AN ELEMENT OF HUMOR IN RESCUE WORK
Unless one can see the humor in rescue work, the tragedy of it all would
break the heart, ruin one's health, and keep one's mind all the time on
the sorrowful stories that we hear daily.
A part of successful rescue work is the ability to bring each sorrowful
case to God, lay it on His altar, and leave it behind us when we leave
the Mission.
AUNT MARY
One very cold night, a few years ago, we had present among our visitors
a wealthy lady and gentleman from Pittsburgh. We were most anxious that
the Mission should make a good impression on them, hoping a donation of
at least $25. It was a very cold night. Soon after the services opened a
person, whom I shall call Charles Winters, son of an old Virginia
family, came in. He was much under the influence of liquor, and began at
once to make a disturbance.
I remembered his dear old gray-haired mother and his accomplished
sister, and knew in a moment that if he were put out he would freeze to
death or be placed in prison. Two of the helpers started to put him out;
that was the easy way, and there were my guests and that prospective
donation.
The men already had hold of him, when I said, “Stop, men; please let me
speak to him.” Laying my hand kindly on his shoulder, I said, “Charles,
sit down and behave yourself.” With a drunken laugh, he said, “I'll sit
down for you, Aunt Mary, but not for these toughs.” All evening I had to
go back every few minutes to quiet him, much to the amusement of my
friends, who frequently to this day call me Aunt Mary. But I saved a
family from shame and my donation came all right.
In most businesses old age is a handicap, but every gray hair of my
white head is an asset. Nearly every evening some poor, vanquished
soldier of fortune, ragged, unshaven and unshorn, comes to me and says
with quivering lips, “You look just like my mother, to-night, will you
care a little for me?” And I lay my arm across the soiled coat and say,
“Son, the trail of every sin is on your poor soiled body; you have tried
some by yourself to be good, now let us ask Jesus to help. But I shall
send you up stairs under guard and to the bath-room, where you must take
a very warm bath while I go to the workroom and get you clean clothes
from the skin out; your clothing will go into the fumigator over night;
you shall have enough to eat and be physically comforted, then we will
try again with Jesus as yoke-fellow. You and I will talk to Him about it
and we will try again, shall we?”
There is no use talking salvation to a hungry man or a man physically
uncomfortable. We usually help a poor fellow several days before
anything more than the above is said, then we show him the tendencies of
his life; he sees them in the wrecks all around him. He hears the
testimony of redeemed drunkards, thieves and gamblers, and sees them
clothed and in their right minds; then the teachings of some Christian
mother, Sunday school teacher, or preacher comes back, and lo! he prays.
God's Holy Spirit acts as a searchlight, and he sees his abhorrent self
as God sees him, and he cries for mercy. God comes down when the sinner
calls for redeeming power, and a great psychological change takes place.
If a soul really agrees to give up every sin, to take Jesus Christ as
pattern and friend, Christ Himself enters into covenant relations with
that soul and the man is born again. He usually lays hold mentally of
some one verse of Scripture, which becomes to him a personal message
from on high. I have seen many take the verse, “Seek ye first the
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be
added unto you,” and use it as the stepping stone into the higher life.
They seek God and live His righteousness. Take the case of
MR. E. C. CONNAUGHT
as an example. One very cold morning in January, 1912, Mr. Kline
received a telephone message like this, “There is a drunken man with a
wife and four children set out on the street at so and so. Bring coffee
and food at once.” Just as quickly as they could get the food, Mr. and
Mrs. Kline hastened to the relief of that family. The wind was blowing
snow and sleet, though it seemed too cold for either. The family,
including the drunken father, were brought immediately to the Mission,
though their household stuff was left standing on the street, where it
remained four days. It was such a miserable collection that even the
colored people did not steal any of it. Then it was brought to the
Mission and stored in the cellar.
One child was in the hospital from a blow from the father. They were
physically comforted and put in the “Shelter,” a place reserved for
stranded women and children. By night the father was fairly sober and
they were all taken to the religious services in the chapel, where Mr.
Connaught heard man after man rise and testify that God had saved him
and taken away the appetite for drink. At first there was a sneer on his
face, but gradually, as one well dressed man after another bore the same
testimony, he cried out, “I have been an infidel, not believing in God
or immortality, but if the God you worship can cure me of this awful
appetite, I want Him.” He kneeled at one of the front benches, and an
awful spectacle of rags and dirt and bloated flesh he was.
I remember thinking, “Surely this case is beyond help,” but God is
better than we even dare hope. Several prayers were offered in his
behalf, then he prayed for himself, and lo! he prayed with the tongue of
the learned. He said, “O God, if there be a God, hear the prayer of the
very lowest of Thy children. I need Thee, I am totally undone, I put
myself in Thy hands for forgiveness and for discipline. O Lord, save
me!”
He kneeled a moment longer, then rose to his feet with a clear brain,
and, looking about like one dazed, said, “What has happened, you all
look different?” Mr. Kline laid his arm lovingly over the man's
shoulders as he said, “Brother Connaught, you have received your sight.
The Lord Jesus has come into your soul.”
The next morning the Associated Charities had him arrested for
non-support of his family. Judge DeLacy, a good man, was on the bench.
One of our workers said to the judge, “This man was converted last
night, and if you will give him a chance he will now support his
family.” “Oh, yes, most anyone would be converted rather than go to
Occoquan” (name of the workhouse). “But, judge, this is no fake case;
try him.”
The bloated face, the soiled clothing were against him, and the judge
sent him up for eleven weeks. The little woman and her children were
sent to her relatives in North Carolina by the Board of Charities and
Children's Guardians. Some of our workers kept at his side, reminding
him that he had put himself in God's hands for discipline, and assuring
him that if he could stand true, God had a useful life in store for him.
A marked New Testament was given him when he left for down the river.
There his head was shaved in the very cold weather, his clothing
changed, so that he took a severe cold which came near carrying him off
with pneumonia. It took about two weeks to bring political and social
influence to bear to have him paroled and sent back to the Mission.
January and February of 1912 were very cold months, it was hard to get
any kind of work for men to do, and the only thing we could secure for
Connaught was passing circulars at sixty cents a day. That amounts to
$3.60 per week; of this he was obliged to pay to the judge $3, to be
sent to his wife. In two or three days Mrs. Kline phoned me, “Connaught
is trying to live on the rolls and coffee given in the bread line at six
o'clock in the morning.” I replied, “Connaught must have oatmeal with
cream—real cream, for his diseased stomach; he must have eggs and meat
and strong coffee, or he will lose his religion.” “Well, who is going to
provide all that?” “The Lord has money enough for that.” “Well, suppose
you bring some of it right along,” which of course I did.
About the tenth day after he began circulating papers, the work gave
out. We really prayed night and day, for we feared he would be
rearrested and we had no money to support him. In a few days he secured
work at digging on the streets at $1.25 per day. He had never been
accustomed to manual labor, so when I sympathized with him on his poor
blistered hands, he said, “I am so glad to get the work that the hurt is
nothing.” Think of that for a man who had not done a lick of work,
physically or mentally, for months and months.
Long before this we had found that he was a graduate of an English
university, had lived in good style, keeping servants, he had possessed
a nice home when he was first married, but when he found the habit of
drink had fastened itself upon him, he came to this country hoping to
break away from old companions and surroundings, and thus get away from
the sin which bound him.
He tried all the cures; in fact, all his property not spent in drink
went to the cures, but nothing cured him. We found he had been a
first-class bookkeeper for one of the great railroads centering at
Washington, so we applied to them. I am glad to say they took an
immediate interest in the case.
A man was sent to see him, then Mr. Connaught was put in charge of an
office building at $40 per month, and at once he wanted his family back.
They came first to the Mission, for we desired to keep him attending
services every night till he would understand better the word of God and
grow strong in faith. The railroad now pays him $80 a month, for he is a
good executive, and he has bought a little home in the suburbs on which
he is paying monthly; a home where he can have a garden, an orchard and
chickens. About once a week the father, the mother, and children come to
the Mission. No better looking or happier looking people enter that
building. He comes, as he says, to bear testimony to the saving and
keeping power of the dear Lord Jesus.
PSYCHOLOGY
Now, science could not cure this case; all that science could do had
been done for him. He had become so low that if he saw his children
starving and he had ten cents, the money went to the saloon and not for
bread. It is, as Professor James says, that “Conversion is the only
means by which a radically bad man can be changed into a radically good
person.” The agencies in any conversion are first prayer, then the Holy
Spirit and the word of God. This man was so far gone that he did not
believe in the existence of God. But the sympathy of the workers made
them pray most earnestly for God's Spirit, which came with convicting
power. The verse of Scripture which came like a wireless message to his
soul was, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He claimed and
still claims the last clause as a message to him personally.
The reason that hundreds of sermons fail to comfort a saint or convert a
sinner is because they fall on prayerless pews. You remember how what is
known as the Great New England Revival came about. Dr. Jonathan Edwards
was accustomed to go to his church every Saturday afternoon to think and
to pray for his people.
On one occasion a beggar, known in the town as Old Betty, sat unseen in
a back pew. The great preacher put his head down on the Bible and
sobbed. As he came out Old Betty said, “What is it, Dr. Edwards, that so
troubles you?” “Betty, I have not seen a soul converted in this church
for a year. Why is it?” “It is because these pews are prayerless.” “Will
you pray till you get the answer that God will come in power to this
church?” “I will.” Betty hid when the janitor came to close the church,
and the answer to her soul did not come till the dawning of the morning.
The following day Dr. Edwards started as usual to read his sermon, but
he soon put it away and began a straight evangelistic talk, professed
Christians stood in their places and asked for prayers, elders and
deacons prostrated themselves before God, the whole town became a prayer
circle, and the New England Revival had begun.