THE STORM-BELL.
The Storm-Bell rings,—the Trumpet blows;
I know the word and countersign;
Wherever Freedom’s vanguard goes,
Where stand or fall her friends or foes,
I know the place that should be mine.—_Whittier._
This was the motto of the _Storm-Bell_, a periodical in which
Josephine Butler published her thoughts month by month from January,
1898, to August, 1900. We give in this chapter some specimens of these
thoughts of hers.
Sir James Stansfeld, the dear friend and leader of our cause, has
passed over to the other side. There are judgments on earth of men’s
acts, and there are judgments in heaven. It is not improbable that the
parts of his life and character regarded as the least praiseworthy
on earth will appear up there as the brightest parts of all. He had
nothing to gain, and much to lose by separating himself in a measure
from his colleagues in office, and setting aside chances of brilliant
promotion and political prestige in order to descend with us into the
inferno of human woe, to bring a gleam of hope to that world of doomed
women, who more than all human sufferers are cast out from the favour
of earth and the light of heaven. I have seldom met with a man who had
so much of the woman’s heart in this matter. He had so deep a respect
for womanhood, even at its worst, and so much tenderness for the
fallen, that—like another great friend of Mazzini—he felt“instinctively
the impulse to lift his hat when he met one of that sad sisterhood in
the street, as a mark of his reverence for her poor wrecked womanhood,
which would not have been ruined but for the co-operation (to use no
sterner word) of the stronger being—_man_”.
When he first appeared for us in public, and for years after, he was
pretty well baited and abused in newspapers of the _Saturday Review_
type as a “faddist,” a champion of the “shrieking sisterhood,” a
“friend,” in fact, of “publicans and sinners.” All that is past for
him. _His record is in Heaven._ He does not need, he never needed, and
never desired the poor praise of men. The quality which stands out the
most prominently in my remembrance of him is his courage, his dauntless
hope and confidence of final victory in a good cause. That cheerful
confidence, that pluck characterised him to the very last. I wish there
were more like him in this. I never remember to have heard a word from
him indicating a feeling of depression about our work, not even at its
darkest times. Good workers in a good cause, even when they _know_ it
to be God’s cause, sometimes fall into a minor key, and utter sad wails
concerning the gathering clouds, the dark outlook, and the power of
evil. I do not think, that with all his command of speech, our friend
would have known how to formulate any such wail.
He was a born _forlorn hope_ leader. No one is fit or safe to lead, or
even I would say to follow, in a misunderstood and unpopular cause,
or ever so humble a forlorn hope, who has not attained to so much
of self-control as to be able to close his lips if he has reason to
fear any utterance may be coming forth from them which is not a note
of victory. Courage and faith are highly infectious. A sigh, or a sad
look, or a “but” from a leader is equally infectious, and not in a
good sense. Sometimes they are disastrous. And after all what is this
kind of courage except moral faith? It is that faith in God and in
His eternal promise which removes mountains, and which sees hope in
the darkest hour, and more than hope—certainty of victory. The love
of justice and liberty was born in him; it was in his bones, so to
speak. From his youth upward he was an uncompromising defender of those
principles, which have contributed to the true greatness of England;
and so far he was, as he often said himself, a Conservative, for he was
jealous for the conservation of principles and truths, which Tories and
Radicals alike lose sight of when personal and party ambition begins
to take the first place with them, to the exclusion of what is nobler
and worthier than one’s wretched self or one’s poor party. He was also
an international man in the best sense. His friends, good men of other
countries, felt the warmth of his friendship and the soundness of his
judgment to be untainted by narrow or insular prejudices.
* * * * *
A great Spanish politician, Señor Emilio Castelar,[16] published some
thirty years ago a manifesto, in which he set forth the doctrines and
principles of what he considered a true and moderate Republicanism. He
expressed his belief that Democracy can never attain to any lasting
reforms and real progress unless it holds in respect the best elements
of national life—its history, religious faith, and most honourable
traditions; and he therefore earnestly called upon the Liberals of
Spain (a minority impatient of the stagnation of life in their nation)
to give up their position of conspirators, to avoid all violence,
and to seek reform by organised and legal action, and so to educate
themselves and their countrymen for a better state of government and
national life. His words and actions won for him and his group of
friends the title of _Los hombres de manana_, “the men of to-morrow.”
[16] Castelar gave his personal adhesion to the principles of our
abolitionist crusade in 1877, and one of his friends, Señor Zorilla,
attended our first congress.
For the salvation of our country, and indeed of the world, we need that
there should arise amongst us men of to-morrow, and women of to-morrow,
that there should be watchmen on all our watch-towers, more than in
times past, who will “watch for the morning,” and be able, with a clear
and unfaltering voice, to answer the cry of their brethren, “Watchman,
what of the night?” Such men and women of to-morrow will possess a
living, though often a silent power, in the midst of all the noise
and hurry of our social and political life; they will be not only the
party of true progress, but the party of true conservatism, watchers
for and guardians of the preservation of precious principles which are
constantly threatened with destruction.
It is not enough to be wide-awake men of to-day. There is an urgent
need for some among us to look on in advance. We need seers as well
as workers. History teaches us how much we need them, and how much of
human suffering has been needlessly inflicted and prolonged by the want
of such seers among men. Especially is this evident in the moral and
political life of a nation. A leader in politics of the early half of
the century, speaking of a wrong to which he wished to put his hand in
order to remove it, said, “We did not know, we did not perceive; and
only now we are learning, and only now we begin to see.” There is a
deep sadness in this confession, even when humbly and honestly made.
It brings to our minds the words, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if thou
hadst known the things that belong to thy peace; but now they are hid
from thine eyes.” It is well to ask ourselves truthfully before God,
“How far has such ignorance the character of moral guilt?” And it is
well that we should realise that that moral guilt of ignorance needs
none the less to be repented of and purged away because it is shared
by thousands and because it may even be chiefly laid to the charge of
generations gone by. Daniel the prophet was a great patriot and a wise
politician. His confession was, We and our fathers have sinned; and
prophet-like, and like a high priest of the people, he pleaded with
God, as if he himself bore on his shoulders alone the guilt of the
whole nation, in the past and the present.
It is impossible for the Christian patriot to look forward to the
future of our English race, and even into the next few years, without
some misgiving. The outlook also for the whole of Europe and of the
world seems charged with the clouds and portents of a coming storm.
“The morning cometh, and also the night.” The shadows of night will
deepen, and the darkness increase awhile, before the glad cry is heard:
“The morning cometh.”“Now is come the kingdom of our God and of His
Christ.” God grant that heaven-taught spirits may again arise among
us, not only one here and there, but many, like the stars appearing
in the firmament as the shadows of evening deepen into night. God has
such in preparation, I cannot doubt. They are arising—the prophets and
prophetesses, the seers of the latter days. They are found and will be
found among those who elect to live in the silence very near to God,
and who realise in the most tenderly human sense the saving friendship
of Christ.
* * * * *
A mother writes: “I fear he is going to the bad.” This she says of her
son, her only son, who has left home to serve his country. “I fear
he is going to the bad, but I must,” she says, “be like the woman in
the Bible, who came to Jesus to cast the devil out of her daughter,
and would not leave Him till He did it.” Yes, poor mother, you must,
you must. That is your only hope; and you will conquer, only hold
on. A mother’s love is most like the love of God of any human love.
He made the mother’s heart, and He knows it to its depths. Secrets
have been revealed to mothers which have not been shared by any other
human being. Your heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. You shall not
be “afraid of evil tidings.” If troubling reports reach you, and if
things seem to have come to the worst, and friends speak coldly of
your son, and shake their heads (as even Christian friends will do)
over your hope and confidence, yet hold on. You have suffered, they
perhaps have not. They are “miserable comforters,” though they think
they are speaking truly, and for your good. Listen to the voice of God
only; look into the face of Jesus only—as she did, the Syrophenician
mother, of whom the disciples only said, “Send her away.” Those, who
have never known a mother’s woes, know little of the consolations God
has for mothers, nor of the secrets which He reveals to them. “I have
been with God in the dark. Go, you may leave me alone!” Thus a mother
spoke concerning her dead son, when neighbours bewailed him as a lost
soul. “I have been with God _in the dark_,” not in the light only,
when there is hope and outward evidence to cheer the heart, but in the
dark. It is in the dark that His light shines the brightest. One hour
with Him, alone, in the dark, in the gloom of despair and helpless woe,
has taught me more than years when I walked in the light of happy and
hopeful circumstances. I fear nothing now, for I have been alone _with
God in the dark_. Hold on, poor mother! Christ has given us His word of
honour. That is enough for you and me.
* * * * *
A picture is now held up before the eyes of the whole world of the
consequences which may wait upon an injustice inflicted on a single
human being. All eyes are fixed upon the bitter conflict raging around
the fate of that solitary prisoner in the Devil’s Island. A combination
of unusual and wondrously significant circumstances has caused this
case to become a _cause célèbre_, engrossing the interest of the whole
civilised world. We may thank God indeed for the deep teachings of
this terrible drama. But let us think for a moment of the thousands
who have suffered as much, and more than this typical victim; of the
crushed hearts of the host of women and men whose martyrdom has been
known to none but God; or if known or guessed, has been unheeded, the
sufferers being of humble rank, of character suspect, friendless, poor,
and uncared for. Their cry has entered into the ears of the God of
Sabaoth, as much as the “sorrowful sighing” of those noble prisoners
of to-day. That great injustice, against which the “elect spirits” of
France are so nobly protesting, could scarcely have been perpetrated
among a people trained in respect for justice, and in a measure of
self-restraint. It has beneath it a foundation of stricken souls and
outraged hearts. It has been built up upon a Golgotha. Those who
have eyes to see are beginning to see that the smoke of the impious
sacrifice of even one of the humblest and most insignificant of human
beings may serve to cloud the heavens, and to shut out the favour of
God from a nation; and what must it be when that one is multiplied by
thousands?
For thirty years past I have pleaded as well as I could the cause of
the outcast. The time may not be long in which I shall be permitted
to continue to plead it in this world. Pardon me then, Christian
people—and all just men and just women, Christian or not—for uttering
this cry from the depths of my soul at this close of the year, and
approaching close of the century. The happiest of women myself in all
the relations of life, God has done me the great favour of allowing me
in a manner to be, for these thirty years, the representative of the
outcast, of “the woman of the city who was a sinner.” It is _her_ voice
which I utter. Oh, hear it, I beseech you! It is by right of the great
sorrow with which God pierced my heart long ago for His outcasts, that
I speak; a sorrow which will never be wholly comforted till the day
when I shall see millions of those cold, dead hands now stretched upon
the threshold of our social and national life lifted to the throne of
God in adoring and wondering praise for His final deliverance.“Thy dead
men shall live”—all who have been done to death in sorrow and anguish;
and God shall wipe the tears from all faces. And even for the present,
for the near future there is hope, abundant hope, for Jehovah reigns,
and the day of sifting has dawned.
* * * * *
My heart is often pained by hearing good women reiterate the statement
that “men cannot be expected to exercise the self-restraint which is
expected of women.” They say, “Men cannot be strictly virtuous; we
women do not know what they have to overcome, nor the force of their
temptations; in fact they must sin.” And women, even Christian women,
whisper this the one to the other, even to their daughters, and so the
low standard is perpetuated. The women who foster this opinion seem not
to perceive that in announcing it they are (unconsciously probably)
bringing a terrible accusation against God. They are representing Him
as not only an illogical, but a cruel and unjust Being. What are the
facts? God has created man with a conscience and with a will. He has
given to man a Law and has attached penalties to the breaking of that
Law; and yet you say that He has so created man that it is not possible
for him to obey that Law. If this doctrine is widely accepted by women,
it is no wonder that so many of them are atheists at heart. How can
you, how can I reverence such a God as you represent Him to be? You
might as well ask me to love and worship Baal or Moloch or Juggernaut
as such a God as that. But it is not as you say. Look a little deeper.
It has been imposed upon me from time to time during my long life work
to speak with men on this point—not only with men of blameless life,
but with others who have fallen low. “Is it indeed the very truth,” I
have asked, “that you absolutely cannot resist temptation?” And the
answer has generally been, if coming from an honest heart, “I could
resist if I determined to do so;” or,“I could _once_ have resisted
and overcome, but _now_——” Ah, there is the secret, the sorrowful
truth! After repeated and continual yielding, the _will_ of man comes
to be broken down. There comes upon him that most fatal of all moral
diseases, the paralysis of the will; what he _could_ do once he can no
longer do. The will is as the citadel of a beleaguered city; when the
citadel is taken the whole city yields, and then it may be and is true
that there comes a time when the man cannot any longer combat or resist.
Shall we then, in so terrible a case as this, seeing such men and such
women gliding down the slippery incline, regard them as hopeless, as
beyond recovery? Shall we go on repeating the fatalist’s doctrine,
which we hear so much around us, that it cannot be helped, it must
be so, the man must go on sinning, he cannot recover himself? _No, a
thousand times no._ With God all things are possible. He can restore
power to the paralysed will, even as He can raise the dead. He does it,
and we have seen with our eyes these His miracles of power and love.
And how, you ask me, by what means may such a restoration be
accomplished? Replying from my own experience, I would say it is
brought about very frequently by means of the divinely energised wills
of others—chiefly of those creatures so dear to God, those mothers,
wives, sisters, daughters and friends who have, through the teaching
of the heart and the inspiration of God, learned and embraced that
holiest of all ministries, the ministry of intercession. It has been
said that the nearest, shortest way to a man’s heart is round by the
throne of God. It is true. Direct advice, counsel, and warning to those
who err may sometimes be effectual, and especially with the young. But
too often they are wholly useless, and even excite antagonism. But the
love, the power, the promise of God never fail.
But you tell me, “Oh, I am not good enough to pray for others, and
to receive answers to my prayer.” This is a great mistake. What is
our goodness to God? We are none of us good. Think of all the people
mentioned in the Gospels who sought after Christ. What was it that
brought them to His feet? It was not their goodness, but their great
needs, wants and desires, their miseries, their sicknesses, their deep
heart griefs, and the griefs and miseries of those dear to them. Our
only claim in coming to Him is that we need Him and want Him. There is
none other. It is written that God “turned the captivity of Job when
he prayed for _his friends_.” We learn to know God in drawing near to
Him on behalf of others. We fathom the deeper treasures of His love in
pleading for those whom _we love_.
I hear people say sometimes, “But I have prayed for So-and-so for
weeks, for months, and I have received no answer.” This reminds me
of a little boy who made some childish request of God, and ended his
prayer by saying, “I will wait three weeks, God, and no more.” We limit
God. We measure the great work of His Spirit by the span of our little
lives. We must rise above that thought, with courage and patience,
and persistent trust and confidence, remembering that _His_ years are
not limited. He has all eternity to work in, all eternity in which to
remember and fulfil our hearts’ desires.
When the case is one the issues of which reach into eternity, when it
is the bringing from darkness into light of an immortal spirit, when
it is the training and teaching of a soul, the correction of faults
which sometimes requires a whole life’s discipline, or the evolution of
some great good from a family’s or a nation’s griefs, then all childish
impatience is out of place, foolish, and fatal often to the very
fulfilment of that which is desired. “Though it tarry, wait for it,”
said the seer, “because it _will surely come_.”
But your sad hearts are asking still concerning the wanderers whom you
love. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? There
is, there is. There is hope, not only for the weak and erring, but for
the criminal who has been guilty of the moral death of another, for
him on whose head rests the guilt of cruelty and treachery. “Nazarene,
Thou hast conquered,” were the last words of Julian the Apostate, at
the close of a lifetime of rebellion and defiance. The Nazarene is a
great conqueror. The heart of the most scornful of the rebels against
God’s holy laws may be broken, softened and laid bare to the healing
dews of heaven; and his eyes may be opened to see, like Hagar, close at
hand a well of water which he knew not of.
In speaking of life and love to some of the most fallen and wrecked
of men and women, it has sometimes appeared as if I were speaking
into the ears of a corpse, of one in whom there remains no longer any
conscience or will to respond to the call of God. Sometimes I have been
answered by the wildest blasphemies on the part of men, who later asked
with hungry eyes, “Tell me truly, is there any hope for me?” Love is
not easily persuaded that the moment of death has arrived. Love, like
Rizpah, watches with a constancy stronger than death by the silent
corpses of her dearly beloved and longed-for, with all her strength
denying that they shall be given as carrion to the wolves and the
vultures.
Suffer me to recall an incident, one only. On entering the ward of a
large city hospital, reserved for women of the lowest class, I met the
chaplain leaving the ward, his hands pressed upon his ears in order
to shut out the sound of a torrent of blasphemy and coarse abuse,
hurled after him by one of the inmates to whom he had spoken as his
conscience had prompted him, and under a sincere sense of duty. I drew
near to that woman. She was hideous to look at, dying and raging; a
married woman who had had children and lost them, who had lived the
worst of lives, descending lower and lower. She had been kicked (as
it proved, to death) by the man, her temporary protector. Her broken
ribs had pierced some internal organ, and there was no cure possible.
Though dying, she was hungry, as indeed she had been for years, and
was tearing like a wild beast at some scraps of meat and bread which
had been given to her. An unseen power urged me to go near to her. Was
it possible for anyone to love such a creature? Could she inspire any
feeling but one of disgust? Yes, the Lord loved her, loved her still,
and it was possible for one who loved Him to love the wretch whom _He_
loved. I do not recollect what I said to her, but it was love which
spoke. She gazed at me in astonishment, dropped her torn-up food,
and flung it aside. She took my hand, and held it with a death-grip.
She became silent, gentle. Tears welled from the eyes which had been
gleaming with fury. The poor soul had been full to the brim of revenge
and bitterness against man, against fate, against God. But now she saw
something new and strange; she heard that she was _loved_, she believed
it, and was transformed.
I loved her. It was no pretence, and she knew it. At parting I said,
“I will come again,” and she gasped, “Oh, you will, you will!” I came
again the morning of the next day. The nurse told me that she died at
midnight, quiet, humble, “as peaceful as a lamb,” always repeating,
“Has she come back? She will come again. Is she coming? Yes, she will
come again.” If I had been asked, as I sometimes am, “But had she any
clear perception of her own sinfulness, did she understand, etc.?” I
could give no answer. I know not. I only know that love conquered, and
that He who inspired the love which brought the message of _His_ love
to the shipwrecked soul knew what He was doing, and does not leave His
work incomplete.
* * * * *
It is told among the many beautiful incidents of the early Church,
that a young Roman soldier, converted to Christianity, and received
as a catechumen, awaiting baptism, was called to serve in the field
with the legion to which he belonged. The night after a battle, he
found himself lying under the stars wounded and faint. Near him a
fellow-soldier in the same condition as himself was groaning heavily.
The night was cold, and his comrade’s wounds were exposed to the frosty
air. “Take my cloak,” whispered Martin; and though in sore pain, and
shivering himself, he folded his cloak tenderly around his comrade
and fell asleep. Then there arose before him in his sleep a strange
and beautiful vision. He saw in the skies a number of angelic beings
and saints in light, in the midst of whom stood the Saviour, clothed
in “raiment white and glistening,” and—strange!—wearing on His kingly
shoulders, over the resplendent white, the poor, torn, bloodstained
cloak of a Roman soldier. As Martin gazed in astonishment, the Saviour
smiled, and turning to His angelic attendants said, “Behold Me with
the cloak which Martin the catechumen hath given Me! For inasmuch as ye
have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done
it unto Me.”
In one of the African provinces of Rome, partly Christianised, there
occurred in the second century a sore famine. The inhabitants were
driven to terrible straits. In a certain town, it is recorded by one
of the old chroniclers, there lived a saintly bishop—not one of “my
lords” of modern times, dwelling in a palace, but a humble shepherd or
overseer of a scanty flock gathered out of the heathen city in which
he dwelt. There lived in the same city a poor street musician, called
Xanthus, an ignorant fellow of no good reputation. When the famine had
endured some months, and Xanthus’ body presented the appearance of a
walking skeleton, he saw, one evening in the twilight, a female form at
the corner of a street, with the figure and bearing of a refined lady,
though closely veiled and wearing a poor, used, black robe. She was
holding out her hand for alms and receiving none, and worn and faint
she yielded to the stress of hunger, and was about to accept the last
terrible resource of selling her own person to a passer-by, who was
apparently far above want. Penetrated with a sudden feeling of pity and
horror, Xanthus interposed, and reverently begged the lady to accept
of such poor help as he could give her. “Lady, I have little, but all
I have shall be yours until these times of tribulation are over.”
She moved towards him without replying, her tears alone proving her
grateful acceptance of his aid. He led her back to her abode, and from
that time forward he worked for her day and night, plying to the utmost
his poor skill as a musician, affecting a cheerful manner, and adding
to his fiddling various tricks and jokes to arrest the attention of the
citizens who crossed his path. Every day he brought to the lady (for
such she was) his modest gains, finding her food, and waiting on her,
deeming it an honour that she should accept the help of such a creature
as he.
The famine over, she was restored to her former position; but Xanthus
fell ill, and his music and jokes were no more heard in the streets.
Friendless and forlorn, he lay dying, when the good bishop above-named
was visited in a dream by a heavenly messenger, who bade him go to
such a street and such a house and find there a man called Xanthus,
for “the Lord would have mercy on him.” Awaking from his sleep, the
good bishop obeyed. He entered the place—more like a dog’s kennel than
a human dwelling—where Xanthus lay. “Xanthus!” he cried, “the Lord
Jesus Christ hath sent me to you to bring you glad tidings.”“How! to
me—to me—your God has sent you to me! No, there is a mistake. I am the
street-fiddler, Xanthus, the most miserable, God-forsaken of men—a
man who has done nothing but ill all his life.” Then the good bishop
recalled to the memory of Xanthus (this having been revealed to him)
the day when he turned back a tempted fellow-creature from sin, and the
weeks in which he sustained her, at the cost of his own life; and he
added, “The Lord bids me say to you, that, for this cup of cold water
you have given to one of His redeemed creatures, you shall in no wise
lose your reward. Your sins are forgiven. Christ says to you, ‘This day
you shall be with Me in paradise.’” And so it came to pass that Xanthus
died that day, his poor heart, it is said, _broken_; but not with
sorrow; broken through excess of joy, through the thrill of astonished
gladness at the heavenly greeting, and the wondrous announcement
that the Lord of Glory had deigned to notice and acknowledge the one
redeeming act of his life. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”
Not in the times of old, but quite lately, in Hyde Park, London, on a
sultry day in summer, there lay under one of the trees a poor sheep,
panting, dying from the heat. By its side there kneeled a little ragged
boy, a street arab, his tears marking gutters in the dust of his soiled
face. He had run down to the water again and again and filled his
little cloth cap with water, which he held to the mouth of the sheep,
bathing its nose and eyes, until it began to show signs of returning
life, speaking to it all the time loving words such as his own mother
may have spoken to _him_. A gentleman walking near stopped, and looking
with amusement at the child, said, “You seem awfully sorry for that
beast, boy.” The cynical tone of the speaker seemed to grieve the
little boy, and with a flushed face he replied, in a tone of indignant
and tearful protest, “_It is God’s sheep._” The gentleman grunted
and walked away. I felt the presence there of One who said to that
child: “Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My
brethren, you have done it unto Me.”
If the spirit of that boy were fully shared by even a fraction of
our Christian population, the brutality and sin of the vivisection
of God’s creatures would soon become a forbidden and unknown thing
among us. Our Lord’s words concerning the humblest of the animal
creation are no mere figure of speech. He meant what He said. There
is a penalty attached to contempt for or oblivion of _those_ words of
His, as of every other word He spoke. “Are not five sparrows sold for
two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God.” The price
of a sparrow was half a farthing, but in case one of four sold might
possibly be very small, ill-fed, and not worth its half-farthing, a
fifth was “thrown in” to insure the purchaser from loss. Yet even the
presumably worthless fifth sparrow was “not forgotten before God.”
When the prophet Jonah was in a bad humour because his prophecy of
destruction to Nineveh had not been fulfilled, and his sheltering gourd
had withered, God said to him: “Thou hast had pity on the gourd, which
came up in a night, and perished in a night: and should not I spare
Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand
persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left
hand; _and also much cattle_?”“His mercies are over _all_ His works.”
He cares for every living thing.