Wilson started on a journey to the United States, where they met many
leaders of the old anti-slavery party and other kindred spirits, whom
they enlisted into sympathy and co-operation with the Federation.
Writing to Josephine Butler twenty years later, Mr. Gledstone
recalled the occasion of their starting on this journey: “It was, I
remember, a cold, stormy Thursday in April, 1876, when you persisted
in accompanying Mr. Wilson and me to the river, to see us on board
the _Adriatic_. The anti-regulation struggle has seen some uncommon
things; I think so now, as I recall your slender form seeking shelter
from the keen wind that swept through the little tug that conveyed us
to the huge steamer lying in the middle of the Mersey—two strong men
sent out on their mission and cheered to it by one woman!”
This year Josephine Butler published anonymously, for the Social
Purity Alliance, _The Hour before the Dawn: an Appeal to Men_. A
French translation of this pamphlet was published the same year in
Paris. Her name appeared on the title-page of the second edition,
issued six years later. Its sustained eloquence and passionate,
pathetic appeal combine to make it one of the finest of all her
writings. It reveals the profoundest sympathy for all men, as well
as women, who have sinned and are struggling to rise again. To such
she preaches a gospel of hope, and shows that though the past is
irreparable, there is always an available future. We can only give one
extract, selected because of its autobiographical interest.
I look back to the years when my soul was in darkness on account of
sin—the sin, the misery and the waste which are in the world, the great
and sad problems of life, the prosperity of evil-doers, the innocent
suffering for the guilty, the cruelties, the wrongs inflicted and never
redressed, and the multitudes who seem to be created only to be lost.
A great cloud gathered over me. Anger, fear, dismay filled my heart.
I could see no God, or such as I could see appeared to me an immoral
God. Sin seemed to me the law of the world, and Satan its master. I
staggered on the verge of madness and blasphemy. I asked, “Does not
God care? Can God bear these things?” He is silent, the woe deepens,
and the question is still sent up from generation to generation, Hath
God not seen? Will He not help? Does He look down from His eternal calm
of heaven an indifferent spectator? Can it be that the Eternal rests
content that any human beings whom He has created should perish for
ever? That men should destroy themselves in spite of God is a terrible
thought, but not so terrible, not so fatal to hope, to love, and to
faith as the thought, full of deadly poison, that God cares not—that
the heart of Him who redeemed us is cold, when my own is filled with an
agony of compassion. This bitter thought taking possession of my soul,
did not beget despondency, or lassitude, or indifference, leading me to
close my eyes and fold my hands; but it stirred up the rebel within me.
I could not love God—the God who appeared to my darkened and foolish
heart to consent to so much which seemed to me cruel and unjust, and
removable by an act of His power. I was like one who is leaning over a
great gulf, whence none who fall into it ever return. “_In my distress
I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me._” The pride and rebellion gave
way before deep and heavy sorrow; and then all the sorrow gathered
itself up into one great cry. I asked of the Lord one thing—that He
would take of His own heart and show it to me; that He would reveal to
me His one, His constant attitude toward His lost world; that as I had
shown Him my heart He would show me His heart, so much of it as a worm
of the earth can comprehend and endure, so much of it as the finite
can receive from the Infinite (for to know His love for the world and
His sorrow for the world, as they are, would break any human heart. I
should, in the moment of such a revelation, expire at His feet: a man
cannot so see God and live). Deep calleth unto deep; His own helpful
spirit, out of the depths of my heart, making supplication for me with
groanings unutterable, calling to the deep heart of Christ, awakened
echoes there which called back again to mine.
Continuing to make this one request through day and night, through
summer and winter, with patience and constancy, the God who answers
prayer had mercy on me. He did not deny me my request—that He should
show me of His own heart’s love for sinners, and reveal to me His one,
His constant attitude towards His lost world; and when He makes this
revelation He does more—He makes the enquiring soul a _partaker_ of His
own heart’s love for the world. The doubt, the dark misery growing out
of the contemplation of the sorrows of earth and the apparent waste of
souls are no longer able to drive me into sullenness and despair, for I
have found the door of hope. I do not say—for I speak neither more nor
less than I have learned of God—that the perplexity is solved, that the
sorrow is gone. Sorrow is with me still, the enduring companion of my
life. I do not pretend to be able to explain the secrets of God and the
great problems of life with any clearness of speech to satisfy another.
But I have found the door of hope. He has the key of all mysteries, and
we are then nearest to the solution of every painful mystery, when we
have drawn nigh and heard from Him the secrets of His heart of love.
Now I know when my heart is strangely stirred by the sight of a vast
multitude in some great city that my heart’s yearnings over them are
but the faintest shadowings of His heart’s yearnings over them; that my
love, which would embrace them all, is but as a drop of water to the
ocean of His love, which would embrace them all. But in vain! Words are
not found in which to express what it is which Christ may reveal to the
soul which has waited on Him in determined love and grief, with this
one request, “Show me Thy heart’s love for sinners, and Thy one, Thy
constant attitude towards Thy lost world.” Seek it, friends, and you
shall know how far it solves the sorrowful problems of earth, though
you too may find it to be among the things which it is not possible
or lawful for a man to utter. Where, where in heaven or on earth, if
not here, will you find an answer alike to the great questions of life
which vex your heart, and to the problem of yourself, that single
being, so fearfully and wonderfully made?
In the late autumn of 1876 a newspaper war suddenly broke out in
France kindled by numerous cases of arbitrary and cruel action on
the part of the _Police des Mœurs_, and frequent arrests both of men
and women for resisting or even speaking against that force. As a
result the Paris Municipal Council, which was opposed to the system,
appointed a commission of enquiry, and the commission invited certain
persons from different countries who had studied the question to give
evidence before it. Mr. and Mrs. Butler, Mr. Stansfeld and Professor
Stuart were invited from England, and they went to Paris for this
purpose in January, 1877.
The members of the commission were not wholly of one mind on all
points, and it was rather a severe exercise of brain and memory to meet
and satisfy the various questions of a company of quick-witted, logical
Frenchmen. It was an exercise however, which left one feeling stronger
and happier, because of the sincerity of motive which we felt animated
the questioners.
Some days after giving our evidence a great meeting was held in the
Salle des Écoles, Rue d’Arras. The hall was densely crowded. There
was a considerable proportion of “blue blouses,” working men from St.
Antoine and Belleville quarters, students from the Latin quarter, and
some members of the Chambers and of the Senate, besides Municipal
Councillors. There was also a good attendance of women. The several
addresses given were listened to with extraordinary attention and
interest, and in a quietness which was remarkable considering the
mercurial and excitable nature of a portion of that audience. So keen
was the sympathy (having its roots deep in bitter experience) of the
poorer part of the audience, especially the working men, that it was
necessary in some degree to restrain all that it might have been in our
hearts to say on the injustice and cruelty of the system of which the
victims were drawn so largely from their own ranks.
Another large meeting was held in the Salle de la Redoute, which was
crowded with respectable working women. With the memory of all I had
seen and heard in Paris of the condition of the honest working woman,
hunted from street to street and from room to room by the police, and
looking at the troubled and earnest faces all turned towards me, I
could not refrain from uttering these words: “The foxes have holes, and
the birds of the air have nests, but the honest workwoman of Paris has
not where to lay her head.” Many burst into tears, or hid their faces
in their hands. In coming out from the meeting, several poor girls came
to me, their faces swollen with weeping, and said, “Ah, madam, how true
those words were about the foxes!”
The Federation had met for its first annual conference in London in
1876, and from that time it has held annual conferences in various
cities abroad or in England; the meeting every third year being called
a congress, and being of a larger and more important character. The
first congress, at Geneva, is described in the following letter.
To a relative.
GENEVA, _September, 1877_.
I can only give you a brief sketch of the past week; full reports
will be published. The anxiety which we could not but feel went on
augmenting up to Friday. On Friday we began to see daylight, and all
has ended well. Many of us are tired and stupefied for want of sleep,
but at the same time inwardly giving thanks to God.
This Congress has been a wonderful event. There were 510 inscribed
members, besides the numerous public which attended the meetings. It
is, they say, the largest Congress that has ever been held in Geneva.
On the first days people continued flocking in from all nations. There
were Greeks who came from Athens, and Russians from St. Petersburg
and Moscow. There were Americans, Belgians, Dutch, Danes, Germans,
Pomeranians, Italians, French and Spaniards. Señor Zorilla, the late
President of the Spanish Cortes, spoke on Wednesday, and was nominated
as one of a committee to consider what action should be taken in
Spain. On Sunday, in the cathedral, Pastor Rœrich preached a powerful
sermon to a very large congregation on the question before the
Congress, and in all the churches we and our work have been prayed for.
We always anticipated that when the final resolutions should come to
be voted upon then would be the real war, and so it was. When the
voting began, our faithful bands of ladies worked and watched in their
different sections quite splendidly. First we had a considerable
conflict in the Social Economy Section. Then came the voting in the
Legislative Section, in the smaller hall of the Reformation, which
was densely crowded. Professor Hornung presided. The discussion
lasted three hours. Some lawyers were present, who are now busy in
the prospect of the revision of some parts of the penal code of
Switzerland, notably a young jurist, an able man who spoke well,
but as a downright opponent. There followed a stormy scene, which
the President with difficulty controlled. People of many different
languages stood up at the same moment, each with a finger stretched
out, demanding to speak. “Je demande la parole” sounded from all sides
of the room. Mr. A——, the young jurist, made the President indignant
by asserting that a resolution drawn up by him was not _juridique_.
Seeing that M. Hornung is Professor of Jurisprudence at the Geneva
University, and possesses the very highest reputation, this was rather
strong, and I do not wonder it irritated him. But it did good, for
it stimulated him to come out on the last day of the Congress with
a splendid judicial speech, by far the best and clearest utterance
of the kind I have ever heard in any country. We shall translate and
circulate it. Hornung is a delightful man. He has that good gift of
God, an enlightened intellect, as well as a pure heart, together with
great refinement and gentleness of manner. At one o’clock, when we
were all feeling the need of food, and our throats were dry with the
dust of the room, an Italian advocate got up and declared there had
not yet been enough discussion of each point. The chairman was aghast.
He had expected the voting to be got over just at that moment. A kind
of barking, House of Commons cry arose of “Vote, vote!” while the
President stood open-mouthed, attempting to read the resolutions so as
to be heard. A sort of stampede seized some of the German and Swiss
members, and they made for the door. Half the meeting would have gone
out, and so damaged the worth of the voting. So I ventured to shut
the door and set my back against it, declaring that no one should
have any food until he had voted! This half startled and half amused
the assembly, and they all sat down again obediently. After another
half-hour of discussion, it was agreed that we should meet again for a
final voting at half-past six the next morning.
On the same day the resolutions of the Moral Section were passed very
satisfactorily. Then came the Hygienic Section. The discussion here
was so long that it was also adjourned until an evening hour. At
eight o’clock that evening we all went to the hall of the Hygienic
Section, and there sat crowded together, or stood, amidst a scene of
intense interest, till midnight. Dr. Bertani of Rome took a leading
part. Our ladies all went to the meeting; but they had been up so
early, and had worked so hard all day, that by 11.0 p.m. this is the
scene which one of my sons described as having observed at the back
of the hall, “a long row of ladies _all sound asleep_”; but they had
appointed a watcher—Mrs. Bright Lucas—who sat at the end of the row,
and whom they had charged to keep awake, and to give them the signal
whenever voting began on each clause of the resolution. Mrs. Lucas was
wide awake, with eyes shining like live coals! We had prayed that God
would direct this meeting, and it was wonderful and beautiful to see
how the truth prevailed. Dr. de la Harpe, the President, acted well
throughout. At the end I shook hands with him and Dr. Ladame, thanking
them for their excellent words. Dr. de la Harpe replied, “You owe us
nothing; it is you and your friends who must be thanked, who have
brought us so much light.”
At the end of the Congress all the resolutions came out
satisfactorily. We owe a good deal of this result to Professor
Stuart’s tact and patience in talking to the different presidents
individually. We think our resolutions are on the whole excellent as
a statement of principles—clear and uncompromising; and shall we not
thank God for this? His hand has been over us for good all this time,
convincing men’s hearts and consciences, and controlling their words
and actions. The earnest daily prayers offered up have not been in
vain. These resolutions will be sent to every Government and to every
municipal council throughout Europe. They have been telegraphed to the
English press _in extenso_. My son George was charged with the work
of telegraphing, and had necessarily to exercise much alertness and
activity. M. Humbert is impressed with the excellence of whatever work
he undertakes.
In the Legislative Section we had an energetic discussion over the
seduction laws of different countries, and the _recherche de la
paternité_, subjects not immediately in our programme, but closely
touching it. The discussion became so hot, that it seemed difficult
for some of the members to remain calm at all. Signora Mozzoni, a
delegate from Milan, burst into tears over it, and one or two of our
good gentlemen lost their tempers a little. One cannot wonder, for
this is one of the important questions upon which people of different
nations and creeds hold very different views. Miss Isabella Tod
and Mrs. Sheldon Amos took a line on the point of the age to which
protection should be given, in which I could not quite follow them,
and I felt obliged for once to oppose my own countrywomen. Professor
Hornung was pleased with what I said, as it seems it accorded with the
views of most continental jurists.
The young advocate who had opposed us called yesterday to say that
he had come round to our views, chiefly influenced by that desperate
little impromptu legal discussion among the ladies. He had imagined,
he said, that we were a number of “fanatical and sentimental women,”
but “when he heard women arguing like jurists, and even taking part
against each other, and yet with perfect good temper, _like men_ (!),
he began to see that we were grave, educated, and even scientific
people!” He came afterwards to every meeting, and, as he said, weighed
all our words.
I think I have not mentioned the resolutions at the Section of
Bienfaisance, under good Pastor Borel’s presidency. Those also were
very satisfactory.
Josephine Butler published in 1878 a biography of _Catharine of
Siena_. A French translation of this was published nine years later
at Neuchâtel. Mr. Gladstone wrote to George Butler, expressing his
intense interest in the book, and adding: “It is evident that Mrs.
Butler is on the level of her subject, and it is a very high level. To
say this is virtually saying all. Her reply (by anticipation) to those
who scoff down the visions is, I think, admirable.” We give but one
quotation.
Here I must pause to speak of that great secret of Catharine’s
spiritual life, the constant converse of her soul with God. Her book,
entitled _The Dialogue_, represents a conversation between a soul and
God, mysterious and perhaps meaningless to many, but to those who can
understand full of revelation of the source of her power over human
hearts. All through her autobiography (for such her _Dialogue_ and
_Letters_ may be called) no expressions occur more frequently than
such as these: “The Lord said to me,” &c.; “My God told me to act so
and so”; “While I was praying, my Saviour showed me the meaning of
this, and spoke thus to me.” I shall not attempt to explain, nor shall
I alter this simple form of speech. It is not for us to limit the
possibilities of the communications and revelations, which the Eternal
may be pleased to make to a soul, which continually waits upon Him. If
you are disposed, reader, to doubt the fact of these communications
from God, or to think that Catharine only fancied such and such things,
and attributed these fancies to a divine source, then I would give you
one word of advice, and one only: go you and make the attempt to live
a life of prayer, such as she lived, and then, and not till then, will
you be in a position which will give you any shadow of a right, or any
power, to judge of this soul’s dealings with God.